DICTIONARY ONE.COM • More 'Usurious' Quotes from Famous Books

... have been impossible for Secretary Cobb to stab the national credit. He would have been dealing constantly with a surplus instead of a deficit, and could not have put the nation to shame by forcing it to hawk its paper in the money markets at the usurious rate of one per cent. a month. One of the wisest financiers in the United States has expressed the belief that two hundred millions of coin, which might easily have been saved to the country by a protective tariff between 1850 ...

— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... with the most developed industry. A moderate rate of interest is now everywhere permitted; but in all but a few communities the rate that can be collected is limited by law, and penalties more or less severe are imposed upon the usurious lender. ...

— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter

... overtake us in passing along; And public misfortunes, in all their variety, Need not be told in a holyday song. The troubles of Wall-street, I'm sure that you all meet, And they're not at all sweet—but look at their pranks: Usurious cravings, and discounts and shavings, With maniac ravings and Lombardy banks. ...

— Poems • George P. Morris

... or had been prevented from making any gain, through not having his money, he might charge something for its use. In time people began to distinguish between interest moderate in amount and an excessive charge for the use of money. The latter alone was henceforth prohibited as usurious. Most modern states still have usury laws which fix ...

— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER

... summoned the usurers, and they wanted security; whereupon he laid his Hidalgo hand on a cataract of Kronos-beard across his breast, and pulled forth three white hairs, and presented them: 'And as honourably to the usurious Jews as to the noble gentleman himself, that ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... precision, declares in the tribune that, "commerce is usurious, monarchical and anti-revolutionary."[41136] Considered in itself, it may be defined as an appeal to bad instincts; it seems a corrupting, incivique, anti-fraternal institution, many Jacobins having proposed either to interdict it to private persons and attribute it wholly to the State, ...

— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... called a matter of counsel in comparison with the maxims of the Pharisees, who deemed some kinds of usury to be lawful, just as love of one's enemies is a matter of counsel. Or again, He speaks here not of the hope of usurious gain, but of the hope which is put in man. For we ought not to lend or do any good deed through hope in man, but only through ...

— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... must bow to him. And woe betide The Wine-bibber,—the Roisterer by night; Him the feast-master, many bouts defied, Him 'twixt the pledging and the cup shall smite; Woe to the Lender at usurious rate, The hard Rich Man, the hireling Advocate; Woe to the Judge that selleth right for pay; Woe to the Thief that like a beast of prey With creeping tread the traveller harryeth:— These, in their sin, the sudden sword shall slay ... ...

— The Dance of Death • Hans Holbein

... from seed-time to harvest. This important function of lending money to pay for labor and thus secure a larger crop, which has only recently been assumed by the Government in its establishment of farm loan banks, had been performed by private capitalists who asked usurious rates of interest. The farmers' protests against these rates had been loud; and now, when they found themselves unable to get loans at any rate whatever, their complaints naturally increased. Looking around for one cause to which to attribute all their misfortunes, they pitched ...

— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... public-house on the outskirts of the city where its members duly qualified themselves as bona fide travellers. But his fellow-travellers had never consented to overlook his origin. He had begun life as an obscure financier by lending small sums of money to workmen at usurious interest. Later on he had become the partner of a very fat, short gentleman, Mr. Goldberg, in the Liffey Loan Bank. Though he had never embraced more than the Jewish ethical code, his fellow-Catholics, ...

— Dubliners • James Joyce

... different liquors that were spread upon the table near them. In spite of his best efforts to throw aside such thoughts, Howel could see nothing all that night but the gold, the father who had won it, and the poor wretches who had been ruined in paying usurious interest for it. ...

— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale

... debts hampered him; bankruptcy followed; and he fled from city to city, falling daily into lower practice. It is to be considered that he had been taught, and had learned as a delightful duty, a kind of business whose highest merit is to escape the commentaries of the bench: that of the usurious lawyer in a county town. With this training, he was now shot, a penniless stranger, into the deeper gulfs of cities; and the result is scarce a thing to be ...

— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... heard less of the shrewd schemes which are devised for fleecing poor Jack, and applied by every one with whom he comes in contact, from the prosperous owner who pays him off in orders that can only be conveniently cashed at some outfitter's, who charges usurious rates for the accommodation, down to the tawdry drab who collects advance money on account of half a dozen sailor husbands. The seaman landing with money in his pocket in any large town is like the hapless ...

— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot

... Vauvinet to call on me to-morrow," replied Victorin, "but will he be satisfied by my guarantee on a mortgage? I doubt it. Those men insist on ready money to sweat others on usurious terms." ...

— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... young unthrift, whom Foster had more than once accommodated with loans on usurious interest, acknowledged, on this appeal, that he knew him as a wealthy and independent franklin, supposed to be worth much money, and verified the certificate produced to ...

— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... great reformer who amongst a thousand plans for reinfusing vitality into Roman polity was well understood to be digesting a large measure of relief to the hopeless debtor? What lunacy to believe that the ordinary citizen, crouching under the insupportable load of his usurious obligations, could be at leisure to support a few scores of lordly senators panic-stricken for the interests of their own camarilla, when he beheld—taking the field on the opposite quarter—one, the greatest of men, ...

— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... steadily falling rain, I set him up in business in the goose-liver line. But, inspection of Straudenheim, who became visible at a window on the second floor, convinced me that there was something more precious than liver in the case. He wore a black velvet skull-cap, and looked usurious and rich. A large-lipped, pear-nosed old man, with white hair, and keen eyes, though near-sighted. He was writing at a desk, was Straudenheim, and ever and again left off writing, put his pen in his mouth, and went through actions with his right hand, like a man steadying piles of ...

— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens

... occupy a prominent position in our history. They were Sir Giles Mompesson and Sir Francis Mitchell,—both names held in general dread and detestation, though no man ventured to speak ill of them openly, since they were as implacable in their animosities, as usurious and griping in their demands; and many an ear had been lost, many a nose slit, many a back scourged at the cart's tail, because the unfortunate owners had stigmatized them according to their deserts. Thus ...

— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... enforced the marketing of clean and perfect fruit, and a wholesome quality of all other provisions. This was at first difficult to do, as in those ancient days, (I refer to a very remote period of our history) in order to make usurious profit, dealers adulterated all kinds of food; often with poisonous substances. When every state took charge of its markets and provided free schools for cooking, progress took a rapid advance. Do you wonder at it? Reflect then. How could ...

— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... employed in commerce, manufactures, buildings, and agriculture. The failure of Mr. Duer, the chief of that description of people, has already produced some other bankruptcies, and more are apprehended. He had obtained money from great numbers of small tradesmen and farmers, tempting them by usurious interest, which has made the distress very extensive. Congress will adjourn within a fortnight. The President negatived their representation bill, as framed on principles contrary to the constitution. I suppose another will be passed, allowing simply a representative for every ...

— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... easy task to purvey luxuries to the imperious Briton, to hold the extravagant underlings in his usurious clutches, to be at peace with Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Pathan, Ghoorka, Persian, and Armenian, and to blur his easy-going Mohammedanism in a generous participation in all sins of omission ...

— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage

... nothing to the wealth of society, but on the contrary constantly take from it, and who have not inaptly been termed by Dr. Howard Crosby the "dangerous classes;" it makes the wealth which gives a few men millions of dollars as their share, either as rental or usurious interest upon capital invested in the production of wealth; and it creates the vast surplus which lies in the coffers of the Federal and State treasuries of ...

— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... Deny it if you can!—but though to others, When you discoursed of her, you were a flame; To her you were a wick that would not light, Though held in the very fire! And so he won her— Won her, because he wooed her like a man. For all your cuffings, cuffing you again With most usurious interest. Now, sir, Protest that ...

— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles

... flitted through Mr. Wilkins's confused brain that he should find it impossible to produce the thousands required without having recourse to the money lenders, who were already making difficulties, and charging him usurious interest for the advances they had lately made; and he unwisely tried to obtain a diminution in the sum he had originally proposed to give Ellinor. "Unwisely," because he might have read Ralph's character better than to suppose he would easily consent to ...

— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell

... magistrate; for the latter felt the impatience and fury of the people, and the fables of the press, like the lash of a whip. Bousquier had seemed to be stubborn; but the presentation of his former stories, which now, like creditors, extorted an ever-increasing usurious interest of lies, sufficed to render him tractable. He appeared to be worn out, to be incapable of expressing what he had seen, of describing what he had heard,—Monsieur Jausion assisted him by questions which contained the ...

— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... with the various practices of usurious oppression; but cannot omit my transaction with Squeeze on Tower-hill, who, finding me a young man of considerable expectations, employed an agent to persuade me to borrow five hundred pounds, to be refunded by an annual payment of twenty per cent. during the joint lives of his daughter ...

— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson

... banker by name, but in reality dealt in usurious loans, Shylock-like wringing the pound of flesh from the victims of his avarice. He was known and dreaded by all the honest tradesmen of the city; the curse of the orphan and the widow, whom he unfeelingly drove into the streets, followed ...

— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... ordinary avocations of the Forum,—its low standard of virtue, and its diversion of what is ennobling in the pure fountains of natural justice into the turbid and polluted channels of deceit, chicanery, and fraud; its abandonment to usurious calculations and tricks of learned and legalized jugglery, by which the end of law itself was baffled and its advocates alone enriched. But what else could be expected of lawyers in those days and in that wicked city, or even in any city of the whole ...

— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... have indulged our every whim, and have spent gold like water, while our friend garnered his harvest and stored it away. But poor Catenac has no expensive tastes, nor does he care for women or the pleasures of the table. While we indulged in every pleasure, he lent out his money at usurious interest. But, stop,—how much do ...

— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau

... not rest in peace; (Beside th' affront to call th' adviser in, Who would prevent, to justify the sin): She therefore told him that "he vainly tried To soothe her anger, conscious that he lied; If thus he grasp'd at such usurious gains, He must deserve, and should expect her pains." The charge was strong; he would in part confess Offence there was—But, who offended less? "What! is a mere assertion call'd a lie? And if it be, are men compell'd to buy? 'Twas strange ...

— Tales • George Crabbe

... undulate, urbanity, usurious, uxorious, vacillate, vacuous, vandalism, variegate velocity, venal, venereal, venial, venous, veracious, verdant, verisimilitude, vernacular, versatile, vestal, vibratory, vicarious, vicissitude, virulence, viscid, viscous, vitiate, vitreous, vituperate, vivacious, ...

— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... On his way back from Austerlitz in 1805 he learnt at Strassburg of the wide distress caused in Alsace by the exactions of certain Jewish usurers in that province, and on his return to Paris issued edicts directed against the Alsatian Jews, restricting their usurious activity. It is fair to add that these enactments were obviously directed against the usury of the Alsatian Jews, and not against the Jews in general, since they were specifically declared not to apply to the Jews of Bordeaux in the South or ...

— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... keep pace with usurious calculations, and trades were concentrated in the capital. Mechanical skill was neglected in all ...

— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... father lost a manor, which was recovered by the widow of the person who had sold it to him. Old D'Ewes considered this loss as a punishment for the usurious loan of money; the fact is, that he had purchased that manor with the interests accumulating from the money lent on it. His son entreated him to give over "the practice of that controversial sin." This expression ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... become deeply in debt to them for borrowed money, have procured their banishment, and the confiscation of their property, as the readiest way to cancel their demands; and, as they have ever been addicted to usurious practices, they have, by this means, furnished plausible pretexts to their foes to fleece and ...

— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... to it which prevail. "Let nothing induce the growers," says Mr. Paget, in a paper on the cultivation of the mangel, "to strip the leaves from the plant before taking up the root. A series of careful experiments has convinced me that by so doing we borrow food at a most usurious interest." "Although," says Mr. Boyle, "the practice of stripping has been followed for many years on the farm without any perceptible injury to the crop, these results, showing so considerable an addition to the crop from taking off the leaves, were hardly anticipated." ...

— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron

... struggle which ensued is one of the most memorable in Roman history. The haughty oligarchy were obliged gradually to concede rights. These rights the plebs retained. First they gained a law which prevented patricians from taking usurious interest. They secured the appointment of tribunes for their protection. Soon after they had the right of summoning before their own Comitia tributa any one who violated their rights. In 449 they had influence sufficient to establish the Connubium, by which they could intermarry with ...

— The Old Roman World • John Lord

... English as workmen and labourers—fine stalwart, industrious fellows. Our little 'boy' Kleenboy hires a room for fifteen shillings a month, and takes in his compatriots as lodgers at half a crown a week—the usurious little rogue! His chief, one James, is a bricklayer here, and looks and behaves like a prince. It is fine to see his black arms, ornamented with silver bracelets, hurling ...

— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon

... and agriculture. The failure of Mr. Duer, the chief of that description of people, has already produced some other bankruptcies, and more are apprehended. He had obtained money from great numbers of small tradesmen and farmers, tempting them by usurious interest, which has made the distress very extensive. Congress will adjourn within a fortnight. The President negatived their representation bill, as framed on principles contrary to the constitution. I suppose another will be passed, allowing simply a representative for every thirty ...

— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... to the tavern hoping against hope that Legros had not yet turned out the pockets of the blouse, and that we might induce him, by threat or cajolery or the usurious interest of twenty-five sous, to grant his client a further twenty-four hours wherein to ...

— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... the usurers, and they wanted security; whereupon he laid his Hidalgo hand on a cataract of Kronos-beard across his breast, and pulled forth three white hairs, and presented them: 'And as honourably to the usurious Jews as to the noble gentleman himself, that ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... so much. Can it be wondered that both before and after the crash this power of coining money should have put him slightly out of focus with pecuniary matters generally? Mediaeval and other theorisers on usury have been laughed at for their arguments as to the 'unnatural' nature of usurious gain, and its consequent evil. One need not be superstitious more than reason, to scent a certain unnaturalness in the gift of turning paper into gold in this other way also. Every peau de chagrin has a faculty of revenging ...

— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury

... islands, and not strangers. It is thought that they were made in their wars and quarrels. The most certain knowledge is that the most powerful made the others slaves, and seized them for slight cause or occasion, and many times for loans and usurious contracts which were current among them. The interest, capital, and debt, increased so much with delay that the borrowers became slaves. Consequently all these slaveries have violent and unjust beginnings; and most of the suits among the natives are over these, and they occupy the judges ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair

... I thee The intendant of my secret purposes? I am not conscious that I ever open'd My inmost thoughts to thee. The Emperor, it is true, 75 Hath dealt with me amiss; and if I would, I could repay him with usurious interest For the evil he hath done me. It delights me To know my power; but whether I shall use it, Of that, I should have thought that thou could'st speak 80 No wiselier ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... in which he lived. He was "a native." The style of his attire declared that he was completely indifferent to any comments by his townsmen—and such a trait exposed in a New England village revealed more fully than his usurious habits the real callousness of the Britt nature. There was not a man in sight who did not have patches either fore or aft, or both! Mr. Britt wore a light, checked suit with a fitted waist, garishly yellow shoes, ...

— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... follow. But even the civil magistrates must also suffer reforms to be enacted in their particular spheres; especially are they called on to do away with the rude "gluttony and drunkenness," luxury in clothing, the usurious sale of rents and the common brothels. This, by divine and human right, is a part of their enjoined works according to ...

— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... introduction to us the Jew accounts for his detestation of Antonio upon three very comprehensible grounds: national race hatred, in feeling and exciting which the Jews have been quite a "peculiar people" from the earliest records of history; personal injury in the defeat of his usurious prospects of gain; and personal insult in the unmanly treatment to which Antonio had subjected him. However excessive in degree, his hatred is undoubtedly shown to have a perfectly comprehensible, if not adequate cause and nature, and is a reasonable hatred, ...

— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... Old Man" at the orderly room. Oh, wonderful things were told of old Shiner and his ranch! In the eyes of some straitlaced commanders he had been little better than a receiver of stolen goods, a soldier Shylock who loaned moneys at usurious interest, a gambler who fleeced the trooper folk of their scanty pay, a dispenser of bad liquors and worse morals. Some truth there may have been in some of these tales, yet Shiner had been a strangely useful man. He supplied the post with milk and cream, butter and eggs, of better ...

— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King

... and began to look for business. There was little to be had. The Squire drew his own leases and sold lands to farmers unaided. Then Swallow began to take interest in politics and to lend money to the small farmers, taking mortgages at carefully guarded, usurious interest. Merciless foreclosures resulted, and as by degrees his operations enlarged, he grew richer and became feared and important in a county community where money was scarce. Some of his victims went in despair to the much loved Squire for help, and got, over and over, ...

— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... the supreme evil, and wealth as the object of universal aspiration. In line with this attitude comes Mercadet with his trials and schemes. Scenes of ridiculous surprises succeed each other till by the return of the absconder with a large fortune, the greedy, usurious creditors are at last paid in full, and poetic justice is satisfied by the marriage of Julie to the poor man of ...

— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden

... sought to acquire righteousness by scrupulosity. Nothing that is done just for the sake of one's own future benefit seems to be regarded in the Gospel as worth doing. The essence of Christian giving seems to be real giving, and not a sort of usurious loan. There is of course one very puzzling parable, that of the unjust steward, who used his last hours in office, before the news of his dismissal could get abroad, in cheating his master, in order to win the favour of the debtors by arbitrarily diminishing the amount of their debts. It seems ...

— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson