"Usury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to realize our gains are akin to the passion of usury; these are tricks of the usurer to grasp his gold in act and imagination. Have none of them. Work at ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... how many passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have mentioned, and through fifty more in the same ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... hours of earth bestow With sorrow thou must pay. Though many follow close, yet know, They're loaned but for a day. With sighing in thy laughter's stead Shall come a time of grief, The load of usury bow thy head, With loss of thy belief. Mary Anne, Mary Anne, Mary Anne, Mary Anne, Hadst thou not smiled upon me, thou, ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... on the taste for beauty in works of art, in the words of Pindar. He says to Agesidamus, a youth of Locri—ideai te kalon, horai te kekramenon—whom he had kept waiting for an intended ode, that a debt paid with usury is the end of reproach. This may win your good-nature on behalf of my present essay, which has turned out far more detailed and circumstantial than I had ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... the strongest govern'd all; Hence came it that th' edicts were over-rul'd, That laws were broke, tribunes with consuls strove, Sale made of offices, and people's voices 180 Bought by themselves and sold, and every year Frauds and corruption in the Field of Mars; Hence interest and devouring usury sprang, Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome. Now Caesar overpass'd the snowy Alps; His mind was troubled, and he aim'd at war: And coming to the ford of Rubicon, At night in dreadful vision fearful[594] Rome Mourning appear'd, whose hoary hairs were torn, And on her ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... whether just or unjust. Those who are driven on their coast by storms are made slaves by the inhabitants of that land. They are so mercenary that they even make slaves of their own brothers, through usury. They do not understand any kind of work, unless it be to do something actually necessary—such as to build their houses, which are made of stakes after their fashion; to fish, according to their method; to row, and perform the duties of sailors; and to cultivate the land. The mountaineers make ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... since my severance from thee, * I wept till forced to borrow tears at usury: 'Patience!' my blamer cried, 'Heartsease right soon shalt see!' * Quoth I, 'Say, blamer, where may home ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... penny of certain fee, revenue, stipend, or pension, either left him or restored unto him,")—Dee says that "he has been constrained now and then to send parcels of his little furniture of plate to pawn upon usury; and that he did so oft, till no more could be sent. After the same manner went his wives' jewels of gold, rings, bracelets, chains, and other their rarities, under the thraldom of the usurer's gripes: 'till non plus was written upon the boxes at ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... were practically three castes in Rome,—priests, nobles, and beggars,—for there was nothing which in any degree corresponded to a citizen class; such business as there was consisted chiefly in usury, and was altogether in the hands of the Jews. Rome was the lonely and ruined capital of a pestilential desert, and its population was composed of marauders ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... many a bachelor to waite on him, In theyr fresh garments trim. Bid her awake therefore, and soone her dight, For lo! the wished day is come at last, That shall, for all the paynes and sorrowes past, Pay to her usury of long delight: And, whylest she doth her dight, Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may answer, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... merciful. In a statute, however, which was passed in his third year, he forbade Jews practising usury, required them to wear badges of yellow taffety, as a distinguishing mark of their nationality, and demanded from each of them threepence every Easter. Then began the plunder. The king wanted money to build Carnarvon and Conway castles, to be ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... graceful and intelligent, but possessing no claim to rare beauty. A second glance increases your approbation. Goodness of heart is indelible upon that face. The other occupant is a lady about sixty years of age. Time had been generous in its demands by drawing small usury from his allotted spoliations. Lady Bereford had been a beauty in her day, and, judging from the skilful devices practised, wished yet to retain her passing glories. Her fair complexion still showed a lingering bloom, the haughty eye still preserved ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... made of every talent will be scrutinized. How have we employed the capital lent us of Heaven? Will the Lord at His coming receive His own with usury? Have we improved the powers intrusted us, in hand and heart and brain, to the glory of God and the blessing of the world? How have we used our time, our pen, our voice, our money, our influence? What have we done for Christ, in the person of the poor, the afflicted, the ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... beginning to be something more than dirty smithing. No longer does the business man thank the better classes for permitting him to make and distribute bread and motor-cars and books. No longer does he crawl to the church to buy pardon for usury. Business is being recognized—and is recognizing itself—as ruler of ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... much benefit as possible, finds his faith growing stronger and stronger, as he continues to witness evidences of the influence of that faith on others. Had Gordon, like one in the parable, wrapt his faith up in a napkin, instead of making good use of it by putting it out to usury, he might never have acquired the strong faith which so characterised him. As it was, he not only to the last day of his life had cause to thank God for the full assurance he enjoyed, but the number of orphans, of widows, and of others, who derived benefit directly ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... prepared by him, he produced the lady, royally apparelled, who showed so fair and so agreeable that she was worthily commended of all, and on like wise Alessandro splendidly attired, in bearing and appearance no whit like a youth who had lent at usury, but rather one of royal blood, and now much honoured of the two knights. There he caused solemnly celebrate the marriage afresh and after goodly and magnificent nuptials made, he ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... quite a fortune in eight year's time, that is to say, a fortune for our part of the world. Very likely he may have a couple of score thousand francs by now. But if I were to give you a thousand guesses, you would never find out how he made the money. He is a usurer, and his scheme of usury is so profoundly and so cleverly based upon the requirements of the whole canton, that I should merely waste my time if I were to take it upon myself to undeceive them as to the benefits which they reap, in their ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... reign of Edward VI. religious zeal prohibited all interest. This prohibition, however, like all others of the same kind, is said to have produced no effect, and probably rather increased than diminished the evil of usury. The statute of Henry VIII. was revived by the 13th of Elizabeth, cap. 8. and ten per cent. continued to be the legal rate of interest till the 21st of James I. when it was restricted to eight per cent. It was reduced to six per cent. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... asked you fifteen per cent," said Blondet; "you ought to be grateful to him. At twenty-five per cent you don't bow to those old fellows. This is money-lending; usury doesn't begin till fifty per cent; and then ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac
... ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury and the accumulations ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... become a profit- maker instead of a wage-earner. The Jew craves the position of a sweating-master, because that is the lowest step in a ladder which may lead to a life of magnificence, supported out of usury. The Jewish Board of Guardians in London, though its philanthropic action is on the whole more enlightened than that of most wealthy public bodies, has been responsible in no small measure for this artificial multiplication ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... accomplishment of his project he would be urged by despair; for his debts are great, and his character nothing but new wealth can support. I knew that he was able, bold, determined, and that he had taken with him a large supply of money borrowed upon usury,—in a word, I trembled for you both. I have now seen your daughter, and I tremble no more. Accomplished seducer as Peschiera boasts himself, the first look upon her face so sweet, yet so noble, convinced me that she is proof against a legion of Peschieras. Now, then, return we to ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sometimes lend their assent to poetical images, even to those that do not stun the mind lie bludgeons and imperatively, by much repetition, command their assent; and it is for a solid exchange and interest in usury with soft poetical creatures when they are so condescending; but they are seized by the grotesque. In spite of efforts to efface or supplant it, he saw the white cat, nothing else, even to thinking that she had jumped cleverly to catch the wheel. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... exponents. Monopolies were fiercely denounced in the contemporary German tracts and every Diet made some effort to deal with them. First of all the merchants had to meet not only the envy and prejudices of the old order, but the positive teachings of the church. The prohibition of usury, and the doctrine that every article had a just or natural price, barred the road of the early entrepreneur. Aquinas believed that no one should be allowed to make more money than he needed and that ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... all the country roundabout. There was no competition, and for many years he had had it all his own way. The young people's appetite for cherries and their zeal for pleasure had overcome their indignation at his usury. But at last Silas's greed got the better of his financial shrewdness; he increased his price for cherries every season, and the year after the tavern closed it became so preposterous that there was a rebellion. It was headed by Thomas ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... mind that would accept the most burdensome charges, and by some species of moral usury make a profit ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... returns he requires an accounting. Two servants have put their talents out at usury and gained one hundred per cent. Good. The unprofitable one simply digs up the talent deposited with him and hands it out on demand. A pattern of behavior for trust companies and banks, surely! In one version we read that he had wrapped it in a napkin and laid it away. ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... kill were easy; aye, but—to stretch his life As on a rack—were that not better still? Dead, I'd bury with him my revenge; But while he lives the old account will stand At daily usury. I'll tent his agony, prolong it here, Even here where I may feed upon it; Not send him hence beyond my reach. Aye! I'll fight with death to keep him for mine own. But, now— O, I must calm myself or miss ...
— The Scarlet Stigma - A Drama in Four Acts • James Edgar Smith
... of foot. But it is not in his character of philosopher that he either wins a race or invents a machine. No, to be sure. The business of a philosopher was to declaim in praise of poverty with two millions sterling out at usury, to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury, in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns, to rant about liberty, while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedmen of a tyrant, to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the rue Bertin-Poiree, in the parish of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, where he had been married. He first acted on commission for the Benedictine-Camalduian fathers of the forest of Senart, who had heard of him as a man wholly given to piety; then, giving himself up to usury, he undertook what is known as "business affairs," a profession which, in such hands, could not fail to be lucrative, being aided by his exemplary morals and honest appearance. It was the more easy for him to impose on others, as he could not be accused ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... quarrelling with his disciples about the salary for tuition; Clinias the orator stealing a phial out of the temple; not to mention a thousand others, who were undermining walls, litigating in the forum, extorting money, or lending it upon usury; a sight, upon ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... usury! 'Tis an offensive word: Our enemies, like arrow from the bow, Are aiming it to pierce our very heart While 'tis a practice which costumbre shields. The slothful servant, so the Good Book says, Was he who in a napkin hid his gold; But he who shrewdly other talents made ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... temporary retirement here; where they learn a sufficiency of the law to give information on all the quirks and quibbles of the arrest laws, of bailing, demurring, justifying bail, putting in bail above, of writs of error, county and Marshalsea writs, of letters of licence, the laws against usury, the bankrupt laws, and finally of acts of grace; perhaps the last and only one in their lives bearing that name: but we must walk on, or we may ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the Knight, "to gnaw the bowels of our nobles with usury, and to gull women and boys with gauds and toys—I warrant thee store of shekels in ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... drunkenness: simony: witch-craft: breaking of the holy-days: sacrilege: to receive GOD'S Body in deadly sin: breaking of vows: apostacy: dissipation in GOD'S service: to set example of ill deeds: to hurt any man in his body, or in his goods, or in his fame: theft: rapine: usury: deceit: selling of righteousness: to hearken ill: to give to harlots: to withhold necessaries from the body, or to give it to excess: to begin a thing that is above our might: custom to sin: falling often into sin: feigning of more good than we have: for to seem holier, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... it depends, first, on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles; and, secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking an exorbitant[47] sum for the use of anything; and it is no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, on rent or on price—the essence of the usury being ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... fear lest ever again they be lured by specious promises to suffer usury at the hands of Yahn, who is overskilled in Law. Only Yahn sits and smiles, watching his hoard increase in preciousness, and hath no pity for the poor shadows whom he hath lured from their quiet to toil in the ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... the usury is high, but there is great risk, so thinks Antonio; egad! perhaps he is right, though it is possible we may pay him. Altogether a most excellent plan, my ...
— 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
... time he is hostile to the Prince. But what is the use? We must not have any misunderstandings with him, for we need him. He has this whole region in his pocket and understands electioneering better than any one else. Besides, he is considered well-to-do and lends out money at usury which is contrary to the ordinary ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... and Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter—we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of savages. We have no use for ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... a thorough egotist. In his youth he had been charged with usury; no one knew by what means he had become rich, for the little drapery trade which he called his profession did not ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... received from each, and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said he should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, "Take off your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I did, and stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty grinning boys. I was going to ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... have left it to me, then, madame, who know what they are; but you wished to be frugal, and consequently to lend at usury." ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... works (obras pias), consisted of certain rents, or pensions, granted to a convent on condition that certain masses should be said therein, during the year, for the soul of the grantor. Rich men who had acquired a fortune by unfair means, or through an extortionate usury, were induced to expect forgiveness of their sins, if they left large sums of money to the fathers of the convent the saint of which they were accustomed to worship or venerate, and to whom they usually paid their devotions. Some of those benefactors, most generously, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... a barren product, it is contrary to nature to make it reproduce itself. Usury, therefore, is unnatural, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... New York for capital with which to develop our resources; and New York has it in abundance— countless millions she is eager to let out at usury; yet it is estimated that ten thousand children perish in that city every year of the world for lack of food—and how many are kept alive by the bitter bread of a contemptuous charity God only knows. In one year 3,000 children were debarred ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... FARRELL,—Except my daughter's, I have not grieved for any death as I have grieved for his. His was a great and beautiful spirit, he was a man—all man from his crown to his foot soles. My reverence for him was deep and genuine; I prized his affection for me and returned it with usury. Sincerely ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the song, though he The singer passes; lasting too, For souls not lent in usury, The rapture of the ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... O, where dwells faith or truth? Ill usury my favours reap from thee, Usurping Sol, the hate ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... be made. Caveat vendor will be a sound qualification of Caveat emptor in the beautifully codified Utopian law. Whether the Utopian company will be allowed to prefer this class of share to that or to issue debentures, whether indeed usury, that is to say lending money at fixed rates of interest, will be permitted at all in Utopia, one may venture to doubt. But whatever the nature of the shares a man may hold, they will all be sold at his death, and whatever he has not clearly assigned ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... particularly along the shores of great rivers and inland seas. Trade and travel began, at first only a trade in adventitious things, in metals and rare objects and luxuries and slaves. With trade came writing and money; the inventions of debt and rent, usury and tribute. History finds already in its beginnings a thin network of trading and slaving flung over the world of the Normal Social Life, a network whose strands are the early roads, whose knots are the first towns and the ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Britain were hauling down a flag when the sovereign, which has already disappeared into bank and Treasury coffers, is locked up there and reserved for international trade. But Great Britain has other sentiments to consider than the finer feelings of bankers and the delicacies of usury. The pound British will come out of this war like a company ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... objects of devotion, mingled among the votaries of Mammon. They were not behind those who wielded the civil power in fabricating ordinances suited to their avaricious purposes. Theological decisions forthwith appeared, in which the anathema launched by the Church against usury was conveniently construed as not extending to ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... usury, this was not bad. We thanked him acidly, offered the Bonds for sale, and, after a little calculation, accepted two hundred and forty-three ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn,—capability of amusement on a low key. He expects rapid and extraordinary returns. He would make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the gods when we see them,—always a sign of the decay of the faith and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... To the practice of usury and of increasing money by interest, they are strangers; and hence is found a better guard against it, than if it were forbidden. They shift from land to land; and, still appropriating a portion suitable to the number ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... 5:6-11] Then I was very angry when I heard their complaint and these statements. And I took counsel with myself, and contended with the nobles and rulers, and said to them, 'You exact usury each of his brother.' And I held a great assembly against them. And I said to them, 'We ourselves have, according to our ability, redeemed our fellow-countrymen the Jews, who have been sold to the ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... for us! True, indeed! They ne'er cared for us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their storehouses crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing statutes daily to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and there's all the love they bear ...
— The Tragedy of Coriolanus • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... repented of the suffering He has caused to the soul of His beloved, or that He would pay back with usury what she has suffered for His love. If this consolation last for many days, it becomes painful. She calls Him sweet and cruel: she asks Him if He has only wounded her that she may die. But this kind Lover laughs at her pain, and applies to the wound a balm so sweet, that she could ask to be ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... Usury is the great nightmare of rural Russia, at present, an evil which seems to dog the peasant proprietor in all countries alike. The "Gombeen Man" is fast getting possession of the little Irish owners. A man ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... feet Plunge floundering mid the marshes yellow-flowered, His restless head just reaching to the rocks, His bosom tossing with black weeds besmeared, How writhes he twixt the continent and isle! What tyrant with more insolence e'er claimed Dominion? when from the heart of Usury Rose more intense the pale-flamed thirst for gold? And called forsooth DELIVERER! False or fools Who praised the dull-eared miscreant, or who hoped To soothe your folly and disgrace with praise! Hearest thou not the harp's gay simpering air And merriment afar? then come, advance; And now behold ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... antagonistic, but what he does not see is that the interests of labor and capital may both be antagonistic to the interests of monopoly, and that until the latter is destroyed the two former will be continually forced into positions of seeming antagonism. He denounces "rapacious usury," and says that it was "more than once condemned by the Church," conveniently overlooking the fact that the usuria, which was condemned, was not only "rapacious" but was all taking of money for the use of money, all interest on loans—a condemnation which, if insisted upon by the Church ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... we shall be the grandest nation in the world. No power in Europe can stand before us. All will be freedom, and civilization, and great ideas, and fine taste in dress. I shall recover the large estates, that would now be mine, but for usury and fraud. And you will be one of the first ladies in the world, as nature has always ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... whispered round. Who vice, in all its pomp and power, can treat with just neglect; And piety, though clothed in rags, religiously respect. Who to his plighted vows and trust has ever firmly stood; And though he promise to his loss, he makes his promise good. Whose soul in usury disdains his treasure to employ; Whom no rewards can ever bribe the guiltless to destroy. The man, who, by this steady course, has happiness insured, When earth's foundations shake, shall ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... was very prettily said of him," answered Maud Lindesay, with the first flicker of a smile on her face. Her conscience was quite at ease about Sholto. He was different. Whatever pain she had caused him, she meant to make up to him with usury thereto. The others she had exercised no more for her own amusement than for their own ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... the man. That alone seems to him the real measure of himself, the real standard of his manhood. And so men grow by having responsibility laid upon them, the burden of other people's business. Their powers are put out at interest, and they get usury in kind. They are like men multiplied. Each counts manifold. Men who live with an eye only upon what is their own are dwarfed beside them—seem fractions while they are integers. The trustworthiness of men trusted seems often to grow ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... "neither put out money at usury, nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to established usage for an Indian either to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require securities." Healing, we are told, was by simple and natural ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... his heart, Who utters no slander with his tongue, Who does no wrong to his friend, Who makes no charge against his neighbor; In whose sight the vile are despised, But he honors those who revere the Lord. He keeps his oath at all costs, His money he puts not out to usury, And cannot be ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... round the chest, had landed in their country 150,000 years previously, and finding them very barbarous, slaying one another and unacquainted with the use of letters, the precious metals, or the art of usury, had instructed them in civilization, endowed them with letters, a coinage, police, lawyers, instruments of torture, and all the other requisites of a great State, and had finally drawn up for them this code of law or custom, which they carefully preserved engraved upon the tablets ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... slaves; for these generally are, or were, stolen from other countries, or taken in unjustifiable petty warfare, or made slaves for very small debts—of which the majority admit no other payment than their enslavement—others by usury and barter according to their custom, and by other methods, even more unjust than these. It is necessary for his Majesty to ordain some method so that, now and henceforth, at least those who are under our control, may make no more slaves; that children born ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... the Public for allowing merit to an act whose only object is to snatch misfortune and imprudence from the rapacious Relief of usury! and give the minor a chance of inheriting his estate without being undone by coming ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... golden time was the bondage of the human intellect, and, like royalty, it had gained by the ignorance and weakness of men. Civil oppression made religion more necessary and more dear; submission to tyrannical power prepares the mind for a blind, convenient faith, and the hierarchy repaid with usury the services of despotism. In the provinces the bishops and prelates were zealous supporters of royalty, and ever ready to sacrifice the welfare of the citizen to the temporal advancement of the church and the political interests of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... usury is no deadly sin. And they sell benefices of Holy Church. And so do men in other places: God amend it when his will is! And that is great sclaundre, for now is simony king crowned in Holy Church: God ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... What saie you to be a murderer? Soche a thyng saieth he, is [Fol. xxxvij.v] Usurie. A brief sentence againste Usurers, but wittely pro- nounced from the mouth of a godlie, sage, noble, and descrite persone, whiche sentence let the Usurer, ioigne to his Usury retourned, and repeate at the retourne thereof, this sentence [Sidenote: The sentence of Cato a dis- comfort to v- surers.] of Cato, I haue murthered. This one sentence will discou- rage any Usurer, knowyng hymself a murtherer. Though moche ...
— A booke called the Foundacion of Rhetorike • Richard Rainolde
... charge interest upon interest. [Footnote: C. 4, 32, 26, Section 1.] Property would double, at eight and one third, in twelve years, not so rapidly as by our system of compound interest, especially at the rate of seven per cent. In England the usury laws of different monarchs limited interest from ten per cent, to five; but these were repealed in 1854. Only five per cent. can now be recovered upon ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... nearest his heart is his collection of postage-stamps. This is his treasure; and he always speaks of it as though he were going to get a fortune out of it. His companions accuse him of miserliness and usury. I do not know: I like him; he teaches me a great many things; he seems a man to me. Coretti, the son of the wood-merchant, says that he would not give him his postage-stamps to save his mother's life. My father does not ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... remark, which both Mr. Macbean and I thought new. It was this: that 'the law against usury is for the protection of creditors as well as of debtors; for if there were no such check, people would be apt, from the temptation of great interest, to lend to desperate persons, by whom they would lose their money. Accordingly ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... of ten years they had paid everything,—everything, with the exactions of usury and the accumulations of ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... here? Shall my Father's house be thus dishonored? Is this the house of God, or is it a market-place? How can the strangers who come from the land of the Gentiles to worship God perform their devotions in this tumult of usury? And you," he continued, advancing a step toward the priests, who stared at him in amazement, "You priests, guardians of the temple, can you see this abomination and permit it to continue? Woe be unto you! He who searches the heart knows ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... Chancery and the giving of an enlarged jurisdiction to the Court of Queen's Bench; (10) reduction of lawyers' fees; (11) free trade and direct taxation; (12) an amended jury law; (13) the abolition or modification of the usury laws; (14) the abolition of primogeniture; (15) the secularization of the clergy reserves, and the abolition of the rectories. The movement was opposed by the Globe. No new party, it said, was required ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... conservative, really dream of, when the sneer shall be struck from the face of the well-fed; when the wine of honour shall be poured down the throat of despair; when we shall, so far as to the sons of flesh is possible, take tyranny, and usury, and public treason, and bind them ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... till tears have wetted my cheek for unutterable sympathies with the multitudinous moving picture; * * nursed amid her noise, her crowds, her beloved smoke, what have I been doing all my life, if I have not lent out my heart with usury to ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... curse Eckert sprang from the door; Pollnitz followed him with a mocking glance. "Revenge is sweet," he said, drawing a long breath; "he has often done me wrong, and now I have paid him back with usury. Eckert is lost. Would that I had his house! I must have it! I will have it! Oh, I will make myself absolutely necessary to the king; I will flatter, I will praise, I will find out and fulfil his most secret, his unspoken wishes. I will ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... daily doth his Pegasus bestride And keeps the War from spoiling on the side, Fails to be fostered by the sensuous sprout Or with horse carrots blow its waistcoat out. So, though I loathe thee, butcher, I must buy The tokens of thy heartless usury. Yet oft I dream that in some life to come, Where no sharp pangs assail the poet's tum, Athwart high sunburnt plains I drive my plough, Untouched by earth's gross appetites, and thou, My ox, my beast, goest groaning ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 5, 1917 • Various
... borrower, having repaid a mortgage loan to a New York building and loan association, sued in a Mississippi court to recover, as usurious, certain charges collected by the association, the usury law of Mississippi rather than that of New York was held to control. In this case, the loan contract, which was negotiated in Mississippi subject to approval by the New York office, did not expressly state that it was governed by New ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... ever-growing army of the unemployed in agriculture and industry—of those who have lost their foothold in the lower middle class,—and of those who have been expropriated (robbed) of their little possessions by taxes, debts or usury. ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... view, this seems to be the only defensible provision, as it would tend to discourage usury, a common evil in money transactions between Europeans and Natives; but because it interfered with Mr. Jabavu's personal aims, that is the only flaw. The cold-blooded evictions and the Draconian principle against living anywhere, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... that hung lowest certain jewels belonging to widow women that he had in pledge, a great heap of clippings from pieces he had filched dishonestly, and sundry very fine gold coins which were unique and which he had acquired by usury or fraud, Nicolas Nerli comprehended it was his own life, now come to an end, that St. Michael was at that instant weighing before ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... contempt for the Catholic worship, their desecration of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian children, at the celebration of their own passover. [14] With these foolish calumnies, the more probable charge of usury and extortion was industriously preferred against them, till at length, towards the close of the fourteenth century, the fanatical populace, stimulated in many instances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps encouraged by the numerous class of debtors to the Jews, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... could not free himself from the fatal noose. He must pay whatever the cold-eyed creditor demanded. Two thousand dollars was the sum asked for the acknowledgment of having appropriated five hundred. Twopence for halfpenny has been accounted fair usury among the Jews; but in Christian communities it is only crime that accumulates interest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... property of their masters. Besides these, there are slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom the ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... six hundred they should lend. And keep them safe, moreover, till the year had made an end. For so their word was given and sworn to him again, If they looked ere that within them, forsworn should be the twain, The Cid would never give them one groat of usury. ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... intellectual prostitutes write the editorials of their columns, blinding and deceiving the minds of the people that the classes may fleece them. In short the ethics of Christ would enter into the industrial and social systems. Usury would be abolished. Instead of having Christ so much in prayer and song, in poetry and prose, in marble and on canvas, we would have him in the halls of legislation, in railroad operations, in manufactories, ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... will yield to you the comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires that you shall pay him the further sum of L2 as usury, and likewise that you do liquidate and save him harmless from the charges of us, his solicitors, which charges, from the number of grave and complicated questions which have become a part of this case and demanded solution, we are unable to make less ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... sons Lost in the void, gone where no respite runs For sorrow, but the darkness covers all— What name should we bequeath our sons but thrall, Or what beside a name, who let go by Ilios the rich for others' usury? And have the blessed Gods no say in this? Think you they be won over by a kiss— Here the Queen, she, the unwearied aid Of all our striving, Pallas the war-maid? Have they not vowed, and will ye scant their hate, Havoc on Ilios from gate to gate, ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... for more than one thousand peasants in the winter—in a single commune—to be seen awaiting their turn to have their taxes "flogged out." Of course, before this was endured all means had been exhausted for raising the required amount. Usury, that surest road to ruin, and the one offering the least resistance, was the one ordinarily followed. Thus was created that destructive class called Koulaks, or Mir-eaters, who, while they fattened ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... disorder? Such a doctrine puts an end to all beneficence, to all gratitude, which are the great bonds of agreement. For if you do good to any one for your own sake, that is not to be considered a kindness, but only usury; nor does any gratitude appear due to the man who has benefited another for ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... way of barter. Silver is rarely lent out at interest, except between mercantile men in large cities. The legal interest is twelve per cent. but it is commonly extended to eighteen, sometimes even to thirty-six. To avoid the punishment of usury, what is given above twelve per cent. is in the shape of a bonus. "Usury, in China," observes Lord Macartney, "like gaming elsewhere, is a dishonourable mode of getting money; but by a sort of compact between necessity ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... the task to reign supreme Within the sacred sphere of home; To make our life one happy dream, Thine own as spotless as the foam. To trade, to toil, to head the feast, To seek the politician's gain, Were hateful:—ay, as though the priest Took usury, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... The platform of the party was based upon the prevalent economic and political discontent. Farmers were overmortgaged, laborers were underpaid, and the poor were growing poorer, while the rich were daily growing richer. "The paramount issues," the new party declared, "are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and trusts, and we denounce the Republican and Democratic parties for creating ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... which creates Government as its representative. Ignorance does not excuse; knowledge on these subjects is a sacred duty. Man cannot break the bonds of his brotherhood with man; the blood shed will be required of him, and the usury ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... enforces the law of usury among its followers. With the Jew, the Mohammedan has been strictly forbidden to make money by the use of money. And though they find ways of evading this law, to some extent, the ideal which they have before them is a ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... the man, in busy schemes unskilled, Who, living simply, like our sires of old, Tills the few acres, which his father tilled, Vexed by no thoughts of usury ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... it stretch Its topmost round, when it appear'd to him With angels laden. But to mount it now None lifts his foot from earth: and hence my rule Is left a profitless stain upon the leaves; The walls, for abbey rear'd, turned into dens, The cowls to sacks choak'd up with musty meal. Foul usury doth not more lift itself Against God's pleasure, than that fruit which makes The hearts of monks so wanton: for whate'er Is in the church's keeping, all pertains. To such, as sue for heav'n's sweet sake, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... the interest already paid. The narrative as it stands, moreover, is supported by analogy. It has a parallel in the economical history of ancient Athens, and in the "scaling of debts," to use the American equivalent for Seisachtheia, by the legislation of Solon. What prevents our supposing that usury, when it first made its appearance on the scene, before people had learned to draw the distinction between crimes and defaults, presented itself in a very coarse and cruel form? True, the currency was clumsy, and retained philological traces of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... remember that she and I and Rosalind argued round and round it for an hour one hot evening in the drawing-room at Queen's Gate. Finally my mother said, 'Oh, very well. If Rosalind wants a lot of fat Yid babies with hooked noses and oily hair, all lending money on usury instead of getting into debt like Christians, let her have them. I wash my hands of the lot of you. I don't know what I've done to deserve two ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... escape in no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content with six per cent. when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... and changes in financial matters, and also with prominent business houses in this and other cities. Among the recent letters received in correspondence of this sort are letters from the Secretary of State of every State in the Union with regard to rates of interest and usury laws, and letters from each of our city banks as to methods of reckoning time on paper, the basis of interest calculations, the practices concerning deposit balances, and other business matters subject to change. The aim of the proprietor is to keep the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... in the days of our fathers," her companion reminded her. "Then there was plenty and each man sat under his own vine and fig tree, for by the law of Moses no man was allowed to collect usury, so ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."—Psalm xv. 1-5. Yes, my friends, there is a tabernacle of God in which, even in this life, He will hide us from strife. There is a hill of God in which, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... from which the generalizations were deduced. A number of other very important cases which I included in my plan of proofs and illustrations I have been obliged to leave out for lack of space. Such are: Demonism, Primitive Religion, and Witchcraft; The Status of Women; War; Evolution and the Mores; Usury; Gambling; Societal Organization and Classes; Mortuary Usages; Oaths; Taboos; Ethics; AEsthetics; and Democracy. The first four of these are written. I may be able to publish them soon, separately. My next task is to finish ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... asked for 100,000 marks or L75,000(1471)) on the security of the crown lands. The loan bore interest at the rate of twelve per cent., and a special dispensation was granted to avoid the penalties of the Usury Act.(1472) The money was raised by assessment on the livery companies. On the 16th March the Court of Aldermen summoned the wardens of the twelve principal companies to attend at the Guildhall at eight o'clock the next morning, ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... looked back as if he were afraid of a baily or a sarjant." Cloth Breeches, who seems to be describing here Greene himself, is not too severe in his appreciation of the character of the poor troubled fellow: "If he have forty pound in his purse together, he puts it not to usury, neither buies land nor merchandise with it, but a moneths commodity of wenches and capons. Ten pound a supper, why tis nothing if his plough goes and his ink horne be cleere ... But to speak plainely I think him an honest man if he would but live within his compasse, and generally no mans foe ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... allows false witness to be given, from a benevolent motive, in order to save an innocent man from a tyrant. This is called "the venial sin of benevolent falsehood." The book then proceeds to describe weights and measures, and the rate of usury, which is put down as five percent. It forbids compound interest. The law of deposits occupies a large space, as in all Eastern countries, where investments are difficult. A good deal is said about the wages of ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... why the squadron was not paid even its wages. The Government had provided the means, but those to whom the distribution was entrusted retained the money during their pleasure, employing it for their own advantage in trading speculations or in usury, only applying it to a legitimate purpose when further delay became dangerous to themselves. One great cause of the hatred displayed towards me by these people, was my incessant demands that the claims of the squadron should be satisfied as regarded wages. As to prize-money, not a dollar was ever ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald |
