"Greed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Fleeming no work was without interest. Whatever a man can do or know, he longed to know and do also. 'I never learned anything,' he wrote, 'not even standing on my head, but I found a use for it.' In the spare hours of his first telegraph voyage, to give an instance of his greed of knowledge, he meant 'to learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the ship and how to handle her on any occasion'; and once when he was shown a young lady's holiday collection of seaweeds, he must cry out, 'It showed me my eyes had been idle.' Nor ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... divulge the plot to the nabob, unless his demands were satisfied, is doubtful. At any rate, it was considered prudent to pacify him, and he was accordingly told that he should receive the sum he named. Clive, and the members of the council, however, although willing to gratify their own extortionate greed, at the expense of Meer Jaffier, determined to rob Omichund of his share. In order to do this, two copies of the treaty with Meer Jaffier were drawn up, on different coloured papers. They were exactly alike, except that, in one, ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... leaving their home (p. 070) behind with its happy memories, to go forth as penniless refugees, compelled to live on the charity of others. It was through no fault of their own, but only through the monstrous greed and ambition of a despot crazed with feudal dreams of a by-gone age. As I looked at that little procession, and at many other similar ones, the words of the Gospel kept ringing in my ears, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... parting at that instant, just risen from the dice, one to go blindly—the other watching him—to his death? I could not imagine, thank Heaven for it, these secrets, or a hundredth part of the treachery and cruelty and greed that lurked at my feet, ready to burst all bounds at a pistol-shot. It had no significance for me that the past day was the 23rd of August, or that the morrow ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... Occupation with the endlessly great parts of the universe does not necessarily involve greatness of character, nor does microscopic study of the infinitely little always produce humility. We have our full share of original sin; need, greed, and vainglory beset us as they do other mortals; and our progress is, for the most part, like that of a tacking ship, the resultant of opposite divergencies from the straight path. But, for all that, there is one moral benefit which the pursuit ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... roof where the children shout, There is the perfect rest; There is the clamor of greed shut out, Ended the ceaseless quest. Battles I fight through the heat of to-day Are only to add to their ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... with a warning cry. The other boys, greed routed by the danger sense, were on their feet as quickly. As the three lads, none very tall for his age, faced the gigantic bulk of the priest, they looked ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... in the greenwood, and said the sheriff had been rightly paid for the greed and tyranny with which he performed the duties of his office, for by bribery and oppression he had got his ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... is corruption. It consists in plundering the industrious working people of their wealth by means of taxes and distributing it in satisfying the greed of officials, who are bound in return to support and keep up the oppression of the people. These bought officials, from the highest ministers to the poorest copying clerks, make up an unbroken network of men bound together ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... TARENTUM marks an important era in Roman history. Large treasures were obtained from this and other Greek cities in Southern Italy. Luxury became more fashionable; morals began to degenerate. Greed for wealth obtained by plunder began to get possession of the Romans. From now on the moral tone of the people continued to degenerate in proportion as ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... humour and stolidity of Khalid, are shaken, aroused, by the ghoulish greed, the fell inhumanity of these sharpers. And Shakib from his cage of fancy lets loose upon them his hyenas of satire. In a squib describing the bats and the voyage he says: "The voyage to America is the Via Dolorosa of the emigrant; and the Port ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... coast where slaves from the interior were bought from their native captors and owners who had brought them down in caravans and canoes. Thus not only was missionary zeal eclipsed but the desire of conquest likewise, and the spirit of exploration erelong partly subdued, by commercial greed. By the time of Prince Henry's death in 1460 Portugal was importing seven or eight hundred negro slaves each year. From this time forward the traffic was conducted by a succession of companies and individual grantees, ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns Lies richer dust than ever nature hid Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart, Or slyly wrapt in unsuspected sand— The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul. How vain and all ignoble seems that greed To him who stands in this dim claustral air With these most sacred ashes at his feet! This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this— The spark that once illumed it lingers still. O ever-hallowed spot of English ...
— The Sisters' Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... authority over us, he has held the best half of the conscience of the race in abeyance until now, and so checked the general progress; he has confirmed himself in his own worst vices, arrogance, egotism, injustice, and greed, and has developed the worst in us also, among which I class that tendency to sycophantic adulation, which is an effort of nature to secure the necessaries ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... The envoy offered to give some silk instead, but he said that not even to save his life would he give up the girdle. The Tsin magnate thought better of it; but it is remarkable how many cases of sordid greed of this kind are recorded, all pointing to the comparative absence of commercial exchanges, or standards of value ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... materially strengthened their position there; and it will not be a calamity when all these half-civilized nations are subjected to the progressive influences which prevail in India proper, in spite of all that is said about the greed for power on the part of the great ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... man." He must be put off and laid aside. Your former manner of life, inherited of Adam, consisted in disobeying God, in neither fearing, trusting nor calling upon him. Again, in your body you obeyed not God's commandments, being given to lust, pride, insatiable greed, envy, hatred, etc. A life and walk of this nature is not becoming a Christian who is regarded as, and truly is, a different order of being from his former self, as we shall hear. Necessarily he ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... corrective for the excessive greed of our girls for society is to carry on the system of co-education. This supplies a temperate gratification to the social appetites, induces girls to remain longer in school, and to do more thorough work, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... George Bird Grinnell, William Hallett Phillips and U.S. Senator George Graham Vest, in the preservation of the wild game of the Park and of the Park itself from the more determined encroachments of private greed. ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... but for every foot of a world that from henceforth must be free. The men who are fighting on grounds of moral principle would rather pay any price than lie at ease under the false shadow of militarism, materialism, and grasping greed. These men are fighting, and many of them know that they are fighting, for a new world. Not only military oppression, but industrial oppression, must go. Not only German militarism, and Russian autocracy, and Turkish cruelty must be done away; but American materialism must be purged ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... bitterness at the grind of circumstances. This prodigal country of theirs had been exploited,—shamefully, rapaciously, swinishly,—and now that the first signs of exhaustion were showing themselves, the people's eyes were opening to the story of greed. Democracy! Say, rather, Plutocracy, the most unblushing the world had ever seen,—the aristocracy of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... heard rumors of a wonderful tree which, in some unknown land, yielded golden apples, was moved with great greed to have some of this remarkable fruit. Hence he commanded Hercules to make the quest of this tree his eleventh labor. The hero had no notion where the tree grew, but he was bound by his bond to obey the King, so he set out and after a time reached ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... I have known thee in a thousand moods And lived a thousand lives within thy bounds; Adventured with the throng that laughs or broods, Trod all thy cloisters and thy pleasure grounds, Seen thee, in travail from the fiery torch, Betrayed by Greed, smirched by thy sons' disgrace— Rise with a spirit that no flame can scorch To make thyself a new and ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... fall of James II., a king whom it was not easy to honour. His social philosophy was one of established rank, tempered by equity and Christian charity. If anything moves his tranquil spirit, it is the remorseless greed of him who takes his fellow-servant by the throat and exacts the uttermost penny. How Sanderson saved a poor farmer from the greed of an extortionate landlord, Walton tells in his Life of ...
— Andrew Lang's Introduction to The Compleat Angler • Andrew Lang
... a gentle voice to drive away the horror of these nightmare days. Was all sweetness gone out of the world? Was the world no more than four square walls peopled with devils who asked and asked and asked? Was there nothing else but greed of money, hatred, want, and damnable persecution? A voice within cried aloud: "Why suffer it all? Why bear the brunt of other men's adventure?" Five thousand pounds. Was it a fair price for breaking one's body against rocks, for shattering ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... the reckless trader gets advice on stocks, he is not guided by it if it is of a conservative nature. If he does take advice, it is likely to be from one of those unreliable market tipsters who is very emphatic in his statements about what the market is going to do. The reckless trader lets his greed and desire for large and quick ...
— Successful Stock Speculation • John James Butler
... break an oath made upon the true cross itself. The promise he had made to Mary, broken in intent before it was given, stood not for an instant in the way of the French king's wishes; and Henry, with a promptitude begotten of greed, was as hasty in sending an embassy to accept the offer as Francis had been to make it. It mattered not to him what new torture he put upon his sister; the price, I believe, was sufficient to have induced him to cut off her head with ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... of men who have been disappointed, and who have nothing more to lose. When all these wolves will have devoured one another, then and then only can we hope for the restoration of the monarchy in France. And they will not turn on one another whilst prey for their greed lies ready to their jaws. Your friend the Scarlet Pimpernel should feed this bloody revolution of ours rather than starve it, if indeed he hates it as he seems ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... adversity. The foreigners who profess to be our friends are waiting and hoping for adversity to come upon us, that they may profit by it. They want our untouched wealth, our mines of coal and iron and gold, and it is upon them they have cast their eyes of greed. ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... cruel greed Which laps upon our shore, No one takes thought of the poet's need Nor how his griefs may pour Upon his poor, devoted head And his sad, troubled heart; But all these things each one must take, Who gives ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... who reclaims it, the crown which God alone should have removed, shall we assert confidently that Browning's dramatic instinct has erred? The pity of it—that his great father, daring in battle, profound in policy, should stand before him an outraged, helpless old man, craving with senile greed a gift from his son—the pity of it revives an old weakness, an old instinct of filial submission, in the heart of Charles. He has tasked himself without sparing; he has gained the affections of his subjects; he ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... and placing a rest for his head. The jaw had been tied up, but the eyes would not close; yet, staring though the face was, it was not a repulsive one. The ordinary observer could not read what Bangs saw there, greed and hypocrisy, envy, treachery, murder. While Miss Du Plessis went on calmly sketching, the other girls turned their heads away. No one cared to break the stillness by a word. The detective went out and secured the services of Styles to accompany the ladies home, and remain ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... us, Alexix was the only one who cared very much for money. We always made fun of his greed; he saved up sou by sou, counting his hoard continually, he was always very proud when he had a brand new piece. His offer touched me to the heart; I wanted to refuse, but he insisted, and slipped a shiny silver piece into my hand. I knew that his friendship for ...
— Nobody's Boy - Sans Famille • Hector Malot
... he would have another way round, though often he compromised with war; never wanting war but forced by his time and his companions. Sometimes, in the future, forced by the people we came among, but far oftener forced by greed and lust and violence of our own. Alas, again! ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... said Lazarus. "Yet it seemeth not so much according to the curse of God as to the greed of man. To the rich their riches come by inheritance as came mine. Or cometh riches by great cunning and skill in ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... and the other struck him with the sword he held in his hand and lopped off his head, and he dropped down dead. Quoth the Emir, "Allah have no mercy on thy resting-place! Indeed there was enough in these treasures, and greed of gain assuredly degradeth a man." Then he bade admit the troops; so they entered and loaded the camels with those treasures and precious ores; after which they went forth and the Emir commanded them to shut the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... repenting of his sins. Dame Cicely and the children cried for a week, and Farmer Gilbert recounted all the virtues of the deceased and added solemnly: "May Heaven pardon Brother Timothy and keep us from the deadly sin of greed!" ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman
... And float through the inverted sky, Still round and round the baited hook— Now paced the room with rapid stride, And, pausing at the Poet's side, Looked forth, and saw the wretched steed, And said: "Alas for human greed, That with cold hand and stony eye Thus turns an old friend out to die, Or beg his food from gate to gate! This brings a tale into my mind, Which, if you are not disinclined To listen, I will ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... several times, and Ryer had added a half acre to his holdings, his greed possessed him like a bad fairy. He began to steal the land on the other side of the Zuyder Zee. In the course of time, he became a regular land thief. Whenever he saw, or heard of, a floating bit of territory, he rowed his boat after ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... there will be light whereby to set our feet. It is something, too, to the most Christian soul, to utterly and completely triumph over one who had done all in his power to crush and destroy you; whose grasping greed has indirectly been the cause of the death of the person you loved best in the whole world round. And she did triumph. As Mr. Meeson's conduct to her got about, the little society of the ship—which was, after ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... and placed him in front of him upon the horse, and the three galloped off laughing aloud, whilst the boy in vain implored to be set down to run home. When I came back he had gone, and all men said that the old man had thus stolen him to satisfy the greed for souls of his master ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... guard who stood to watch the moor and main. But when their lonely vigil o'er, they, Roin and Aild, came, And found how little friendship counts, when played the spoiler's game, Sore angered that no hand for them had set apart a prize, They murmured. "With such men of greed all faith and kindness dies! When thus they deal with us in peace, how shall we fare when blood Runs from the wounds to blind the eyes to aught but selfish good?" They swore that they forgotten thus were better far away, And sailed to Lochlin's distant shore, and served in her array. Their ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... things, Ring in the broader thought that brings Swift end to all ignoble creeds. Ring in an age of noble deeds For all things pure, and high, and good— The era of true brotherhood. Ring out the lust for gold and gain— The greed that cripples soul and brain, And open eyes, long blind, to see What grander, better things ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... other features of his latest behaviour. If I was right, then I had reason to be thankful to Almighty God for this unparalleled and most happy dispensation, for now I should have nothing to fear from the old rogue's vindictiveness and horrid greed. Supposing him to be no more than a hundred, the infirmities of five score years would stand between him and me, and protect me as effectually as his death. I had nothing to dread from a man who could ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell
... substance, wreck our banks and drain Our little hoards for hazards on the price Of wheat or pork, or yet to cower beneath The shadow of a spire upreared to curb A breed of lackeys and to serve the bank Coadjutor in greed, that is the question. Shall we have music and the jocund dance, Or tolling bells? Or shall young romance roam These hills about the river, flowering now To April's tears, or shall they sit at home, Or play croquet where Thomas Rhodes may ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... been hunted on Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries with such inconsiderate greed that its numbers have been greatly reduced, and many have been driven ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... reclining in the banquet hall, Propped on an elbow, garlanded with flowers, Saw lust and greed and boisterous revelry Surge round him on the tides of wine, but he, Staunch in the ethic of an antique school — Stoic or Cynic or of Pyrrho's mind — With steady eyes surveyed the unbridled scene, Himself impassive, silent, self-contained: So sat the Indian prince, with brow unblanched, ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... private ends. All classes go in perpetual fear of them; for, by a stroke of the pen, they can ruin reputations and defeat justice. No one has recourse to their dreaded agency who can avoid doing so or has the means of gratifying their greed. By giving a handsome douceur to the Sub-Inspector, Kumodini Babu obtained a promise of support, which he was simple enough to ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... gold was set up by Balboa, who became governor of the new colony formed by the Spaniards; but the greed of these foreigners quite disgusted the native ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... saint has ever lived more selfless, more devoted to the beauty of virtue; but one quality Shelley lacked which is commonly counted a virtue. He had none of that imaginative sympathy which can make its own the motives and desires of other men. Self-interest, intolerance and greed he understood as little as common men understand heroism and devotion. He had no mean powers of observation. He saw the world as it was, and perhaps he rather exaggerated than minimised its ugliness. But it never ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... explore our land they would have asked our consent," the croaking voice of Kanoona resumed the antiphonal reproach. "They would not have brought upon us the hordes of British colonists, who would fain drive us from our habitations for their greed of the yellow stone." ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... great city are weaving their nets of selfishness and falsehood, and calling them industrial enterprises or political combinations. I can see how the wheels of society are moved by the hidden springs of avarice and greed and rivalry. I can see how children drink in the fables of religion, without understanding them, and how prudent men repeat them without believing them. I can see how the illusions of love appear and vanish, and how men and women swear that their dreams are eternal, ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... let us declare war on all meanness, snobbishness, petty or great jealousies, all forms of injustice, all forms of special privilege, all selfishness and all greed. Let us drop bombs on our prejudices! Let us send submarines to blow up all our poor little petty vanities, subterfuges and conceits, with which we have endeavored to veil the face of Truth. Let us make a frontal attack ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... could. Mad with excitement and lust for blood, they soon became just a robber band, attacking friend and foe alike, killing just for the pleasure of killing, or sacking farms and houses to satisfy their greed. They knew all the woods and by-ways so well that no one could catch them. After a time they began to build themselves huts where they could sleep, and also hide the treasure they had plundered from rich men. You can't imagine any wicked or horrible thing they ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... away till I had drawn All venom out.—Ah, fearful pawn! For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire,— Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl; Perished with each,—then mourned for all! ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... her nephew, Edward Curry, whom she had brought up. Poor Aunt Caroline had lived to regret this step, for everyone in Enderby knew that Edward Curry and his wife had repaid her with ingratitude and greed. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... gold brick ahead of the gold mine. We mix alloy of duplicity and greed with the virgin metal of our standard of value. By improved mining methods we nearly double our output of gold, and so cheapen it by well-nigh a half. This shrunken gold dollar is small enough; but that is not all. We adulterate and divide it by, say, another ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... instant of a bottomless pit of liquid soil, absorbing in its peculiar density. Think of all the horrors of a quicksand, which, embracing, sucks down into its cruel bosom the despairing victim of its insatiable greed. Think of a thin, solid crust, spread like icing upon a cake and concealing the soft, spongy matter beneath, covering every portion of the cruel plain; a crust which yields a crop of luxurious, enticing grass ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... Rama with Lakshman thus conversed, And many a pleasant tale rehearsed: "This night the king," he cried, "alas! In broken sleep will sadly pass. Kaikeyi now content should be, For mistress of her wish is she. So fiercely she for empire yearns, That when her Bharat home returns, She in her greed, may even bring Destruction on our lord the king. What can he do, in feeble eld, Reft of all aid and me expelled, His soul enslaved by love, a thrall Obedient to Kaikeyi's call? As thus I muse upon his woe And all his wisdoms overthrow, Love is, methinks, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... only incidentally, like other citizens. Against these the indignation of the French Philosophers was much excited. Their celibacy was attacked, as contrary to the interests of the state; they were accused of laziness and greed. How far were the Philosophers right in their opposition? It is impossible to discuss in detail here the policy of allowing or discouraging religious corporations in a state. Should men and women be permitted to retire from the struggles and duties of active life in the world? Is the monastery, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... is love. Deep under the pride of power, Down under its lust of greed, For the joys that last but an hour, There lies forever its need. For love is the law and the creed And love is the unnamed goal Of life, from man to the mole. Love is ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... yet deeper in my regard for myself—for had I not longed to show off in her eyes? I suspect almost all silly actions have their root in selfishness, whether it take the form of vanity, of conceit, of greed, or ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald
... Bumpus, who had been so worked up during this struggle between his comrades and the greed of the elements, that he had hardly taken time ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... would murmur in response from time to time, until at last he had reached the gates. There he bade Tsamanni fling a purse to the crouching beggars—for is it not written in the Most Perspicuous Book that of alms ye shall bestow what ye can spare, for such as are saved from their own greed shall prosper, and whatever ye give in alms, as seeking the face of Allah shall be ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... reason to repent. My mind was sharply turned on different reflections; and since I became the witness of a strange judgment of God's, the thought of dead men's treasures has been intolerable to my conscience. But even at that time I must acquit myself of sordid greed; for if I desired riches, it was not for their own sake, but for the sake of a person who was dear to my heart—my uncle's daughter, Mary Ellen. She had been educated well, and had been a time ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... farmer had given the farm to his only son, an amiable, good-tempered young man, but unhappy in his choice of a wife, whom he had married a short time before. She was a handsome woman, and possessed of considerable means; but she was vain to a degree, and cared for nothing but money. Pride and greed had gradually imprinted on her features an expression of harshness so striking that, with all her beauty, her looks were repellent. She was violently opposed to religion, and was thus without any restraint on her conduct. ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... reign of Agis money found its way into Sparta, and, after money, selfishness and greed for gain came in, on account of Lysander, who, though himself incorruptible, yet filled his country with luxury and love of gold, as he brought back gold and silver from the wars, and disregarded the laws of Lykurgus. Before this, when those laws were ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... refined taste and critical judgment of the American audiences—in my opinion very unjustly, for if want of knowledge and nice perception in the public induces carelessness and indifference in performers, the grasping greed of gain and incessant over-exertion, mental and physical, for the sake of satisfying it, is a far more certain cause of artistic deterioration. During Madame Ristori's last visit to America, I went to see a morning performance of "Elizabeta d'Inglterra" by her. Arriving ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... fifty years later of Bismarck, although he was obliged to fight and humble Austria before he could consummate it. With Russia on one side and France on the other, the only hope of Germany is in union. But this aim of the great Austrian statesman was defeated by the stupidity and greed of the Prussian king, and by his interested friendship with "the autocrat of all the Russias." Alexander got Poland, with an addition of about four million ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... its buildings. Into this gem of cities the savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright autumnal weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now impossible to read of what they did in Prato without shuddering.[16] Cruelty and lust, sordid greed for gold, and cold delight in bloodshed, could go no further. Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild and voluptuous, averse to violence of all kinds, had to smile approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked thus with mailed hand for him at the door ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... fear nor favour won us place, Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth, Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling
... without sin, there is a cavern of darkness to be traversed before that temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned hopes. There Self must die; there the eagerness, the greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can the soul be freed from the empire of Fate. But out of the cavern the Gate of Renunciation leads again to the daylight of wisdom, by whose radiance a new insight, a new joy, a new ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... everyone food at the right time. You open Your generous hands and satisfy the hunger of all living things with what they desire. (Psalm 145:15-16) Note: "What they desire" means that all animals get so much to eat, that they are happy and cheerful. Because, worry and greed interferes with such desires. After this, pray the Lord's Prayer and the following prayer: Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and these gifts, which we receive from Your generous hand, through ...
— The Small Catechism of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... a light one, and the wood of the door was not heavy. He called for a capstan-bar; and in spite of the fact that he had to strike blindly under several feet of water, the lock was soon shattered. By this time, a dozen men were clustered around, their curiosity and greed uncooled by the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... road, bows and arrows and aeroplane sharpshooters in the same army, or illiterate peasant industries and power-driven factories in the same world. And still less it was possible that one could have the ideas and ambitions and greed and jealousy of peasants equipped with the vast appliances of the new age. If there had been no atomic bombs to bring together most of the directing intelligence of the world to that hasty conference at Brissago, ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... Ninety-eight, but its woe no man may tell; It was all of a piece and a whole yard wide, and the name of the brand was "Hell". We heard the call and we staked our all; we were plungers playing blind, And no man cared how his neighbor fared, and no man looked behind; For a ruthless greed was born of need, and the weakling went to the wall, And a curse might avail where a prayer would fail, and the gold lust ...
— Ballads of a Cheechako • Robert W. Service
... sharks, whose net is so large that weights as big as mortars are needed to sink it. But neither of these two can turn the hero's bolo over, hence they become his servants. Sandangcal (d), who nowhere in the story displays any great strength, rather only craftiness and greed, meets one at a time three strong fellows, whom he persuades to go with him by promising to double the sum they had been working for. These men are Mountain-Destroyer, who could destroy a mountain with one blow of his club; Blower, who could refresh the whole world with his ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... the man's character, defects, and way of life, that he might have come ready dressed into the world. You could no more imagine him apart from his clothes than you could think of a bulb without its husk. If the old printer had not long since given the measure of his blind greed, the very nature of the man came out in ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... one hundred and fifty Portuguese; and the bishop of Japon then officiated publicly, and there were more than twenty thousand Christian Japanese and a principal college of the Society—whence it is supposed that the reason was greed, under color of a reason of state. For if the intention of the tyrant was to exclude at all points Christianity and its ministers from Japon, he would not have permitted so great a number of fathers of the Society as were residing in that ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XIV., 1606-1609 • Various
... because of the secrets—being a woman and not a belly-with-a-big-tongue, who would sell me to the highest bidder, if he dared. I know a Brahman. Thou and I are co-conspirators because my woman's wit is sharper than thy greed. We are confidants because I know too much of thy misdeeds. We are going to succeed because I laugh at thy fat fears, and am never deceived for a moment by pretense of sanctity or ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... selfish miser's greed The great rewards of love are given; 'Tis not the cynic's haughty creed Which gladly makes this world a heaven; But tender word and loving deed Increase the angel joys of living, And mortals gain life's grandest meed By acts of giving ...
— Oklahoma and Other Poems • Freeman E. Miller
... might have happened long before this, had the Georges forgotten that they were Electors of Hanover as well as Kings of Great Britain; and had surrounded themselves with Englishmen instead of filling their courts with Germans, whose arrogance and greed made them hateful to Englishmen, and kept before their eyes the fact that their kings were foreigners. Hanover is a source of weakness instead of strength to Great Britain, and its loss would be an unmixed benefit to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... on? Since his rise to affluence one of them had dared to speak to him, but she would never do it again. He remembered too well the averted glances with which they had passed him, poor and ragged, on the street. No, he hated them passionately as the living symbols of Gunsight fraud and greed; the soft, idle women of those despicable parasites who now battened on what he ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... natural fineness in him, to escape when he can from that blank stone house, with so little to interest, and that homely old man and woman. The rudeness of his home has turned his feeling for even the simpler graces of life into a physical want, like hunger or thirst, which might come to greed; and methinks he perhaps overvalues these things. Still, made as he is, his hard fate in that rude place must needs touch one. And then, he profits by the experience of my father, who has much knowledge in matters of art beyond his own art of sculpture; and Antony is not unwelcome ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... the houses by main force, shared among themselves everything that fell into their hands, loaded their horses with the plunder, and broke to pieces what they could not carry away. Sometimes, not finding sufficient to satisfy their greed, they broke down the doors and windows, demolished the ceiling in order to tear out the beams, and made of these pieces and the furniture, which was too heavy to be carried away, a fire, which being communicated to the roofs of neighboring ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... article is exposed the inhuman greed of patent medicine concerns that turn into cold cash the letters of patients afflicted ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... danger," he said, "which we have to face: that these foul pests of society should escape with Professor Caldegard's discovery and master his secret—a peril to which all the dangers mankind has run since the world began from greed, bigotry, alcohol and opium are child's play. The bill of which Sir Gregory has just spoken would give us powers to lay hands on all these local branches of what Superintendent Finucane has described as 'the Dope Gang.' We know already some twenty-five or thirty of them. If we ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... Mazarin's own greed had been in no slight degree the cause of his unpopularity; he who had come to France a penniless priest was now the owner of great estates. It was even said that much of the money that should have been devoted to the needs of the army had been privately sent into Italy by him, and throughout ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... care was to draw down the blind, for Mr. Rolles still remained where they had left him, in an attitude of perplexity and thought. Then he emptied the broken bandbox on the table, and stood before the treasure, thus fully displayed, with an expression of rapturous greed, and rubbing his hand upon his thighs. For Harry, the sight of the man's face under the influence of this base emotion added another pang to those he was already suffering. It seemed incredible that, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... delightedly on the breakwater with his wooden-soled boots. There are sheepskin caps, old military caps, disreputable old rusty hats, and the women's tidy black handkerchiefs. The faces are as different as old, wrinkled pigskin and young, ripening fruit; but want, and expectancy, and a certain animal greed are visible in all of them. The unfamiliarity of the moment brings a touch of stupidity into them, as they press forward, or climb up to get a view over their neighbors' heads and stare open-mouthed at the land where the wages are said to be so high, and the brandy so uncommonly strong. ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Wight's fairest bowers are flaming fast; From Solent's waves rise many a mast, With swelling sails of gold and red, Dragon and serpent at each head, Havoc and slaughter breathing forth, Steer on these locusts of the north. Each vessel bears a deadly freight; Each Viking, fired with greed and hate, His axe is whetting for the strife, And counting how each Christian life Shall win him fame in Skaldic lays, And in Valhalla endless praise. For Hamble's river straight they steer; Prayer is in vain, no aid is near— Hopeless and helpless all must die. Oh, fainting ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was occupied in receiving their several contributions. The apartment was a mean one, miserably furnished, but seemed befitting the principal occupant, whose dark face was marked by an expression of greed, and alternately showed satisfaction or disappointment as the contents of the boys' pockets were satisfactory or otherwise. Those who had done badly were ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... for it. It is the "joy in widest commonalty spread"; it is a rich possession for us if we care for it, but in possessing it we deprive nobody else. The enjoyment of it, the possession of it, excites neither greed nor envy, and it is something which is always there for us and which may take us out of the small worries of life. When we are bored, when we are out of tune, when we have little worries, it clears our feelings and changes ...
— Recreation • Edward Grey
... bushmen of Santo are none too reliable, and only the memory of a successful landing expedition of the English man-of-war a year ago keeps them quiet. On that occasion they had murdered an old Englishman and two of his daughters, just out of greed, so as to pillage his store. They had not found much, but they had to pay for the murder with the loss of their village, pigs ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... It was pitiful. Greed and avarice had made a hateful little monster of him, and yet a heart of stone would have been touched by the misery in his eyes, the anguish on his ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... matters in the past, and explained the future intentions of the band. The scheme of the hour was to rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la Porte, and in this the Prior agreed to take a hand with simulated greed. Thus, in the course of two days, he had turned this wineskin of a Tabary inside out. For a while longer the farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... indiscreet; he was daring, but often careless of consequences; and when in positions of command he was apt to be impatient of cowardice and of greed. So he raised up enemies for himself, and twice these enemies sought and nearly accomplished his downfall. His last campaign was fought under the burden of an apparent official censure, galling to a man of Custer's impetuous ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... she had no claim on her father beyond what generosity might dictate. In short, Barrant believed the motive for the murder to be a mixed one, as human motives generally are. At that stage of his reasoning he did not ask himself whether worldly greed was likely to enter into the composition ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... envious, and either vain of his virtue and attainments, or else thoroughly disheartened at his small success, while he grudges that of his neighbor. George Macdonald says: "No work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation, any more than of greed. I think the motives ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... censer to Thyself, for all our fires are dim, Stamp Thou Thine image on our coin, for Caesar's face grows dim, And a dumb devil of pride and greed ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... passing away. You cannot understand these people like Miss Kendall, like Mr. Carton, who cannot be bought and controlled like your other creatures. You do not know how the underworld can turn on the upperworld. You would not pull us up—you shoved us down deeper, in your greed. But if we go down, we shall drag you, too. What have we to lose? You and your creatures, like Martin Ogleby, have taken everything from ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... wrongs by the whites in the inevitable advances of civilization, need not be recited here. Unscrupulous greed has hovered about the Indian reservations as waiting buzzards hover near the wounded creature upon whose flesh they would fatten. Lands guaranteed to the Indians were encroached upon by white people. These encroachments resisted led to wars. ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various
... looked on must have laughed as they read the vast audacity of this man's conceit. Never had it occurred to him that such an ambition as his own meant a mere greed for power—that no great cause or motive impelled him forward. Never had a whisper come to his soul that power is a trust which should make its recipient a crusader. The world thought of him as a man of great potentiality. ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... damnable chain of all, the symbol of cowardice, of greed and vanity, the enemy of truth and knowledge, the hot-bed on which we breed the miserable half-men who cumber this earth, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... recapture the delight he took in gazing at Darbor's beauty seated opposite. Then he resumed his account of the life and times of Big Ed, an improvised essay into the folly and stupidity of untamed greed which ended upon a ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... glance the thing which Kemper, for all his worldly knowledge, had missed in his more intimate association, and this was that the soul of the woman before her had not perished, but was still tossed wildly in the fires of art, of greed, of sensuality. Between her lover and the prima donna she knew that for this one instant at least, she was strong enough to stand absolutely detached and incapable of judgment. And in a sudden ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... destruction. But at that time no one knew what the resistance was to cost, how long it would have to last, what sacrifices, material and moral, it would necessitate. And for the moment baser sentiments were silenced: greed, self-interest, pusillanimity seemed to have been purged from the race. The great sitting of the Chamber, that almost religious celebration of defensive union, really expressed the opinion of the whole people. It is fairly easy ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... in the wings of the Tower draw their inspiration from the days of the conquistadors. Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's Fountain of El Dorado is a dramatic representation of the Aztec myth of The Gilded One, which the followers of Cortez, in their greed for gold, mistook for a fact instead of a fable. (p. 54.) The Fountain of Youth by Edith Woodman Burroughs finds its justification as a part of the historical significance of the Tower in the legend of that Fountain of Eternal Youth sought by Ponce de Leon. (p. 53.) The interpretation ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... triumph of Napoleon appeared a miracle before which the voice of criticism must be dumb. And yet, if we remember the hollowness of the Bourbon restoration, the tactlessness of the princes and the greed of their partisans, it seems strange that the house of cards reared by the Czar and Talleyrand remained standing even for eleven months. Napoleon correctly described the condition of France when he said to his comrades on the "Inconstant": "There is no historic example ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... remind you that "I told you so." True enough, it was history pure and simple that I had in mind while enjoying the large hospitality of your gulf-side home. Gaspard Roussillon's letter then appealed to my greed for materials which would help along the making of my little book "The Story of Louisiana." Later, however, as my frequent calls upon you for both documents and suggestions have informed you, I fell to strumming a different guitar. And now to you ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... and the knife passed into the hands of an old squaw. Other knives and hatchets changed hands, and yards of bolt goods were sold at prices that caused the black eyes of the purchasers to glitter with greed. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... Jesuit narrator—were raised in plaintive chants at the rude command of their savage captors, who even forced them to dance in sight of the French, on whose protection they had relied. The governor, M. de Lauzon, a weak, incapable man, only noted for his greed, was perfectly paralysed at a scene without example, even in those days of terror, when the Iroquois were virtually masters of the St. Lawrence valley from ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... his unprecedented suffering, he had never lost his greed for a victory, yet, he said, in a half-apologetic manner to his conscience, he could not but know that a defeat for the army this time might mean many favorable things for him. The blows of the enemy would splinter ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... seated at a table, eating, rose; a man on whom greed had set its mark—greed of the flesh, greed of men's praise, greed of money. His frame was thick-set, his body was heavily nourished, his eye was shifty but intelligent; and a close observer would have seen something elusive, something furtive and sinister, in his face. His lips were greasy with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... youth who is taking lessons from a comic actor in voice-production not to carry his precepts so far as to imitate the female falsetto, the senile tremolo, the obsequiousness of the slave, the stuttering accents of intoxication or the intonations of love, greed, fear.[94] ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... eyes gleaming, Hagen told the King of the great treasure Siegfried had won from the Nibelungs. His eyes gleamed with a greed he could not hide as he told King Gunther of the gold that had been strewed upon the mountain-side, of the jewels that had sparkled there, for Hagen was envious of the riches ...
— Stories of Siegfried - Told to the Children • Mary MacGregor
... moment's security from savage attempts to extort by terror or by torture the secret I refused to sell; and I believe that his generous abstinence from such an attempt was as exasperating as it was incomprehensible to his advisers, and chiefly contributed to involve him in the vengeance which baffled greed and humbled personal pride had leagued to wreak upon myself, as on those with whose welfare and safety my own were inextricably intertwined. It was a fortunate, if not a providential, combination of circumstances that compelled ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... knight. "If you make it a thousand more, not a foot of my land shall you ever hold. You have outwitted yourself, master abbot, by your greed." ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... farce. Both species were playing to-night, and in jargon to boot. In real life you always get your drama mixed, and the sock of comedy galls the buskin of tragedy. It was an episode in the pitiful tussle of hunger and greed, yet its ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... virtues. Men were unremitting, indiscriminate worshippers of money; they were not trained in the school of good morals; and when people, brought up without the pale of the precepts of probity, are congenitally cursed with a greed for pelf and a legion of evil and rascally proclivities, they become easily pervious to the promptings of ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... hell!—the fine fever which sets father against son, creed against creed, nation against nation!—hate is the chief mainspring of human motives! From hate and envy spring emulation and conquest—and we of the Church encourage the haters to hate on! They make Us!—they emulate each other in the greed of their gifts to us, which give them notoriety and advertise their generosity,—WE fan the flame and encourage the fury! For the world must have a religion—it crucified Christ, but the Church, built up in His name, takes just and daily revenge ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... than that you shall be witnesses of her happiness. Only when you recognise your faults can you return to your present shape, and I am very much afraid that you will be statues for ever. Pride, ill-temper, greed, and laziness can all be corrected, but nothing short of a miracle will turn a wicked and ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... so your honor'll sleep; Your market's o'er the mounting wave, Your greed of gain lies deep. Your sovereign bids you walk upright;— Her fair fame you disgrace, And steal o'er the deep, With our Yankee ships in chase: And ye peddlers, shun the starry flag, While ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... through the greed of man, nature is handicapped in her effort to restore fertility by the absence of the best seeds. Man's intelligent assistance is a necessity. Successful farming involves such assistance of nature that the percentage of vegetable matter in the soil shall be made high and ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... enthusiastic usurer had said his say and had his audience, and was straightway pushed on one side. Then my usurer, not knowing me, though indeed I knew him, or not liking the looks of me, as indeed his looks were distasteful to me, for I think a man's money greed is ever written in bitter ink upon the parchment of his face, passed away into the crowd beyond. Thereafter there accosted Messer Folco a man whose name I knew at the time but for the life of me I cannot recall it now, and all that I can remember of him is that he was fat and affable and a notorious ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and the German plan were not appreciated or understood. Thank God the world had learned its lesson by 1914, when the Hun challenged it again, so that the challenge was met and taken up, and France was not left alone to bear the brunt of German greed ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... I had made no sound; for I could hardly breathe. But the slight noise of the blow had reached Edgar. I heard the springs of the hack creak as he vaulted from it, and the next moment he was towering above me, peering down into the pit. His eyes were wide with excitement, greed, and fear. In his hands he clutched the two suit-cases. Like a lion defending his cubs he ...
— My Buried Treasure • Richard Harding Davis
... store. Neither the piety of the preacher nor the patriotism of the senator could quell in Smith the cupidity of the fortune-builder. Adroitly did Burr shift the trend of discourse to suit his own ends, leading the elder by plausible arguments to accept as logical the sophistry of self-love and greed. The word business was stretched to cover a multitude of sins; the new dictionary of self-aggrandizement concealed a spurious ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... Awake once more, bold power! arise from the bosom in which thou hast hidden thyself! Hear my will, ye doubting winds: Hither to battle and din of the tempest, to the raging whirl of the roaring storm! Drive the sleep from this dreaming sea; awake angry greed from its depths; show it the prey which I offer; let it shatter this haughty ship, gorge itself upon the shivered fragments! What lives thereon, the breathing life, I give to ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... vices of the rulers, I have returned to these islands, and under the cloak of a merchant have visited the towns. My gold has opened a way for me and wheresoever I have beheld greed in the most execrable forms, sometimes hypocritical, sometimes shameless, sometimes cruel, fatten on the dead organism, like a vulture on a corpse, I have asked myself—why was there not, festering in its ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... He had won a notable victory against greed and craft and highly trained intelligence. And yet, a year later, he was to recall this recent past with envy and regret; for in the meantime he was to fight another battle against the same forces, and others quite as deeply rooted in human nature. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... to think it is all unchanged," said the mother with a sigh of content. "I know it is foolish to feel as I do about it, but it would be a real grief to me to think that my beautiful valley had been sacrificed to the need or the greed of advancing civilization." ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... in favour of the Queen, just in time to escape spoliation, for Elizabeth claimed everything. Her scandalous avarice had grown upon her year by year, and now in her old age her finer and more generous qualities were sapped by her greed for money. Even her political acumen had failed her; she was unable to see, in her vexation at the loss of the Indian carracks, that the blow to Spain had been one which relieved her of a constant and immense anxiety. She determined that no one should be the ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse |
