"Niggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... rivers in or near the Arctic circle. Even Mormon energy, industry, frugality and subservience to sacerdotal despotism, barely suffice to wrench a rude, coarse living from those narrow belts and patches of less niggard soil which skirt those infrequent lakes and scanty streams of the Great Basin which are susceptible of irrigation; mines alone (and they must be rich ones) can ever render populous the extensive country which is interposed ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... little of it they have, they had rather sell to get mony to keep, then eat it themselves: neither is there any but outlandish men, that will buy any of them. It is they indeed do eat the fat and best of the Land. Nor is it counted any shame or disgrace, to be a niggard and sparing in dyet; but rather a credit even to the greatest of them, that they can fare hard and suffer hunger, which they say, Soldiers ought to be ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... is changed,—hath felt the touch of sorrow, No love hath she, no understanding friend; O grief! when Heaven is forced of earth to borrow What the poor niggard earth has not to lend; But when the stalk is snapt, the rose must bend. The tallest flower that skyward rears its head Grows from the common ground, and there must shed Its delicate petals. Cruel fate, too surely, That they should ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... two writers who can be compared to him, if bulk and majesty of work be taken into consideration, and not merely occasional bursts of poetry. Of his own poetical powers I trust that I shall not be considered a niggard admirer, because, both in the character of its subject (if we are to consider subjects at all) and in its employment of rhyme, that greatest mechanical aid of the poet, The Faerie Queene seems to me greater, or because Milton's own earlier ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... ten-yeares-trauell'd Greeke return'd from Sea Ne'r ioyd so much to see his Ithaca, As I should you, who are alone to me, More then wide Greece could to that wanderer be. The winter windes still Easterly doe keepe, And with keene Frosts haue chained vp the deepe, The Sunne's to vs a niggard of his Rayes, But reuelleth with our Antipodes; And seldome to vs when he shewes his head, Muffled in vapours, he straight hies to bed. 10 In those bleake mountaines can you liue where snowe Maketh ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... of his barn, his kitchen, cellar, nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against him, and if, by accident, any wretched fellow that serves ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... in using this word has some confused notion that it comes from negro; whereas it really means niggard. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... among the ivy, "is the enormous gulf between what might be and what is in human life. Look at the world—life's most sumptuous stage—and look at life! The one, splendid, exquisite, varied, generous, rich beyond description; the other, poor, thin, dull, monotonous, niggard, distressful—is that necessary?" ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... gracious to us; never did she lay tax or tale on us, and whiles she would give us of her store, and that often, and abundantly. We deem also that every time when she came to us our increase became more plenteous, which is well seen by this, that since she hath ceased to come, the seasons have been niggard unto us." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... wage of weary days; But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; Then crushed with ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... you can find us a flagon of wine, too, and of the best, I know that," said Burdale. "Come, man, rummage out your stores, you used not to be niggard of your liquor." ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... Hath left unpunished to record their Tale. But who shall hear it? on that barren Sand None comes to stretch the hospitable hand. That shore reveals no print of human foot, Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder Brute; And niggard vegetation will not smile, All sunless on ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... the definite suggestion of Lord Wolseley, was that the Government gave in when the public anxiety became so great at the continued silence of Khartoum, and acquiesced in the despatch of an expedition to relieve General Gordon. Having once made the concession, it must be allowed that they showed no niggard spirit in sanctioning the expedition and the proposals of the military authorities. The sum of ten millions was devoted to the work of rescuing Gordon by the very persons who had rejected his demands for the hundredth part of that ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... receive arms of no other." The emperor without more ado replies: "Fair son, in God's name, say not so. This land and mighty are diverse and contrary. And that man is a slave. Constantinople is wholly yours. You must not hold me a niggard when I would fain give you so fair a boon. Soon will I have you crowned; and a knight shall you be to-morrow. All Greece shall be in your hand; and you shall receive from your barons—as indeed you ought to receive—their ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes |
