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Potentate   /pˈoʊtəntˌeɪt/   Listen
Potentate

noun
1.
A ruler who is unconstrained by law.  Synonym: dictator.






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"Potentate" Quotes from Famous Books



... see him is in the morning, but then he walks so fast up those hills that unless you are mounted on one of my ablest hunters you will not keep pace with him.' It was not long before I obtained an audience extraordinary of this literary potentate, whom I found like Jupiter involved in clouds of his own raising. He was entrenched behind a battery of ten or twelve guns, charged with a stinking combustible called tobacco. Two or three of these he had fired off, and replaced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... in bunches; and, if you will go to Nice, you will find the fish-market full of sea-fruit, which they call "frutta di mare": though I suppose they call them "fruits de mer" now, out of compliment to that most successful, and therefore most immaculate, potentate who is seemingly desirous of inheriting the blessing pronounced on those who remove their neighbours' land-mark. And, perhaps, that is the very reason why the place is called Nice, because there are so many nice things in ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley

... discovering the precious tree. By their exertions, however, rather more of the drug was brought to Europe than had previously been; still there was no reduction in its estimated value. In the East, an Indian potentate demanded a ship and her cargo as the price of a perfect nut, and it was actually purchased on the terms; in the West, the Emperor Rodolph offered 4000 florins for one, and his offer was contemptuously refused; while invalids from all parts of Europe performed painful ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various

... made constant effort to keep the peace between Balzac and her husband, the potentate of the Presse. Balzac had known Emile de Girardin since 1829, having been introduced to him by Levavasseur, who had just published his Physiologie du Mariage. Later Balzac took his Verdugo to M. de Girardin which appeared in La Mode in which Madame de Girardin and her ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd

... townsmen themselves, it could not have been shaken or broken down for ever. For here lay the excellent wisdom of Him that builded Mansoul, that the walls could never be broken down nor hurt by the most mighty adverse potentate unless the townsmen gave their consent thereto.' Now, what would the military engineers of Chatham and Paris and Berlin, who are now at their wits' end, not give for a secret like that! A wall impregnable and insurmountable ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... now the recollection soothes me"—and he recommends such of his readers as are yet ignorant of this luxury to start forthwith for Hurdwar and repair the omission. The fair ended April 13; and the colonel having previously succeeded in disposing of his buggy to a potentate whom he calls "the Kheerea Thunnasir Rajah," (we believe, the ruler of one of the Seik protected states,) and buying a stout Turcomani pony for the hills, started the same day on the road to Suharunpoor. He favours his readers, en passant, with some exceedingly original speculations touching ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... Skimpole in his easy light vein. "But that's taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say 'Mighty potentate, here IS my homage! It's easier to give it than to withhold it. Here it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature to ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... king of Carlet had died, and his first-born—the arrogant Almanzor, a brutal, vainglorious Moor—succeeded to the rulership of the tiny state—a sort of military satrapy. This haughty potentate, offended in his magnificence to see members of his family traveling over the roads dressed like vagabonds and preaching a religion of beggars, called a troop of horse and set out in pursuit of his brother and sisters. He came upon them ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... carv'd in its Shape, and drest with Oyl, Salt, and Pepper, that so deceiv'd, and yet pleased the Prince, that he commended it for the best Fish he had ever eaten. Nor does all this exceed what every industrious Gardiner may innocently enjoy, as well as the greatest Potentate ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... pretensions in France, was a most singular one; as there was as little independence in the one, as dignity in the other, their absurdities harmonised perfectly together; each of them in their own way formed a group round the parti-coloured potentate, who at the same time employed the forcible means ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... retiring when he heard the sentries challenge; this was immediately followed by a rush of horsemen, headed by a most gorgeously dressed officer. Reining up almost at Smith's feet he informed him that his master, a neighbouring potentate, friendly to the English, had sent him and his men to assist in the repulse of the bloodthirsty Dthanbari tribe, who might be expected to attempt to rush the camp that night. Although not anticipating anything of the kind, Major Smith ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring

... quarter of a century before the Birth of Christ, the grandnephew of Julius Caesar had become sole master of the Roman world. Never, perhaps, at any former period, had so many human beings acknowledged the authority of a single potentate. Some of the most powerful monarchies at present in Europe extend over only a fraction of the territory which Augustus governed: the Atlantic on the west, the Euphrates on the east, the Danube and the Rhine on the north, and the deserts of Africa on the south, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... on ceremony with the chap, if he is some kind of potentate," Carleton grumbled; and, interrupting the conversation, asked Mary if she were of the same mind about being his ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... instance. He is, it seems, quite a tremendous potentate. I recognize his legitimate sway, like that of Prester John, or of the Great Mogul. Only I happen not to obey it, for I am a born subject of the King of Hearts. And who should that be but Apollo-Wolfgang-Amadeus, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee

... day A deputation of tigers. "Mighty potentate," Thus spoke their Cicero before the monarch's throne, "The noble nation of tigers, Has long been wearied with the lion's choice as king. Does not Nature give us an equal claim with his? Therefore, O Zeus, declare my race To be a people of free citizens!" "No," said ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach

... he did the other money. Indeed, this was a very common way, in those days, for great kings to raise money. If they had a young son or heir, no matter how young he was, they would contract to give him in marriage to the little daughter of some other potentate on condition of receiving some town, or castle, or province, or large sum of money as dower. The idea was, of course, that they were to take this dower in charge for the young prince, to keep it for him until he should become old enough to be actually married, but in reality they ...
— Richard I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... to fill the souls of the ignorant with envy. I can recall but one case of a foreign decoration being refused by a compatriot. He was a genius and we all know that geniuses are crazy. This gentleman had done something particularly gratifying to an Eastern potentate, who in return offered him one of his second-best orders. It was at once refused. When urged on him a second time our countryman lost his temper and answered, "If you want to give it to somebody, present it to my valet. He is most anxious to be ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory

... green, it was considered to be an emblem of everlasting life—or was it because in Roman mythology it was sacred to Bacchus, the God of Wine? In Egyptian mythology the ivy was sacred to Osiris, the Judge of the Dead and potentate of the kingdom of ghosts; but in our minds it was associated with our old friend Charles Dickens, who had died in the previous year, and whom we had once heard reading selections from his own writings in his own inimitable way. His description of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor

... Bavaria, the governments of France, of England and of the United Provinces, were busily engaged in framing a second Treaty of Partition. That Castilians would be indignant at learning that any foreign potentate meditated the dismemberment of that empire of which Castile was the head might have been foreseen. But it was less easy to foresee that William would be the chief and indeed almost the only object of their indignation. If the meditated partition ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... potentate, who was devouring the withered lady with his eyes. He wagged his head in assent. Just then the dancer paused before us, and thrusting forward her greasy forehead, enveloped us with a sphinx-like smirk. As I hastily pressed a two-franc piece above her eyebrows Safti addressed her ...
— Smain; and Safti's Summer Day - 1905 • Robert Hichens

... give me the management And manufacture of a model me, Me fifty-fold, a prince without a flaw,— Why, there's no social grade, the sordidest, My embryo potentate should brink and scape. King, all the better he was cobbler once, He should know, sitting on the throne, how tastes Life ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... and purpose of the Commonwealth have become clear to us, the active thoughts of all political students. For to bring home to all within her borders who bear rule and responsibility, from the village headman in India and Nigeria, the Basutu chief and the South Sea potentate, to the public opinion of Great Britain and the self-governing Dominions, the nature of the British Commonwealth, and the character of its citizenship and ideals, and to study how those ideals may be better expressed in its working institutions and executive ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... statute their diplomatic relations with the Pope, palpably with the desire of governing Ireland through the influence of that utterly corrupt religion which has made that unhappy island the miserable lazar-house that it is; and, lo! Providence strikes down the ghostly potentate, and virtually, for the present, divests him of that 'property qualification' in virtue of which the relation can alone be maintained. But not less infatuated than our statesmen, and even less excusably so, are those men—professedly religious ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... speaking of Polycrates the Tyrant (tyrant, be it remembered, meant only usurper, not oppressor) considered the happiness of that potentate secure because he had a powerful navy and such a friend as Anacreon—the word navy naturally suggesting cold water, and cold ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce

... Pursuivants and Men-at-arms, Sultan and Paladin and Potentate, Scarred Captains who have baffled war's alarms And Courtiers glittering ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann

... minister! Verily, even the powers of the midnight are impotent against these invaders from beyond the mighty salt-water! Here, huddled together in confused, hopeless misery and ruin, lie, fettered and prostrate, even priest as well as potentate, undistinguishable victims of crude, unblenching violence, with its climax of nefarious sacrilege. We, common mortals, therefore, can hope for no deliverance from, or even succour in, the woful plight ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas

... holiday-season, and could not help stealing out of the drawing-room on hearing one of their peals of laughter. I found them at the game of blind-man's buff. Master Simon, who was the leader of their revels, and seemed on all occasions to fulfil the office of that ancient potentate, the Lord of Misrule,[N] was blinded in the midst of the hall. The little beings were as busy about him as the mock fairies about Falstaff; pinching him, plucking at the skirts of his coat, and tickling him with straws. One fine blue-eyed girl of about thirteen, with her ...
— Old Christmas From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving • Washington Irving

... female potentate Madame la Marquise d'Espard, with whom a Minister has to come to terms; this woman writes a little scented note, which her man-servant carries to the Minister's man-servant. The note greets the Minister on his waking, and he reads it at once. Though the Minister has business to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... vice-consul at Novibazar. From this man's influence, there can be no doubt that had he stuck to trade he might have proved useful; but, inflated with vanity, he irritated the fanaticism of the Bosniacs, by setting himself up as a little Christian potentate. As a necessary consequence, he was obliged to fly for his life, and his house was burned to the ground. The Vassoevitch clan have from time immemorial occupied certain mountains near Novibazar, and pretend, or pretended, to complete ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... groan. 'That's it! Mr Wegg, I'm thirty-two, and a bachelor. Mr Wegg, I love her. Mr Wegg, she is worthy of being loved by a Potentate!' Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus's springing to his feet in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him with his hand on his coat collar; but Mr Venus, begging pardon, sits down again, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... were to be observed, however, it was important that the penalty should be extended to the act of serving unacknowledged as well as acknowledged powers; and part of his intention therefore was to amend those statutes, by introducing after the words, "king, prince, state, potentate," the words, "colony or district, which do assume the powers of a government." It was his wish, he said, to give to this country the right of preventing its subjects from breaking the neutrality towards acknowledged states, and those ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... to be great—great!" announced Jock. "What do you know about the Oriental potentate down-stairs! I guess Otis Skinner has nothing on him when it comes—Why, hello, Mr. Buck!" He was peering into the next room. "Why don't you folks light up? I thought you were another agent person. Met that one down in the hail. ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber

... Emperor. The subsequent history of the Italians shows how they succeeded in reducing both these powers to the condition of principles, maintaining the pontifical and imperial ideas, but repelling the practical authority of either potentate. Otho created new marches and gave them to men of German origin. The houses of Savoy and Montferrat rose into importance in his reign. To Verona were intrusted the passes between Germany and Italy. The Princes of Este at Ferrara held the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds

... a model African potentate; at the same time I could not possibly visit him, as my term of service would expire upon the 1st ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... what patience he could muster. So it was that Rangar had no news of him during the day and was unable to relieve his father's increasing anxiety. Mr. Foote was not anxious now, but frightened; frightened as any potentate might be who perceived that the succession was threatened, that extinction ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland

... at this place, much ceremonious visiting and long conferences took place between the potentate of the islands and the partners of the company. Tamaahmaah came on board of the ship in royal style, in his double pirogue. He was between fifty and sixty years of age, above the middle size, large and well made, though somewhat corpulent. He ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... Europe, they were quite excusable. Such misconceptions were common enough before barbarous societies had been much studied; and many a dusky warrior, without a tithe of the pomp and splendour about him that surrounded Montezuma, has figured in the pages of history as a mighty potentate girt with many of the trappings of feudalism.[100] Initial misconceptions that were natural enough, indeed unavoidable, found expression in an absurdly inappropriate nomenclature; and then the use of wrong names and titles bore fruit in what one cannot properly call a theory but rather an incoherent ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... only relatively correspond to the height of culture which we find in the ruins of Assyrian palaces, but even, when looked upon absolutely and aside from the morality of conquest which they indulge, are inspired by a nobility of mind, and permeated by a religiousness, which no potentate of recent times would need to be ashamed of. They have {345} been made accessible to the public by the work of Eberhard Schrader: "Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament" ("Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... from the broiler, and there was the black coffee to set over. This latter was to fortify George at his post, for it was agreed that he was not to sleep lest he should fail to awaken at the need and demand of the beloved potentate in the cradle; and Marna now needed a little stimulant if she was to keep comfortably awake during a long evening—she who used to light the little lamps in the windows of her mind ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... Parliament, or of Congress, or the bar, for our ambitious young men, when the highest bribes of society are at the feet of the successful orator? He has his audience at his devotion. All other fames must hush before his. He is the true potentate; for they are not kings who sit on thrones, but they who know how to govern. The definitions of eloquence describe its attraction for young men. Antiphon the Rhamnusian, one of Plutarch's ten orators, advertised in Athens, "that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various

... have his money out of it again. Having sold what of the domains he could to persons of quality, at an uncommonly easy rate, and so pocketed what ready cash there was among them, he made over his pawn-ticket, or properly he himself repawned Brandenburg to the Saxon potentate, a speculative moneyed man, Markgraf of Meissen, "Wilhelm the Rich," so called. Pawned it to Wilhelm the Rich—sum not named; and went home to Moravia, there to wait events. This is the third Brandenburg pawning: let us hope there may be a fourth ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... the circumstances of the case be considered. This mighty Emperor, who had been so long the bugbear of the civilized world, after having obtained successes and undergone reverses, such as never befel any (other at least) real potentate, was at length sentenced to confinement in the remote island of St. Helena: a measure which many persons wondered at, and many objected to, on various grounds; not unreasonably, supposing the illustrious exile to be a real person; but on the supposition of his being only a man of straw, ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately

... but slightly less civilised Benjamin, high potentate of the tribe of Mangeroma cannibals, is the second to whom I wish to express my extreme gratitude, although my obligations to him are of a slightly different character: in the first place, because he did not order me to be killed and served up, well or ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... said as I was led past that potentate, "you are a murderer and Heaven Above will be avenged upon you for this crime. If our blood is shed, soon you shall die and come to meet us where we have power, and ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... benighted nations from their brutish superstitions, and impart to them the blessings of a well-regulated government. This, in the favorite phrase of our day, was the "mission" of the Inca. It was also the mission of the Christian conqueror who invaded the empire of this same Indian potentate. Which of the two executed his mission most faithfully, history ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott

... were simple and plain, and he attached as much importance as Ieyasu himself had done to military arts and literary pursuits. It had become a custom on the occasion of each shogun's succession to issue a decree confirming, expanding, or altering the systems of the previous potentate. Yoshimune's first decree placed special emphasis on the necessity of diligence in the discharge of administrative functions and the eschewing of extravagance. Always he made it his unflagging aim to restore the martial ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... laudably mild to its enemies, confirmed this report. That Prussia, who opened its inhospitable arms to every British rebel, should have tampered in such a business, was by no means improbable. That King hated his uncle: but could a Protestant potentate dip in designs for restoring a popish government? Of what religion is policy? To what sect is royal revenge bigoted? The Queen-dowager, though sister of our King, was avowedly a Jacobite, by principle so-and it was natural: what ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... described the repellent sensuousness of this veritable potentate, who could contrive to invest a sitting room in a modern hotel with the atmosphere of a secret Eastern household. To consider Ormuz Khan in connection with matters of international finance was wildly incongruous, while the manicurist incident indicated an inherent ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... possible. They were also equally puzzled to know who I was. In this case also Bigg did his utmost to mystify them; and I believe that they were under the impression that I was a regular black prince, the son of some mighty potentate or other to the north of their country. I had no difficulty in keeping up my character of being dumb, but I found it necessary to pretend to be deaf also, as they were constantly addressing me, and of course I could not understand a word they said. In the ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... Standard was to move; Tells the suggested cause, and casts between Ambiguous words and jealousies, to sound 700 Or taint integritie; but all obey'd The wonted signal, and superior voice Of thir great Potentate; for great indeed His name, and high was his degree in Heav'n; His count'nance, as the Morning Starr that guides The starrie flock, allur'd them, and with lyes Drew after him the third part of Heav'ns Host: Mean while th' Eternal eye, whose sight discernes Abstrusest thoughts, from forth ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... found "The Man" in PAUL STEPHANUS KRUGER. To all South Africa a veritable "man of Destiny" has he proved to be; and for eighteen successive years, as their honoured President he has ruled his people with an absoluteness no European potentate could possibly approach. By birth a British subject, and for a brief while after the annexation a paid official of the British Government, he yet seems all his life to have been a consistent hater of all things British. When only ten years old, a tattered, bare-legged, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... outlying parts of the Roman domains. This was a mere formality and it did not have any deep significance. But to the Jews such a thing seemed highly sacrilegious and they would not desecrate their Holiest of Holies by the carven image of a Roman potentate. ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon

... built upon Peter, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Yes, I know it is a flattering and a pleasant thought that this little nation should have her own Church; and it is humbling and bitter that England should be called to submit to a foreign potentate in the affairs of faith—Nay, cry they like the Jews of old, not Christ but Barabbas—we will not have this Man to reign over us. And yet this is God's will and not that. Mark me, Mr. Norris, what you hope will never come to be—the ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson

... set his tree against a wall and began gravely untying the wizened little specimen from his branch, then handed him into the eagerly outstretched hands of Faith with a superb smile, as if he were some great potentate conferring a priceless boon upon a beloved subject. Not that he was anything but the poorest fellah,[2] with scarce a sou to his credit, but this is Oriental mannerism, and most ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... expected to properly marvel at. The old palace, adjoining the new, is a much finer building, being mostly of marble, and is purely Oriental in its stairways, doorways, closets, balconies and delightful roof-gardens, as one's preconceived notions expect an Eastern potentate's palace to be. The new palace showed no sign of occupancy, and I imagined the Maharana, then absent, really favours the older building, and small blame to him! Around in various places the State elephants are stabled, or rather ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... an accident happened, a cruel surprise; How frail proved the man, and how very unwise! As if plaster of Paris, and not Paradise, No more of clay consecrate, He broke up disconsolate, Pot-luck for his fortune, though the world's potentate. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... half of the story rather freely. It appears to have been originally an example of a well-known class of folk-tales dealing with the subject of the Rescue of Fairyland. The same motive occurs in the famous tale called The Sickbed of Cuchulain. The idea is that some fairy potentate, whose realm is invaded and oppressed, entices a mortal champion to come to his aid and rewards him with magical gifts. But the eighteenth century narrator whose MS. was edited by Mr S.H. O'Grady, apparently had not the clue to the real meaning of his material, and after going on ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... best and most characteristic examples of every school of painting. I cannot remember much that was said in that long day, interrupted only by a pleasant lunch together. But it was a day full of romance. It was as if I had had in my hand the crown jewels of every potentate in the world, and somebody had told me the history of each gem. For this picture Francis the First, or Charles V., or Henry VIII. had been bidders. This had belonged to Lorenzo de Medici, or Pope Leo X. This had come from the famous collection of Charles ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... Above all, at night, when the children are abed, and even grown people are snoring under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave these ginger-bread figures winking and tinkling to the stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly enough twist their ape-like heads; fitly enough may the potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old German print of the Via Dolorosa; but the toys should be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun rises, and the children are ...
— An Inland Voyage • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Saddens his voice again and yet again. Lift up your hearts, ye Mourners! for the might Of the whole world's good wishes with him goes; Blessings and prayers, in nobler retinue Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, Follow this wondrous Potentate. Be true Ye winds of ocean and the midland sea, Wafting your ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various

... below. Proclamation of his election will then be made, and all this need not occupy more than two hours. The Archbishop of Mayence already controls the city gates, which since the disbanding of the imperial troops have been unguarded, and none can get in or out of the city without that potentate's permission. The men of Mayence are quartered in the centre of the town, the Count Palatine's troops are near the gate. Treves and Cologne will doubtless command other positions, and thus between them they ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr

... much about high politics, but it is almost the only age when one really knows where Persia is. I have no doubt that we "did" Persia in that term, out of honour to the Shah. One result of all this talk in the school about the Persian Potentate was (as you might expect) that a certain boy was nicknamed "The Shah," presumably on account of some magnificence of person or costume. Now it happened that the school was busying itself just then ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... when at last the secretary's treason was discovered, he paid the penalty of his perfidy by being torn in pieces by four horses; yet bribery of employees was common then, and was a practice of every potentate, and was what Philip did in every court in Christendom. Absolute fealty was all but unknown. Each man was believed to have his price, and the belief, in most instances, was not erroneous. Besides, William was in a state of perpetual war with Philip, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle

... acquainted with the way) they quickly sailed to Colchis. When the king of the country, whose name was AEetes, heard of their arrival, he instantly summoned Jason to court. The king was a stern and cruel-looking potentate, and though he put on as polite and hospitable an expression as he could, Jason did not like his face a whit better than that of the wicked King Pelias, who ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... had the wit to see that the Established Church of the land uses the same creeds and holds the same cardinal doctrines as he has been bred up in. For the Pope he cares no whit; his British blood causes him to think scorn of any foreign potentate, temporal or spiritual. He has the making of a good churchman in him. He only wants training and teaching. Methinks it were no bad thing to send him to his mother's kindred for that. They are as stanch to the one party as old Nicholas to the other. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green

... triumphs had been many;—so many, that in the great world her standing already equalled that of her celebrated mother-in-law, the Marchioness of Hartletop, who, for twenty years, had owned no greater potentate than herself in the realms of fashion. But Lady Dumbello was every inch as great as she; and men said, and women also, that the daughter-in-law would soon ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... have become his predecessors of the twelfth century, that "he was head of the church, and, as such, possessed of unlimited power in the distribution of benefices, and that he was not bound to consult the inclination of any potentate on earth, any farther than might subserve ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... the western part of Afghanistan, encouraging an attack by 30,000 Persians, led by Russian officers, upon Herat. Instead of acceding to the request of Dost Mohammed, the British Governor-General—Lord Auckland— declared war against that potentate, alleging in a proclamation that "the welfare of the English possessions in the East rendered it necessary to have an ally on their western frontier who would be in favor of peace, and opposed ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough

... look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man himself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... were sent for to the presence of a still more important personage, another High Priest, I suppose. We were taken into a kind of presence chamber, across the large courtyard, and found our friends of the morning, kow-towing to this still higher potentate. He didn't waste words on us. Through the miserable creature who had interpreted for us earlier, he made us understand that the penalty for setting foot in their holy place was death—by strangulation as a ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... staked their lives or their fortunes in the undertaking. It is not probable that Columbus looked to that posthumous fame of which he is now the subject. His vision and his hopes extended not beyond the possession of new lands where he might rule as a potentate and enjoy power; where Spain might found an empire, and where the church might establish its authority over millions of new converts. Spain gained new empires, and maintained her rule over them for three centuries ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell

... on a large scale, and, Corsair as he was by nature, he wished for settled power almost as much as he delighted in adventure. In 1512 the opportunity he sought arrived. Three years before, the Mohammedan King of Buj[e]ya had been driven out of his city by the Spaniards, and the exiled potentate appealed to the Corsair to come and restore him, coupling the petition with promises of the free use of Buj[e]ya port, whence the command of the Spanish sea was easily to be held. Ur[u]j was pleased with the prospect, and as he had now twelve galleots with cannon, and one thousand Turkish ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... announce the capture of his predecessor, he was enabled to effect his return to France with the reply of the Spanish monarch, by which Henry and his ministers were apprised of the plans and pretensions of that potentate (Amelot de la Houssaye, Lettres du Cardinal d'Ossat, vol. ii. p. 17 note.) La Varenne was subsequently Master-General ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... of this heiress, Alexander won from Norway the isles of the western coast of Scotland in which Norse chieftains had long held sway. They complained to Hakon of Norway concerning raids made on them by the Earl of Ross, a Celtic potentate. Alexander's envoys to Hakon were detained, and in 1263, Hakon, with a great fleet, sailed through the islands. A storm blew most of his Armada to shore near Largs, where his men were defeated by the Scots. Hakon collected his ships, sailed north, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... discovering the philosopher's stone. Henry VI. and Edward IV. of England encouraged alchymy. In Germany, the Emperors Maximilian, Rodolph, and Frederic II. devoted much of their attention to it; and every inferior potentate within their dominions imitated their example. It was a common practice in Germany, among the nobles and petty sovereigns, to invite an alchymist to take up his residence among them, that they might confine him in a dungeon till he made gold enough to pay millions for his ransom. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... drunken sign-painter married to a woman who a few years before had been the scandal of half a dozen communities. And now though Mrs. Bemis was still queen only of the miserable unpainted Bemis domicile in the sunflowers at the edge of town, Lige Bemis politically was a potentate of some power. General Hendricks consulted Bemis about politics. Often he was found in the back room of the bank, and Colonel Culpepper, although he was an unterrified Democrat, in his campaign speeches referred to Bemis as "a diamond in the rough." ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White

... provoke an intemperateness Capricious potentate whom they worship Circumstances may combine to make a whisper as deadly as a blow Compared the governing of the Irish to the management of a horse Could have designed this gabbler for the mate Debit was eloquent, he was ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... been answered. The priest of Aricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshippers of such a spiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... upon the good faith of Vignan, proceeded westward to beyond Lake Coulange, and after a tedious and perilous voyage, stopped to confer with Tessouat, an Indian chief, whose tribe inhabited that remote region. This potentate, upon being apprised of the object of their journey, undeceived Champlain as to Vignan's character for veracity, and satisfied him that the Frenchman had never passed farther west than Tessouat's own dominions. Vignan, after a good deal of prevarication, confessed that ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... potentate whom Smith, by his way of management, could have tickled out of his senses with a glass bead, and who would infinitely have preferred a big shining copper kettle to the misplaced honor intended to be thrust upon him, but ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Swabian territories: or, if she did not recover the Milanese, Austria might gain the northern parts of the Papal States as compensation; and the Duke of Tuscany—a Hapsburg—might reign at Rome, yielding up his duchy to the Duke of Parma; while, as this last potentate was a Spanish Bourbon, France might for her good offices to this House gain largely from Spain in America.[70] In these and other proposals two methods of bargaining are everywhere prominent. The great States are in every case to gain at the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... known to all my men as the great Mamba or Crocodile. Mamba, dressed in a dirty Arab gown, with coronet of lion's nails decorating a thread-bare cutch cap, greeted us with all the dignity of a savage potentate surrounded by his staff of half-naked officials. As usual, he had been the last to leave the Unyamuezi, and so purchased all his stock of ivory at a cheap rate, there being no competitors left to raise the value of that commodity; but his journey had been a very trying one. With a party, at ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... other periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will be paraded judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him. These items will be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a Veiled, mysterious young potentate is Prince Djiddin!" "The humbug will be easily discovered!" said ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... what the beauty most consumes, Her beauty's perfect, lovely to behold. Those that attend and wait upon her be Princes of honour, clothed in white array; Upon her head's a crown of gold, and she Eats wheat, honey, and oil, from day to day. For her beloved, he's the high'st of all, The only Potentate, the King of kings: Angels and men do him Jehovah call, And from him life and glory always springs. He's white and ruddy, and of all the chief: His head, his locks, his eyes, his hands, and feet, Do, for completeness, out-go ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... rest, he learned that these people were of Zulu stock, and having opposed the accession of Tshaka, when that potentate usurped the royal seat of Dingiswayo, had deemed it advisable to flee. They had migrated northward, even as Umzilikazi and his followers had done, though some years prior to the flight of that chieftain. But they were nothing if not conservative, and so intent was the king on preserving ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford

... Coszta, do declare on oath, that it is bona fide my intention to become a citizen of the United States, and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign Prince, Potentate, State or Sovereignty whatever, and particularly to the Emperor of Austria, of ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... a message which, at least for the present, gives him some calmness: "Why hast thou rent thy clothes? Let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel." Elisha is ashamed that the King of Israel should have exhibited such weakness before a foreign potentate. He feels that the honour of Israel's God is implicated, and boldly takes upon himself the responsibility of the cure. Bold it certainly was, and tells of a confident faith that God will be faithful to His servants. The king had no such faith. There was a power resident in Israel of which he took ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods

... the hands of a Roman Pontiff. The fortunate inheritor of Spain, the Two Sicilies, Austria and the Low Countries, who then assumed them both at the age of twenty-nine, was not only the last who wielded the Imperial insignia with imperial authority, but was also a far more formidable potentate in Italy than any of his predecessors since Charles the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... established in Scotland, discontented with Edward's arbitration, referred the question of their independence to the Pope, and that wily potentate settled the matter in his own interests, by declaring Scotland a fief of the Holy See. The King was still warring in that vicinity; the young Queen was left with her baby boy in Yorkshire to ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... take no oath of citizenship, expressly or impliedly, whatever the latter word may mean. Foreigners, who become naturalised, do not renounce allegiance to the sovereign of Great Britain more "pointedly" than to any other sovereign. Every one renounces his allegiance to the potentate or power under whose sway he was born: the Englishman to the King (or Queen) of Great Britain, the Chinese to the Emperor of China, the Swiss to the republic of Switzerland, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... debate—and eventually proved worth a throne to the Herodian family; for the honor of Rome seemed to be concerned in supporting the man who, in this sort of judgment of Paris, had solemnly awarded the prize of superiority to the remoter potentate.] The radical power, in fact, would have been lodged in Rome; but with such external concessions to Jewish nationality as might have consulted the real interests of both parties. Administered under Jewish names, the land might ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey

... to this the European states formed a sort of federal community, the fundamental condition of which was the preservation of the balance of power, i.e. such a disposition of things that no one state or potentate should be able absolutely to predominate and prescribe laws to the rest; and, since all were equally interested in this settlement, it was held to be the interest, the right and the duty of every power to interfere, even by force of arms, when any of the conditions ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... general, beyond. It was the biggest thing on the map. It was tropical. Palm-trees, spicy odours, corals, pearls. 'All right,' I says: 'J. R., it wouldn't take much to be a millionaire in those unpolluted regions. You'd be a potentate. You'd wear picturesque clothes, and lie on poppies and lotuses. You'd be a Solomon to those guileless nations. You'd instruct their ignorance and preserve their morals. You'd lead their armies to victory on account ...
— The Belted Seas • Arthur Colton

... Strymonican Gulf, in Macedonia, which was taken from her in the Peloponnesian war, by Brasidas. Amyntas, the king of Macedonia, seeking aid against Jason of Pherae, whose Thessalian dominion and personal talents and ambition combined to make him a powerful potentate, consented to the right of Athens to this city. But Amyntas died not long after the assassination of Jason, and both Thessaly and Macedonia were ruled by new kings, and new complications took place. Many Thessalian ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... the ladies were, and that he had received instructions how to treat them. From that day, two French grenadiers began to guard the baroness's door, day and night, just exactly as if they were standing guard over a potentate." ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... East. A great reaction against the Roman domination had taken place, and the eastern nations seemed determined to rally once more for independent dominion. This was the last great Asiatic rising till the fall of the Roman empire. The potentate under whom the Oriental forces rallied, was Mithridates, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... for many years abounded with nests of these desperadoes. The fleet in question was supposed to belong to a famous chief, the very idol of his followers on account of the success of his expeditions. His title was the Rajah Raga, and he was brother to the Sultan Coti, a potentate of Borneo. The Raja Raga had subsequently some wonderful escapes, for he probably got due notice that an English squadron was looking after him, and took good care to keep out of their way. He was ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston

... distinctions. But for years before we had even the village tailor appearing occasionally in the local newspaper as Sir Knight Shears, and the apothecary as Most Worthy Grand Commander and Puissant Potentate Senna. If it is pleasant for Bobby Shears and Sammy Senna to be knighted by their cronies and customers, how much more agreeable to the American mind a decoration and investiture from ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... White Leathern Apron is an emblem of innocence and the badge of a Mason; more ancient than the Golden Fleece; more honorable than the Star and Garter, or any other order that can be conferred upon you at this or any future period by King, Prince or Potentate, or any other person except he be a Mason and in the body of a lodge. I trust you will wear it with equal pleasure to yourself and ...
— Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason • George Thornburgh

... the unhappy girl said afterward) he seemed more like a younger brother than a father. There were no chairs: they were forced to stand. In a small mirror fastened to the edge of his desk the sneering potentate could note the dial-reading of the instrument without turning. He watched the reflected needle ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley

... ever yet was such; 180 Hoops are more, and petticoats not much; Morals and Minuets, Virtue and her stays, And tell-tale powder—all have had their days. The Ball begins—the honours of the house First duly done by daughter or by spouse, Some Potentate—or royal or serene— With Kent's gay grace, or sapient Gloster's mien, [ix] Leads forth the ready dame, whose rising flush Might once have been mistaken for a blush. From where the garb just leaves the bosom free, 190 That spot where hearts [22] were once supposed to be; Round ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... there were moments—we all have our greyer moments—when he could have wished that Mr Galloway had been a trifle older or a trifle less robust. The Braces potentate was at present passing, in excellent health, through the Indian summer of life. He was, moreover, as has been stated, by birth and residence a Pittsburgh man. And the tendency of middle-aged Pittsburgh millionaires to ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... it was vaguely rumoured that an African potentate had imprisoned a British consul; the fact appeared so strange, that few credited the assertion. It was soon ascertained, however, that a certain Emperor of Abyssinia, calling himself Theodore, had cast into prison and loaded with chains, Captain Cameron, the consul ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... expands it circumstantially into the whole ceremonial of his funeral obsequies; and upon that same principle I—when looking back to this abrupt close of all connection with, my brother, whether in my character of major general or of potentate trembling daily for my people—am reminded that the very last morning of this connection had its own separate distinction from all other mornings, in a way that entitles it to its own separate share in the general commemoration. A shadow fell upon this particular morning as from a cloud ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... who aspires to be on the staff of "The Jupiter" must surrender all individuality. But ultimately this little castigation had broken no bones between him and his friend Mr. Towers. Mr. Slope was one of those who understood the world too well to show himself angry with such a potentate as "The Jupiter." He had kissed the rod that scourged him, and now thought that he might fairly look for his reward. He determined that he would at once let Mr. Towers know that he was a candidate for the place which was about to become ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... reading-room door into the rotunda, where the King graciously but speedily dismissed the civic gentlemen and the proprietor, and vanished into the elevator. She was destined to see him so often afterwards that she scarcely took the trouble to time her dining and supping by that of the simple potentate, who had his meals in one of the public rooms, with three gentlemen of his suite, in sack-coats like himself, after the informal ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... power and jurisdiction increased by his own abilities. Bonifazio held the state of a sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of Tuscany to his father's fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the Lombard barons in the field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. His power and splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the Emperor; but Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to propitiate this proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds



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