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Lucre

noun
1.
Informal terms for money.  Synonyms: boodle, bread, cabbage, clams, dinero, dough, gelt, kale, lettuce, lolly, loot, moolah, pelf, scratch, shekels, simoleons, sugar, wampum.
2.
The excess of revenues over outlays in a given period of time (including depreciation and other non-cash expenses).  Synonyms: earnings, net, net income, net profit, profit, profits.



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"Lucre" Quotes from Famous Books



... Bourrienne as a clever, able man, who would have risen to the highest honours under the Empire had not his short-sighted grasping after lucre driven him from office, and prevented him from ever regaining it ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... of London, in the dismal summer of 1665, were, comparatively speaking, always deserted; and the few now wending their way homeward were tired physicians and plague-nurses from the hospitals, and several hardy country folks, with more love of lucre than fear of death bending their steps with produce to the market-place. These people, sleepy and pallid in the gray haze of daylight, stared in astonishment after the two furious riders; and windows were thrown open, and heads thrust out to see what the unusual thunder of ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... he loved, as he loved the works of this poet who, in an age of democracy devoted to lucre, lived his solitary and literary life sheltered by his disdain from the encompassing stupidity, delighting, far from society, in the surprises of the intellect, in cerebral visions, refining on subtle ideas, grafting Byzantine delicacies upon them, perpetuating them in suggestions ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... desire to live. This pleasant middle age into whose port we are steering is quite to my fancy. I would cast anchor here, and go ashore for twenty years, and see the manners of the place. Youth was a great time, but somewhat fussy. Now in middle age (bar lucre) all seems mighty placid. It likes me; I spy a little bright cafe in one corner of the port, in front of which I now propose we should sit down. There is just enough of the bustle of the harbour and no more; and the ships are close in, regarding us with stern-windows ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... who dares to transgress them, than if he were a dead Frenchman; and, as we now clearly understand each other, and know our duty so well, there remains no more than to do it. I have said nothing of the prize-money, [a cheer] seeing you are men that love the Queen and her honor, more than lucre, [a cheer]; but this much I can safely promise, that there will be the usual division, [a cheer] and as there is little doubt but the rogues have driven a profitable trade, why the sum-total is likely to be ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper

... King, is seized by this noble and his agents, but is rescued by a brave young citizen. Here the love begins. This young citizen is the nephew of a wealthy old goldsmith, but he abominates the traffic and filthy lucre of his uncle's profession—for, it should be added, the goldsmiths were the money-jobbers of those days—and aspires to become a soldier of fortune. London was a fitting place for such ambition, for those were chivalrous times. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various

... ducal coronets. These medieval coronets, which were repeated even on the peaks of the chimney pots, were the everlasting decorative motif of an industrial city little given to dreams and lusting for lucre. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... one of them about town. Some fancied they were all swept away in the infection to a man, and were for calling it a particular mark of God's vengeance upon them for leading the poor people into the pit of destruction, merely for the lucre of a little money they got by them; but I cannot go that length neither. That abundance of them died is certain—many of them came within the reach of my own knowledge—but that all of them were swept off I much question. I believe rather they fled into ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe

... madness to invest in all that field and swamp property with just a chance of the shops. The trouble was that James had always left all his business to Henry, along with the firm's business, for a man can't be the kind of lawyer James is, and carry the details of the handling of filthy lucre in the same mind that can make a speech like the one he made down in Nashville last April, on the exchange of the Judiciary. James can be the Governor of this good State any time he wants to, or could, if Henry hadn't turned toes and left him such a bag to hold—no reference ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess

... bunch of gay "spills," or a set of cards on which sewing-silk was wound in a mystical manner, were the well-known tokens of Miss Matty's favour. But would any one pay to have their children taught these arts? or, indeed, would Miss Matty sell, for filthy lucre, the knack and the skill with which she made trifles of value to ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... them, the rats, a smile of recognition as he passed to his office, concluding, no doubt, by a natural process of ratiocination, that they were kindred spirits, because they delighted in bad smells and filthy garbage, just as he (Denham) rejoiced in Thames air and filthy lucre. ...
— The Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne

... goven or delyv{er}ed for brede, whete, malte, egges, or other honest rewarde, to y^e valewe only of a ferthyng at y^e uttermost, & noon warned, bicause it cometh of y^e grete grace of God, Certeyn p{er}sons of this Cite, callyng themselves com{m}on Brewers, for their singler lucre & avayll have nowe newely bigonne to take money for their seid goddis good, for y^e leest parte thereof, be it never so litle and insufficient to s{er}ve the payer therefore, an halfpeny or a peny, & ferthermore exaltyng y^e p{ri}ce of y^e seid Goddis good ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... of lucre," said the man in black; "but does not grudge a faithful priest a little private perquisite," and he took out a very handsome ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... into the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to be had, received, or hoped for," shall forfeit principal and interest, and suffer imprisonment and ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... but after the bills made by the great physician God, prescribing the medicines himself and correcting the faults of their erroneous recipes. For unless we take this way with them, they shall not fail to do as many bold blind apothecaries do who, either for lucre or out of a foolish pride, give sick folk medicines of their own devising. For therewith do they kill up in corners many such simple folk as they find so foolish as to put their lives in the hands of such ignorant and unlearned ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... recruiting officers, but by religious and political zeal, mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no Janizaries, but free-born Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... Christianity, without convulsions and vehement struggle. The prejudices of mankind on a subject so nearly concerned with their dearest interests and affections must inevitably be powerful and obstinate; and the lucre of the priesthood, together with the strong hold they must necessarily have had on the weakness and superstition of their flocks, would tend to give force and perpetuity to the contention. Julian, a ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... evil minded persons for the sake of filthie lucre do frequently receive from Indians, malattoes and negro servants, money and goods stolen or obteined by other indirect and unlawful means, thereby incouraging such servants to steal from their masters and others: ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from my house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day a dreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from stone to stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the land. Because wine paid handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant the vine. Then came the Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and the once green table-land is now no more than a desolate stretch where a few tufts of ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre

... all men are exclusively haunted by the thoughts of luxury and lucre, the soul appears extraordinary when divested of its bark, as the candid and naked soul of this good monk. He is eighty years old and more, and he has led from his youth up the restricted life of the Trappists; he probably does not know in what time he lives, nor what latitudes he inhabits, ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans

... fair valleys and cities of Rohilcund. The whole country was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever, and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him to whom an English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and their blood, and the honor of their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representations to Fort William; but the Governor had made no conditions as to the mode ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... he and the Gaoleress, after cracking a bottle of mulled port between them, poor Mother Drum was brought up before his Worship for mutinous conduct. The Justice would willingly have compounded the case, for Lucre was his only love; but 'twas vengeance the Gaoleress hankered after; and the end of it was that poor Mother Drum was triced up at the post that was by the Stocks, and had a dozen and a half from a cat with indeed but three tails, but that, I warrant, hurt pretty nigh as sharply as nine would ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala

... than anything we have lately articulated or brought into word or action, our outlooks are rather lamentable. The great majority of the powerful and active-minded, sunk in egoistic scepticisms, busied in chase of lucre, pleasure, and mere vulgar objects, looking with indifference on the world's woes, and passing carelessly by on the other side; and the select minority, of whom better might have been expected, bending all ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... care; Who, when he saw the pow'r of Troy decline, Forsook the weaker, with the strong to join; Broke ev'ry bond of nature and of truth, And murder'd, for his wealth, the royal youth. O sacred hunger of pernicious gold! What bands of faith can impious lucre hold? Now, when my soul had shaken off her fears, I call my father and the Trojan peers; Relate the prodigies of Heav'n, require What he commands, and their advice desire. All vote to leave that execrable shore, Polluted with the blood of Polydore; But, ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... thirst for gain, which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention; and where lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of even a fellow creature's life is a secondary consideration. In reference to the deterioration of almost all the necessaries and comforts of existence, it may be justly observed, in a civil as well ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum

... acquainted with the nature of the public funds, and understood the whole mystery of stock-jobbing. This knowledge produced a connexion between him and the money-corporations, which served to enhance his importance. He perceived the bulk of mankind were actuated by a sordid thirst of lucre; he had sagacity enough to convert the degeneracy of the times to his own advantage; and on this, and this alone, he founded the whole superstructure of his subsequent administration. In the late reign he ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... the expence of the two systems, as they now stand in each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... people sold stocks again, until all the exchanges were once more swept with panic—and then put the money in their strong boxes, as if they thought that the mere possession of the lucre could protect them. They hugged the money and remained deaf to Cosmo's reiterated advice to ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss

... sort in Vanity Fair who were now resolved to undertake the pilgrimage to the Celestial City. Some way beyond Vanity Fair was a delicate plain, called Ease, where Christian and Hopeful went with much content. But at the farther side of that plain was a little hill, which was named Lucre. In this hill was a silver-mine which was very dangerous to enter, for many men who had gone to dig silver there had been smothered in the bottom by damps and noisome airs. Four men from Vanity Fair—Mr. Money-love, Mr. Hold-the-World, Mr. ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... paid liberally for whatsoever they received; and there was policy in their so doing, for there were not a few who preferred lucre to their country, and the effigy of a prince upon a coin to allegiance to their lawful monarch. But, while such obeyed with alacrity the command of the governor of Fast Castle, to bring provisions to his garrison, there were many others ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... prophet, but eternal justice Has destined me the lot, to die for these: 'Tis fit a sovereign so should pay such subjects; For subjects such as they are seldom seen, Who not forsook me at my greatest need; Nor for base lucre sold their loyalty, But shared my dangers to the last event, And fenced them with their own. These thanks I pay you; [Wipes his eyes. And know, that, when Sebastian weeps, his tears ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... 'She is fond of lucre,' said the man in black; 'but does not grudge a faithful priest a little private perquisite,' and he took out a very ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... living food; Next his grim idol smeared with human blood; With heaven's own thunders shook the world below, And played the god an engine on his foe. So drives self-love, through just and through unjust, To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust: The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one will when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, A ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope

... signify their unspotted purity and innocence; that their forked mitres, with both divisions tied together by the same knot, are to denote the joint knowledge of the Old and New Testament; that their always wearing gloves, represents their keeping their hands clean and undented from lucre and covetousness; that the pastoral staff implies the care of a flock committed to their charge; that the cross carried before them expresses their victory over all carnal affections; he (I say) that considers this, and much more of the like nature, must needs conclude they are entrusted ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus

... it without having a dead body over his head. He therefore opened the tomb, in which he found—of treasures indeed nothing, but the corpse, and an inscription to this effect: "If thou hadst not been insatiably eager for riches, and greedy of filthy lucre, thou wouldst not have opened the depository of the dead." So much for this queen and the reports that have been handed down ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... after an extraordinary struggle, to leave his hold, he was obliged to clutch at some mode of keeping himself perpetually in the public eye. Hence, probably, his persistent assumption of feminine costume. If he could be distinguished in no other way, he could shine as a mystery; there was even lucre in the pose.[41] ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang

... ecclesiastical superior, of a character capable of imposing his authority made itself felt more and more. Disorders of all kinds crept into the colony, and our fathers felt the necessity of a firm and vigorous arm to remedy this alarming state of affairs. The love of lucre, of gain easily acquired by the sale of spirituous liquors to the savages, brought with it evils against which the missionaries endeavoured ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... times of Rome the priesthood was a profession, not of lucre but of honour. It was embraced by the noblest citizens—it was forbidden to the plebeians. Afterwards, and long previous to the present date, it was equally open to all ranks; at least, that part of the profession which embraced the flamens, or ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... ring and awaited my antagonist. I cautioned my friend Reyes to see to it that no one else overstepped the line. To the lonely sand dunes of the Rio Grande unwittingly I thus introduced the manly sport of the prize ring. But the battle was not fought for lucre or fame, nor according to the London Prize Ring Rules; it was fought in defense of a friend's honor, and the stake was life or death. The Indian made a rush for me, but I avoided him and warded off his ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... where the name of Jesus is scarcely ever mentioned but in blasphemy, and His precepts [are] almost utterly unknown . . . [where] the few who are enlightened are too much occupied in the pursuit of lucre, ambition, or ungodly revenge to entertain a desire or thought of bettering the moral state of their countrymen." This report, in which Borrow confesses that he "made no attempts to flatter and cajole," must have caused the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... Italy at least the imperial agents would seem to have enjoyed greater facilities than Henry's. In some individual cases there was, no doubt, resort to improper inducements; but, if the majority in the most famous seats of learning in Europe could be induced by filthy lucre to vote against their conscience, it implies a greater need for drastic reformation than the believers in the theory of corruption are usually disposed to admit. Their decisions were, however, given on general grounds; the question of the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... Crusade as chaplain and chronicler. The fever of plunder raging about him was too infectious for the good man to escape. When everybody else was getting rich he could not consent to remain poor. His only scruple was not to defile his holy hands with the filthy lucre which worldlings coveted. To purloin sacred relics, however, was lawful booty. Entering, therefore, the Pantokrator with his chaplain, Martin accosted a venerable, white-bearded man who seemed familiar with the building, and in stentorian tones demanded ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... weakly gives way to their urgent advice to "search and see for himself," will not soon be addled and muddled by all sorts of sophistical and controversial botherations, if even he is not tempted to accept—for lucre if not godliness—the office of bishop, or apostle, or prophet, or anything else too freely offered by zealots to new converts, if of notoriety enough to exalt or enrich a sect; such sect in every case proclaiming itself the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... presenting me with that thousand 'to get married on,' Even at the time it seemed peculiarly un-Petrine. Well, anyhow, in simple decency, he cannot combine the part of Shylock with that of Judas, and expect to have back his sordid lucre, so I am that much to the good, apart from everything else. Yes, I can see how it all happened,—and I can foresee what is going to happen, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... sent to Ellis Island," he explained to Mrs. Vanderlyn. "A case of sheep and goats, all right, according to the tenets of this land of liberty and lucre. If you've got money you're a sheep. Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, has wide-open arms for you. No one tries to stop your entrance. If you've none, why you're the goat and everybody ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... creeds. And in this licentious age, an age of corrupted literature, when that worldly wisdom or vain philosophy which God has declared to be folly, is again revived; in this age, when history has failed to represent the truth, and is only written for base lucre's sake, or to serve a sect or party, what can be so desirable to a Christian community, as to have placed in their hands a sincere and dispassionate account of the nations which surround us, and of the laws and manners and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... agane the fals doctouris of heresyes, with the sword of the Spreat, which is the word of God; and not only to wyne agane, bot also to owircum:—as saith[396] Paule, 'A bischope most be faltles, as becumith the minister of God, not stubburne, not angrie, no drunkard, no feghtar, not gevin to filthy lucre; but harberous, one that loveth goodnes, sober mynded, rychteous, holy, temperat, and such as cleaveth unto the trew word of the doctrine, that he may be able to exhorte with holsome learning, and to improve that which thei say against him.'" The Fourte ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox

... what a day, not of laughter, was that, when he threatened, for lucre's sake, to lay sacrilegious hand on the Palais-Royal Garden! (1781-82. (Dulaure, viii. 423.)) The flower-parterres shall be riven up; the Chestnut Avenues shall fall: time-honoured boscages, under which the Opera Hamadryads were wont to wander, not inexorable ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... we hope for, you must not be present at the festival. Indeed, sheltered as you are under Porphyrius' roof, there is a price on your head, and this house swarms with slaves, who all know you; if one of them, tempted by filthy lucre . . ." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... and even to fight the battles of his client against his fellow-countrymen. Should the Abban be slain, his tribe is bound to take up the cause and to make good the losses of their protege. El Taabanah, the office, being one of "name," the eastern synonym for our honour, as well as of lucre, causes frequent quarrels, ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... right, for there was not one in all Israel so royal as he, and it was he who redeemed it and made it a nation. Samuel had grown old—he was always a priest rather than a captain—and his sons, whom he made judges, turned aside after lucre, took bribes, and perverted judgment. The people were weary of their oppression and the hand of the Amalekites and the Philistines were very heavy on the land. They therefore prayed for a king, and the thing displeased Samuel, and he tried to turn them ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford

... Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks, Peeress and butler shared alike the box; And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town, And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown: Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms.—Pope. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... I chosen some other profession Than that of moulding the human mind, I might have secured a greater possession Of lucre and treasures and powers combined, Than all I may now of these truly own; But I have in my casket some jewels I treasure Far more than all stocks and houses and lands, In gold and silver their worth has no measure, For none may compute warm hearts and true hands, When the shadows of ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite

... Mr. Wontner applied himself to his glass, 'it isn't a matter that gentlemen usually discuss, but, I assure you, we Wontners'—he waved a well-kept hand—'do not stand in any need of filthy lucre.' In the next three minutes, we learned exactly what his father was worth, which, as he pointed out, was a trifle no man of the world dwelt on. Stalky envied aloud, and I delivered my first kick at The Infant's ankle. Thence we drifted to education, and the Average Army Man, and the desolating ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... ought below the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine: A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, all anger, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett

... not," answered the Protestant preacher, for such he was, "that for lucre he would sell the blood ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... night, When the stars were out of sight, When my pulses, like a knell, (Israfel!) Danced with dim and dying fays O'er the ruins of my days, O'er the dimeless, timeless days, When the fifty, drawn at thirty, Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty Lucre of the market, was the most ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... faith,—a powerful, an almighty one. He will not suffer to waste away and vanish the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries pure hearts for its depositaries; and I would rather take it from a friend and neighbour, intelligent and righteous, and rejecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in the pride of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what Christ gave me,—his ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... flattering robe; That falsehood seems like unto sacred truth, And enmities the bonds of friendship seem. O rife Perfidity! O Vanity! O Pride! Great are thy ravages among This simple race, who for a lucre strive, And pomp, and gain, with an unquenched thirst; Whose hand is avaricious, and who hold No check upon it; but, to swell their store In overflowing barns, do from the poor Extort unjust and utmost usury, Nor scruple have to snatch the morsel from The widow's mouth, or leave the ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar

... upon a plan. They destroy the Savoy as a means of marking their disapprobation of John of Gaunt and his policy; but do not plunder it, so as to prove they are fighting for an idea: "So that the whole nation should know they did nothing for the love of lucre, death was decreed against any one who should dare to appropriate anything found in the palace. The innumerable gold and silver objects there would be chopped up in small pieces with a hatchet, and the pieces thrown into the Thames or the sewers; the cloths ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand

... of course. How that fellow toiled and moiled and gloated over his wretched diamonds! How little he seemed to think of the stain of blood on his hands, and how much of the mere chance of making filthy lucre! Pah! Pah! it was pitiable. The man's whole mind was distorted by a hideous fungoid growth—the love of gain, which is the root of all evil. For a few miserable stones, he would plunder his own brother, lying helpless and ill in that African hut, and make off with the booty himself, saving ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... resist good virtue's common foe, And feare to loose some lucre, which doth grow By a continued practise; makes our fate Banish (with single combates) all the hate, Which broad abuses challenge of our spleene. For who in Vertue's troope was euer seene, That did couragiously with ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... accost Cicely, and to make the Queen aware of his knowledge, perhaps in order to verify it, or it might be to gain power over 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 ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Holsteiners mutiny on the field of battle, like base scullions, crying out Gelt, gelt, signifying their desire of pay, instead of falling to blows like our noble Scottish blades, who ever disdained, my lord, postponing of honour to filthy lucre." ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott

... them conducted them till they came into the territories of the Dutch, and out of all danger of the King of Kandy, which did not a little rejoice them; but yet they were in no small trouble how to find the way out of the woods, till a Malabar, for the lucre of a knife, conducted them to a Dutch town, where they found guides to conduct them from town to town, till they came to the fort called Aripo, where they arrived Saturday, October 18, 1679, and ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe

... them; in fact, they had no inclination for commerce. Lucre they despised, scarcely knowing the use of money, which had been lately introduced among them. Yet, being refined in their tastes, fond of ornament, of wine at their feasts, loving to adorn the persons of their wives and daughters with silk and gems, they had allowed the Danes to dwell in their ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... however anxious people were to save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, N.H., for the generous stipend ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... apparent; all this is beginning to preoccupy the economists of the "classical" school. Some of them ask themselves if they have not got on the wrong track: if the imaginary evil being, that was supposed to be tempted exclusively by a bait of lucre or wages, really exists. This heresy penetrates even into universities; it is found in books ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... vessels fitted out for the purpose of aggression by private merchants, and merely for the sake of profit. They are not fitted out with any patriotic motives, but merely for gain. They are speculations in which the lives of people on both sides are sacrificed for the sake of lucre—and had you witnessed such scenes of bloodshed and cruelty as I have during my career, such dreadful passions let loose, and defying all restraint, you would agree with me, that he who leads such miscreants to their quarry ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat

... September. At the Bourse the transactions have been of the most trifling description, much to the disgust of the many thousands who live here by peddling gains and doubtful speculations in this temple of filthy lucre. By a series of decrees payment of rent and of bills of exchange has been deferred from month to month. Most of the wholesale exporting houses have been absolutely closed. In the retail shops nothing has been sold except by the grocers, who must have made large ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... full-fed fees were as little used in England among lawyers as the eating of swine's flesh was among the Jews.' When you remember the terms of friendship whereon he lived with Moll Cutpurse, his hatred of the thief-catcher, who would hang his brother for 'the lucre of ten pounds, which is the reward,' or who would swallow a false oath 'as easily as one would swallow buttered fish,' is a trifle mysterious. Perhaps before his death an estrangement divided Hind and Moll. Was it that the Roaring Girl was too anxious to ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley

... once. When the Governor enters, let Tardif stand at the door, and you beside my chair. Have the men-at-arms get into livery, and make a guard of honour for the Governor when he leaves. Their new rifles too—and let old Fashode wear his medal! See that Lucre is not filthy—ha! ha! very good. I must let the Governor hear that. Quick—quick, Havel. They are entering the grounds. Let the Manor bell be rung, and every one mustered. He shall see that to be a Seigneur is not an empty ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... motive," said the stranger, eagerly; "he will know that you are doing this—not for lucre of gain, but to save the life of the innocent, and prevent the commission of a worse crime than that which the law ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... were advising the writer of these sketches to write, supplied the author with encouragement in the shape of a publishing medium and the lucre which all literary men despise but long for, this volume is respectfully ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... to us. A population, vicious in character as unnatural in immediate origin (for it has been called into birth by short-sighted landlords, set upon adding to the number of votes at their command, and by priests who for lucre's sake favour the increase of marriages), is held forth as constituting a claim to political power strong in proportion to its numbers, though in a sane view that claim is in an inverse ratio to them. Brute force indeed wherever lodged, as we are too feelingly taught at present, must be measured ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... I think not, indeed!—When, besides having a handsome house over your head, the strange gentleman has left two guineas—though one seems light, and t'other looks a little brummish—to be laid out for you, as I see occasion. I don't say it for the lucre of any thing I'm to make out of the money, but, I'm sure you can't want ...
— John Bull - The Englishman's Fireside: A Comedy, in Five Acts • George Colman

... Magazine," which was so abominably libellous as to force him out of the silence he had adopted for his rule, was often present to his thought; for he dreaded lest his editor should for the sake of lucre publish "Don Juan" with his name, and lest the Noels and other enemies, out of revenge, should profit thereby to contest his right of guardianship over his child, as had been ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... workshops were shut; his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of them quitted the country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth, everything was done on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre; everywhere there was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had reigned over all and directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each pulled things to himself; the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit of organization, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... with, and though scarcely amenable to the exorcisms of a clergy so corrupt as that of France in that day, they would yet justify a belief in the reality of those cases got up for the sake of filthy lucre, personal ambition, or private revenge. If the public mind was prepared for a belief in such cases, there were not wanting men to turn it to profitable account; and the quiet student who believed the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet

... had been crooked, instead of turkey-dressing and home-scenes he would have been thinking of the money within his grasp. As it was, the filthy lucre never entered his head. He did think of the double responsibility, and it made him proud; but that was the ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... brother may be subject in following you. This is my plan, Don Jorge, which no doubt will meet with your worship's approbation, as it is devised solely for your benefit, and not with any view of lucre or interest either to me or mine. You will find my wife's brother pleasant company on the route: he is a very respectable man, and one of the right opinion, and has likewise travelled much; for between ourselves, Don Jorge, he is something ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... cried Pliny, in relating this laudable custom, "O grandeur, truly Roman, that would assign no other reward but honour, for the preservation of a citizen! a service, indeed, above all reward; thereby sufficiently evincing their opinion, that it was criminal to save a man's life from the motive of lucre and interest!" O mores aeternos, qui tanta opera honore solo donaverint; et cum reliquas coronas auro commendarent, salutem civis in pretio esse noluerint, clara professione servari quidem hominem nefus ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin

... crone promised her that she would do her best to bring her to her desire; so she veiled herself and repairing to the young man, saluted him with the salam and acquainted him with the girl's case, saying, "Her master is a greedy wight; so do thou invite him and lure him with lucre, and he will sell thee the hand-maiden." Accordingly, he made a banquet, and standing in the man's way, invited him[FN299] and brought him to his house, where they sat down and ate and drank and abode in talk. Presently, the young man said to the other, "I hear thou hast with thee ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... citizens. An open pocketbook will easily secure a petition for pardon, it makes but little difference as to the "gravamen" of the crime. The convict promised not to engage again in this pleasant pastime for filthy lucre. The mother of the young man came on from the East and remained until she had secured a pardon for her boy. The young man stated in our hearing that it took one thousand big dollars to secure his pardon. A great many who are acquainted with the facts in the ...
— The Twin Hells • John N. Reynolds

... gowns, cut them into shreds, and mixed them with the cordage and buckram, to complete the stiffening of their under petticoats." For which, and sundry other reasons, I pronounced the petticoat a forfeiture; but to show that I did not make that judgment for the sake of filthy lucre, I ordered it to be folded up, and sent it as a present to a widow-gentlewoman who has five daughters, desiring she would make each of them a petticoat out of it, and send me back the remainder, which I design to cut into stomachers, caps, ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele

... every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.' Johnson's Works, vii. 402. See ante, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... might buy; and his wife teased him to be doing something better. Thus was it come at length to pass, that, although he had endured so many years, he now got discontented at his penury;—what human heart can blame him?—and with murmurings came doubt; with doubt of Providence, desire of lucre; so the sunshine of religion faded from his path;—what mortal mind ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... artist in lacquer, Watanobe Tosu, died about thirty years ago. Whether he is destined to have a successor or successors remains to be seen. These lacquer artists, as I have indicated, worked not for lucre, but for love. Attached to some Daimios household, they devoted their lives, their energies, their imagination, their artistic instincts to the devising of splendid work and the making of beautiful, ingenious, absolutely artistic and, at the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery

... enjoyments, That ever valu'd were, There's none of our employments, With fishing can compare; Some preach, some write, Some swear, some fight, All golden lucre courting, But fishing still bears off the bell ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... and with it there was a corresponding reduction in the depth of his bow. He must have begun to feel that he had been revering as a saint a mere man, who had not even risen superior to the lure of lucre. ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... the coy lady, withdrawing with the dignity of a princess. "When your friend arrives, for whose advice I presume you wait, you will be able to decide your heart. Mine cannot be influenced by base lucre, or mercenary considerations—Unhand ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... already; the glow of health is all over you; your eyes sparkle, your skin glistens; you shoot out the salt sea-spray from your nostrils in a manner that would surprise any porpoise; you whoop and you yell like a young devil let loose! Never in the world would I take you to be a hard, money-making, lucre-loving man! Why, my dear Friday, you are a perfect jewel of a savage! I didn't know it was you, and doubt if you knew it yourself! Isn't it glorious? I feel a thousand years younger! Don't ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... in tabernaculo, quis requiescet in monte sancta?— Who shall ascend to the tabernacle, and dwell in the holy mountain? Is it not answered again, Qui jurat proximo et non decipit?—Go to, my son—break not thy plighted word for a little filthy lucre—better is an empty stomach and an hungry heart with a clear conscience, than a fatted ox with iniquity and wordbreaking.—Sawest thou not our late noble lord, who (may his soul be happy!) chose rather to die in unequal battle, like a true knight, than ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... himself "the sole nominating" of civil and military officers he had made himself master of the colony. He had permitted his favorites "to lay and impose what levies and impositions upon us they should or did please, which they for the most part converted to their own private lucre and gain." As for seeking relief by petitioning the Burgesses, he said: "Consider what hope there is of redress in appealing to the very persons our ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker

... enflame The hearts of men with selfe-consuming fyre, 275 Thenceforth seemes fowle, and full of sinfull blame And all that pompe to which proud minds aspyre By name of Honor, and so much desyre, Seemes to them basenesse, and all riches drosse, And all mirth sadnesse, and all lucre losse. 280 ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser

... presbyters, as in Acts xx. They form the order under the apostle's delegate. Useless speculations of a Jewish character had invaded the Church (i. 10-14; iii. 9). The teachers of these "fables" were influenced by love of "filthy lucre." St. Paul quotes the saying that the Cretans are "liars, evil beasts, idle gluttons," and attributes it to "one of themselves, a prophet of their own." The saying is by the poet Epimenides, c. B.C. 600. He was a native ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan

... could have thrown the burden from its mind, the day was one to feel a pride in. Three Circles were present, and Brookfield denominated two that it had passed through, and patronized all—from Lady Gosstre (aristocracy) to the Tinley set (lucre), and from these to the representative Sumner girls (cultivated poverty). There were also intellectual, scientific, and Art circles to deal with; music, pleasant to hear, albeit condemned by Mr. Pericles; agreeable chatter, courtly flirtation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... with base lucre and pale melancholy!— In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain, Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly,— 'Tis delightful at times ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various

... his undoubted talents to it. And now, were he to be turned adrift by Ames, the man must inevitably sink into oblivion, squeezed dry of every element of genuine manhood, and weighted with the unclean lucre for which his bony ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... pursuit of all classes, and the postman is probably the only man who leaves letters for the vulgar pursuit of lucre! Even the vanity of servant-maids has undergone a change—they now study 'Cocker' and neglect ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour

... the [every] Miner by the strength of the King is Bayliffe to arrest the Beaste and whereof the beaste shall be forfeit to the King and ye measure burnt And bee it that the Miners for duty or for wretchedness will such wrong suffer and alsoe ye Gavellr for his owne Lucre Then the Constable by ye reason of his office shall pursue by the strength of the King to take and to doe as is aforesaid Alsoe that noe Smith holder after he holdeth Smith or become partner to hold Smith hee shall not have none of the Franchises ...
— Iron Making in the Olden Times - as instanced in the Ancient Mines, Forges, and Furnaces of The Forest of Dean • H. G. Nicholls

... viam inveniam aut faciam,"—to join one of the almost piratical expeditions of Drake against the Spanish settlements. Perhaps he might then be diverted from his design by the strong and kind warning of his true friend Languet, "to beware lest the thirst of lucre should creep into a mind which had hitherto admitted nothing but the love of truth and an anxiety to deserve well of all men." After the death of this monitor, however, he engaged in a second scheme of this very ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... his bosom-friend; The agents love him like a brother. His golden rule's to treat himself As he'd be treated by another. Though, in a business way, he sells Impartial puffs for filthy lucre, There's not, at the dramatic cards, A rival whom, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various

... other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle, but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed, and we so pure, that we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... knowledge of his own folly, understood too late, filled him with shame. How could he have been so wicked as to bring a girl upon such a quest in the company of an unprincipled Jew, of whose past he knew nothing except that it was murky and dubious? He had committed a great crime, led on by a love of lucre, and the weight of it pressed upon his tongue and closed his lips; he knew ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard

... on sordid wife-seekers, or, rather, money-seekers; for it is not a wife that they seek, but only filthy lucre! They violate all their other faculties simply to gratify miserly desire. Verily such ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... false world, and the sight of gold was poisonous to his eyes; and he would have restored it to the earth, but that, thinking of the infinite calamities which by means of gold happen to mankind, how the lucre of it causes robberies, oppression, injustice, briberies, violence, and murder, among men, he had a pleasure in imagining (such a rooted hatred did he bear to his species) that out of this heap, which in digging he had discovered, might arise some mischief to plague mankind. And some soldiers passing ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb

... combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? [24] No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade, Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain! [25] And sadly gaze on Gold they cannot gain! 180 Such be their meed, such still the just reward [xv] Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard! For this we spurn Apollo's venal son, And bid ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... years Had from the great Jehovah's hand received, And mourned in sorrowing tones that God their Judge Should be by them rejected: and they cried "A King! give us a King—for thou art old (b) "And in those ways thou all thy life hast walked "Walk not thy sons: lucre their idol is— "And Judgment is perverted by the bribes "They take to stifle justice: give us, then, "A King to judge us. Other nations boast "Of such a chief—a King, give us a King!" So Saul became the crowned of Israel— The first great ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning

... grounds. The last are the only ones which the elector would like to avow. The best side of their character is that which people are anxious to show, even to those who are no better than themselves. People will give dishonest or mean votes from lucre, from malice, from pique, from personal rivalry, even from the interests or prejudices of class or sect, more readily in secret than in public. And cases exist—they may come to be more frequent—in which almost the only restraint upon a majority of knaves consists in their involuntary respect ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill

... state barges. Mac's rather hazy notions of that lady wrapped her in a halo of romance, and now he walked the lovely aisles which she had trod. Was it, he thought, worth while gradually to spoil this wonderful building for the sake of lucre from ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... cause of the abolishment of certain Ceremonies was, That they were so far abused, partly by the superstitious blindness of the rude and unlearned, and partly by the unsatiable avarice of such as sought more their own lucre, than the glory of God, that the abuses could not well be taken ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England

... never come quite up to rehearsal. "Dear Miss Porter," he would say, addressing the back of the driver, "if I could remain faithful to a dream of my youth, however illusive and unreal, can you believe that for the sake of lucre I could be false to the one real passion that alone supplanted it?" In the composition and delivery of this eloquent statement an hour was happily forgotten: the only drawback to its complete effect was that a misplacing of epithets in rapid repetition did not seem to make the slightest difference, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... free priests, the lady hospitallers, and the simple passers-by, who came there to satisfy their appetites. Then, too, there was the trading mania excited by the shower of millions, the entire town given up to lucre, the shops transforming the streets into bazaars which devoured one another, the hotels living gluttonously on the pilgrims, even to the Blue Sisters who kept a table d'hote, and the Fathers of the Grotto who coined money with their God! What a sad ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... December 23rd, Sunday—(whilst the Waits, as usual, were serenading the semi-detached, in a full conviction of its being Monday, and the possibility of "living and loving together," and "being happy yet").—"To church with my new tenant, who is delightful company: Lady Lucre. says he is a 'refined duck,' a 'gentlemanly angel,' and a 'manly poppet:' to which I made answer, that I thought so too; and that she was a 'seraphine concert.' Sermon, by the Rev. Loyalla a Becket, 'in aid of funds for ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner

... fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one feats, the other humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, and the other hospitality ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... times justified in demanding her from her father, according to the pledge and bond of so many years ago. He had nothing to lose but his life, and he had risked that before. This old man, the head of the Romany folk, had the bulk of the fortune which had been his own father's and he had the logic of lucre which is the most convincing of all logic. Yet with the girl holding his eyes commandingly, he was conscious that he was asking more than a Romany lass to share his 'tan', to go wandering from Romany people to Romany people, king and queen of them all when Gabriel Druse had passed away. Fleda Druse ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... contrary. These worldlings set little by such works as God hath prepared for our salvation, but they extol traditions and works of their own invention: the children of light contrary. The worldlings, if they spy profit, gains, or lucre in any thing, be it never such a trifle, be it never so pernicious, they preach it to the people (if they preach at any time), and these things they defend with tooth and nail. They can scarce disallow the abuses of these, albeit they be intolerable, ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer

... "Lucre is never filthy until you lose it," said the old lady as she went out on the back piazza, and closed the ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton

... surprizing that I agreed and that I took the filthy lucre? No. For I knew then that he would never get to the station, and the reward of two hundred, plus the Twenty-five, was ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... had fled. In Holland and England intelligent enterprise had not yet degenerated into mere greed for material prosperity. The love of danger, the thirst for adventure, the thrilling sense of personal responsibility and human dignity—not the base love for land and lucre—were the governing sentiments which led those bold Dutch and English rovers to circumnavigate the world in cockle-shells, and to beard the most potent monarch on the earth, both at home and abroad, with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... so fixed in its determination to destroy, root and branch, the accursed thing, that even the forces of evil and self-seeking, awed and overpowered, are swept into the line of its procession. Good men and bad men, lovers of country and lovers only of lucre, men who will fight to the death for a grand idea and men who fight only for some low ambition, worshippers of God and worshippers of Mammon, are alike putting their hands to the plough which is to overturn and overturn till the ancient evil is uprooted. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... the speculator, the selfish politician, when compared with those confided to the Christian wife and mother? They are too often simply contemptible—a wretched, feverish, maddening struggle to pile up lucre, which is any thing but clean. Where is the superior merit of such a life, that we should hanker after it, when placed beside that of the loving, unselfish, Christian wife and mother—the wife, standing at her husband's side, to cheer, ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... induce him to stop their trade with his country; but when they sent deputies to apologise, their fears were shown to be groundless by his truly paternal reply,—to the effect that he was little solicitous for the fate of unworthy subjects, who, in the pursuit of lucre, had quitted their country, and abandoned the ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite: sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession,"—(that is, for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary citers of the saying, 'Knowledge is power;') "and seldom sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men; as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereon ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various

... by his side declared him a butcher, we overheard him opening an address to a genteelish sort of young lady, whom he walked with: "Miss, though your father is master of a coal-lighter, and you will be a great fortune, 'tis true; yet I wish I may be cut into quarters if it is not only love, and not lucre of gain, that is my motive for offering terms of marriage." As this lover proceeded in his speech, he misled us the length of three streets, in admiration at the unlimited power of the tender passion, that could soften even the heart of a butcher. We then adjourned to a tavern, and ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... day" was "the evil thereof." Till then, I was quite satisfied to let the matter rest; living, for the present, in the fairy land of my imagination where such a thing as filthy lucre was undreamt of. ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson

... that same boatman / was ne'er a pleasant thing; The yearning after lucre / yet evil end doth bring. Here where thought he Hagen's / gold so red to gain, Must he by the doughty / warrior's ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... his throat, which gave him so much pain that he went howling up and down, and importuning every creature he met to lend him a kind hand in order to his relief; nay, he even promised a reward to anyone who should undertake the operation with success. At last the Crane, tempted with the lucre of the reward, and having first made the Wolf confirm his promise with an oath, undertook the business, and ventured his long neck into the ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... Miss Luker," says Kelly. "Filthy Lucre is, I believe, the name she usually goes by, on account of her obvious unpalatableness (my own word, you will notice), and her overwhelming affection ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... moment ago," said she, "what money you wanted. I do not ask that now, as the girl is dead and a clergyman is not supposed to take much interest in filthy lucre. But you want something, or you would not be here. Is it revenge? It is a sentiment worthy of your cloth, and I can easily understand the desire you may have to ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green

... how far, in that healthy element, a moderate and delicately sanctified appetite for gold may be developed into livelier qualms of hunger for righteousness. It may be matter of private opinion how far the lucre derived by your Lordship from commission on the fares and refreshments of the passengers by the North-Western may be odoriferous or precious, in the same sense as the ointment on the head of Aaron; or how far that received by ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... haunts of men, in a sleepy hollow only five minutes' walk from the railway station, the Southern Hotel Company has secured a delightful site for their fine hotel. If nature has done great things for Caragh, "filthy lucre," too, has done much, and here is everything to help the invalid, the sportsman, or "the common or garden" tourist to take advantage of the charming pleasure and health resort. For the fisherman there are almost endless opportunities. There is excellent ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger

... more learning than the other faculties, I will not stay to inquire; but I believe every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre. Agreeably to this character, the College of Physicians, in July, 1687, published an edict, requiring all the Fellows, Candidates, and Licentiates to give gratuitous advice to the neighbouring poor. This edict ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... bragging, cant, bad grammar of the most ludicrous kind, and texts of Scripture quoted without the smallest application. I remember one passage by heart, which is really only a fair specimen of the whole: 'These missionaries, my Lord, loving only filthy lucre, bid us to eat Lord-supper with Pariahs as lives ugly, handling dead men, drinking rack and toddy, sweeping the streets, mean fellows altogether, base persons, contrary to that which Saint Paul saith: I determined to know nothing among you save ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... stranger, as I ain't the one to make a man quarrel with his food, more especial when there ain't no more going of the rounds; and as for that there claim, well, she's been a good nigger to me; but between you and me, stranger, speaking man to man, now that there ain't any filthy lucre between us to obscure the features of the truth, I guess ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard

... is the gift of Heaven —rules the court —, deep as first —is a boy Loved not wisely —and lost, better to have Loveliness needs no ornament Lover, why so pale Lover's perjuries Lower, he that is down can fall no Lucifer, falls like Lucre, not greedy of filthy Luster, I ne'er could any, see Lute, listened to a Luxury of doing good —cursed by heaven s decree —to be Lydian airs, lap me in Lying, this world is given to Lyre ...
— Familiar Quotations • Various

... her answer mark, Her glowing eye-balls glittering in the dark, And said but this: Since lucre was your trade, Succeeding times such dreadful gaps have made, 'Tis dangerous climbing: to your sons and you I leave the ladder, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother, We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee; Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre— it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual! Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee! Our freedom all in thee! our very lives ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... sister, assented to this, and declared on their own knowledge that no man lived less addicted to filthy lucre than ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope

... man's in love he mopeth apart and is ill company, so is he out o' friends; he hangeth humble head abashed, so is he out o' countenance; he uttereth frequent, windy, sighful suspirations, so is he out o' breath; he lavisheth lucre on his love, so is he out o' pocket; he forsweareth food, despiseth drink, scorneth sleep, so is he out o' health—in fine, he is out of all things, so is he out of himself; therefore he is mad, and ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol



Words linked to "Lucre" :   gross profit, killing, dividend, earnings, share, gross profit margin, filthy lucre, sugar, quick buck, income, earning per share, windfall profit, markup, cleanup, portion, percentage, margin, fast buck, moolah, money, accumulation, part, simoleons



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