"Avarice" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... products of fear, insanity, idiocy, paralysis of various muscles and organs, profuse perspiration, cholerina, jaundice, sudden decay of teeth, fatal anaemia, skin diseases, erysipelas, and eczema. Passion, sinful thought, avarice, envy, jealousy, selfishness, all press for external bodily expression. Even false philosophies, false theology, and false conceptions of God make their unwholesome influence felt in every bodily tissue. By infallible law, mental states are mirrored ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... or to penetrating into the accessible and illuminated caverns, restoring here and there the layers of capital sins, studying their veins, their growths, and noting, like Balzac for example, the layers of strata in the soul possessed by the monomania of a passion, by ambition, by avarice, by paternal ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... found in way of gold and silver belongs to Isuke; and caves are always rich in such finds."—"Is that so?" said the chu[u]gen—"It is the tale of old books; which often lie. But in with you, and find out." Under spur of avarice and command Isuke crawled into the passage. He had gone but a bare ten feet when Shu[u]zen heard a most fearful yell, saw the rapid progress outwards of the posteriors of Isuke. The man's face was chalk white—"Deign, Danna Sama, to go no further." He choked for utterance. ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... one ray Of kind benignity or holy light On aught beneath the sun. Childhood, youth, beauty, To it had all one hue. Its rays reverted Right inward, back upon the greedy heart On which the gnawing worm of avarice Preyed without ceasing, straining every sense To that excruciable and yearning core. Some thirteen days agone, he comes to me, And after many sore and mean remarks On men's rapacity and sordid greed, He says, "Gabriel, thou art an honest man, As the world goes. How much, then, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... Regulus, they played the game of Regulus himself. He, in the mean time, dwells in his villa on the other side of the Tiber, where he has covered a large tract of ground with magnificent porticos, and lined the banks of the river with elegant statues; profuse, with all his avarice, and, in the depth of infamy, proud and vain-glorious. Convenitur ad eum mira celebritate: cuncti detestantur, oderunt; et, quasi probent, quasi diligant, cursant, frequentant, utque breviter, quod sentio, enunciem, in Regulo demerendo, Regulum imitantur. Tenet se trans Tyberim ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... They were received on their arrival by a maiden sister of Mr Morgan's, who till then had kept his house and he intended should still remain in it; for as through the partiality of an aunt who had bred her up she was possessed of a large fortune, her brother, in whom avarice was the ruling passion, was very desirous ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... and paid them large sums. But the more rich people that came, the more poor people they invited. For they never would allow the making of money to intrude upon the dignity of their high calling. How should avarice and cure go together? A greedy healer of men! What a marriage ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... Mission-house of the Jesuit padres; and dwellings of rich miners and 'hacendados' studded the valley far above and below. A busy populace moved upon the scene; and all the passions of love and hate, ambition, avarice, and revenge, have had existence there. The hearts stirred by them are long since cold, and the actions to which they gave birth are not chronicled by human pen. They live only in legends that sound more like romance than ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... thought, that if Scotland is worse, the world is better. Yea, even they by whom the offence came, and who have first to reap the woe of that offence, because they did the will of God to satisfy their own avarice in laying land to land and house to house, shall not reap their punishment in having their own will, and standing therefore alone in the earth when the good of their evil deeds returns upon it; but the tears of men that ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... most expressive. Indeed, this word has a significance hardly expressed by any English one, and used to be very prevalent to indicate keen and forcible tenacity of possession; thus a character noted for avarice or sharp looking to self-interest was termed "grippy." In mechanical contrivances, anything taking a close adherence was called having a gude grip. I recollect in boyish days, when on Deeside taking wasp-nests, an old man looking on was sharply stung ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... his fears and appealed to his avarice. Harry had too much money and some follies, I confessed, but he was sound at heart, and I had hope of making a strong man of him, and of course his money might be a great lever in ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller
... her, a reward for the introduction, or to extort bribes to secrecy. For looking back, Antony could now perceive that by this time a certain greed of lucre had set in upon the man, who had obtained large sums of secret service money from himself; and avarice, together with the rebuff he had received from the Queen, had doubtless rendered him accessible to the temptations of the arch-plotters Gifford and Morgan. Richard could believe this, for the knowledge had been forced on him that there were an incredible ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to this magnificent plan of universal plunder, worthy of the heroic avarice of the projectors, you have all heard (and he has made himself to be well remembered) of an Indian chief called Hyder Ali Khan. This man possessed the western, as the company under the name of the Nabob of Arcot does the eastern, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... endeavouring to convince his hearers, that to commit such acts was to prove themselves unworthy of relief; or, was it the fault of those pestiferous vehicles of falsehood, the Courier and the Times, who are incessantly inveighing against the avarice of bakers and butchers? ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... insolently before the eyes of everybody connected with it—which was, of course, as it should be, in this happy land of commerce. After all that has been written, the reader will not be surprised to learn that the partners in Meeson's were rich beyond the dreams of avarice. Their palaces would have been a wonder even in ancient Babylon, and would have excited admiration in the corruptest and most luxurious days of Rome. Where could one see such horses, such carriages, such galleries of sculpture or such collections of costly gems as at the ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... ne plus ultra of a wise and liberal administration, was contradictory in its terms and pregnant with a legion of impossibilities. They have attributed the oppression of the treasury by turns to the barbarism of the time, the ignorance of princes, the prejudices of caste, the avarice of collectors, everything, in short, which, in their opinion, preventing the progression of the tax, stood in the way of the sincere practice of equality in the distribution of public burdens; they have not for a moment suspected that what they asked under ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... take her, take her, by all means; you will be the prettiest, finest, loveliest, sweetest couple. Augh! what a delicate dish of matrimony you will make! Her age with your youth, her avarice with your extravagance, and ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... well knew what unworthy conclusions would be drawn from it. But I am called upon to deliver my opinion, and surely it is not in the little censure of Mr. Home to deter me from doing signal justice to a man who, I confess, has grown upon my esteem. As for the common, sordid views of avarice, or any purpose of vulgar ambition, I question whether the applause of Junius would be of service to Lord Chatham. My vote will hardly recommend him to an increase of his pension, or to a seat in the Cabinet. But if his ambition be upon a level with his understanding; if ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... iniquity—not even Theseus, to deliver the soil of Attica from its monsters? Purge away thine own, cast forth thence—from thine own mind, not robbers and monsters, but Fear, Desire, Envy, Malignity, Avarice, Effeminacy, Intemperance. And these may not be cast out, except by looking to God alone, by fixing thy affections on Him only, and by consecrating thyself to His commands. If thou choosest aught else, with sighs and groans thou wilt be forced to follow a Might greater than thine own, ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... farther the Indians are removed from us, the better for them. In their own woods, they are a noble race; brought near to us, a degraded and stupid race. We are destroying them off the face of the earth. May God forgive us our tyranny, our avarice, our ignorance, for it is very ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... in his career when he could afford to keep his clients waiting. He and his partner, during the twenty-five years they had been together, had prospered even beyond their early dreams of avarice. It was their boast that during their partnership it had not been necessary to open a law-book three times. There was always a way to beat a case "on the facts," and they had learned the way. They kept no books, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... these epithets surprise us. Who would have expected avarice or lechery[225] in Macbeth? His ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... hereditary avarice of the house of Conde which thus revealed itself in the odious sentiment of that unworthy son? Poor woman! Her only crime was that of being too liberal. She had, it is true, foolishly placed her diamonds in pledge at Bordeaux to support the cost of the war. But had she not, as a set-off ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... emperor, "you call that love of his family! You would elevate his cruel avarice into a domestic virtue. I congratulate you upon your high standard of ethics! But rise, I command you. Meanwhile, you are right on one point at least. I have eaten of your salt, and I am too true a nobleman to betray you to the emperor. I will merely tell him that ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... Nature, and not meerly by being commanded. Now God was displeased with the Jews, not because they did observe the Rites and Ceremonies, but because being vainly puffed up with these, they neglected those Things which God does in a more especial Manner require of us; and wallowing in Avarice, Pride, Rapines, Hatred, Envy, and other Iniquities, they thought they merited Heaven, because that upon Holy-Days, they visited the Temple, offered Sacrifices, abstained from forbidden Meats, and frequently fasted; ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... being of service to the colony, had fixed an arbitrary price for all the provisions which they brought in, as well as for the commodities which they exported; of consequence, the former was valued at as high a price as their avarice could exact, and the latter sunk as low in value as their own selfish hearts could conceive: that the colony for two months had been destitute of all kinds of provision; the commodities of the planters lay upon their hands, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... identical chivalrous young American or Englishman who strides through his pages in battalions to romantic death or romantic marriage. Every one speaks of the extraordinary youthfulness of his mind, which was still fresh at an age when most men find avarice or golf a substitute for former pastimes. He not only refused to grow old himself, he refused to write about old age. There are a few elderly people in his books, but they are vague and shadowy. They serve to emphasize the brightness of youth, and are quickly ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various
... and showing their teeth to all besides; and for virtues such as these they were rewarded by the highest offices in church, camp, and state, while new taxes and imposts were invented almost daily to feed their avarice and supply their extravagance. France, doomed to feel the beak and talons of these harpies in its entrails, impoverished by a government that robbed her at home while it humiliated her abroad, struggled vainly in its misery, and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of the fathers, instructs the children in economy, arrogance, or submission. We stir them up to be yet more and more copyists, which they are only too disposed to be, as it is; nobody thinks of making them ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... little more than the skill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyssey in one composition: yet his judgment was perhaps sometimes overborne by his avarice of the Homeric treasures; and, for fear of suffering a sparkling ornament to be lost, he has inserted it where it cannot shine with its ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... lake Geneva, Howells wrote urging him this time to spend the winter with them in Florence, where they would write their great American Comedy of 'Orme's Motor,' "which is to enrich us beyond the dreams of avarice.... We could have a lot of fun writing it, and you could go home with some of the good old Etruscan malaria in your bones, instead of the wretched pinch-beck Hartford article that you are suffering from now.... it's a great opportunity for you. Besides, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... sexes, illustrate the other noble passions, all of which, such as joy, are forms of, or rather children of, self-forgetful love. They do not illustrate the evil or ignoble passions—envy, jealousy, hatred, base fear, despair, revenge, avarice and remorse—which, driven by the emotion that so fiercely and swiftly accumulates around them, master the body and soul, the intellect and the will, like some furious tyrant, and in their extremes hurry their victim into madness. Browning took some of these terrible powers ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... my heart. I knew the law gave him power to fulfil it; for slaveholders have been cunning enough to enact that "the child shall follow the condition of the mother," not of the father, thus taking care that licentiousness shall not interfere with avarice. This reflection made me clasp my innocent babe all the more firmly to my heart. Horrid visions passed through my mind when I thought of his liability to fall into the slave trader's hands. I wept over him, and said, "O my child! perhaps they will ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... waved the big ostrich feather that served her as fan. "It's all very well in its way, but some men get stifled with their money-bags, just as Owen is. Their wealth is so great that its very heaviness presses out all their good qualities and only leaves avarice behind." ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... view if you will; but the wiser, the more civilized the State, the worse chances for the rogue to get on! There may be some art, some hypocrisy, some avarice,—nay, some hardness of heart,—in paternal example and professional tuition. But what are such sober infirmities to the vices that arise from defiance and despair? Your savage has his virtues, but they are mostly physical,—fortitude, abstinence, patience: ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... civilization. The fate of Joan of Arc or of Madame Roland was merciful compared to that of poor Beatrice. Religion is no consolation to her, for it is the Pope himself who signs her death- warrant. She is massacred to gratify the avarice of the Holy See. Yet in this last evening of her tragical life, she does find strength and consolation in her dignity as a woman. Never was art consecrated to a higher purpose; Guido rose above himself; and, as Hawthorne says, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... hospitality to his parishoners every Sunday was literally without limitation; he kept a plentiful table for all who chose to come. Economical as he was, no act of his life was chargeable with any thing in the least degree savouring of avarice; on the contrary, many parts of his conduct displayed what in any station would have been deemed extraordinary disinterestedness and generosity. Finally, at his death, in 1802, he actually left behind him no less a sum than two ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... yonder sweet opening flower is, Shrinking from the gaze of day; O then the heart alarming, And all resistless charming, In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul! Ambition would disown The world's imperial crown, Even Avarice would deny His worship'd deity, And feel thro' every vein ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life, was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his—if indeed that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... such as Augustin. It ought to have disgusted him at once with remaining in the world. At Milan, connected as he was with the Court, he was in a good position to see how much baseness and ferocity may spring from human avarice and ambition. If the present was hideous, the future promised to be sinister. The Roman Empire no longer existed save in name. Foreigners, come from all the countries of the Mediterranean, plundered the provinces under ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... waters of Torres Strait, he knew that to the southward were coasts as yet unmarked on any chart, seas as yet unploughed by any keel. For this work of exploration Flinders nourished a passion as intense as that which inferior natures have had for love, avarice, or honours. It absorbed all his life and thought; and opportunity, becoming in his case the handmaid of capacity, ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... Crito besought Socrates to take to flight, and complained that the public, was upbraiding his disciples with lack of friendship and with avarice. The self-willed philosopher refused to gratify his pupils or ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... seventeenth century which not only proved itself equal to the task of supplying the ever-increasing population of London with an adequate supply of water, but was destined in after years to render its undertakers rich "beyond the dreams of avarice." The New River Company, the original shares of which are of almost fabulous value at the present day, had its commencement in an Act of Parliament (3 James I, c. 18) which empowered the mayor, commonalty and citizens of London and their successors at any time to make ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... of this new decree—was it true that the poor folk were to pay sixteen Pomeranian pence for a quart of beer?—O God! what the cruelty and avarice of princes could do. But she scarcely believed the report, for she brewed beer herself better than any brewer in the land, and yet could sell the quart for eightpence, and have profit besides. Oh, that princes and ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... gone through Paris and Germany like a victorious meteor led by its star. I have everywhere associated as an equal with the powers of Earth, and made the trumpet of truth resound in the halls of kings. I have put my foot on the throat of greedy Avarice, and snatched from him a part, at least, of the treasures which he had stolen from too-confiding Honor. One only blessing is denied me: the son I hoped to see has escaped the lynx-eyes of paternal love. Neither have I found the ancient ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... where he discharged a noble part "self pulling like Captain Crowe 'for dear life, for dear life' against the whole boat's crew," speaking, that is, against 30 members of a drunken company and maintaining the predominance. Mons Meg was at that time his idol. He had a sort of avarice of proper names, and, besides half a dozen which were his legitimately, he had a claim to be called Garvadh, which uncouth appellation he claimed on no very good authority to be the ancient name of the Hays—a tale. I loved him dearly; he had high spirits, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Mason. This infernal trafic originated in the avarice of British Merchants. The British Govt. constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns not the importing States alone but the whole Union. The evil of having slaves was experienced during the late war. Had slaves been treated as they might ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... whose avarice was notorious in the neighborhood, and who was terribly thin, in the room above them. She was always cross, and she never passed a day without quarreling and flying into furious tempers. She would apostrophize the neighbors, who were standing at their own doors, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Adulation.—There is a charm in Virtue to force Esteem.—If Men of a different Character have by any Means been advanced to those hallow'd Seats, who have even sollicited public Employments to give a Scope to Views of Ambition and Avarice, Passions which have in all Ages been the Bane of human Society; or, to gratify the raging Thirst for popular Applause, a Disease with which little minds are usually tormented, it is our Happiness that the Constitution requires annual ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... Spanish colonial expansion in America, but such was the fact. History has made but scant and infrequent mention of these first obscure heroes, who faced obloquy and even risked starvation in the midst of irate colonists, whose avarice and brutality they fearlessly rebuked in the name of religion and humanity: they sank, after lives of self-immolation, into nameless graves, sometimes falling victims to the blind violence of the very Indians whose cause they championed—protomartyrs of ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... do my dearest little Stella good! I suppose Mrs. Edgworth set out last Monday se'ennight. Yes, I do read the Examiners, and they are written very finely, as you judge. I do not think they are too severe on the Duke;(16) they only tax him of avarice, and his avarice has ruined us. You may count upon all things in them to be true. The author has said it is not Prior, but perhaps it may be Atterbury.—Now, Madam Dingley, says she, 'tis fine weather, says she; yes, says she, and we have got to our new lodgings. I compute you ought ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... the loudest noise, nor smell the most poignant perfume. Again, when thou pleasest, thou canst make a molehill appear as a mountain, a Jew's-harp sound like a trumpet, and a daisy smell like a violet. Thou canst make cowardice brave, avarice generous, pride humble, and cruelty tender-hearted. In short, thou turnest the heart of man inside out, as a juggler doth a petticoat, and bringest whatsoever pleaseth thee out from it. If there be any one who doubts all this, let him read ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... Avarice.—Though avarice will preserve a man from being necessitously poor, it generally makes him too timorous to be ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... his contemporaries by truth and by his art, but with this consolation in his pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live by truth and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half is ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... ocean far and wide around; while the fire, which burned brightly, lighted up the countenances of the pirates as they stood watching the catastrophe they had caused. Some gleamed with anger, others with disappointed avarice; some few looked horrified, and a few were pale with terror, lest the same fate were about to be theirs. No attempt was made to save any of those who, escaping from the burning wreck, might be struggling ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... beheld progeny created for {the God} who inhabits Lemnos,[87] without a mother, {and} contrary to the assigned laws; and that she could now be agreeable both to the God and to the sister {of Aglauros}, and that she would be enriched by taking the gold, which she, in her avarice, had demanded. Forthwith she repairs to the abode of Envy, hideous with black gore. Her abode is concealed in the lowest recesses of a cave, wanting sun, {and} not pervious to any wind, dismal and filled with benumbing cold; and which is ever without fire, and ever abounding ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... of captives, including Eudoxia and her two daughters. This desolating incursion left the empire weak and tottering to its fall. Genseric "became the tyrant of the sea; the coasts of Italy, Greece, and Asia, were again exposed to his revenge and avarice. Tripoli and Sardinia returned to his obedience; he added Sicily to the number of his provinces; and before he died, in the fulness of years and glory, he beheld the FINAL EXTINCTION of the empire of the West." Gibbon, Vol. III, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... to almost any extent to save me from slavery. It was felt that I had committed the double offense of running away, and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and slaveholders. There was a double motive for seeking my reenslavement—avarice and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there was little probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly, I was constantly in danger of being spirited away, at a moment when my friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from place ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... the most illustrious families, as Piso (miller), Porcius (swine-raiser), Lactucinius (lettuce-raiser), Stolo (a shoot), etc., prove this. To say that a man was a good farmer was, at one time, to bestow upon him the highest praise.[1] This character, joined to the spirit of order and private avarice which in a marked degree distinguished the Romans, has contributed to the development among them of a civil law which is perhaps the most remarkable monument which antiquity has left us. This civil code has become the basis of the law of European peoples, and recommends ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... capacity, or ever will be said again, is by a contemporary:—"A woman's whole life is a history of the affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies in adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless, for it is a bankruptcy ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 384, Saturday, August 8, 1829. • Various
... costly investment in those olden days when brides were bought directly from the parents, four wives became a positive luxury except to those who possessed camels and dromedaries and date orchards beyond the dreams of avarice. A religion which at first had been meant for the hardy hunters of the high skied desert was gradually transformed to suit the needs of the smug merchants who lived in the bazaars of the cities. It was a regrettable change from ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... nation was the victim of an outrageous wrong, and the perpetrators were Americans and Englishmen whose unquenchable avarice overcame their moral convictions. I refer to the iniquitous manner in which opium was introduced into the country and subsequently sold to the natives. Large fortunes were accumulated in this way, but it was nothing more nor less than "blood money" wrung from the pockets of those ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... Pennell, is a strange medley of contradictory qualities, in which courage blends with stealth, the basest treachery with the most touching fidelity, intense religious fanaticism with an avarice that will even induce a man to play false with his faith, and a lavish hospitality with an irresistible propensity for thieving. It will be remembered how 'Muridism,' the spirit of religious enthusiasm inflaming political ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... it was Francis the First that had taken away the election of the priesthood from the people.[1155] Beza, replying, said that this very act was an evidence of the radical disturbance of the ancient order, when avarice, ambition, and unworthy rivalry between monks and canons rendered such a change necessary. Pressed again to sign the article submitted two days before, Beza persisted that it was unjust to endeavor to compel the Protestants to subscribe to that to which ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... they fear; we serve a monarch whom we love. They boast, they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride. They offer us their protection: yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs, covering and ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... single man of all his servants and retainers went with him. He was clad in helmet and cuirass, and armed with sword and poniard. Although he walked stealthily, he walked firmly. Impelled by superstitious fears, avarice, and desire for revenge, he had finally thrown himself whole-heartedly into the Spanish plot. He had found it impossible to hold out against Jerome and Basil, for, had he withstood them, they would have killed him without mercy. Therefore, being ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... shall only treat them as flower-greedy children, who gather and gather, and fill hands and baskets, from a mere desire of acquisition, excusable enough in them, but the same in kind, however harmless in mode, and degree, and object, as the avarice of the miser. Therefore God, that we may always have them, and ever learn to love their beauty, and yet more their truth, sends the beneficent winter that we may think about what we have lost, and welcome them when they come again with greater ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... dominion over the man. It excites anger, and when it does not lead to this extreme, it keeps the mind fretful, irritable, dissatisfied and captious.... And if I were to take you through all the passions, love, hate, lust, envy, avarice and pride, I should but show you that alcohol ministers to them all; that, paralyzing the reason, it takes from off these passions that fine adjustment of reason, which places man above the lower ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... deserves no more regard than many other stories and appearances of the same kind; yet we are not to discard as incredible the tradition of a barbarous age, merely because it asserts the sacrifice of a young and beautiful heiress to the jealousy or the avarice of a stepmother. When this is granted, the story of the pie with all its horrors may safely be ascribed to the inventive genius of a minstrel. On the whole, Radcliffe is a place which, not only from its antiquity and splendour, ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... hope, that they have at least as fair a title as any of their brother Dissenters, to the appelation of Protestants. They have always protested against the selling, dethroning, or murdering their Kings: Against the usurpations and avarice of the court of Rome: Against Deism, Atheism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Muggletonianism, Fanaticism, Brownism, as well as against all Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics. Whereas the title of Protestants assumed by the whole herd of Dissenters (except ourselves) dependeth ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the laughter was all on her side, and my vexation was all the greater because I could not deny that she was quite right. It was the adjutant's business to give the ladies an arm to their carriages, and it was not proper to fulfil that duty without gloves. I felt mortified, and the reproach of avarice hurt me deeply. I would a thousand times rather that she had laid my error to a want of education; and yet, so full of contradictions is the human heart, instead of making amends by adopting an appearance of elegance which ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the river that glides past the bottom of your garden. Take likewise a vase of the same water, and sprinkle it over any object that you may desire to change back again from gold into its former substance. If you do this in earnestness and sincerity, it may possibly repair the mischief which your avarice has occasioned." ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... Claude Seyssel, Archbishop of Turin from the close of the fifteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth, and whose diocese extended to the valleys of Piedmont, says that the Waldenses took their origin from Leo, a person in the time of ye Emperor Constantine, who, hating the avarice of Pope Sylvester and the immoderate endowment of the Church of Rome, seceded from her communion, and "drew after him all who entertained right sentiments ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... was no response. Then 800frs. The peasants were incorruptible. Then, goaded on by a murdered corporal, he rose to a thousand, and so bought the soul of Francois Rejane, farm labourer, whose Norman avarice was a stronger passion ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle
... nature of the father, ambition, avarice, and sensuality were combined with strong and brilliant qualities. All the pleasures of power and luxury he granted himself from the first day of his pontificate in the fullest measure. In the choice of means to this end he was wholly without scruple; it was known at once that he would more than ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... those tribes were Omahas or Iowas or Mandanes or Mascoutins or Sioux—cannot be told here. It would fill volumes. I have told the story fully elsewhere. By spring of 1660 Radisson and Groseillers are back at Sault Ste. Marie, having gathered wealth of beaver peltries beyond the dreams of avarice; but scouts have come to the Sault with ominous news—news of one thousand Iroquois braves on the warpath to destroy every settlement in New France. Hourly, daily, weekly, have Quebec and Three Rivers and Montreal been ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... Bartley's idol, money was his god, and soon in his strange mind defeated avarice began to vie with nobler sorrow. His child dead! his poor little flower withered, and her death robbed him of L20,000, and indeed of ten times that sum, for he had now bought experience in trade and speculation, and had ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... up the last portion of the peak, until we reach the ruined chapel of St Michael upon its summit, which is still a resort of local pilgrims, although in these days of doubt and avarice, when "sins are so many and saints so few," the statue of the Archangel since its removal from this spot no longer perspires with the sacred dew, which the priests used to collect with cotton wool on the first day of August and distribute to the peasants of the district. Like the oil that was once ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... also clearly sets forth the fact that little can be done towards bettering even the material conditions of living when men's hearts are not right towards God. If a man lets the spirit of avarice reign over him, no matter how much money he may have he will still want more and he will not care whom he oppresses to get it. If the spirit of a purely worldly pleasure rules him his money will go into a bottomless pit and he will not care whom he makes suffer to get more ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... certain is that these imposts were never authorized by any council; that it was an enormous abuse invented by avarice, and respected by those whose interest it was not to abolish it. The buyers and the sellers were equally satisfied: thus, barely anybody protested, until the troubles of the reformation. It must be admitted that an exact note of all these imposts would be of great service ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... of satisfactory news, and directions regarding the education of the child. He does not refer to the future of the woman who ruled his home so long. No tenderness for his own child appears. He is engrossed in BUSINESS, and she in PLEASURE. Avarice is the gentlemanly passion of his later years. "Royal days of every pleasure" for the brilliant woman; she, ambitious and self-reliant, lives only for the ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... for a young man with no will, no grip on life? "The truest wisdom," said Napoleon, "is a resolute determination." An iron will without principle might produce a Napoleon; but with character it would make a Wellington or a Grant, untarnished by ambition or avarice. ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... nothing but the name: of the same belief our Saviour taught, the apostles disseminated, the fathers authorised, and the martyrs confirmed; but, by the sinister ends of princes, the ambition and avarice of prelates, and the fatal corruption of the times, so decayed, impaired, and fallen from its native beauty, that it required the careful and charitable hands of these times to restore it ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... disregarded consequences. Nothing could be less just than the whole of this, which may be judged by the leading features of his life, without relying on any private testimony. He certainly was above avarice, but as to anything else, he only repressed his desires and acted; he was naturally ostentatious to a degree of ridicule; profuse in his house and family beyond what any degree of prudence could warrant. His marriage ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... in which we suppose that the care of ourselves becomes a source of painful anxiety and cruel passions; in which it degenerates into avarice, vanity, or pride; and in which, by fostering habits of jealousy and envy, of fear and malice, it becomes as destructive of our own enjoyments, as it is hostile to the welfare of mankind. This evil, however, is not to be ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Against avarice, lust, and rancour, against cruel and vain national ambitions, tenderer and more recollected minds have always sought some asylum: but they have the seldom possessed enough knowledge of nature and of human life to distinguish clearly the genuine and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... of the territory of the United States which has been humane and has substantially ended Indian hostilities in the whole land except in a portion of Nebraska, and Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana Territories—the Black Hills region and approaches thereto. Hostilities there have grown out of the avarice of the white man, who has violated our treaty stipulations in his search for gold. The question might be asked why the Government has not enforced obedience to the terms of the treaty prohibiting the occupation of the Black Hills region by whites. The answer is simple: The first immigrants to ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... thinking how little those lovely creatures knew of tragedy and sorrow. Theirs was a world secure in beauty, unmarred by the things which man brings upon himself, and this was true because they knew nothing of avarice or grasping greed. Could it be that man, in all his pride, was one of the least sensible ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... of a little pelf to individuals to be placed in competition with the essential rights and liberties of the present generation, and of millions yet unborn? Shall a few designing men, for their own aggrandizement, and to gratify their own avarice, overset the goodly fabric we have been rearing, at the expense of so much time, blood, and treasure? And shall we at last become the victims of our own lust of gain? Forbid it, Heaven! Forbid it, all and every State in the ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of a breach of etiquette in neglecting to send any expression of sympathy during a long illness of Burnaburiash. In spite of many fine words, the usual matrimonial negotiations did not run smoothly; moreover, attacks were made on travelling messengers, and at length Napkhuria's avarice forced the Babylonian to measures of retaliation, ...
— The Tell El Amarna Period • Carl Niebuhr
... hopes on Franklin College, which, however, was eking out a pitiable existence, and finally became the exclusive property of the Reformed. The dire need was apparent to all; the true way out of the difficulty, however, no one saw nor wanted to see. And the reason? Avarice on the part of the congregations, and a lack of initiative and Lutheran earnestness and determination on the part of the pastors. Nor did the seminaries founded in the first part of the nineteenth century (Hartwick Seminary, established in 1815; Gettysburg Seminary, ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... Germany Luther counted not a few frank admirers and staunch supporters of his reformatory work. Their influence was of the highest value to him in those critical days when his own life was not safe. Yet he rebuked the sins of the high and mighty, their avarice and insolence, which had brought on this terrible disturbance. In his writings dealing with this sad conflict Luther impresses one like one of the ancient prophets who stand like a rock amid the raging billows of popular passions and with even-handed justice deliver the oracles of God to ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked. Fortunes were quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of Europe were excited; all ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human breast; a few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice was deaf; religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... similar to the one which has recently been perpetrated by the Prince of Bulgaria, in all probability under the same tutelage. In his case, however, the nation refused to submit to such an arbitrary proceeding, and although it succeeded for a time, that, coupled with his avarice, gross immorality, and general misgovernment, led to his ultimate downfall. In 1864 the monasteries were secularised, that is to say, they were claimed as State property, a proceeding which was sanctioned by the guaranteeing Powers against payment of an indemnity. In ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... beings, it certainly needs some limitation. We have faculties and powers, not a few, which we need to repress rather than to cultivate. Are we to give the fullest development of which they are capable, to anger, envy, jealousy, cunning, avarice, and lust? To state the question is to answer it. It is not every faculty of the child, therefore, that is to be developed, but only those parts of his nature which are good and desirable, those by which he can best discharge his ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... mutinous disposition of his crew, maintained a serene and steady countenance, using gentle words with some, stimulating the pride and avarice of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... the Roman Senate, as it was originally constituted, was a no less simple than illustrious body. It was a sovereignty which appeared most desirable to a populace vitiated neither by avarice nor luxury. The senators were chosen, not from those who were ambitious of power, but those who wielded the largest influence in the Republic through wisdom and warlike valor or private virtue. The citizens bowed willingly to the ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Delesmanini, to whom those remains had been granted by the Emperor Henry III. of Germany in 1090. For the power of making this purchase, Scrovegno was in all probability indebted to his father, Reginald, who, for his avarice, is placed by Dante in the seventh circle of the Inferno, and regarded apparently as the chief of the usurers there, since he is the only one who addresses Dante.[1] The son, having possessed himself of the Roman ruin, or of the site which it had occupied, built himself a fortified ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... crusade, that remained in Palestine, were divided by sordid ambition and avarice, and in 1187 Saladin, sultan of Egypt and Syria, the most valiant chief of the Mohammedan warriors, recaptured Jerusalem and subsequent crusaders were not able ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... (by Lycurgus) remained in vigour about five hundred years, till a thirst of empire tempted the Spartans to entertain foreign troops, and introduce Persian gold to maintain them; then the institutions of Lycurgus fell at once, and avarice and ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... precise and useful conclusions. This it is which alone regulates with equity insurance premiums, pension funds, annuities, discounts, etc. This it is that has gradually suppressed lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly laid for avarice and ignorance. Laplace has treated these questions with his accustomed superiority: the 'Analytical Theory of Probabilities' is worthy of the author ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... ploughed and reaped. This, likewise, in many places raises the price of corn. The price of wool is also so risen that the poor people, who were wont to make cloth, are no more able to buy it; and this, likewise, makes many of them idle: for since the increase of pasture God has punished the avarice of the owners by a rot among the sheep, which has destroyed vast numbers of them—to us it might have seemed more just had it fell on the owners themselves. But, suppose the sheep should increase ever so much, their price is not likely to fall; since, though ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... and accepts the price of his fellow creatures liberty with as little reluctance as the enlightened merchant. Accordingly he falls on his neighbours, and a desperate battle ensues. If he prevails and takes prisoners, he gratifies his avarice by selling them; but, if his party be vanquished, and he falls into the hands of the enemy, he is put to death: for, as he has been known to foment their quarrels, it is thought dangerous to let him survive, ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... though he took the third part of my gain, since I was a journeyman (for such is the custom of the trade, two-thirds fall to the workman and one-third to the masters of the shop), yet inconsiderate envy had more power in him than avarice: it ought indeed to have worked quite the other way, he being a peasant's son from Iesi. He cursed his art and those who taught it him, vowing that thenceforth he would never work at large plate, but give his whole attention to those brothel gewgaws, since they were so well paid. ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... preacher, who would in vain try to prevent their loud applause by pointing to heaven as the source of his wisdom. He dwelt mainly on the truth of Christianity, the folly of idolatry, the unity and providence of God, the coming of Christ, and the judgment. At times he would severely rebuke the avarice and rapacity of his courtiers, who would loudly applaud him with their mouths and belie his exhortations by their works. One of these productions is still extant, in which he recommends Christianity in a characteristic ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... idolaters had better inclinations towards Christianity than was generally thought; and that they would come over to the faith of their own accord, when they should see amongst them disinterested preachers, free from avarice and ambition. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... sacrifice. The Vaisyas attain excellent state through gifts, hospitality, and religious acts. The Kshatriyas attain the celestial regions by protecting and chastising the subjects, uninfluenced by lust, malice, avarice and anger. If kings justly punish (their subjects), they go to the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... business, notwithstanding his cupidity was not a little excited by the fees, but he doubted whether the sheriff, his deputy, or any other constable would execute the warrant in his stead; nor did any plausible excuse present itself to account for transferring it to other hands. Thus musing, with fear and avarice contending in his breast, he walked up the street. But it may be necessary to tell how Basset got into the dilemma, and, in order to do so, we must retrace ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... home for all who dwell beneath its roof. But, whether this fear be the voice of truth or the suggestion of prejudice, that woman shall not be held blameless, who, under the influence of indolence, pride, fashion, or avarice, shall neglect, abuse, or oppress, the humblest of her sex who goes forth from these walls into the broad and dangerous path of life. But this day shall not leave the impression that they who are most interested in the elevation and refinement of female ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... be impossible to state in general terms how rich a return lies ready for public or private investments in good health, these examples (life insurance) show that the rate of this return is quite beyond the dreams of avarice. Were it possible for the public to realize this fact, motives both of economy and of humanity would dictate immediate and generous expenditure of public moneys for improving the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, as well as for ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... patient with the book-collector who loves his companions too well to let them go. Books are not buried with their owners, and the veriest book-miser that ever lived was probably doing far more for his successors than his more liberal neighbor who despised his learned or unlearned avarice. Let the fruit fall with the leaves still clinging round it. Who would have stripped Southey's walls of the books that filled them, when, his mind no longer capable of taking in their meaning, he would still pat and fondle them with the vague loving sense of what they ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and came back again without any apparent adventure. She had five pounds in her pocket, and thought herself rich beyond the dreams of avarice. What a delightful fairy-gift had been handed down to her by her dear dead father! She did not miss the brooch in the least, but she valued the small sum she had obtained for ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... intervention of the Church. The practice of witchcraft and magic involved the absolute and voluntary barter of body and soul to the Evil One, for the purpose of obtaining a few short years of superhuman power, to be employed for the gratification of the culprit's avarice, ambition, or ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... of those hard cold natures, with wants few and trifling, and none of those tastes which cry out daily for some new toy, only to be procured by money. The fact that he made his son run after him through the streets of Milan in place of a servant is not a conclusive proof of avarice; it may just as likely mean that the old man was indifferent and callous to whatever suffering he might inflict upon his young son, and indisposed to trouble himself about searching for a hireling to carry his bag. The one indication we gather of his worldly ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... spend measurably, for they that foolishly waste and squander the goods that they have, when they have no more proper of 'eir own, that they prepare to take the goods of another man. I say, then, that ye should flee avarice, using your riches in such manner, that men say not that your riches are buried, but that ye have 'em in your might and in your wielding; for a wise man reproveth the avaricious man, and saith thus in two ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... the host handed him over a table-cloth exactly like his own, and carrying it carefully over his arm, the foolish youth went straight to his mother's house, and said: 'Now we shall be rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and need never go about in rags again, or lack the ...
— The Grey Fairy Book • Various
... mother to her child, he would have sacrificed every living creature; but to it also, like her, he would have sacrificed his very existence as unhesitatingly. But it was an egotism which, though merciless in its tyranny, was as pure as snow in its impersonality; it was untainted by any grain of avarice, of vanity, of selfish desire; it was independent of all sympathy; it was simply and intensely the passion for immortality:—that sublime selfishness, that superb madness, of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... foundation laid, Doom'd at return of morn to fade. Pale Study, by the taper's light, Wearing away the watch of night, Sat reading; but, with o'ercharged head, Remember'd nothing that he read. Starving 'midst plenty, with a face Which might the court of Famine grace, 20 Ragged, and filthy to behold, Gray Avarice nodded o'er his gold. Jealousy, his quick eye half-closed, With watchings worn, reluctant dozed; And, mean Distrust not quite forgot, Slumber'd as if he slumber'd not. Stretch'd at his length on the bare ground, His hardy offspring sleeping round, Snored restless Labour; ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... flashed back a defiant answer to his, and a dozen men, sword in hand, leaped upon the yellow platform and drove him off at the sword's point. Then commenced a general battle. The miniature faces were convulsed with rage and avarice. Each furious doll tried to plunge dagger or sword into his or her neighbor, and the women seemed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... of devotees,—persons who mistake spiritual selfishness for sanctity, and grab at the infinite prize of the great Future and Elsewhere with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly more odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. How could he speak with the old physician and the old black woman about a sorrow and a terror which but to name was to strike dumb the lips ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Constantinople, after a short siege. Alexius III escaped by flight and Alexius IV was installed in his place. Still the Crusaders lingered in a city the outward splendour of which appealed irresistibly to their imagination and their avarice. The winter, they said, was approaching, and their candidate far from secure upon the throne; they would wait for the spring. Before that date, and in spite of their countenance, he had fallen before a nationalist rebellion (January 1204); and the army hailed ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... preventing their starting towards the gate of holiness; and if sometimes a start is made, it takes but little to turn them back again. Next to these was the prison of Presumption, full of those who, whenever they were urged of old to be rid of their Wantonness, or drunkenness, or avarice, would say: "God is merciful, and better than His word; He will never damn his own creature upon a cause so trivial." But here they yelped blasphemy, asking: "Where is that mercy boasted to be infinite?" "Silence, ye whelps!" said a huge, crabbed devil who heard them, "Silence! ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... thou, too, fallen, Iberia? Do we see The robber and the murderer weak as we? Thou that hast wasted earth, and dared despise Alike the wrath and mercy of the skies, Thy pomp is in the grave, thy glory laid Low in the pits thine avarice has made. We come with joy from our eternal rest, To see the oppressor in his turn oppressed. Art thou the god, the thunder of whose hand Rolled over all our desolated land, Shook principalities and kingdoms down, And made the mountains tremble at his frown? The sword shall light upon thy boasted ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... served as the last resort of the citizens, and sustained a great number of successive attacks; so that its preservation is almost miraculous. It is likely, however, to suffer much more from the Gothic avarice of its own citizens, some of whom are mutilating it every day, for the sake of the stones, which they employ in their own private buildings. It is surprizing, that the King's authority has not been exerted to put an ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... said Miriam, smiling at the notion, "for the marble costs something, and the tools, which wear out. Oh, it would be very dear!" This she repeated, wondering what she could ask in her charitable avarice. "It would be——" yes, she would venture ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... from Africa, and lay near us at anchor. The trade in human flesh, that foul blot on civilized nations, of which most of them are already ashamed, yet flourishes here in detestable activity, and is carried on, with all the brutality of avarice, under the sanction of the laws. The ships employed in this abominable traffic are so over-crowded that the slaves have scarcely room to move. They are brought up by turns to inhale for a while the refreshing breeze, ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... voice is never lifted, however my sword may cross with them. But the locust-swarms that devour the land are the money-eaters, the petty despots, the bribe-takers, the men who wring gold out of infamy, who traffic in tyrannies, who plunder under official seals, who curse Algiers with avarice, with fraud, with routine, with the hell-spawn of civilization. It is the 'Bureaucracy,' as your tongue phrases it, that is the spoiler and the oppressor of the soil. But—we endure only for a while. A little, and the shame of the invader's tread will be washed ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... society (let other women talk of favours) a brutal gratification gratuitously as a privilege of office, they extort a tithe of prostitution, and harrass with threats the poor creatures whose occupation affords not the means to silence the growl of avarice. To escape from this persecution, I once more ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... that sight the Princess hid her eyes, and shrank away. And the lines of malice, avarice, and envy seemed ageing her at every breath. Then the hawk pecked at her three pecks, and perched on a corner of rock, and called shrilly the name 'Karaz!' And the Genie Karaz came slanting down the night air, like a preying bird, and stood among them. So the hawk cried, 'See, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... another market, where his efforts were crowned with prodigious success. Sir William Fraser introduces his great man to us as observing, in reply to a question, that revenge was the passion which gives pleasure the latest. A man, he continued, will enjoy that when even avarice has ceased to please. As a matter of fact, Disraeli himself was neither avaricious nor revengeful, and, as far as one can judge, was never tempted to be either. This is the fatal defect of almost all Disraeli's aphorisms: they are dead words, ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... better than I have? Did the whispers of youthful vanity mislead me?" And, to settle this doubt, he hunted out some of his early pictures, which lay neglected in a corner of his painting-room—pictures he had laboured at long ago, when his heart was pure from avarice, and he dwelt in his poor garret in the lonely Vasilievskue Ostrov, far from the world, from luxury and covetousness. He examined them attentively, and the conviction forced itself upon him with irresistible strength, that he had sacrificed genius ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... city now returned with the articles he had bought, and was immediately killed. The others then began to feast upon the provisions prepared for them, and were seized with violent pains, and soon died. In this manner all three fell victims to each other's avarice and cruelty, without obtaining their ...
— Harper's Young People, April 13, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... had opened before him! It was something to be a benefactor of humanity, but why not tap the wealth of the Incas! If the mere invention of a folding toothbrush could open the sacred precincts of Fifth Avenue, what realms beyond the dreams of avarice were waiting for him who should revolutionize ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... woman,—they both think they are defrauded when love or praise is bestowed on others. Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a roue whom Paris admired for two days; and even a duchess takes offence at a look bestowed upon her maid. The avarice excited by these two sentiments is such that a fraction of them given to the poor is ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... lady's maid, and a cook rather smaller than ordinary marionettes. But there was one drawback: the house cost a hundred and twenty thousand francs, and the Czar, who as all know, was an economical man, refused it, and Brandt, to shame the imperial avarice, presented it to the Museum of ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... relatives, were gashing their legs deeply with knives. A warrior in the village, who had lost a brother in the expedition; chose another mode of displaying his sorrow. The Indians, who, though often rapacious, are utterly devoid of avarice, are accustomed in times of mourning, or on other solemn occasions, to give away the whole of their possessions, and reduce themselves to nakedness and want. The warrior in question led his two best horses ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... during the investment of Ismail (December 21, 1790), Ribas concealed himself among the reeds on the bank of the Danube, and did not reappear until the danger was over and he could in safety share in the booty taken by his sailors. But this cowardice and avarice of their admiral very nearly caused a mutiny among the sailors. It was not suppressed without ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... an end even to Aztec patience. The avarice of the white men had drained the country of its wealth. Their arrogance had humiliated their pride. Their occupation of their holiest temple and the insults to their gods had aroused them to fury; and the massacre, in cold blood, of six hundred of their nobles, while engaged in religious ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty |
