"Cupidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being delivered at Corinth, and the ambassadors of Syracuse beseeching them at the same time, that they would take upon them the care of their poor city, and once again become the founders of it, the Corinthians were not tempted by any feeling of cupidity to lay hold of the advantage. Nor did they seize and appropriate the city to themselves, but going about first to the games that are kept as sacred in Greece, and to the most numerously attended religious assemblages, they made publication by heralds, that the Corinthians, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... has no duties in the way of repairing a roof or making a house comfortable. Such a thing is utterly unknown here. To fix the rent, to collect the rent, to make office rules as whim or cupidity dictates, to enforce them, in many instances with great brutality, is the sole business of the landlord; and the whole power of the Executive of England is at his back. This is not a good school in which to learn loyalty. Submission to absolute decrees or eviction ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... never lost sight of his principal object,—revenge on the Countess of Derby. He maintained a close and intimate correspondence with his native island, so as to be perfectly informed of whatever took place there; and he stimulated, on every favourable opportunity, the cupidity of Buckingham to possess himself of this petty kingdom, by procuring the forfeiture of its present Lord. It was not difficult to keep his patron's wild wishes alive on this topic, for his own mercurial imagination attached particular charms to the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... because of want of the usual percentage of criminally disposed people among them but because of want of education and opportunity. Commercial immorality and developed swindling are impossible without a commerce, but the cupidity that begets these forms of vice is not lacking amongst the Natives and waits only for the opportunities which developed commerce affords. The potential capacity for criminality and immorality is indeed ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... "my brethren, my disinterestedness; I do not sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. If I embraced a profession so directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. I obeyed my parents. I would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if I could have done it safely. You are witnesses to what I assert. I have not disgraced my ministry by exacting the requitals, which are a part ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... an immensity that is bad, and more hurtful to our farmers, clerks and country milliners, than to those to whose tastes it was originally addressed,—as the small-pox is most fatal among the wild men of the woods,—and this, from the unprincipled cupidity of publishers, is broad-cast recklessly over all the land we had hoped would become a healthy asylum for those before crippled and tainted by hereditary abuses. This cannot be prevented; we can only ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... despised oppressor of an enslaved people, robbed of their honor, independence, and nationality. Now, I commenced this war for the sake of my own honor and that of my people. I commenced it to set bounds to French cupidity and thirst for conquest; to preserve to Germany her German and to Prussia her Prussian character, and to drive back the Confederation of the Rhine beyond the frontier of the Rhine. The fortune of war has not sustained me in these efforts, and victory perched upon the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... form of industry wished to take advantage of this opportunity to secure national where they had formerly been able to get only local protection. The members of Congress described in their letters to friends the fish battles, the salt battles, and other manifestations in legislative halls of the cupidity of mankind when opportunity ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Court, declaring, that he would not stir a peg till he received it. I knew nothing of this fellow at the time, and as the attorneys, particularly Mr. Bond, appeared to place great confidence in him, Mister Cross had the one hundred pounds paid into his hands immediately. Thus, by the cupidity of Mr. Cross, were these poor fellows deprived at once of those means which ought to have been spent in procuring them witnesses for their defence. I immediately waited upon Mr. Denman at his lodgings, and sent up my name, to say that I had some particular ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... that the Jews are tricksters, but they have almost been forced into their cupidity in getting money, yet the greatest promise of deliverance in the Bible is for that nation. The foundation stones of heaven and the pearly gates are named for the twelve tribes. No Christian should ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... within itself the germ of its own destruction. Very rarely the many despoil the few. In such a case the latter soon become so reduced that they can no longer satisfy the cupidity of the former, and spoliation ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... the triumvir with Pompey and Caesar; was avaricious, and amassed great wealth; appointed to the province of Syria, provoked out of cupidity war with the Parthians, in which he was treacherously slain; Orodes, the king, cut off his head, and poured melted gold into his mouth, saying as he did so, "Now sate thyself with the metal of which thou wert so greedy when alive" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... necessity for separation however was obvious if the survey was to be continued farther; but I determined to halt for two days preparatory to our setting out, during which time I hoped by patient vigilance and firmness to disappoint the cupidity, and yet gratify the curiosity, of the natives, so as to induce them to draw ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... moral attributes they are dissatisfied, is very strongly shown in those advertisements which stare us in the face from the walls of every street, and, with the tempting bait which they hang forth, stimulate at once cupidity and an abstract love of justice in the breast of every passing peruser: I mean, the advertisements offering rewards for the apprehension of absconded culprits, strayed apprentices, bankrupts who have conveyed away their effects, debtors ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... Itu, of sinister reputation in the history of the West Coast. For there on the broad beach at the foot of the cliff was held & market which for centuries supplied Calabar and the New World with slaves. Down through the forest paths, down the quiet waters of the Creek, countless victims of man's cupidity had poured, had been huddled together there, had been inspected, appraised, and sold, and then had been scattered to compounds throughout the country or shipped across the sea. And there still a market, was held, and along the upper borders of the Creek human sacrifice ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... a tall busy street he read a dozen Jewish names on a line of stores; in the door of each stood a dark little man watching the passers from intent eyes—eyes gleaming with suspicion, with pride, with clarity, with cupidity, with comprehension. New York—he could not dissociate it now from the slow, upward creep of this people—the little stores, growing, expanding, consolidating, moving, watched over with hawk's eyes and a bee's attention to detail—they slathered ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... said in soliloquy, the cotton prints of gaudy patterns satisfied the cupidity of his red-skinned companions, leaving to himself and his confidential friend the costlier fabrics of silken sheen. Among the traders' stock were knives of common sort—the cheapest cutlery of Sheffield; guns and pistols of the Brummagem brand, with beads, looking glasses, and such-like notions ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... them, and they had entered the cavern in the hill, did Basil venture to recount what had happened. He alighted from his horse, and walking through the gloom beside the carriage he briefly narrated all in a whisper to Aurelia—all except his own ingenious device for balking the Hun's cupidity. What means Marcian had employed for their release he could but vaguely conjecture; that would be learned a few days hence when his friend came again to Surrentum. Aurelia's companion in the carriage, still hooded and cloaked, neither ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... kept their heads. It must in fairness be explained that they were for the most part possessors of obstinate hens that would not lay eggs. Eggs were firm at twenty-five shillings a dozen, and the hen that remained so contemptuous of mammon, so unredeemed by cupidity, so unmoved by the "golden" opportunity, most certainly deserved death. Therefore it was that an odd tough member of the feathered tribe was now and then discussed in secret. There was little conviviality about these gatherings ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... the maimed P.T., gasping on Hiram's arm, to the victorious champion who had defeated this redoubtable bird so easily. His Yankee shrewdness told him that the showman had undoubtedly produced his best for this conflict; his Yankee cupidity hinted that by taking advantage of Hiram's present flustered state of mind he might turn a dollar. He glanced from Hiram to Cap'n Sproul, standing at one side, ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Sira heard the propaganda division's latest fabrication about her alleged kidnaping by terrestrial agents. She needed no radiation meter to tell her of the intense wave of hatred for the Earth that swept over the densely packed area. And this was followed by another emotion—a wave of cupidity—set up by the offer of 100,000 I. P. dollars reward for her return. She saw about her faces greedy, faces wistful, even compassionate faces. But outnumbering them by far were faces set ...
— The Martian Cabal • Roman Frederick Starzl
... call for careful study and an attempt at solution. The negro race in America numbers approximately ten millions, twice as many as at the close of the Civil War. The negro was thrust upon America by the cupidity of the foreign slave-trader, and perpetuated by the difficulty of getting along without him. His presence has been in some ways beneficial to himself and to the whites among whom he settled, but it has been impossible for two races so diverse to ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... showed the utter callousness of the crime. Indeed, Gabrielle Engledue was actually witness of my beloved's mysterious seizure, little dreaming that in a short hour she herself would fall victim to the cupidity of that relentless poisoner who, by his crimes, hoped to amass one of the most ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... They have a reservation of 512,000 acres, situated in the north-eastern part of the State, set apart for them by treaty of June 9, 1855. This reservation is very fertile, and, as usual in such cases, has attracted the cupidity of the whites. A proposition was made last year, under the authority of Congress, to have the Indians take land in severalty, or sell and remove to some other reservation. The Indians, however, in the exercise of their treaty rights, ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... mis-managed. In order to ingratiate themselves with the savages, the traders both took and allowed greater liberties than were calculated to preserve mutual good understanding. The foreigners excited the cupidity of the natives, which, though easily satisfied at the moment, soon became a constant, increasing, and insatiable appetite; and when their whale-fins, furs, or blubber were exhausted, and they could purchase no more of the articles ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... of that deep principle, but rather of high adventure and of the alluring mystery of discovery. Religion, however, very soon became its prevailing impulse. The expedition of Verrazzano had its raison d'etre in nothing higher than the cupidity of Francis I., who was dazzled by legends of Mexican gold and Peruvian silver; but religion inspired Cartier to his great adventure ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... tumultuous heart! But I was smiling calmly. And I tried to put into my voice a shrewd note of cupidity. "I really know very little about this treasure, Miko. If there were a million or two of gold leaf ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... place all the treasure they have heaped up for him at the feet of Wotan. Then he demands his liberty; but Wotan must have the ring as well. And here the dwarf, like the giant before him, feels the very foundations of the world shake beneath him at the discovery of his own base cupidity in a higher power. That evil should, in its loveless desperation, create malign powers which Godhead could not create, seems but natural justice to him. But that Godhead should steal those malign powers from evil, and ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... he would now, he was a tempting bait offered to treason and cupidity. In what human creature could he confide? Under what roof could ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... Rudolph; "a crime that nothing can excuse—neither want nor passion. Often does hunger cause robbery, vengeance, murder. But this notary was already rich; and, clothed by society with a character almost holy, which imposes, ay, forces confidence, this man is induced to crime by a cold and implacable cupidity. The assassin only kills you once, and quickly, with his knife; he kills you slowly, by all the horrors of despair and misery into which he plunges you. For a man like this Ferrand, no patrimony of the orphan or savings of the poor ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... court was to be provided with the common necessaries of life during its journeys, it was required that they should be delivered to it at low prices: the servants exacted more supplies than were wanted, and then sold the surplus for their own profit. In grotesque contrast with the disgraceful cupidity of his attendants is the exaggerated conception which James had formed for himself of the ideal importance of the royal authority, which at that time some persons attempted with metaphysical acuteness to lay down almost in the same terms as the attributes of the Deity. He had similar notions about ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... Mr Singh, and I am very glad to hear that your schoolfellow displays a wisdom beyond his years. You see, the world is far from perfection; and weak, wicked, foolish people might have their cupidity excited by the sight of such an object, with results that would be extremely painful to every one here. May I ask, then—by the way—is this ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... leaving his widow in possession of an immense fortune, still further augmented by the bequests of the Abbe and the notary Cruchot. Bonfons was the name of an estate of the magistrate. He married Eugenie only through cupidity. He looked like "a ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... stones rising close above me, and two men on either side of me rifling my pockets. They found nothing valuable there, and were about to leave me where I lay, when I gathered strength enough to appeal to their mercy through their cupidity. Money was not scarce with me then, and I was able to offer them a rich reward (which they ultimately received as I had promised) if they would take me to any place where I could get shelter and medical help. I supposed they inferred by my language ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... that, by a decree of Parliament, they might be taken from him; the idea in this procedure was that Bourbon, deprived of his possessions, must come to her terms, and she would thus satisfy—at one and the same time—her passion and her cupidity. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... conclusion very considerably by the fact that I was reported to have said that under no circumstances would we give back the Philippine people to Spain. That was true. I believed then, and believe now, that it was our duty to deliver them from Spain, to protect them against her, or against the cupidity of any other nation until her people could have tried fully the experiment of self- government, in which I have little doubt they would ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... a man of Monsieur Chatelard's caliber would commit a crime to get possession of it, why should he have abandoned her when there was plainly some chance of safety in the boats? He could not conceive of Monsieur Chatelard's risking his neck in an affair of gallantry; cupidity alone would account for his part in the drama. James went over and over the situation, as far as he understood it, but he did none of his thinking aloud. It flashed on his mind that Miss Redmond must already have separated him, in her thoughts, from the other people on the yacht; though ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself—THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"—This mode of reasoning discloses ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Roger Trew had remained on the beach to watch the movements of the supposed pirates. The boxes of collections were at once carried to a place of concealment which had been arranged, and a few other articles which were likely to excite the cupidity of the pirates. All things were now ready for commencing our march, but we were unwilling to begin it till we ascertained that we were really likely to be attacked. We were still in hopes that the pirates might pass by, or land on some other part of ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and both hated Spaniards. Wakening from their apathetic misery, the starveling garrison hailed him as a deliverer. Yet Hawkins secretly rejoiced when he learned their purpose to abandon Florida; for although, not to tempt his cupidity, they hid from him the secret of their Appalachian gold mine, he coveted for his royal mistress the possession of this rich domain. He shook his head, however, when he saw the vessels in which they proposed to embark, and offered them all a free passage to France in his own ships. This, from ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... of understanding our remoteness from the actual seat of war explains. But on the part of many Americans one finds another attitude of mind which is more difficult to explain. It is the cupidity that in the misfortunes of others sees only a chance for profit. In an offer made to its readers a prominent American magazine best expresses this attitude. It promises prizes for the essays on "What the war means ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... the expedition undertaken by the brothers Roberval, more than half a century before. Several new attempts were made at this time, none of which was very successful. The fur trade, however, held out great inducements to private enterprise, and stimulated the cupidity of the merchants of Dieppe, Rouen and St Malo. In the heart of one of them something nobler than cupidity was aroused. In 1603, M. De Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, obtained a patent from the King conferring upon him and several ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... about that Cuckoo had now been another week beneath the roof of Mrs. Brigg without paying hard cash for the asylum. The previous evening the landlady had burst out again into fury, refusing to get in any more food for Cuckoo, and demanding the fortnight's rent. She had even, carried away by cupidity and passion, striven to drive Cuckoo out to her night's work. A physical struggle had taken place between them, ending in the landlady's hysterics. Other lodgers had been drawn by the noise from their floors to witness the row. Two of them had come, on the scene accompanied by men, and to them ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Chelsea Ranelagh Chelsea Buns —— Hospital Villany of War Invalid without Arms A Centenarian Securities of Peace Caesar's Ford The Botanic Garden Don Saltero's Sir Thomas More Sir Hans Sloane Battersea Waste of Public Wealth Cupidity of Trade Insufficiency of Wealth Mr. Brunel's Saw Mills —— Shoe Manufactory Evils of Machinery Lord Bolingbroke's House York House An American Aloe Reflections on Pride Wandsworth Phenomena of Rivers Distilleries ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... city's being depopulated, at present, of Spanish inhabitants is nothing else than the cupidity of some persons who came from Manila to the government of the province with appointments as alcaldes, whose greed did not allow any partnership, in spite of the oath that they take not to carry on trade, either in person or through another person, within the limits of their jurisdiction. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... like Bissolati, were in the beginning for placing their trust in one of the two coteries at the Conference were guilty of a fatal mistake. "The mistake lay in their belief in the ideal strivings of one of the parties, and in the horror with which the cupidity of the others was contemplated, whereas both of them were fighting for ... their interests.... In verity France was no less militarist or absolutist than Germany, nor was England less avid than either. And the proof is enshrined in the peace treaties which have masked the results of their ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... thought, would ever cross the awful eastern plains to interfere with their Arcadian existence, or what invading force would ever approach them over the lonely sea? But history repeats itself. The Missions soon became too rich not to excite cupidity; and those who coveted their lands and herds declared, as an excuse for violence, that the poor Indians were held in a state of slavery, and should be made to depend upon themselves. At length, in 1833, the Mexican Government by a decree ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... us that in poor countries, where nothing inflames cupidity and ambition, the love alone of the public good causes changes to be tried in the government; and that those changes derange not the ordinary course of society; whereas, among rich nations, corrupted by luxury, revolutions are always ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... he muttered, "but nothing can now undo the fact. I slid from the presence of this murdered woman as though she had been the victim of my own rage or cupidity; and, being fortunate enough to reach the dressing-room before the alarm had spread beyond the immediate vicinity of the alcove, found and put on the handkerchief, which made it possible for me to rush down and find Miss Van Arsdale, who, somebody told me, had fainted. Not till I stood ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... unoffending and oppressed race of the Jews closed the coronation day in London, and was followed by equally cruel treatment of them in several large towns. They seem on this occasion to have tempted the cupidity, by appealing to the generosity and humanity of the court. Numbers of them came to the metropolis with presents for the young king, who forbade them, however, to appear at his coronation. In the evening a few of the richer Israelites endeavoured ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... thought best to consult you before organizing an expedition. The fellow had only an old photograph of her on the back of which was pasted a newspaper cutting describing her and offering a reward. We feared that having found this somewhere it had aroused his cupidity and led him to believe that in some way he could obtain the reward, possibly by foisting upon us a white girl on the chance that so many years had elapsed that we would not be able to recognize ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... colony. The change which their new and strange surroundings had operated in these peaceful, simple folk was not unnatural; loosed from all the anchors that held them to habits of industry and probity, they found themselves caught in new currents; cupidity was awakened by the gold-fever that infected all the colonists, the pious projects with which they left Spain under the guidance of their apostolic leader were easily abandoned when the influence of his enthusiasm was withdrawn, and they took to the freebooting ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... sold to readers all over the kingdom. Now the Duroban General felt eager to test his discovery in a campaign, and, happening to have a quarrel with a politician in the neighbouring state, did his utmost to excite hostile feeling against Kalaya. On the other hand, the Kalayan official, his cupidity excited by the profits already arising from his invention, desired nothing better than some stirring event which would lead to still greater demand for the news-sheets he distributed, and so he also was led to the idea ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... under which he smarted were all stabs given to his self-love and cupidity. He had learned how honest men looked upon him; and he had failed in the cherished expectation of laying his hands upon a great fortune, which he had fondly hoped to have the opportunity ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... and cupidity, veiled under the phantom of religion and the defence of their laws, pervade and desolate this vast kingdom, without the prospect of any termination of this madness but its entire ruin." She then proceeds with her "Deduction," ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... ports to ports of the Confederacy. How many vessels escaped our navy and safely ran the blockade may never be known, but for three years it was a steady contest between the navy of the United States and the blockade-runners of England. The persistent course of the latter was stimulated both by cupidity and by ill will to this country. They were anxious to make pecuniary gains for themselves and to aid the Confederacy at the same time. They were checked only by the extra-hazardous character imparted to the trade by the alertness and superior vigilance ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... thought, trying to appeal to a cupidity I don't possess; as if I would cheat people by buying up their very homes for sordid speculation. "Miss Francis," I said, "purely out of generosity and in remembrance of old times I am inclined to consider helping you. I suppose you have the details of the equipment you will need, the qualifications ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... necessity of serving a six years' apprenticeship, at a business which they had been all their lives employed in. It is not too much to say that it was a grand cheat—a national imposture at the expense of the poor victims of oppression, whom, with benevolent pretences, it offered up a sacrifice to cupidity and power. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... open arms. They talked exultantly. Their eyes shone with the gold-lust. They strained at sweep and oar. To be beaten at the last! Oh, it was inconceivable! A tigerish eagerness filled them; a panic of fear and cupidity spurred them on. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... forward on the road of progress, and never again will the opportunity occur. The Western nations have discovered their error when it is too late—when the peasantry have been already deprived of their land, and the labouring classes of the towns have already fallen a prey to the insatiable cupidity of the capitalists. In vain their most eminent thinkers warn and exhort. Ordinary remedies are no longer of any avail. But Russia may avoid these dangers, if she but act wisely and prudently in this great matter. The peasants ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... a study—all that was good and evil in her was aroused at the sight of the rich and costly jewels—vanity, cupidity, gratitude, tenderness. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... been with the odium theologicum. We have been told that the result was greatly or altogether due to the pride, arrogance, and avarice of the Roman Catholic priests; to the pretensions of the Pope, which came to be regarded with suspicion by the feudatory princes of Japan, as also to the cupidity and cunning of the traders. How far any or all of these alleged causes were responsible for the change in Japanese opinion I shall not venture to pronounce. Suffice it to remark that, whatever the cause, there must ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... killing rule of no rule; the consecration of cupidity and braying of folly, and dim stupidity and baseness, in most of the affairs of men. Slop-shirts attainable three-half-pence cheaper by the ruin of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... to womanhood than in the three-to-one vote for woman suffrage in Washington in 1910. Following close upon it comes the signal victory of California, where as never before were the friends and foes of woman's freedom so equally lined up. Wherever vice, corruption and cupidity held sway, there the vote for woman suffrage was weak. Wherever refinement, education, industry and self-respecting manhood and womanhood dwelt, there the vote in favor of women was strong. These are the battles in this ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... man who is living aright will do his work aright. And then, too, we wanted to avoid the possibility of lowering the standard of work through an increased wage. It was demonstrated in war time that too quickly increasing a man's pay sometimes increases only his cupidity and therefore decreases his earning power. If, in the beginning, we had simply put the increase in the pay envelopes, then very likely the work standards would have broken down. The pay of about half the men was doubled in the new plan; it might have been taken as "easy money." The ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... stomachs we became like insane people. Life, which had lately been a great burden, now became precious to us. Foreheads, lowering and sulky, began to unwrinkle; enemies became most brotherly; the avaricious endeavoured to forget their selfishness and cupidity; the children smiled for the first time since our shipwreck; in a word, every one seemed to be born again from a condition melancholy and dejected. I even believe the sailors sung the ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... muskets and gunpowder, with bales of longcloth, of cotton prints, of silks; with bags of rice and currency brass guns. She contained everything necessary for dealing death and distributing bribes, to act on the cupidity and upon the fears of men, to march and to organize, to feed the friends and to combat the enemies of the cause. She held wealth and power in her flanks, that grounded ship that would swim no more, without masts and with the best part of her deck cumbered by the two structures ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... turpitude I would open my prison doors only to close them the faster on others who may or may not have been my friends—or did he imagine he had found in me a Massey to be moulded and manipulated into the service of the crown, or a Corridon to have cowardice and cupidity made the incentives to his baseness. I only wonder how the interview ended as it did; but I knew I was a prisoner, and self-respect preserved my patience and secured his safety. Great, my lords, as have been my humiliation in prison, hard and heart-breaking ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Woe to him who in this country is suspected of having a competency—a hundred spies are always ready to denounce him. The appearance of poverty is the only security against the rapine of power and the cupidity of barbarism. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... means; the problem is simple and easily solved; nay—a not very extensive search through the Patent Office records will show that it has been solved already; perhaps not in the most practical and perfect manner, but still solved so well, as, were it not for corporation cupidity, would greatly add to the comfort and ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... operations, grinding of wheat and corn, profitable sales of whiskey, and growing trade at the Columbia 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 ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... the object for which the Templars were suppressed falls to the ground—a theory which on examination is seen to be built up entirely on the plan of imputing motives without any justification in facts. The King acted from cupidity, the Pope from servility, and the Templars confessed from fear of torture—on these pure hypotheses defenders of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... the court of France. The Duc de Morny, whose speculative spirit was easily seduced by the golden visions of large financial enterprises in a land the wealth of which was alluringly held up to his cupidity, took him under his powerful protection. There is little doubt that this was an important factor in the Mexican imbroglio. It is interesting to know that a just Nemesis overtook Jecker, whose unworthy intrigues had brought about such incalculable mischief. He was shot by order ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... flourishing, ecclesiastically, in the Banat, the Bulgars had been painfully keeping alive, until 1767, their lonely Patriarchate at Ochrida. Time and again the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople had tried to suppress it, at first on account of cupidity and afterwards, say the Bulgars, for fear lest it should help to arouse the Bulgarian national spirit; but that spirit had fallen to such a depth that the second edition of a comparative lexicon of the Slav languages, which ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... confidentially of the future, and of the probable speedy death of his uncle. Had there been one present, gifted with the power of reading the thoughts and motives of men, a deep disgust of human frailties must have come over him, as these two impure spirits betrayed to him their cupidity and cunning. Outwardly, they were friends mourning over a mutual probable loss; while inwardly, Dutton was endeavouring to obtain such a hold of his companion's confidence, as might pave the way to his own future preferment to the high and unhoped-for station ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... seemed for the moment in such a state of obtuseness, as disabled him from catching hold of the link which was leading to that which was to interest him as much as, or even more than, any one present. The gipsy went on to say, that her cupidity was so much excited by these ornaments, that she fixed her eye immediately on the family, and resolved, if possible, to get possession of the child. She first inquired respecting the family, and learned, that the house was occupied by a widow lady, who had with her an ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... the Major's speech with great attention and respect, fumbling in his pocket for his tobacco-box, the whole time. The box was opened just as the Major ended, and even I began to be afraid that the well-known cupidity of Kennebunk was about to give way before the temptation, and the notes were to be stowed alongside of the tobacco but I was mistaken. Deliberately helping himself to a quid, the chief-mate shut the box again, and ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... Neither failed him; in a twinkling he was on all fours in the mouth of the alley, and as he picked himself up, the second fiacre passed, Calendar himself poking a round bald poll out of the window to incite his driver's cupidity ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... him." Hence, "Woe to those who fill themselves with things which are not their own." And "what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?" It were too long to discuss one by one, or to select from the law, testimonies against such cupidity. Avarice is a mortal sin. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's goods." "Thou shall not kill." The homicide cannot dwell with Christ. "He who hateth his brother is a murderer," and "and he who loveth not his brother abideth in death." How much more guilty is he who hath defiled ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... poor, and the proud embodiment of a people's sovereignty,-liberty was first betrayed! It was here men deceived themselves, and freedom proclaimers became freedom destroyers. And, too, it was here Spanish cupidity, murderous in its search for gold, turned a deaf ear to humanity's cries, slaughtered the friendly Indian, and drenched the soil with his innocent blood. And it is here, at this moment, slavery-fierce monster, threatening the peace of a happy people-runs ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... carried "hardware" strapped outside, and scarcely one who had not at some time found this precaution useful. The city abounded with footpads and ruffians of every nationality and description, whose prices for cutting a throat or "rolling a stiff" depended on the cupidity of the moment or on the quantity of liquor their capacious stomachs held. Scores of killings occurred and ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... is asked of them. For if they do not do so, he excommunicates them, with two blows with it which he gives on the house or the boat, and there can be neither health in the one or good luck in the other. All these are the artifices of cupidity, which holds them fast in a deceitful ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... were one and all, I am confident, deceived. The more he swaggered, the more he boasted, the more he talked about himself—and it was a failing he was prone to—the greater was his success. At the persistent endeavours of Dan's journalistic acquaintances to excite his cupidity by visions of new journals, to be started with a mere couple of thousand pounds and by the inherent merit of their ideas to command at once a circulation of hundreds of thousands, I could afford to laugh. But watching the ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... country was watching the situation. The hearings held by a congressional committee emphasized the stupidity of the employers in arbitrarily curtailing the wage, the inadequacy of the town government in handling the situation, and the cupidity of the I.W.W. leaders in taking advantage of the fears, the ignorance, the inflammability of the workers, and in creating a "terrorism which impregnated the whole city for days." Lawrence became a symbol. It stood for the American factory town; for municipal indifference ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... it appears to me, whether some of these provisions do not merely sanction by the forms of law what was formerly done, not always well, without it, and whether the measure of protection which they afford to the tribes against the cupidity of the whites is very efficacious. It was heretofore pretended by the British traders that all this country belonged to Great Britain, and they told the Indians that the war of 1812 would settle all this. It did so; but, contrary to their ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... species of lawless adventure. With little population of its own, the Spanish authority almost extinct, and the colonial governments in a state of revolution, having no pretension to it, and sufficiently employed in their own concerns, it was in great measure derelict, and the object of cupidity to every adventurer. A system of buccaneering was rapidly organizing over it which menaced in its consequences the lawful commerce of every nation, and particularly the United States, while it presented a temptation to every people, on whose ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe
... Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, died on the 9th of July, 1737, the dynasty of that famous family became extinct. For some years before his death the prospect of a throne without any heir by right divine to claim it had set the cupidity of sundry of the European crowned heads in motion. Various schemes and arrangements had been proposed in the interest of different potentates. But the "vulpine cunning," as an Italian historian calls it, of Cardinal Fleury, the minister of Louis ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... either for the production of eunuchs, or castrata, through vengeance or jealousy, for excessive cupidity, as a punishment for crime, in fanaticism, in ignorance, and as a surgical therapeutic measure (recently, for the relief of hypertrophied prostate). The custom is essentially Oriental in origin, and was particularly used in polygamous countries, where ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... unbridled licentiousness. The whole community greeted the re-awakening vitality of the earth by an unrestrained abandonment to passion. Man aspired to be no more than the flower which scatters its seed to the winds. The incomprehensible lords of cupidity and rank vegetation did not suffer the individualisation of desire. The complete union of the male and female qualities, as manifested both in nature and man, was solemnised in the Orgies, and not by any ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... awkward. Mrs. Sterne was a Miss Lumley, of a good Yorkshire family, some, though small, fortune, and more friends who exerted themselves for her husband. By inexcusable levity, ignorance, misjudgment, or heartless cupidity their daughter Lydia published, after the death of both, letters some of which contain courtship of the most lackadaisical sentimentality and others later expressions (which occasionally reach the scandalous) of weariness and disgust on Sterne's part. Other evidence of an indisputable ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... is to be realised, then three things at least are necessary. We must seek by some means or other to check the large number of our boys and girls who, after leaving the Primary School, drift year by year, either through the ignorance or the cupidity or the poverty of their parents, into the ranks of untrained labour, and who in the course of two or three years go to swell the ranks of the unskilled, casual workers, and become in many cases, in the course ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... reduction of sewing-women's wages became so shamefully great as to raise a wailing cry from these poor victims of cupidity, which attracted public attention. It was shown that as the price of food rose, their wages went down. In 1861 the sewing-woman received seventeen and a half cents for making a shirt, sugar being then thirteen cents a pound; but in 1864, when sugar was up to thirty cents, the price for making ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... presides over the destinies of the world; and not all the interferences of man with His beneficent purposes can avail altogether to check and frustrate their happy operation. Yet have the blind cupidity, the ignorant apprehensions of national zeal dislocated, so far as was possible, the wheels and cogs of the great machine, hampered its working and limited its uses. And if there be anything of which this great nation may ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... to you to know something of the many webs which ambition, cupidity and malice have woven about us here in this great government of France," he went on, speaking bitterly. "We never dare speak our thoughts, for blindness, silence, flattery and fawning seem surer passports to favor than are gallant deeds and honest service. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... were also made from thence to Rome, chiefly by the parents and relatives of the ravished women. The last war broke out on the part of the Sabines, and proved by far the most formidable: for they did nothing through anger or cupidity; nor did they make a show of war, before they actually began it. To prudence stratagem also was added. Sp. Tarpeius commanded the Roman citadel; Tatius bribes his maiden daughter with gold, to admit armed soldiers into the citadel: she had gone by chance outside the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... the stone in the hole. Next he prays to the ancestors that nothing may go well with the country. If this malevolent rite should be followed by the desired effect, the sorcerer soon sees messengers arriving laden with presents, who entreat him to stay the famine. If his cupidity is satisfied, he rubs the stone again, inserts it upside down in the ground, and prays to his ancestors to restore ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... previously announced, and faithfully referred to in support of every judgment on men and events; not indiscriminate abuse, not the indulgence of an editor's own malignant passions, and still less, if that be possible, a determination to make money by flattering the envy and cupidity, the vindictive restlessness and self-conceit of the half-witted vulgar; a determination almost fiendish, but which, I have been informed, has been boastfully avowed by one man, the most notorious of these mob-sycophants! From the commencement of the Addington administration to the present day, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... given facts in slavery. Slavery is Barbarism. It consists in holding men to compulsory servitude. The human heart is avaricious; it gets all it can, and keeps all it gets. Give it complete power over a human being, and there are no limits to its cupidity and wrong-doing, but the finite nature of the thing itself. Hence, does it not follow that there can be no disinterestedness, no tender mercies in slavery? Yes, dear Aunt, as we are perfectly sure that there can be no water in the moon, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... factories were content; and, while the annual tribute or rent was paid with regularity, the native princes had a strong motive for protecting the trading companies in their operations. But the display of barbaric splendor excited the cupidity of many of the agents of the companies, and the atrocities of barbaric tyranny aroused the indignation of others, and there came a time when interference in native affairs seemed both ...
— Ten Great Events in History • James Johonnot
... of Jugurtha's history is one of war. The time for winning power by bribery was past. The people were so thoroughly aroused and incensed that none dared yield to cupidity. The indignation grew. The first army sent against Jugurtha was baffled by the wily African, caught in a defile, and only escaped by passing under the yoke, and agreeing ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... which many allow themselves to be sacrificed to their love of wealth reminds one of the cupidity of the monkey—that caricature of our species. In Algiers, the Kabyle peasant attaches a gourd, well fixed, to a tree, and places within it some rice. The gourd has an opening merely sufficient to admit the monkey's paw. The creature comes to the tree by ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... still remain, and make the interiors of many of these houses very picturesque; but the 'finds' of old furniture, curious brass or pewter dishes, and even stray bits of valuable tapestry, which used to rouse the cupidity of strangers, are now very rare. Almost all the brass work which is so eagerly bought by credulous tourists at Bruges in summer is bran-new stuff cleverly manufactured for sale—and sold it is at five or six times its real market value! There ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... hire, The implacable republic will require; With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, But surely, very surely, slow or soon That insult deep we deeply will requite. Tempt not our weakness, our cupidity! For save we let the island men go free, Those baffled and dislaureled ghosts Will curse us from the lamentable coasts Where walk the frustrate dead. The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, Eaten the sour bread of astonishment, With ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
... Smith answered this question. His eyes were cast upon the floor, and earnestly did he enter into debate with himself as to the value he should place upon the lot. At first, he thought of five hundred dollars per acre. But his cupidity soon tempted him to advance on that sum, although, a month before, he would have caught at such an offer. Then he advanced to six, to seven, and to eight hundred. ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... crowded the abbey church on the morrow, and were present at the Mass of the day; the poor English were there in small numbers; they could not worship devoutly in company with their oppressors, but frequented little village sanctuaries, too poverty stricken to invite Norman cupidity, where, on that very account, the poor clerics of English race might still minister to their scattered flocks, and preach to them in the language Alfred had dignified by his writings, but which the Normans compared to the ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... not wholly desert him in extremity, for even while he tried to fight for his liberty he remembered that there was no good to be gained out of taking him prisoner; he had neither money nor valuables— nothing which could excite the cupidity of even a starving Bedouin. As this thought crossed his brain, he ceased his struggles abruptly, and stood still, panting for breath, when suddenly a sound of singing ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... The cupidity of those who were engaged in commerce with the natives, too frequently prompted them to take every advantage, for self aggrandizement, which they could obtain over the Indians. In the lucrative traffic carried on with them, the influence of honesty ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... and incautious confidence of Riccabocca touching the vast sum at his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so amiable a lady as Miss Jemima—who had already shown him (Jackeymo) many little delicate attentions—had greatly whetted the cupidity which was in the servant's Italian nature,—a cupidity the more keen because, long debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, he carried it all to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... night the Gothic trumpets rang unanswered in the streets. The old heroic virtues were gone. No resistance was made. Nobody fought from temples and palaces. The queen of the world, for five days and nights, was exposed to the lust and cupidity of despised barbarians. Yet a general slaughter was not made; and as much wealth as could be collected into the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul was spared. The superstitious barbarians in some degree respected churches. But the spoils of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... appeal to their cupidity,—reminding them that the merchant, "for God's sake bias," would pay a far higher price for himself ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... turpitude than did his yielding to the second temptation or to the third—greater or at least as great—and that therefore the severer sentence is justified? His first misdeed was prompted by hunger, ignorance, drunkenness, or cupidity; the others were the fruit of desperation itself—and how many of you ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... that great and golden city, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, and the natives call Manoa.' Now he would go back to find the El Dorado of his dreams, somewhere inland, that mysterious Manoa among those southern Mountains of Bright Stones which lay behind the Spanish Main. The king's cupidity was roused; and so, in 1617, Raleigh was commissioned as the admiral of fourteen sail. In November he arrived off the coast that guarded all the fabled wealth still lying undiscovered in the far recesses of the Orinocan wilds. Guiana, Manoa, El Dorado—the inland ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... into a sacred lake near Toulouse to cause a pestilence to cease. Caepion, who afterwards fished up this treasure, fell soon after in battle—a punishment for cupidity, and aurum Tolosanum now became an expression for goods dishonestly acquired.[599] A yearly festival, lasting three days, took place at Lake Gevaudan. Garments, food, and wax were thrown into the waters, and animals were sacrificed. On the fourth day, it is said, there never failed to ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch |
