"Avaricious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overlook his display of importance when he neglected gentlemen in order to parade his tuppenny mayor's business. I paid no attention to his vaporings on the water question. I've heard plenty of franchise-owners talk that way for effect! He's an especially avaricious Scot, isn't he? Confound him! How much more shall I ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... guide our future dealings with him, and sorrow for all the fearful ills we have wrought upon him must awaken larger sympathy, and elicit tender mercy. The race are dying out among us: let us at least soothe their parting hours. And let the Government look well to its avaricious agents. Our people are generous, and mean to be just; that is not enough: they must take the proper means, and see that their beneficent intentions are carried out with regard to this wretched remnant. It is not possible that a race so full of wild natural eloquence, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... presently both tug lookouts reported breakers dead ahead; whereupon Jack Flaherty got out his largest megaphone and bellowed: "Yankee Prince, ahoy!" in his most approved fashion. Dan Hicks did likewise. This irritated the avaricious Flaherty, so he turned his megaphone in the direction of his rival and begged him, if he still retained any of the instincts of a seaman, to shut up; to which entreaty Dan Hicks replied with an acidulous query as to whether or not ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... who preferred poring over the 'Republic' of Plato to heading a charge of the Gothic cavalry. But his acquaintance with Latin and Greek literature had done nothing to ennoble his temper or expand his heart. A cold, hard, avaricious soul, he had been entirely bent on adding field to field and removing his neighbour's landmark, until the vast possessions which he had received from the generosity of Theodoric should embrace the whole of the great Tuscan plain. It will be seen by referring to two letters ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... replied the Jew, rendered desperate by paternal affection; "my daughter is my flesh and blood, dearer to me a thousand times than those limbs thy cruelty threatens. No silver will I give thee unless I were to pour it molten down thy [v]avaricious throat—no, not a silver penny will I give thee, [v]Nazarene, were it to save thee from the deep damnation thy whole life has merited. Take my life, if thou wilt, and say that the Jew, amidst his tortures, knew how ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... cargo of furs the preceding year had saved New France from bankruptcy. Offering to venture their lives a second time for the extension of the French domain, they were told they might do so if they would share half the profits with an avaricious governor. Their answer was characteristic. Discoverers were greater than governors; still, if the Indians of the Upper Country invited his Excellency, Radisson and Groseillers would be glad to have the honor of his company; as for his servants—men who went on ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... by nature, he was cruel by habit; without being naturally avaricious, he was a universal spoiler; and without savagely hating mankind, he spurned the feelings, the sufferings, and the life of man. He was hollow, fierce, and remorseless, where his own objects were concerned, and whether he cheated his party in the state, or rode ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the woman solemnly, for she was as superstitious as avaricious, and though she had no hesitancy in breaking the rules and taking a bribe, she would not have dared for her life to have risked treachery to a girl whom she ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... you're right," blurted out Andy with an avaricious glitter in his shifty eyes. "Let's go there to-night and see ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... political elements in various lands to resist established governmental authority; it has induced the use of force in an endeavor to wrest the sovereignty over a territory or over a community from those who have long possessed and justly exercised it. It has formed the basis for territorial claims by avaricious nations. And it has introduced into domestic as well as international affairs a new spirit of disorder. It is an evil thing to permit the principle of "self-determination" to continue to have the apparent ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... the popular displeasure which seemed generally excited by her parent's presumption. But Isaac, though we have seen him sufficiently timid on other occasions, knew well that at present he had nothing to fear. It was not in places of general resort, or where their equals were assembled, that any avaricious or malevolent noble durst offer him injury. At such meetings the Jews were under the protection of the general law; and if that proved a weak assurance, it usually happened that there were among the persons ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... on the dollar,—it would be securing what in the slang of the modern stock exchange is called "a good thing" to send agents into the rural districts in advance of the news to buy up government paper. "My soul rises indignant," exclaimed a member, "at the avaricious and moral turpitude which so vile a conduct displays." Nor on that point did anybody venture then to disagree with ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... fundamental concupiscence. These ingenious animals, having become citizens, voluntarily impose on themselves all sorts of privations; they respect the property of their neighbours, which is prodigious, if you take their avaricious nature into consideration; they observe the rules of modesty, which is an enormous hypocrisy, but generally consists in but seldom speaking of that of which they think without ceasing. Then, let's be true and honest, gentlemen, when we look on a woman, we do not attach our thoughts to the ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... servitude. His plan did not take root, but it was remembered. Thus the single error of a noble man, committed in the fulness of his Christian aspirations, and at the very moment when he was representing to a generation of hard and avaricious men the divine charity, betrayed their victims to all the nations that sought wealth and luxury in the West, and pointed out how they were to be obtained. His compromise has the fatal history of all compromises which secure to the present ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... its vanities, as if it had been accursed; for it seemed to them that they could not live a righteous life therein; and therefore went they into the wilderness, where they trowed to serve GOD in peace. Therefore says Seneca, "I have become more avaricious, and more cruel, and more inhuman ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... Normans vain and boastful; the Poitevins traitors and always adventurers. The Burgundians they considered vulgar and stupid. The Bretons were reputed to be fickle and changeable, and were often reproached for the death of Arthur. The Lombards were called avaricious, vicious and cowardly; the Romans, seditious, turbulent and slanderous; the Sicilians, tyrannical and cruel; the inhabitants of Brabant, men of blood, incendiaries, brigands and ravishers; the Flemish, fickle, prodigal, gluttonous, yielding as butter, and slothful. After such insults from words ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... Dutch had a castle, with a garrison, both of Europeans and natives. It has been always remarked, that the Dutchman, in his eastern settlements, loses the mercantile probity of his European character, while he retains its cold-blooded phlegm and avaricious selfishness. Of this the Amboyna government gave a notable proof. About the 11th of Feb. 1622, old stile, under pretence of a plot laid between the English of the factory and some Japanese soldiers to ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... frequently in private interviews, where we enjoyed the conversation of one another, in all the elevation of fancy and impatience of hope that reciprocal adoration can inspire. He professed his honourable intentions, of which I made no question; lamented the avaricious disposition of his father, who had destined him for the arms of another, and vowed eternal fidelity with such an appearance of candour and devotion—that I became a dupe to his deceit. Cursed be the day on which I gave away my innocence ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... make it extend its legs; then with the rough side of a knotty stick sawed upon them till the creature cried like a child; and when I ordered him to desist, told me he would not, till I had given him sixpence. There is something worse than all this. The avaricious rascals, when they can find nothing that they think will excite my pity, disable the first animal which is not dignified with the title of Christian, and then bring it to me as an object worthy of commiseration; so that, in fact, instead of protecting, I destroy. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... know what was our lot? The fields, in which to cultivate indigo, cochineal, coffee, sugar cane, cocoa, cotton; the solitary plains, to breed cattle; the deserts, to hunt the wild beasts; the bosom of the earth, to extract gold, with which that avaricious country was never satisfied." ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... into disuse. It would be easy to describe their character by negatives. They are not independent, self-reliant, or of a combative disposition like the northern Chukchis and Koraks; they are not avaricious or dishonest, except where those traits are the results of Russian education; they are not suspicious or distrustful, but rather the contrary; and for generosity, hospitality, simple good faith, and ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... Sheikh el Nedjem [Arabic], a fanatical Druse, and one of the most respected of their Akals. The Sheikh Beshir has the reputation of being generous, and of faithfully defending those who have put themselves under his protection. The Emir Beshir, on the contrary, is said to be avaricious; but this may be a necessary consequence of the smallness of his income. He is an amiable man, and if any Levantine can be called the friend of an European nation, he certainly is the friend of the English. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... after that in gold, and very frequent and large, often a hundred pistoles, never less than fifty at a time; and I must do myself the justice that I seemed rather backward to receive than craving and encroaching. Not that I had not an avaricious temper, nor was it that I did not foresee that this was my harvest, in which I was to gather up, and that it would not last long; but it was that really his bounty always anticipated my expectations, and ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... prudent, indeed; but, having been Anjou's lieutenant, and almost the author of his victories, would oppose a war that threatened to obscure his laurels. Vieilleville was wedded to his cups. Cosse was avaricious, and would sell all his friends for ten crowns. Montmorency alone was good and trustworthy, but so given to the pleasures of the chase that he would be sure to be absent at the very moment his help was indispensable.[892] ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... wanted the money—not that he was avaricious—far from that; but he had numberless schemes in view, and he knew full well that without the gold they could not ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... once, though. One day in church he announced a subscription to be taken up for restorations, from fifty centimes to—to anything; he will take all you give him, avaricious that he is! He believes in the greasing of the palm, he does. Well, think you the subscription was for restorations, mesdames? It was for demolition—that's what it was for—to make the church level with ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... Oriental dodge, as anybody who has lived in India will readily admit—at once perceiving an advantage to be gained by which he might profitably fill his own pocket at the same time that he would save ours, and give a job to his own Beluches to the prejudice of those avaricious Panganyites, offered us an inducement which was too good not to be at once accepted. The plan was simply this: He was to leave at once and return to Chogue, and make arrangements with his guard for our reception there, whilst we, feigning abandonment ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... considerations. Firstly, the three professors ignore the fact that Germany was a menace to Belgium, and make no mention of German aspirations for a coastline on or near the English Channel. Holland and Belgium form a twentieth century "Naboth's vineyard," on which the German Ahab has cast avaricious glances for upwards of ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Avaricious as well as unprincipled, he pursued, as an Ambassador, his former business of a smuggler, and, instead of being ashamed of a discovery, proclaimed it publicly, deserted his post, was not reprimanded in France, but was, without apology, received back again in Portugal. His ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... master to his serfs, and that when away fighting in Germany he behaved so cruelly to the peasantry that even the Germans, who are not nice in their modes of warfare, cried out against him. It is an evil fortune that has thrown us into his hands; still, although grasping and avaricious, he can hardly demand for a simple knight any inordinate ransom. The French themselves would cry out did he do so, seeing that so large a number of their own knights are in our hands, and that the king has ample powers of retaliation; however, we need not look on the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy presents with for them at home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you like, and spend exactly as you think proper. Last of all take notice, Pa, that it's not the fruit of any avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your little mercenary wretch of a daughter wouldn't make so ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... The avaricious, gold-seeking, Suchong Pollyhong Ka-te-tow had performed his task; wealth poured into his coffers from the ambitious parents, who longed to boast of an alliance with the brother of the sun and moon, and many were the ill-favoured ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the thought, but it haunted him with a merciless persistence. He remembered the evening of the wedding-day, and the imploring look she gave him on going away with Pete; and he returned to the idea that she had been married under the compulsion of her father, Caesar, the avaricious hypocrite. He told himself it would be easy to kindle a new fire on the warm hearth. As she laughed and he looked into her beautiful eyes and caught the nervous twitch of her mouth, he felt something of the old thrill, the old passion, the old unconditioned ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... become, the basis of a cant. Exploitation by private persons is no doubt a necessary condition to economic development in an illiterate community of low intelligence, just as flint implements marked a necessary phase in the social development of mankind; but to-day the avaricious getter, like some obsolescent organ in the body, consumes strength and threatens health. And to-day he is far more mischievous than ever he was before, because of the weakened hold of the old religious organization upon his imagination. ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... never heard one word about another life. Those who from infancy have been taught these terrifying lessons are neither less debauched, nor less proud, nor less passionate, nor less unjust, nor less avaricious than others who have lived and died ignorant of Christian purgatory and Paradise. In fine, the dogma of another life has little or no influence on them; it annihilates none of their passions; it is a bridle merely with some few timid souls, who, without its knowledge, would ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... beside a capitation tax of three dollars per head on every Chinaman. There are thirty thousand Chinese in the Sambas districts, and they feel themselves strong enough to oppose or evade this tax; it hence becomes a perpetual contest between greedy extortion on the one side, and avaricious chicane on the other; there are beside about twelve thousand ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... God require a child to pay an irrational honor to his parents. If his parents are atheists, he cannot honor them as Christians. If they are prayerless and profane, he cannot honor them as religious. If they are worldly, avaricious, over-reaching, unscrupulous as to veracity and honest dealing, he cannot honor them as ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... the old fellow trembled all over with avaricious eagerness as I counted the silver pieces into his withered palm. "Anything to oblige a generous stranger! There is the place I sleep in; it is not much, but there is a mirror—HER mirror—the only thing I keep of hers; come this way, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... General Bonaparte in Egypt. He created the small beginnings of the carpet and rug importation from Asia Minor. His son, and in turn his son, followed him. They became bankers as well as importers. They helped very greatly to develop the trade of the Levant. They were not avaricious men, or usurers. It is not in our blood. Your Chairman, Lord Chaldon, who honours me so highly by calling me his friend—he will assure you that we have a good name in the East. Our banks have befriended the people, and never ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... Exchequer, abolished this little perquisite, and the only token of office which an outgoing Minister can now take with him is his dispatch-box. The wife of a minister who had long occupied an official residence, on being evicted from office said with a pensive sigh, "I hope I am not avaricious, but I must say, when one was hanging up pictures, it was very pleasant to have the Board of Works carpenter and a bag of the largest nails ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... An insatiable, avaricious desire to accumulate riches, cooperating with a spirit of luxury and injustice, seems to be the leading cause of this peculiarly degrading and ignominious practice. Being once accustomed to subsist without labour, we become soft and voluptuous; ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... apprehension of its falling upon him, and was returning through his own garden when this fortunate accident happened. The word fortunate here requires some explanation. This chief was a man of a very avaricious and oppressive disposition, and though he had no family, the natives of the island were half starved by his oppressive and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... the church government of Italy was conducted by proud and avaricious legates, who lived as dukes or provincial kings, and in the name of the church assumed to dictate the policy of government to many small potentates, maintaining a standing array of condottieri made up of English, ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... obtaining money; you forget that your own Church, if the Church of England be your own Church, as I suppose it is from the willingness which you displayed in the public-house to fight for it, is equally avaricious; look at your greedy Bishops and your corpulent Rectors—do they imitate Christ in His disregard for money? You might as well tell me that they imitate Christ ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... at the sudden thought of old Gradelle's fortune she again examined herself, and felt ready to throw the money into the river if such a course should be necessary to remove the blight which had fallen on the pork shop. No, she was not avaricious, she was sure she wasn't; it was no thought of money that had prompted her in what she had just done. As she crossed the Pont au Change she grew quite calm again, recovering all her superb equanimity. On the whole, it was much ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... she recalled that avaricious gleam in his eyes and how eager he had seemed when she had first caught sight of his face looking over her shoulder that first morning on the train. She couldn't forget that. She kept the locked bag near her ...
— The Girl from Sunset Ranch - Alone in a Great City • Amy Bell Marlowe
... having first given Mother Guttersnipe some loose silver, which she seized on with an avaricious clutch. ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... The avaricious and encroaching rail Seized the wide fields which knew the Indian's trail. Back to the reservations in the West The native owners of the land were pressed, And selfish cities, harbingers of want, Shut from ...
— Custer, and Other Poems. • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... avaricious of little favors, until when a British journalist writes of you as one did of Henry Cabot Lodge, making his speech before the last Republican national convention at Chicago, that you "looked like an elderly ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... Conquering kings accumulated rich booty by pillaging alien cities, and grew more and more wealthy as they were able to impose annual tribute on those States which came under their sway. They even regarded Babylonia with avaricious eyes. It was to achieve the conquest of the fertile and prosperous mother State that the early Assyrian emperors conducted military operations in the north-west and laid hands on Mesopotamia. There was no surer way of strangling it than by securing control ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... committing to paper. I will make it the best I can, my dearest father. I will neither be indolent, nor negligent, nor avaricious. I can never half answer the expectations that seem excited. I must try to forget them, or I shall be in ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Hawkins' success coming to the notice of the avaricious and ambitious Queen Elizabeth, she, five years later (1567), became the open protector of a new expedition and sharer in the nefarious traffic, thus becoming a promoter, abettor, and participant in ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... he loves you," Stuart persisted in a level and somewhat contemptuous voice, "because I don't believe he can really love anything but himself and his money. But in a grasping, avaricious way he wants you. His eyes betrayed him. He wants you in the fashion that a miser wants gold. He wants you in the way a glutton wants a peach which he has deliberately watched ripen until finally he says to himself, 'It's ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... in the Caliphate A.H. 60; and in most respects showed himself to be of a very different disposition from his predecessor. He was naturally cruel, avaricious, and debauched; but instead of concealing his vices from the eyes of his subjects, he seemed to make a parade of those actions which he knew no good Mussulman could look upon without horror; he drank wine in public, he caressed his ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... d'Esterno. "The Countess of Ingenheim is cruelly regretted by the people, the royal family, and even the Queen, much less for the person of the said Countess as because of the increase of credit which her death will bring to Dame Rietz, the old habitual mistress, who is said to be very avaricious ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... unscrupulously to prove an ex parte case, not telling all the nice stories about the Scotch, and all the nasty stories about the Irish, not pretending to be disinterested when you are really angry, not pretending to be angry when you are really only avaricious. The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools is exactly that—that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... interest all the while. He sent for a case, and made a youth who sometimes acted as his secretary pack them. And still as he went back to his own work new names would occur to him, and full of the scholar's avaricious sense of the shortness of time, he would shake his head and frown over the three months which young Elsmere had already passed, grappling with problems like Teutonic Arianism, the spread of Monasticism in Gaul, and Heaven knows what besides, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... who has already done so much for us, were I to add to his losses and disbursements, that of a valuable ship and crew. I wish that the present delay offered some, period less distant than the lassitude of an avaricious enemy to watch for prey. Perhaps you may be able to put me on some more expeditious mode of passage than the one under which I am acquiescing at present. I shall be much pleased to adopt any such, which ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... his property, and the position he held in society, misfortune might deprive him of these, and a disagreeable companion for life would remain to remind me constantly of my choice. But a generous, talented man like Lyndsay, by industry and prudence may become rich, and then the most avaricious worlding would applaud the ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... breathed hard from his red nostrils, and heaved his flanks, the captain, left to more freedom of thought, reflected on the prodigious genius of Aramis, a genius of acumen and intrigue, a match to which the Fronde and the civil war had produced but twice. Soldier, priest, diplomatist; gallant, avaricious, cunning; Aramis had never taken the good things of this life except as stepping-stones to rise to giddier ends. Generous in spirit, if not lofty in heart, he never did ill but for the sake of shining even yet more brilliantly. Towards the end of his career, at ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of education, they will dominate the university, and eradicate sound letters. Yet why do I speak of healthy literature? I ought to have said good and wholesome doctrine, the which is verily mortal to that Company' (ibid. p. 162). 'Every species of vice finds its patronage in them. The avaricious trust their maxims, for trafficking in spiritual commodities; the superstitious, for substituting kisses upon images for the exercise of Christian virtues; the base fry of ambitious upstarts, for cloaking every act ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... business that Herr Luiscius, the Prussian Minister in Holland, got into trouble; of whom there is a light dash of outline-portraiture by Voltaire, which has made him memorable to readers. This "fat King of Prussia," says Voltaire, was a dreadfully avaricious fellow, unbeautiful to a high degree in his proceedings ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... hard to obtain the ruling authority. Corruption and mistrust universally prevailed. Every thing had the appearance of dissolution and disorder. Highwaymen rendered the roads unsafe; and the authorities, instead of carrying out the severity of the law, were so corrupt and avaricious as to sell their silence and indulgence. The upright citizen sighed under the weight of tyrannical laws from which the thief and the seditious knew how ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... still continued to exercise it when Mr. Stewart was collecting the materials for his work on the superstitions of the Highlanders, published in 1823. In like manner the Mohel, to whose adventure I have already referred, and who was originally an avaricious man, received the grace of benevolence to the poor, which caused him to live a long and happy life with his family, a pattern unto the whole world. The gift was symbolized by the restoration to him of his own bunch ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... possessions, but the consideration which is attached to it. Our very clothes are an appeal to the goodwill of our neighbours, and a refuge from their contempt. Society would be transformed if the distinction were reversed, if admiration were no longer rendered to the luxurious and avaricious and were accorded only to talent and virtue. Let not the necessity of rewarding virtue be suggested as a justification for the inequalities of fortune. Shall we say, to a virtuous man: "If you show yourself deserving, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... was princeps senatus(see c. 25), and seems to be pretty faithfully characterized by Sallust as a man of eminent abilities, but too avaricious to be strictly honest. Cicero, who alludes to him in many passages with commendation (Off., i. 20, 30; Brut. 29; Pro Muraen., 7; Pro Fonteio, 7), mentions an anecdote respecting him (De Orat. ii. 70), which shows that he had a general character for covetousness. See Pliny, H. N, ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... said, "Men's souls are not so greatly injured by the temptations which assail them from outside, as from those evil thoughts which poison them within." There may be evil thoughts of many kinds, envious thoughts, discontented thoughts, profane thoughts, unkind thoughts, angry thoughts, avaricious thoughts, impure thoughts. All these thoughts come buzzing about the head and heart, and will settle to do harm, unless driven away. They are only little thoughts. Each is very small, but altogether they are a great ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... preach our doctrine," he said in one of his sermons, "the world has grown daily worse, more impious, and more shameless. Men are now beset by legions of devils, and while enjoying the full light of the Gospel are more avaricious, more impure, and repulsive than of old under the Papacy. Peasants, burghers, nobles, men of all degrees, the higher as well as the lowest are all alike slaves to avarice, drunkenness, gluttony, and impurity, and given over to ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... Francis West, that brother of Lord De La Warr and an ancient planter—these in quick succession sit in the Governor's chair. Following them John Pott, doctor of medicine, has his short term. Then the King sends out Sir John Harvey, avaricious and arbitrary, "so haughty and furious to the Council and the best gentlemen of the country," says Beverley, "that his tyranny grew at ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... their resentments, to conquer their aversions, to suffer with patience certain crosses, and to repress their eagerness for wealth; but nature prevails, and they are vindictive, violent, impatient, and avaricious. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... its kind, and upon every hand there were indications that that relentless master, Poverty, had been very busy about his work in the homes of the unfortunate, compelling his victims to sacrifice their dearest possessions to his avaricious grasp. ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... gentle Ahmes. Ahmes, the house-slave, a Nubian blacker than the pot he gravely skimmed, was as good as a long night's sleep. Often he would take Thais on his knee, and tell her old tales about underground treasure-houses constructed for avaricious kings, who put to death the masons and architects. There were also tales about clever thieves who married kings' daughters, and courtesans who built pyramids. Little Thais loved Ahmes like a father, like ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... clergy, were murmured in proverbs—Lo que no lleva Christo lleva el fisco! "What Christ takes not, the exchequer carries away!" They have a number of sarcastic proverbs on the tenacious gripe of the "abad avariento," the avaricious priest, who, "having eaten the olio offered, claims the dish!" A striking mixture of chivalric habits, domestic decency, and epicurean comfort, appears in the Spanish proverb, La muger y la salsa a la mano de la lanca: "The wife and the sauce ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... without song, and, what is of still more consequence in the eyes of the sordid epicure, too small to be eaten, his weight of flesh not being worth a charge of powder and shot. We can never sufficiently rejoice that there are some birds too small to excite the avaricious feelings of these knights of the fowling-piece and the rifle. The Hair-Bird is not to be despised, except by epicures. Though he is contemptuously styled the "Chipping-Sparrow,"—a name which I will never ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... riches in my life, enough to satisfy the most avaricious. But at what cost have I acquired them, and of what comfort are they to me now? I am old, lonely, and menials serve me because of my money. How much better are my so-called friends? They fawn upon ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... from France and the Bourbon Compact, and point at the value of Corsica as a station superior to Gibraltar or Minorca. One paper signed 'P. J.' has the undoubted Boswellian touch in dealing with the sailors thrown idle by the cessation of the along-shore Mediterranean trade. 'None are less avaricious than our honest tars, nor have they, in reality, any reason to be discontented. Every common sailor has at least five and thirty shillings a month, over and above which he has his victuals and drink, and that in great abundance. There is no such thing as stinting aboard ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... ferryman, we walked out smoking and chatting. By degrees I succeeded in taking him down near the ferry, and there sat down on the bank to try the effect upon his avaricious heart of the sight of some gold which I had purchased at Montgomery. His eyes glistened as he examined an eagle with unwonted eagerness, while we talked of the uncertain value of paper-money, and the probable future value ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... was scornfully rejected. "They would have to come, anyway, or go out of business." But they did not come; rather they put their backs up and fought. And because Fairbanks was enterprising and far-sighted, while Chena was avaricious and narrow, because Fairbanks offered free sites and Chena charged enormously for water-front, business went the ten miles up the often unnavigable slough and settled there, and by and by built a little railway that it might be independent of the uncertain boat service. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... want of that keen discriminating power, which can give at first glance the full numerical value of all exterior objects. The owner of "Gladswood" belonged to that "come-easy-go-easy" class, who, unless circumstances come to their relief, are ever being duped or made a prey to the avaricious. But Mr. Montgomery had a source of never-failing strength in his wife. "Had William Montgomery married a different kind of wife he would have become a poor man," had grown into a proverb regarding matters at "Gladswood." All business transactions and pecuniary affairs always received ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... prolonged, useful ones taken! The honoured minister of God struck down, the unfaithful watchman spared! The philanthropic and benevolent have an arrest put on their manifold deeds of kindness and generosity; the grasping, the avaricious, the mean-souled—those who neither fear God nor do good to man, are suffered to live on from day to day! What is it but the picture here presented eighteen hundred years ago—Judas spared to be a traitor to his Lord, while—Lazarus ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... events, death must have been a release. She would have been happier with a drunken husband, with a brute who kicked her, rather than with this supercilious cold-hearted patrician. Toward the end of the poem, in his remarks about the dowry, we see that the Duke is as avaricious as he is cruel; though he says with a disagreeable smile, that the woman herself is his real object. The touch to make this terrible man complete comes at the very end. The Duke and the envoy prepare ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... nine days hence.... My whole philosophy—which is very real—teaches acquiescence and optimism. Only when I see how much work is to be done, what room for a poet—for any spiritualist—in this great, intelligent, sensual, and avaricious America, I lament my fumbling fingers and stammering tongue." It may be remembered that Mr. Matthew Arnold quoted the expression about America, which sounded more harshly as pronounced in a public lecture than as read in a ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... foliage. Nantbrook seemed unreal, a place of thin shadow, the future unsubstantial as well; only the past was actual in Lemuel Doret's mind—the gray cold prison, the city at night, locked rooms filled with smoke and lurid lights, avaricious voices in the mechanical sentences of gambling, agonized tones begging for a shot, just a shot, of an addicted drug, a ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... "arise from the moral obliquity of the fastidious, and the cupidity of the avaricious. They consist in an illiberal opinion of the worth and rights of the laboring classes, an unjust estimation of their moral, physical, and intellectual powers, and unwise misapprehension of the effects which would result from the cultivation of their minds and the improvement of their condition, ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... Peter de Vineis, Dante learns that at the judgement they will recover their bodies, like others, but will not be allowed to reassume them. The body will be hung on the tree to which it belongs. Here, as in the case of the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take a part in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by the souls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these are constantly chased through it by hounds, with much destruction ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... different patron from Francis. Cautious, little-minded, meddling, with a true Florentine's love of bargaining and playing cunning tricks, he pretended to protect the arts, but did not understand the part he had assumed. He was always short of money, and surrounded by old avaricious servants, through whose hands his meagre presents passed. As a connoisseur, he did not trust his own judgment, thus laying himself open to the intrigues of inferior artists. Henceforward a large part of Cellini's time was wasted in wrangling ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... an old woman who lived all alone in a little cottage in an extensive forest in Norway. Her name was Gertrude, and she was a hard, avaricious old creature, who had not a kind word for anybody, and although she was not badly off in a worldly point of view, she was too stingy and selfish to assist any poor wayfarer who by chance passed her cottage door. One day our Lord happened to come that way, and, being hungry and thirsty, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... the number of shares. This is our first experiment, and I think we ought to be moderate. No sound political economist is avaricious. Let us say twelve thousand, at ...
— Stories by English Authors: Scotland • Various
... Cruchot de), only daughter of M. and Mme. Felix Grandet; born at Saumur in 1796. Strictly reared by a mother gentle and devout, and by a father hard and avaricious. The single bright ray across her life was an absolutely platonic love for her cousin Charles Grandet. But, once away from her, this young man was forgetful of her; and, on his return from the Indies in 1827, a rich man, he married ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... cowardly and inordinate fear of Divinity, that the truly religious man has confidence in his God, and loves Him sincerely; while the superstitious man sees in Him but an enemy, has no confidence in Him, and represents Him as a suspicious and cruel tyrant, avaricious of His benefactions and prodigal of His chastisements. But does not all religion in reality give us these same ideas of God? While we are told that God is infinitely good, is it not constantly repeated to us that He is very easily offended, that He bestows His favors ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... avaricious purposes is altogether different from saving it for economical purposes. The saving may be accomplished in the same manner—by wasting nothing, and saving everything. But here the comparison ends. The ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... commission, was modest, humble, affable to his inferiors, polite to all the world; and I fancied him possessed of those more active virtues, which I supposed the smallness of his fortune prevented from appearing. 'Tis with pain I see that Sir George, with a splendid income, is avaricious, selfish, proud, vain, and profuse; lavish to every caprice of vanity and ostentation which regards himself, coldly inattentive to ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke
... your peaceful days, and here at last we see you old but surrounded by love and tender kindness, and almost looking forward to that grave which you believed would be but the gate of glory. Oh, happy race of simple-minded men, what a commentary upon our fevered, avaricious, pleasure-seeking age is this rude scroll of primitive and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... as the Spartans possessed a large extent of country, they were not exact upon each other as to what they paid in. And thus an event contrary to the legislator's intention took place; for the state was poor, the individuals avaricious. Enough of the Lacedaemonian government; for these seem the ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... reserved for the just such as Greek sages and Christian believers have. All he believes in is "an humbler heaven," where he shall be free from the evils of this life. Line 108 has special reference to the tortures inflicted upon the natives of Mexico and Peru by the avaricious Spanish conquerors. ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... righteous indignation out of consideration for his humiliated companions, who now—alas, too late!—saw their conduct in its true light. For, he continued, with a flashing look from his intelligent eyes, I desire no pedestal; I am not avaricious. Be mine the short and simple ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... were unfortunate enough to fall under her harsh rule was a certain little girl whose name was Adele Rougeant. She was the daughter of an avaricious farmer who lived at "Les Marches," in the parish ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... grievances, some of them might have been settled without such a deplorable waste of time, had it not been for the interference of that phantom devil, Mr. General Pierce's black pig, who is always construing principles to suit his purposes. So avaricious is that animal, that no amount of swill seems to pacify his desire to overthrow principles and defeat great objects. No place would seem too obscure for the brute to get his nose into; no demands too egregious for his appetite; no rights too daintily established for his disregard. He is here, there, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... Arabian Gulf, and after visiting Jidda, arrived at Masuah [Massowah] on September 19, 1769. Masuah, which means the "Harbour of the Shepherds," is a small island close upon the Abyssinian shore, and the governor is called the naybe. He himself was cruel, avaricious, and a drunkard, but Achmet, his son, became my friend, as I had cured him of an intermittent fever, and on November 10 he carried me, my servants and baggage, from the island of Masuah to Arkeeko, on the mainland, from which point my party started for the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... The avaricious old woman did not deny the fact, but she fell to cursing and swearing in an awful manner, and wished so much evil to the lad, that, with the superstitious fear so common to the natives of his country, he left her ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... know,' he says, 'that even marriages of inclination do not always succeed. So from the fact that sometimes people make mistakes in their choice, it is concluded that we ought never to choose.' Condorcet, we may remember, many years after, insisted on the banishment by public opinion of avaricious and mercenary considerations from marriage, as one of the most important means of diminishing the great inequalities in the accumulation ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... five shillings will purchase, a lacemaker is not dependent on the shopkeeper, nor the head of a manufactory. All who choose to work have it in their own power, and can dispose of the produce of their labour, without being at the mercy of an avaricious employer; for though a tolerable good workwoman can gain a decent livelihood by selling to the shops, yet the profit of the retailer is so great, that if he rejected a piece of lace, or refused to give a reasonable price for ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... tempted to go wrong when such a girl loved him. He was laboring under a misapprehension, of course. Billy Louise had permitted him to misunderstand her interest in the matter. If he had known that she was pleading solely for Marthy—poor, avaricious, gray, old Marthy—perhaps his mercy would have been less tinged with that smoldering resentment which was directed not so much at the wrongdoer, as at fate which ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... Fouchard, and uncle, on the mother's side, of Henriette and Maurice Levasseur. He was a small farmer at Remilly, who to make money more quickly took up the trade of butcher also. Avaricious to the last degree, and with a nature of unpitying hardness, he opposed the marriage of Honore with his servant Silvine Morange. At the end of two years of waiting Honore went off, after a terrible scene with his father, though the old man still kept the girl, with whom he was well pleased. When ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... grudge waiting upon me now, for I shall be up and about shortly—well and spry as the best of you!" she would say. "And while I am playing invalid, I mean to have my quantum of attention. I have been avaricious of devotion all my life, and this is a golden chance that may never ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... previous to my departure from Chili, was no fault of mine, as I was, in self-defence, compelled to quit the country, unless I chose to take part with the late Supreme Director, in supporting a ministry which, unknown to him, were guilty of the most avaricious and injurious acts—or aid Gen. Freire in overthrowing one to whom I was attached, as having always believed him to be a sincere ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... Sir Alexander. I did love that woman, though she was old enough then to have been my mother. It was a boy's rash, blind love; but I was too proud to make her my wife, and she was too cunning and avaricious to be mine on any other terms. Your suspicions, on that head at ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... plenty of "stuff," as the vulgar phrase puts it, and Cad was playing the role of a fast young girl who was leading the exquisite fool to squander his roll. Well, it was a great chumming game well played—played before a lot of men who were as avaricious as impecunious gamblers always are. There were men there who bet and lost. There were men there who had no money to risk, and they all thought themselves possessed of brains, and here was a silly fool loaded with money, and here also was a silly girl reaping a rich ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... thou wouldst say, father," interrupted the king, quickly— "thou wouldst observe that my brother monarchs should assist me with arms and treasure. Most just. But they are avaricious and envious, Tomas; and ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... We should have done, but for this fatal sickness;— More fatal than a mortal malady, Because it takes not life, but life's sole solace: Even now I feel my spirit girt about By the snares of this avaricious fiend:— How do I know he hath not tracked ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... laid my hand upon the Bible and vowed eternal, inextinguishable hatred of the Prussians. And the boy's vow has been kept by the man. I have struggled ceaselessly against these ambitious land-greedy, avaricious Prussians; fought with my tongue, my sword, and my pen. And when at last, at Jena, they were vanquished and forced to bow to the very dust, I exulted, for their defeat was Poland's vengeance. God was requiting the wrong they had done to Poland. ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... In spite of his numerous engagements, Burnell found time to aggrandize his bishopric, to provide liberally for his nephews and other kinsmen, and to pursue his cherished but futile aim of founding a great family. Licentious and avaricious, he amassed great wealth; and when he died on the 25th of October 1292 he left numerous estates in Shropshire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Kent, Surrey and elsewhere. He was, however, genial and kind-hearted, a great lawyer ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... Syria. The paper of the Sitt Mariana is long, and the introduction is most ornate and flowery. She writes on the condition of woman among the Arabs, and refutes an ancient Arab slander against women that they are cowardly and avaricious, because they will not fight, and carefully hoard the household stores. She ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... the next day with a great deal of importunity on his part I received the skin in exchange for a few strans of the same beads he had refused the day before. I therefore believe this trait in their character proceeds from an avaricious all grasping disposition. in this rispect they differ from all Indians I ever became acquainted with, for their dispositions invariably lead them to give whatever they are possessed off no matter how usefull or valuable, for a bauble which pleases ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... heard old Mr. Sheridan maintain, with much ingenuity, that a complete miser is a happy man; a miser who gives himself wholly to the one passion of saving.' JOHNSON. 'That is flying in the face of all the world, who have called an avaricious man a miser, because he is miserable[948]. No, Sir; a man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... that he might be educated under the eyes of the Cardinal and the Bishop, who were his uncles. These two prelates joined with their father in entreating Petrarch to undertake the superintendence of Agapito's studies. Our poet, avaricious of his time, and jealous of his independence, was at first reluctant to undertake the charge; but, from his attachment to the family, at last accepted it. De Sade tells us that Petrarch was not successful in the young man's education; and, from a natural ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... peculiarly marked or lively satisfaction. But the affair had been concluded so suddenly, and with such a liberal confidence in his discretion, that, for the moment, his hands trembled with excitement, and his face shone with avaricious pleasure. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... he lived, for he agreed with the proverb which says that fools build houses for wise men to live in, though "the greatest part of Rome sooner or later came into his hands," as Plutarch observes. He was of that sordid, avaricious character which covets wealth merely for the desire to be considered rich, for the vulgar popularity that accompanies that reputation, and not for ambition or enjoyment. He was said to be uninfluenced by the ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... his lordship interrupted, "until I had the explanation. D'Ogeron is avaricious for himself and for his child. And as for the girl, I'm told she's a wild piece, fit mate for such a man as Blood. Almost I marvel that he doesn't marry her and take her a-roving with him. It would be no new experience for her. And I marvel, too, at Blood's patience. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... Indies some years before with considerable wealth and a broken constitution. We had never seen him since his return. Prosperity had brought to him no pleasure, riches no enjoyment. From being one of the most joyous and liberal of lads before he left home, he had returned to his country sullen and avaricious; with all his wealth, a poorer man, in mind, than when he left it—suffering from a continued dread of poverty, and the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... terrifying experience with a male flirt Florence comes to learn that Ella has long been used to accepting attentions and escort from men outside the home atmosphere. Ella explains that since the owner of "Brickdust Row" is so avaricious that he allows the parlors to be rented out, no place is provided where the girls may entertain men properly, and so the society of the opposite sex must be sought and enjoyed ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and seize his seigniory at Fort Frontenac—being restrained by the strong hand of the Viceroy; but while La Salle lay ill at the Illinois fort, Frontenac was succeeded by La Barre as viceroy; and the new Governor was a weak, avaricious old man, ready to believe any evil tale carried to his ears. He at once sided with La Salle's enemies, and wrote the French King that the explorer's "head was turned"; that La Salle "accomplished nothing, but spent his life leading bandits through the forests, pillaging ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... fearless arm. Know me for Walter de Montreal; is it not a name that speaks a spirit kindred to thine own? Is not ambition a common sentiment between us? I do not marshal soldiers for gain only, though men have termed me avaricious—nor butcher peasants for the love of blood, though men have called me cruel. Arms and wealth are the sinews of power; it is power that I desire;—thou, bold Rienzi, strugglest thou not for the same? Is it the rank breath ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... handwriting of Hymetius, in which he asked Amantius to propitiate the gods by some solemn sacrifices to engage them to make the disposition of the emperor favourable to him; and at the end of the letter were found some reproachful terms applied to the emperor as avaricious ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... to define every word and give it its principal parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem. I know my learned professors have found greater riches in the Iliad than I shall ever find; but I am not avaricious. I am content that others should be wiser than I. But with all their wide and comprehensive knowledge, they cannot measure their enjoyment of that splendid epic, nor can I. When I read the finest passages of the Iliad, I am conscious ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... moment, you must admit that a man who is truly sympathetic—that is, who rejoices in his neighbor's happiness and grieves over his misfortunes—can be neither ungenerous, nor deceitful, nor covetous, nor jealous, nor ferocious, nor avaricious, etc.; and one need not therefore be a pantheist to agree with Schopenhauer, that Mitleid, or sympathy, is the basis of all virtues. If, therefore, it can be shown that music is a powerful agent in developing this feeling of sympathy, its far-reaching moral value will become ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... Yorick finds lodging. The hostess tells his story. He was once the brilliant son of the village miller, was well-educated and gifted with scholarly interests and attainments. While instructing some children at Moulines, he meets a peasant girl, and love is born between them. An avaricious brother opposes Jacques's passion and ultimately confines him in secret, spreading the report in Moulines of his faithlessness to his love. After a tragedy has released Jacques from his unnatural bondage, ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... somewhere among those turrets in a spot known only to the owls. It is also possible that Berbel—her name was Barbara—encouraged the idea, thinking it better that her beloved mistresses should be thought avaricious than poor. The burgomaster of the hamlet, who had to take off his coat in order to sign his name when that momentous operation was unavoidable, but who was supposed to know vastly more than the schoolmaster, used ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... love, surprise, and respect as does contempt for gold and for earthly goods. The generous minister, he who gives, will be considered as good, most good, and will obtain whatever he wants from his parishioners. The greedy and avaricious, he who does what common and vile men do, will, notwithstanding the habit in which he is clad, notwithstanding the sermons he preaches, be considered as mean, if he does not end by being despised and abhorred. Nevertheless, I can affirm that the religious who trade are very ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... surpassed the Tatler in style and in thought. It gave expression to the power of commerce. For more than a century traders had been characterized as dishonest and avaricious, because playwrights and pamphleteers generally wrote for the leisure classes, and were themselves too poor to have any but unpleasant relations with men of business. Now merchants were becoming ambassadors of civilization, and had developed intellect so as to control distant ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... in his pocket and withdrew the last of the four letters—the last there could be, for he had no more stamps. The others he had thrown over the wall, one each morning, beginning with the day after he had made the first attempt to bribe old Michel. As he had expected, twenty-four hours of avaricious reflection had proved too much for that ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... of the independent doctrine of finance, we see that three ideas are most prominent. First, a desire that the government supersede avaricious man and blind nature in the creation and distribution of money, in order that money may be a stable purchasing power. Second, a determination that money shall no longer be a commodity to be bought, and sold, and manipulated, a leech upon labor in the hands of a few, but a convenience ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... to be avaricious," I reproved him. "If the Grass continues to spread—and there seems to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... an Ezzelin, he never was; his cruelties had a purpose, the sufferings of the victims were a detail not an end. Yet something of that despot's character, refined into torturing the mind and not the flesh, chaste, cruel, avaricious of power, something of that Southern morbidness in crime, distinguishes Heathcliff from the villains of modern English tragedies. Placed in the Italian Renaissance, with Cyril Tourneur for a chronicler, Heathcliff would not have awakened the outburst of incredulous indignation which ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... hints formerly pass between him and Mrs. Heartfree which had given them suspicions. And what is most astonishing of all is, that many of those who had before censured him for an extravagant heedless fool, now no less confidently abused him for a cunning, tricking, avaricious knave. ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... must not fail to understand that five sixths of the people of the millionaire's metropolis, New York, live in the tenement-house region, a breeding centre of intemperance, pestilence, crime, and future mobs, where wretched life is crushed to deeper wretchedness by the avaricious exaction of unfeeling landlords[10] worse than those against whom the Irish rebel. Is not the splendor of such a city like the hectic flush on the consumptive's cheek? The statistics of the past year reveal the startling fact that ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... and to give continual inspection—to see, examine and test every length of pipe and every joint; who have the might of the law to strike down the offender who shall make bold to violate their mandates, fail to give protection to the innocent owners and purchasers of property, or curb the avaricious hands of unscrupulous builders ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, No. 733, January 11, 1890 • Various
... people of the world, seeing they two together had feloniously and murderously destroyed her first son; not that they had been in any manner of way wronged, outraged, or injured by him, but out of an avaricious intent to possess his inheritance. In this doubtful quandary and uncertainty what to pitch upon, he sent to the Areopagites then sitting at Athens to learn and obtain their advice and judgment. That judicious senate, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... a peal of rude laughter, the Satires of "Davy Lindsay" and many a lesser poet—ludicrous stories of erring priests and friars, indecent but humorous, with lamentable tales of dues exacted and widows robbed, and all the sins of the Church, the proud bishop and his lemans, the avaricious priest and his exactions, the confessors who bullied a dying penitent into gifts which injured his family, and all the well-worn scandals by which in every time of reformation the coarser imagination ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... bears testimony to the truth of this observation. An avaricious poisoner, he attracted his victims by the pretence of fervent and devoted piety, and drew them into the snare where he silently ...
— Quotes and Images From "Celebrated Crimes" • Alexander Dumas, Pere
... seem a perfectly reasonable supposition that there must be many avaricious persons to whom the possession of untold riches would prove more attractive than a mere interest in the doings of another man. Let it be said at once that although Barraclough certainly confided the correct ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... watchman ever before me, not trusting him, although his frank smile somewhat disarmed my suspicion. It may be I did him an injustice, but I liked not the avaricious gleam in his little ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... however, was said to be haunted; exactly at twelve o'clock at night dismal howls were heard by the villagers to issue from the mill. According to the blacksmith, who was a great authority in such matters, Sam's father was a very avaricious old fellow, and had hid his money somewhere about the building; and you know, Master Jack, that when a man dies and leaves his money concealed, there is no rest for him in his grave till it ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... treacherous and avaricious, so smooth was Lovat's address, so profound his knowledge of Scotland, and so strong his hold upon his own clansmen, that he always remained a man to be reckoned with. Since he served on the Hanoverian side in 1715 ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... excited, and the cries for vengeance, were deep and almost universal. Louis Philippe had no personal popularity to sustain him. Legitimists and Republicans alike ignored his claims to the throne. He was regarded as intensely avaricious, notwithstanding his immense wealth, and as ever ready to degrade France in subserviency to the policy of foreign courts, that he might gain the co-operation of these courts in the maintenance of his crown, and secure exalted matrimonial ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... witnesses—each ardently on the side of the bird—watched intently. Decently mannered, it refused to clamber on to the edge of the plate, for it was ever averse from defilement of food. The tit-bit was just beyond avaricious exertions—just at that tantalising distance and just so irresistibly desirable as might be directly stimulative of original enterprise ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... like a good Christian, and she professed to be one; but she spoke like an unfeeling mother, and she was truly one, for she was wealthy, and if she had not been cruelly avaricious her son would not have been reduced to the fearful alternative of committing suicide or of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... is waking up now rapidly from the lethargic sleep of ages. Men's minds are keenly alive to what is passing; communications are much improved; the dissemination of news is rapid; the old race of besotted, ignorant tenants, and grasping, avaricious, domineering tyrants of landlords is fast dying out; and there could be no difficulty in establishing in such village or district courts as I have indicated. All educated respectable Europeans with ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... me vast armaments, spend enough upon a single dreadnaught to remake the educational system of a whole state; militarism, which in the days of war cries, Give me your best youth to slay, leave the crippled and defective to propagate the race, give me your best to slay; militarism, which lays its avaricious hand on every new invention to make gregarious death more swift and terrible, and when war is over makes the starved bodies of innumerable children walk in its train for pageantry,—we are not resigned to that. We count it our Christian duty to ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... be heard in the high court of which you will be a member, whenever the artizan and the laborer need a defender from the foul enactments that are there consummated. Let your passions be subjected to the control of religion and morality—let no avaricious knave oppress the hard-toiling farmer in your name, but see to these things yourself. Let your ear be easy of access, and your heart be open, and then, my Lord, I shall be more than repaid, you will have had a nobler vengeance than ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... hare and managed easily enough to outstrip the miser, and to conceal himself in a den where he was well known. But unfortunately the matter did not end there. The Sieur de Ranquet was influential at Court; he was implacable as well as avaricious, and his disposition positively forbade him to forgive any one who had nearly picked his pocket. Besides which he knew that Jean had often stolen his horses. He made a formal complaint at high quarters, and a warrant was issued against Jean, offering a large sum in silver coin to the ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring |
