"Covetousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fatally deluded. I will put it to an issue. The Duke of Albany is generally hated for his greed and covetousness. Your Highness is, it ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... to complain to the kazi? Here is your money; it was only a little joke on my part." But in the evening, when he went to receive the kazi's pretended deposit, he experienced the truth of the saw, that "covetousness sews ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... bring up their children in the instruction and fear of the Lord. The widows likewise teach that they be sober as to what concerns the faith of the Lord: praying always for all men; being far from all detraction, evil speaking, false witness; from covetousness, and from all evil. Knowing that they are the altars of God, who sees all blemishes, and from whom nothing is hid; who searches out the very reasonings, and thoughts, and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... is always criminal, either in itself, or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something, for which you have given, and intend to give, no equivalent. No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and very few gamblers have escaped being miserable; and, observe, to game for nothing is still gaming, and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... and rough in his ways, deeply imbued with the spirit of Calvinism, and free from every vestige of superstitious deference for human potentates. He returned from the Continent in 1555. Many of the turbulent nobles, partly from conviction and partly from covetousness, adopted the new opinions. More and more, however, Knox gained a hold upon the common people. His preaching was effective: one of its natural consequences was an outburst of iconoclasm. Even Philip II. was willing to have the nobles helped in the contest with the regent, Scotland being the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... full of vital energies for the children who were to grow up in it. Gilbert recollects his father as a man of a dozen hobbies, his study as a place where these hobbies formed strata of exciting products, awakening youthful covetousness in the matter of a new paint-box, satisfying youthful imagination by the production of a toy-theatre. His character, serene and humorous as his son describes him, is reflected in his letters. Edward Chesterton did not use up his mental powers in the family business. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... music, sick men and frantic come oft to their wit again and health of body. Some men tell that Orpheus said, "Emperors pray me to feasts, to have liking of me; but I have liking of them which would bend their hearts from wrath to mildness, from sorrow to gladness, from covetousness to largeness, from dread to boldness." This is the ordinance of music, that is known above ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... wrong of the Pharisee's attitude, nor of our own, unless we view it against the background of what God says about the human heart. Said Jesus Christ, "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness."[footnote 2: Mark 7:20-23] The same dark picture of the human heart is given us in Paul's letter to the Galatians, "The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, uncleanness, lasciviousness, ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... a tiresome affair. His was a soul devoid of enthusiasm over Nature's wealth or magnitude, and the view of the endless prairie excited in him no emotion other than a certain vague covetousness. It was his first long rail journey in over twenty years, but his thoughts were on the cost of travel rather than on the wonderful strides which had been made in its comfort and convenience. Riles indulged in no such luxuries as sleeping-car berths or meals ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the mass, and such trumpery as that, Popery, purgatory, pardons, were flat Against God's word and primitive constitution, Crept in through covetousness and superstition Of late years, through blindness, and men of no knowledge, Even such as have been in ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... offered to him should not become greedy, that there should be no touch of avarice when such wealth was shown to him, is almost more than we may dare to assert. But Lord Alfred was a man not specially given to covetousness. He had recognized it as his duty as a man not to seek for these things unless he could in truth love the woman who held them in her hands to give. But as he looked round him through the gloaming of the evening, he thought ...
— Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite • Anthony Trollope
... temptations to which they were likely to be exposed,[26] and tells them that this is the use to be made of Old Testament history. These lives are "ensamples," and are "written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come."—In like manner he forewarned the Hebrews against discontent and covetousness,[27] by drawing a general lesson from a special promise made to Joshua; and then exhorts every Christian to apply it to himself personally, by employing the language which he puts into their mouths, "The ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... for himself than for his soldiers with him. Upon no danger would he send them where he would not lead them himself. He would never see us want what he either had or could by any means get us. He loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness worse ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... their demand for the spoliation of landlords upon the Bible and upon the ideal of a "Divine brotherhood," forgetting that the Bible contains a commandment "Thou shalt not steal," as well as many warnings against lying, deceit, cant, and covetousness. One of the champion Bible-Socialists, for instance, writes: "If all men are brothers, as Christ undoubtedly taught, then the land, the source of wealth, the means by which men can earn their livelihood, should not be the property of any set of individuals, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... Apparently the atmosphere of the great shops had acted on Carlotta like an anaesthetic. She had moved in a sensuous dream of drapery, wherein the choice-impulse was paralysed. The only articles upon which, in an unclouded moment, she had set her heart—and that with a sudden passion of covetousness—were a pair of red, high-heeled shoes and ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... of this admiration grew the desire to possess these beautiful things. It had been impossible for the Abbe Birotteau to stifle this desire; though it often made him suffer terribly when he reflected that the death of his best friend could alone satisfy his secret covetousness, which increased as time went on. The Abbe Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not rich. Both were sons of peasants; and their slender savings had been spent in the mere costs of living during the disastrous ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... fickleness, of any handsome one of them in yielding her hand to a man and suffering herself to be led away. Ladies whom he had only heard of as ladies of some beauty incurred his wrath for having lovers or taking husbands. He was of a vast embrace; and do not exclaim, in covetousness;—for well he knew that even under Moslem law he could not have them all—but as the enamoured custodian of the sex's purity, that blushes at such big spots as lovers and husbands; and it was unbearable to see it sacrificed for others. Without their purity what are ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... there was a manly openness of countenance, and a look of good sense about them, which would have gained my full confidence, could we but have understood each other. They asked for nothing, nor did they show any covetousness, although surrounded by articles, the smallest of which might have been of use to them. There must be an original vein of mind in these aboriginal men of the land. O that philosophy or philanthropy could but find it ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... there ever was one, had married a young and pretty woman, and he was so wrapped up in her and so jealous that love triumphed over avarice; he actually gave up trade in order to guard his wife more closely, but his only real change was that his covetousness took another form. I acknowledge that I owe the greater portion of the observations contained in this essay, which still is doubtless incomplete, to the person who made a study of this remarkable marital phenomenon, to portray which, one single detail will be amply sufficient. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... their States through adversity and through prosperity, through the years and through the generations, are things by which the people of the more mercurial North may take a lesson. And there is another thing—covetousness, corruption, the low temptation of money has not yet found any place ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... friends. Is the President to be supported because he is magnanimous and merciful? Congress doubts the magnanimity which sacrifices the innocent in order to propitiate the guilty, and the mercy which abandons the helpless and weak to the covetousness of the powerful and strong. Is the President to be supported because he aims to represent the whole people? Congress may well suspect that he represents the least patriotic portion, especially when he puts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... and self-reliance were held up, and a judicious respect for, and imitation of, successful men. Covetousness was specially reprobated, and luxury and self-indulgence were looked on as a course which ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... the prophet and seer, rode on his ass to go to Balak, king of Moab. God had forbidden him to go and curse the chosen people of God, but Balaam, moved by covetousness, and eager for honours from the king, started on his way to go. Then an angel stood in the way with a drawn sword to stop him. Balaam did not see the angel, but the ass did, and fell down under Balaam. Then he cried out in ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould
... began to bring in such booty as he had taken, and to collect it together. And some brought in loyally, and some in evil sort, because covetousness, which is the root of all evil, let and hindered them. So from that time forth the covetous began to keep things back, and our Lord began to love them less. Ah God! how loyally they had borne themselves up to now! And well had the Lord God shown them that in all things He was ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... day is Paul's description of the people that were living without the Bible in his day. He describes them as "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, deceit, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... KholamPsegolR], the price of satisfaction. In B. H. C.'s citation from Barnes, even seems a misprint for ever. The Jews did not again fall into actual idolatry after the Babylonish captivity; but we are told that in the sight of God covetousness ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... just as if it came from the love of money deep within his soul. He peered round, searching for filthy lucre on all sides. With his tail and all, he might be taken for the Mammon of copper coin,—a symbol of covetousness of small gains,—the lowest form of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... the poor, has not thy sin found thee out? Then be sure it will. In the shame of thine own heart it will find thee out;—in the curses of the poor it will find thee out;—in a friendless, restless, hopeless death-bed, thy covetousness and thy cruelty will glare before thee in their true colours, and thy sin will ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... was better off than himself; and although he did not care one jot for "humanity" of which he prated so freely, and was incapable of regenerating a flea, he found in a certain section of the Socialist and Anarchist party that degree of dissatisfaction and covetousness which appealed to his degraded soul. Besides which the movement afforded him grand opportunities for living in sloth and ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... more must it be good and desirable for those who already possess everything which can be conceived necessary to happiness. It is the merest insolence of selfishness to preach contentment to a laborer who gets thirty shillings a week, while we suppose an active and plotting covetousness to be meritorious in a man who has three thousand a year. In this, as in all other points of mental discipline, it is the duty of the upper classes to set an example to the lower; and to recommend and justify the restraint of the ambition of their inferiors, ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... sense of his own, it does not follow that we are so in the sense of the vulgar; or, as ordinary men would understand his conclusion, that we are condemned in every instance to act on motives of interest, covetousness, pusillanimity, and cowardice; for such is conceived to be the ordinary import of selfishness ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... By love, by wrath, by pain, by desire, and by fascination overpowered, the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahadeva (Shiva) in various ways upon the earth are ever becoming incarnate. Far better than they is the Cow, who is free from passion, enmity, drunkenness, anger, covetousness, and inordinate affection, who supports mankind, and whose progeny in many ways give ease and solace to the creatures of the world These deities and sages (munis) ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... orators of the Assembly. There was no longer any rival, but there were many envious. His eloquence, though popular in its style, was that of a patrician. His democracy was delivered from a lofty position, and comprised none of that covetousness and hate which excite the vilest passions of the human heart, and which see in the good done for the people nothing but an insult to the nobility. His popular sentiments were in some sort but the liberality of his genius. The vast expansiveness of his mighty soul had no resemblance ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... decalogue deal with the obligations of man to man. These commands still find a central place in modern society as the best guarantees of social stability, security and peace. All of the crimes with which they deal, except that of covetousness, were punished, in Hebrew custom and law, by definite penalties. In many instances these penalties were still more severe among other ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks
... of him in discussion, or, when the dreary bore came and wouldn't go, or, when misdirected goodness insisted on thrusting upon him intended kindness that was wormwood and poison to the soul. Are we not covetous (not confessedly, of course, but actually)? Is not covetousness the thwarted desire of theft without courage? How many of us, now—speaking man to man—can open up our veiled thoughts and desires and then look the Ten Commandments in ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... about him, he says, a trusty plaid; an old and valued travelling companion and comforter; upon which the rains had descended, and the snows and winds beaten, without further effect than somewhat to tarnish its primitive lustre. This coat of many colors had excited the admiration, and inflamed the covetousness of both warriors and squaws, to an extravagant degree. An idea now occurred to Captain Bonneville, to convert this rainbow garment into the savory viands so much desired. There was a momentary struggle in his mind, between old associations and projected indulgence; and his decision in favor ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... not the vice of Alexander alone, who followed with a fortunate audacity in the footsteps of Bacchus and Hercules, but it is common to all those whose covetousness is whetted rather than appeased by good fortune. Look at Cyrus and Cambyses and all the royal house of Persia: can you find one among them who thought his empire large enough, or was not at the last gasp still aspiring ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... climbed in over the brigantine's rail from the Saturn's life-boat I recognised that the presence of the four Dagoes in the ship's company was likely to breed discord, but it was not until I witnessed the mad covetousness with which they flung themselves upon the chest containing coin, and proceeded to help themselves regardless of the rights of us others, that I actually began to scent real, serious trouble; for I then foresaw that, having once glimpsed the treasure, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... therefore proceed with our dull genius, as they say. Those who so conduct themselves and so live that their honor, their integrity, their justice, and liberality are approved; so that there is not in them any covetousness, or licentiousness, or boldness; and that they are of great consistency, as those men whom I have mentioned above—let us consider these worthy of the appellation of good men, as they have been accounted ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... not last long, for idle boys soon found out the way to enlist my sympathy. When their Latin lesson was full of mistakes, they would buy me off with cutlets and roast chickens; they even gave me money. These proceedings excited my covetousness, or, rather, my gluttony, and, not satisfied with levying a tax upon the ignorant, I became a tyrant, and I refused well-merited approbation to all those who declined paying the contribution I demanded. At last, unable to bear my injustice any longer, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... born 1815, youngest son of Pierre Rougon, was educated, like his brothers, at Plassans and Paris, but failed to pass his examinations. His character was a combination of covetousness and slyness: his greatest desire was the acquisition of rapid fortune, gained without work. In 1836 he married Angele Sicardot, who brought him a dowry of ten thousand francs. As Aristide did no work, and lived extravagantly, the money was soon consumed, and he and his wife ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... more minutely at its condition, we may discover many other strongly marked and less inviting features. That stern patriotism, which imparted so much dignity to the old Roman character, had now disappeared, and its place was occupied by ambition or covetousness. Venality reigned throughout every department of the public administration. Those domestic virtues, which are at once the ornaments and the strength of the community, were comparatively rare; and the ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... "Of pride, haughtiness, covetousness, slandering the dead, anger, envy, the evil eye, shamelessness, looking at with evil intent, looking at with evil concupiscence, stiff-neckedness, discontent with the godly arrangements, self-willedness, sloth, despising others, mixing in strange matters, unbelief, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... the cloister rule the seven deadly sins—covetousness, lasciviousness, uncleanness, hate, envy, idleness, and the loathing of the service ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... part remained alive. Morals were deteriorated everywhere, and public worship was, in a great measure, laid aside, in many places the churches being bereft of their priests. The instruction of the people was impeded, covetousness became general; and when tranquillity was restored, the great increase of lawyers was astonishing, to whom the endless disputes regarding inheritances offered a rich harvest. The want of priests, too, throughout the country, operated very detrimentally upon the people. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. How little Christian work even is a protection against unchristian feeling! That most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian's soul assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... thorough love of things good and noble. Such men,—or women,—may hardly, perhaps, debase themselves with the more vulgar vices. They will not be rogues, or thieves, or drunkards,—or, perhaps, liars; but ambition, luxury, self-indulgence, pride, and covetousness will get a hold of them, and in various moods will be to them virtues in lieu of vices. Such a man was Frank Greystock, who could walk along the banks of the quiet, trout-giving Bob, at Bobsborough, whipping the river with his rod, telling himself that the world ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have; for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... with the black velvet monkey jacket that Pinky had worn when she spoke her first piece at the age of seven—well, these were things that even the rapacious eye of Miz' Merz (by-the-day) passed by unbrightened by covetousness. ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... able to retrieve their wealth out of his hands, corrupted the officers of the fleet with large presents, to desist from their undertaking. Thus the tyrant, whom Father Xavier designed to drive out from his ill-gotten kingdom, was maintained in it, by the covetousness of Christians; or rather by the secret decrees of Providence, which sometimes permits the persecutors of the church to reign in peace, to the end a trial may be made of such as dare to continue constant ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... nothing but hatred, discord, and fury in its name: the fear of the gods, far from having a salutary influence over their own morals, far from submitting them to a wholesome discipline, frequently do nothing more than increase their avarice, augment their ambition, inflate their pride, extend their covetousness, render them obstinately stubborn, and harden their hearts. We may see them unceasingly occupied in giving birth to the most lasting animosities, by their unintelligible disputes. We see them hostilely wrestling with the sovereign power, which they ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... Romagna, meanwhile, the disturbances had not only continued, but they had taken a fresh turn. Venice, having reseated Malatesta on the throne, now vented at last the covetousness she had ever, herself, manifested of that dominion, and sent a force to drive him out again and ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... with both divisions tied together by the same knot, are to denote the joint knowledge of the Old and New Testament; that their always wearing gloves, represents their keeping their hands clean and undented from lucre and covetousness; that the pastoral staff implies the care of a flock committed to their charge; that the cross carried before them expresses their victory over all carnal affections; he (I say) that considers this, and much more ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... resign the least Tittle he possesses, though he is assur'd, it is in order to get more; and your Diversion arises, from seeing him wrung between Greediness to get Money, and Reluctance to part with any for that Purpose. His Covetousness continually prompts him to follow the Conjurer, and puts him at the same Time upon endeavouring to stop his Fees. All the while he is excellently managed, and spirited on by Face. However, this Character upon the whole is mean and ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... Newtons and Goethes, when this old worn-out island will be—what? Oh! when I look out here, like a bird from its cage, a captive from his dungeon, and remember what lies behind me, to what I must return to-morrow—the over-peopled Babylon of misery and misrule, puffery and covetousness—and there before me great countries untilled, uncivilized, unchristianized, crying aloud for man to come and be man indeed, and replenish the earth and subdue it. "Oh that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!" Here, lead me ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... but what stable rest besides the Lord? Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance; but Thou art the fulness and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality: but Thou art the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many things; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for excellency: what more excellent than Thou? Anger seeks revenge: who revenges more justly than Thou? Fear startles at things unwonted and sudden, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... to beware of through life: when a man is young, let him beware of his appetites; when he is middle-aged, of his passions; and when old, of covetousness, especially. ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... reading of the Gospels shows that Judas was frequently warned of the very sin which in the end wrought his ruin. Continually Jesus spoke of the danger of covetousness. In the Sermon on the Mount he exhorted his disciples to lay up their treasure, not upon earth, but in heaven, and said that no one could serve God and mammon. It was just this that Judas was trying ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... cruelty, treachery, and bloodthirstiness, these islanders were neither better nor worse than most peoples of antiquity. It is to the credit of the Tongans that they particularly objected to slander; nor can covetousness be regarded as their characteristic; for ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that upon no danger would send them where he would not lead them himself; that would never see us want what he either had or could get us; that would rather want than borrow, or starve than not pay; that loved action more than words, and hated falsehood and covetousness more than death; whose adventures were our lives, and ...
— The Princess Pocahontas • Virginia Watson
... "The deeds of self are ... improper sexual intercourse, impurity, shameless looseness...." It will, wherever possible, debase the holiest functions of the body. In Colossians, third chapter, fifth verse, speaking of the "old man": "And covetousness, which is reckoning of highest worth that which is less worthy than God." That is to say, the ambitious longings of self, will if unchecked become the ruling passion, thrusting all else ruthlessly aside and degrading the highest powers of the mind to satisfying its feverish ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... wistful longing to unite, and mobilize our spiritual forces now dissipated and ineffective through disunion. What we look for more and more is a man, so filled with the SPIRIT of GOD—so free from ambition, covetousness, denominationalism, with a big heart and deep love, to make a plunge and start. We may be able to start out here, if we have the good-will ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... like all that is recorded of the period. Among The subjects discussed the following are the most important: (a) The true nature of prayer and the follies and hypocrisies of the Pharisees, Lu. ch. 11; (b) The danger of hypocrisy, of denying Christ, of covetousness and of the judgments of Christ, Lu. ch. 12; (c) The need and nature of repentance, the proper use of the Sabbath, the number that shall be saved and the fate of Jerusalem, Lu. ch. 13; (d) The law of conduct in the matter of feasts and counting the cost of discipleship, Lu. ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... shrewd, and aided by art divine he makes progress quite beyond his natural powers (compare Republic). All such things, if only the legislator, by other laws and institutions, can banish meanness and covetousness from the souls of men, so that they can use them properly and to their own good, will be excellent and suitable instruments of education. But if he cannot, he will unintentionally create in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft, which evil tendency may be observed in the Egyptians and ...
— Laws • Plato
... contemplation of itself. Upon this day the marts of traffic are deserted; every member of the community, accompanied by his children, goes to church, where he listens to strange language which would seem unsuited to his ear. He is told of the countless evils caused by pride and covetousness: he is reminded of the necessity of checking his desires, of the finer pleasures which belong to virtue alone, and of the true happiness which attends it. On his return home, he does not turn to the ledgers of his calling, but he ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... from undesirable motives; but those undesirable motives will induce him, the very next minute, to do some undesirable thing. The wages of good feeling and good taste is the satisfaction thereof. The wages of covetousness and vanity is the grabbing of advantages and the humiliating of neighbours; and these make life poorer, however much bread there may be to eat or money to spend. What are called higher motives are merely those which expand individual life into harmonious connection with ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... individual hearers, to say what I thought would do them good. Not that I ever preached AT anybody; I only sought to explain the principles of things in which I knew action of some sort was demanded from them. For I remembered how our Lord's sermon against covetousness, with the parable of the rich man with the little barn, had for its occasion the request of a man that our Lord would interfere to make his brother share with him; which He declining to do, yet gave both brothers a ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... do better than well, They do confound their skill in covetousness; And oftentimes excusing of a fault Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse,— As patches set upon a little breach Discredit more in hiding of the fault Than did the fault ...
— King John • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... Railway Company. I believe then, gentlemen, that if there were any life in the national mind in such respects, it would be shown in these its most energetic and costly works. But that there is no such life, nothing but a galvanic restlessness and covetousness, with which it is for the present vain to strive; and in the midst of which, tormented at once by its activities and its apathies, having their work continually thrust aside and dishonored, always seen to disadvantage, and overtopped by huge masses, discordant and destructive, ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... dead. At a stroke he beheld his capital trebled; and then he thought of La Cibot. What a good saleswoman she would be! What a handsome figure she would make in a magnificent shop on the boulevards! The twofold covetousness turned Remonencq's head. In fancy he took a shop that he knew of on the Boulevard de la Madeleine, he stocked it with Pons' treasures, and then—after dreaming his dream in sheets of gold, after seeing ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... without obligation to me or my assistance. Notwithstanding all his great qualities, his marked characteristic certainly was that of sacrificing everything to his private views, and especially to his covetousness, which was so great that, even at his time of life, though his fortune amounted to a million and a half, he did not spend per day ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... might be two thousand, of fifteen, or twelve hundred, it would in any case undoubtedly be a great thing for him, if he could get it. The gratification to his ambition would be greater even than that of his covetousness. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... making their testaments, as becomes good Christians, and men that are to bear arms in defence of the Holy Catholic faith, acknowledged that they did not bring with them suitable dispositions, but, with little regard to God's service, were influenced by covetousness and love of ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... at the first, and show yourself a good companion. When you become acquainted with the bosom sins and pleasant vices of folk in high position, you can lead them on the path of virtue at your pleasure. You must certainly tell them then that indulgence in sensuality, falsehood, fraud, violence, covetousness, and tyrannical oppression, is unconditionally wrong. Make no show of compromise with evil in the gross; but refine away the evil by distinctions, reservations, hypothetical conditions, until it disappears. Explain how hard it is to know whether a sin be venial or ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... of custom, etc., and then they give birth to prejudices, errors, and superstitions. The passions of the soul are aspects of pleasure and pain. The idea of a possible pleasure gives birth in us to a desire which is called ambition, love, covetousness, gluttony; the idea of a possible pain gives birth in us to fear and horror, and this fear and horror is called hatred, jealousy, rage, aversion, disgust, scorn. At bottom we have only two passions, the desire of enjoyment, and the fear ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet
... will wrest them from your hands, I wish that they may do so while we are still safe. But however you treat us, as long as you adopt those counsels, it is impossible for you, believe me, to last long. In truth, that wife of yours, who is so far removed from covetousness, and whom I mention without intending any slight to her, has been too long owing[23] her third payment to the state. The Roman people has men to whom it can entrust the helm of the state, and wherever they are, there is all the defence of the republic, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... tradesman's son arrives from a long trading journey, with much gold and merchandise and many slaves. On entering his father's house he is astounded to perceive the open well and by the side of it a vast heap of treasure and a man holding both hands to his eyes and wailing bitterly, lamenting the covetousness which had caused him the loss of his eyesight. The young man sends a slave down into the well and the first person drawn up is the tradesman, who is both surprised and overjoyed to behold his son once more, and tells him the whole story. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." "Mortify," I need not say, is to make dead, to destroy. "Ye are dead;" therefore let your members on earth be dead; "fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection," &c. As if he had said, By becoming Christians ye engaged to be dead; and therefore see to it that ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... If you employ a seamstress to make four or five or six beautiful flounces for your ball dress, flounces which will only clothe yourself, and which you will wear at only one ball, you are employing your money selfishly. Do not confuse covetousness with benevolence, nor cheat yourself into thinking that all the finery you can wear is so much put into the hungry mouths of those beneath you. It is what those who stand shivering on the street, forming a line to see you step out of your carriage, ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... corruption. For, in quietness I am negligent; in trouble impatient, tending to desperation; and in the mean [middle] state I am so carried away with vain fantasies, that alas! O Lord, they withdraw me from the presence of thy Majesty. Pride and ambition assault me on the one part, covetousness and malice trouble me on the other; briefly, O Lord, the affections of the flesh do almost suppress the operation of Thy Spirit. I take Thee, O Lord, who only knowest the secrets of hearts, to record, that ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... of his father, and that it was, therefore, necessary that we should go to his father, leaving the two carts behind us in which we brought the books and vestments, because his lord was desirous to examine these things more carefully. Suspecting the evil that might arise from this man's covetousness, I immediately said that we would not only leave these carts, but the other two also under his custody. You shall not, said he, leave these two carts behind, but as for the other two, we will satisfy your desire. But I insisted upon ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... company said unto Him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me. 14. And He said unto him, Man, who made Me a judge or a divider over you? 15. And He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. 16. And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: 17. And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... fighting now. That little babe in the manger was come to show them how and why they were all to be at peace with each other. For what causes all the war and quarrelling in the world, but selfishness? Selfishness breeds pride, passion, spite, revenge, covetousness, oppression. The strong care for themselves, and try to help themselves at the expense of the weak, by force and tyranny; the weak care for themselves in their turn, and try to help themselves at the expense of the strong, by ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... fully aware of the disastrous consequences which follow from the method of negation and self-deification. For Ruysbroek was an earnest reformer of abuses. He spares no one—popes, bishops, monks, and the laity are lashed in vigorous language for their secularity, covetousness, and other faults; but perhaps his sharpest castigation is reserved for the false mystics. There are some, he says, who mistake mere laziness for holy abstraction; others give the rein to "spiritual self-indulgence"; others neglect all religious exercises; others fall into antinomianism, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... on the sin of covetousness and then inspect your umbrella stand. You will there see a beautiful brown smooth-handled umbrella ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... advice of Jethro to his son-in-law Moses, to "provide able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness," and to place such over the people; and Moses, who was as wise a statesman, at least, as any in this age, thought fit to follow that advice. Great abilities, without the fear of God, are most dangerous instruments, when they are trusted with power. The laws of man have thought fit, that ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... The character of covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than in ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... than they are for our use; and that, whatever we may heap up to give others, we enjoy just as much as we can use, and no more. The most covetous, griping miser in the world would have been cured of the vice of covetousness if he had been in my case; for I possessed infinitely more than I knew what to do with. I had no room for desire, except it was of things which I had not, and they were but trifles, though, indeed, of great use to me. I had, as I hinted before, ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... the plunder except what he ate or drank. "I do not," said he, "blame those who endeavour to enrich themselves by such means, but I had rather vie with the noblest in virtue than with the richest in wealth, or with the most covetous in covetousness." He not only kept his own hands clean, but those of his followers also. He took five servants to the war with him. One of these, Paccius by name, bought three boys at a sale of captives; but when Cato heard of it, Paccius, rather than come into his presence, hanged ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... consumed by ambition and covetousness, might possibly play a comedy of pure love while she was disgusted in her heart. She might catch by vile tricks a foolish old man, and make him marry her, openly and avowedly selling her beauty and her ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... next place, against the use of long, large words for the gratification of that conceit or covetousness which seeks to obtain, from mere grandiloquence, reputations and rewards to which it is not entitled. Being a gardener, I like to call a spade as spelt; and if any one terms it an horticultural implement, or a mattock, I do not expect him to dig much. I have used the monosyllable ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... and the pottery painters died with it, or at any rate went to sleep for a great many centuries, whilst soldiers and prelates, nobles and mercenaries, were trampling to and fro all over the land and disputing it, and carrying fire and torch, steel and desolation, with them in their quarrels and covetousness. But now, the reign of the late good duke, great Federigo, having been favorable to the Marches (as we call his province now), the potters and pottery painters, with other gentle craftsmen, had begun to look up again, and the beneficent fires of their humble ovens had begun to burn in Castel Durante, ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... not far from the coast on the desert tract dividing the hills from the sea, which resulted in the total annihilation of the wild tribes and gave ground to hope that such a lesson might serve as a warning to the sons of the desert. But if hitherto the more easily quelled promptings of covetousness had led them to cross the sea, they were now animated by the most sacred of all duties, by the law which required them to avenge the blood of their fathers and brothers, and they dared to plan ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... covetousness had entered Dirk's heart. What if he got the money, brained or at least disabled the stranger, and so had a chance of selling the mare a second time ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... good specimen of the same humour:—A minister had been preaching against covetousness and the love of money, and had frequently repeated how "love of money was the root of all evil" Two old bodies walking home from church—one said, "An' wasna the minister strang upo' the money?" "Nae doubt," said the other, rather ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... have beneath them the stairway of six steps leading down to the vault that was to be the burial place of emperors. "Oh, vanity! Oh, nothingness! Oh, mortals ignorant of their destinies!" It is not enough that contending dynasties dispute each other's crowns; their covetousness and rivalry must extend to their tombs. Not enough that sovereigns have been exiled from their country; they must be exiled from their graves. Disappointments in life and in death. This is the last word of divine anger, the last of ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... purse which Stephane shook in his hand was a very tempting bait for the eight children; but his whip, which he held under his left arm, warned them to be careful. Hesitating between fear and covetousness, they stood still like the ass in the fable between his two bundles of hay; but Stephane at that moment was seized with a happy inspiration and threw his switch to the top of a neighboring tree, where it rested. This produced a magical effect, the children with one accord deciding to approach ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... wise be disobedient to their Superiors or Abbesses, or cross the will of these. Wherever they are placed under the rules of a cloister they are to observe them throughout. Not whoring, not drunkenness, not covetousness shall they be the ministrants of, but in all ways lead just and sober lives. Neither shall any man enter their cloisters, except to attend mass, and he shall immediately depart." A regulation of the year 869 provided: "If priests keep several women, or shed the blood of Christians or heathens, ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... killed two men of praetorian rank, Cosconius and Galba, because he reproved his men no further than by calling them citizens instead of soldiers, and he gave to each of them a thousand drachmae, and allotted to them much land in Italy. He also bore the blame of the madness of Dolabella,[560] the covetousness of Amantius, and the drunkenness of Antonius, and the greedy tricks of Corfinius in getting the house of Pompeius, and his building it over again as if it were not fit for him; for the Romans were annoyed at these things. But Caesar, in the present state of affairs, though he was not ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... pictured amongst African savages is quite on a level with that of the brute, and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love, nor self-denial; no idea of duty; no religion; but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness and cruelty. All are thieves, idle, envious, and ready to plunder ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... true about 'covetousness,' as verse 19 tells, is true about all kinds of sin—that it takes away the life of those who yield to it, even though it may also fill their purses, or in other ways may gratify their desires. Surely it is folly to pursue a course which, however it may succeed in its immediate aims, brings real ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... particularly the Town, is reform'd. The Business of a Dramatick Poet is to copy Nature, and represent things as they are; Let our Peers give over whoring and drinking; the Citizens, Cheating; the Clergy, their Quarrels, Covetousness and Ambition; the Lawyers, their ambi-dextrous dealings; and the Women intriguing, and the stage will ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... all the commissions without a shadow of covetousness and rejoiced in her sister's good fortune; it was reserved for Polly and Ben, when they took up their life in New York, to show her the depths of her own loneliness by the fullness of their comradeship, and her yearning needs ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... demand for sour curd. Sheep and goats sell according to their skills; a large one is preferred to a shukka, equal to one dollar; but a dhoti, the proper price of three small goats, is scarcely the value of the largest. The bane of this people is their covetousness. They do not object to sell cheaply to a poor man, yet they hang back at the sight of much cloth, and price their stock, not at its value, but at what they want, or think they may get, obstinately abiding ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... of Seathwaite and Ulpha, annexed together, would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places; by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid.' And in concluding his former letter, he expresses a similar sentiment upon the same occasion, 'desiring, if it be possible, however, as much as in me lieth, to live ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... the right; but pursue the wrong. It is the old story of human deficiency. No one abets or praises injustice, fraud, oppression, covetousness, revenge, envy, or slander; and yet how many who condemn these things, are themselves guilty of them. It is no rare thing for him whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... that was too little. It has since come so far that King Canute rules over Denmark and England, and has conquered for himself a great part of Scotland. Now he claims also my paternal heritage, and will then show some moderation in his covetousness. Does he wish to rule over all the countries of the North? Will he eat up all the kail in England? He shall do so, and reduce that country to a desert, before I lay my head in his hands, or show him any other kind of vassalage. Now ye shall tell him these my words,—I will defend Norway with ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... delusion, to cry 'peace where there is no peace,' and denounces boldly the evils which are hurrying the country to destruction, and which have kindled God's anger against it, namely, the pride, insolence, cruelty, covetousness, and hypocrisy of its people, and above all the rage for gentility, which must be indulged in at the expense of every good and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... that her mother was not altogether one who possessed the single eye; that in spite of her deep religious feeling, her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter self-humiliation and despondency, there was an inclination to scheming and intrigue, ambition, covetousness; that the secrets which she gained as class-leader too, were too often (Grace could but fear) used to her own advantage; that in her dealings her morality was not above the average of little country shopkeepers; that she was apt ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... Your pride and presumption in taking the quest of the blessed Holy Grail made you to be overthrown, for it may not be achieved but by virtuous living. Pride is head of all deadly sins, and that caused you to depart from Sir Galahad. And when ye took the crown of gold your sin was covetousness and theft. But this Galahad, the holy knight, the which fought with the two knights that signify the two deadly sins which were wholly in you, was able to overthrow them, for he ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... young nobles remained silent but Claude Zastrow, a feudal retainer of the Borks, who rose up (it was an evil moment to him) and made answer: "Most powerful feudal lord, were the holy apostles then filled with greed and covetousness, who were the first to proclaim that Christ was God, and who left all for His sake? Or the early Christians who, with one accord, sold their possessions, and gave the price to the poor?" Claude had before this displeased the knight, who now grew red with anger at the insolence of his vassal ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... distracted to please them all? And yet such is the sad condition of nay soul by nature, not only a servant but a slave unto sin. Pride calls me to the window, gluttony to the table, wantonness to the bed, laziness to the chimney, ambition commands me to go upstairs, and covetousness to come down. Vices, I see, are as well contrary to themselves as to Virtue." (Fuller's Good Thoughts in Bad ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... desperation. He felt himself cornered. He brazened it out on the strength of his reputation with very fair success. His hearers thought him very capable of such an act. They were disposed to believe his flattering tale. There is no credulity so eager and blind as the credulity of covetousness, which, in its universal extent, measures the moral misery and the intellectual destitution of mankind. Ah! he had confessed everything, this fractious Jew, this bribon. Good! Then he was no longer wanted. A sudden dense guffaw was heard from the senior captain—a big-headed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... lying useless in his coffers; but locks and bolts placed their contents out of reach. She then bethought herself of the countess's bureau, in which her own cross had been deposited, secure from the old man's covetousness. There, too, the countess kept her treasures. She took a light, observed whether any one saw her, or could follow her, and repaired to the apartment of the Countess Galeazzi, who was from home, spending the evening with an old acquaintance. Hardly breathing, and walking on ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile. For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak for covetousness."—1 Thessalonians ii. 2. Hundreds of such undesigned coincidences may be found in the New Testament, confirming the veracity of the several historians and letter writers, and giving that impression ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... snow; there was not even a footpath. Katinka lost her way, but she pushed on, spurred by pride and covetousness. She spied a light in the distance. She climbed and climbed till she reached the place, and found the Twelve Months each seated on his stone, motionless and silent. Without asking their permission, she approached ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... drank 3-1/2 ankers[94] of brandy, from the time we left England or Holland, besides the wine which they had with them—it is too horrible. As to Margaret and Jan, it is not to be told what miserable people Margaret and Jan were, and especially their excessive covetousness. In fine, it was a Babel. I have never in my life heard of such a disorderly ship. It was confusion without end. I have never been in a ship where there was so much vermin, which were communicated to ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... the country about which he heard promised to be larger and better than New Spain (as Mexico was then generally known), a cross still larger than this was to be sent back. Castaneda says that Stephen was sent on ahead because he and Marcos did not agree well, the negro not only showing covetousness and the determination to acquire the turquoises of the natives, but also an amorousness that demanded of them their youngest ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... he fell down to the hatches again; Sore of his wound that he did bleed. Covetousness gets no gain, It is very ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... received the guinea, which was now secretly offered, but it would seem that success had quickened his covetousness; for, instead of returning thanks, he rather appeared to manifest a disposition to increase the amount of ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... coax him now for theirs if he would. He was sufficiently educated to know that it was more glorious to die, even unrenowned, upon such a mission, than to live in the prosperity that belongs to ordinary covetousness, that should it be his duty to obey this call, no other duty remained for him ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... that my mother's constitution not admitting of my being nursed at home, the woman who had the care of me for that purpose used to make most extravagant demands for my pretended excesses in that kind; which my parents, rather than believe anything unpleasant of me, chose to impute to the known covetousness and mercenary disposition of that sort of people. This blindness continued on their part after I was sent for home, up to the period when it was thought proper, on account of my advanced age, that I should mix with other boys more unreservedly than I had hitherto done. I was ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... for a moment to look stealthily towards him under her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of suspicion, covetousness, and conceit, overshadowing ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... prominence. But he soon won a wider fame as a preacher in London, an adviser of the court, an opponent of the "possessioner" monks, and of the forsworn friars, who, deserting apostolic poverty, vied with the monks in covetousness. His attacks on practical abuses in the Church marked him out as a politician as well as a philosopher. His earlier career ended in 1374, the year in which he first became the king's ambassador, not long after proceeding to the degree of doctor of divinity.[1] His later struggles ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... the people, that they should be the Lord's people; between the king also and the people."[265] If a civil constitution be according to the word of God, if the rulers who carry its ordinance into effect be men fearing God and hating covetousness, and if they dispense in a righteous manner its just laws, obedience is due by the people, and ought to be vowed to God. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... ghastliness. A pair of magnificent, dark brown eyes, with heavy sweeping lashes, looked preternaturally large in her woe-begone little countenance, and at this moment were filled with wondering admiration, mingled with fierce covetousness, as she stared at Serafina's mock jewels—and more especially at Isabelle's row of pearl beads. She seemed fairly dazzled by these latter, and gazed at them fixedly in a sort of ecstasy—having evidently never ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... intercepter of the claims of others. For what judge in a private cause ever acted in this way, so as to adjudge to himself the property in dispute? That even Scaptius himself would not act so, though he has now outlived all sense of shame." Thus the consuls, thus the senators exclaimed; but covetousness, and Scaptius, the adviser of that covetousness, had more influence. The tribes, when convened, decided that the district was the public property of the Roman people. Nor is it denied that it might have been so, if they ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... who had crowded into the back of the church, were the sincerest, for in their eyes, covetousness was openly unveiled. The guests and friends wore the conventional shallow smiles of guests and friends. They whispered to one another—a beautiful wedding—a gorgeous gown—a perfect bride—a handsome groom; and exclaimed in their hearts: How sad the father! How lofty, proud, exultant ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... there were complaints that the privations of the poor were increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters" (retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew rich on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... native ugliness, in order to tempt men to do it. So we have two sets of names for wrong things, one of which we apply to our brethren's sins, and the other to the same sins in ourselves. What I do is 'prudence,' what you do of the same sort is 'covetousness'; what I do is 'sowing my wild oats,' what you do is 'immorality' and 'dissipation'; what I do is 'generous living,' what you do is 'drunkenness' and 'gluttony'; what I do is 'righteous indignation,' what you do is 'passionate anger.' And so you ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... intent than some of the others. Young Paula, half asleep in the deep recesses of the house, had witnessed that furious encounter by the western door on the soft spring day when Jim Last had come home to die at dusk. She knew that the look in Courtrey's eyes had been covetousness—and she had told Jose. Jose, loyal and sensible, had told the boys. So now there was always one or more of them on duty near the mistress of Last's on one pretext or another. To Tharon, who knew more than all of them put ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... required for a great practical work! They would let her talk to them about their souls, then!—They would even amend a few sins here and there, of which they had been all along as well aware as she. But to be convinced of a new sin; to have their laziness, pride, covetousness, touched; that, she found, was what they would not bear; and where she had expected, if not thanks, at least a fair hearing, she had been met with peevishness, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... a time-server nor a covetous man. "Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God is ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... so emphatically that he was obliged to frown to keep his hat on. 'I never come across such a vagabond, and my mate says the same. Broke his poor wife's heart, turned his daughters out of doors, drove his sons into the streets; it was a blessing he went mad at last, through evil tempers, and covetousness, and selfishness, and guzzling, and drinking, or he'd have drove many others so. Hope for HIM, an old rip! There isn't too much hope going' but I'll bet a crown that what there is, is saved for more ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... to these cries of joy, gazed at this face, irradiated and disfigured by the passion of covetousness; he felt that he himself, the thief and vagabond, freed from all restraining influence, would never become so rapacious, so vile, so lost to all decency. Never would he sink so low as that! Lost in these reflections, which brought ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... Commerce Act is in the main responsible for all these results, remains to be proved. In my opinion, the difficulty is far more deep-seated and radical. In plain words, it does not lie in any act of legislation, State or National; and it does lie in the covetousness, want of good faith and low moral tone of those in whose hands the management of the railroad system now is; in a word, in the absence among men of any high standard of commercial honor. These are strong words, and yet, as the result of a personal experience ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... they are apt to be precipitate and thoughtless; but are very fit for action, where you prescribe them a track from which they know they must not vary. Old age, on the contrary, is slow but sure; very cautious; opposed to new schemes and ways of life; inclining, generally, to covetousness; fitter to consult with you, than to act for you; not so easily won by fair speeches or long reasonings; tenacious of old opinions, customs, and formalities; apt to be displeased with those, especially younger people, who pretend to question their judgment; fond of deference, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... Is He asked, for example, to divide a heritage? He refuses; and the best advice that He will offer is but a paraphrase of the tenth commandment which figures so strangely among the rest. Take heed, and beware of covetousness. If you complain that this is vague, I have failed to carry you along with me in my argument. For no definite precept can be more than an illustration, though its truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was announced from heaven by the voice ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she had overheard between the two supposed tramps who had taken shelter in the deserted house during the tempest. Was this one of those two ruffians? And was he the one who had railed at the division of some stolen treasure, and had spoken with covetousness of the beautiful pearls? ...
— Ruth Fielding and the Gypsies - The Missing Pearl Necklace • Alice B. Emerson
... man! We may lament the time our vice began. O, where is the peace and meekness, long suffering and temperance, Which are the fruits of God's holy spirit? With whom is the flesh brought under obedience, Or who readeth the scripture with intent to follow it? Who useth not now covetousness and deceit? Who giveth unto the poor that which is due? I think, in this world few that live now. O, where is the godly example, that parents should give Unto their young family by godly and virtuous living? Alas! how wickedly[147] do they themselves live, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... of the earth, she is able to repose herself, knowing full well that she has left her companion, Envy, to gnaw his heart. Planchet had tasted of riches easily acquired, and was never afterwards likely to stop in his desires; but, as he had a good heart in spite of his covetousness, as he adored D'Artagnan, he could not refrain from making him a thousand recommendations, each more affectionate than the others. He would not have been sorry, nevertheless, to have caught a little ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Wilson on the sin of covetousness, and then inspect your umbrella stand. You will there see a beautiful brown smooth-handled umbrella which ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the well-attested fact, that while the Mohammedans, Fulahs, and others towards Central Africa, make a few proselytes by a process which gratifies their own covetousness, three small sections of the Christian converts, the Africans in the South, in the West Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa actually contribute for the support and spread of their religion upwards of 15,000 pounds annually. {7} That religion ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... seven hundred times, and against antagonists whose only weapons were tin and lead. He also laid claim to divinity, and was addicted to debasing superstitions. He destroyed the old ministers of his father, and decimated the Senate. All who excited his jealousy, or his covetousness, were put out of the way. He was poisoned by his favorite mistress, Marcia, and the Senate set the brand of infamy on his name. Thus perished the last of the line of the Antonines, even as the Julian line was ended by the assassination ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... 'covetousness,' as verse 19 tells, is true about all kinds of sin—that it takes away the life of those who yield to it, even though it may also fill their purses, or in other ways may gratify their desires. Surely it is folly to pursue a course which, however it may succeed in its immediate ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to Arch-Angel may speak for it, where we now send 100 Sail yearly, instead of 8 or 9, which were the greatest number we ever sent before; and the Importation of Tobaccoes from England into his Dominions, would still increase the Trade thither, was not the Covetousness of our own Merchants the Obstruction of their Advantages. But all this ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... pleasure in collecting what they were able to save from the flames; but their number was so few that they were mentioned by name. In these ardent men, war was a passion which presupposed the existence of others. It was not covetousness, for they did not hoard; they spent lavishly what they picked up, taking in order to give, believing that one hand washed the other, and that they had paid for ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... down amounts right furiously. Yet these were only the small fry of the betting world; the big bets were made in the weighing enclosure. Here, then, raged the keen contest of people with light purses who risked their five-franc pieces and displayed infinite covetousness for the sake of a possible gain of a few louis. In a word, the battle would be between Spirit and Lusignan. Englishmen, plainly recognizable as such, were strolling about among the various groups. They were quite at home; their faces were fiery with ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... Zorn, who is a virtuoso in the management of the needle. Not that Munch disdains good craftsmanship, but he is obsessed by character; this is the key-note of his art. How finely he expresses envy, jealousy, hatred, covetousness, and the vampire that sometimes lurks in the soul of woman. An etching, Hypocrisy, with its faint leer on the lips of a woman, is a little masterpiece. His sick people are pitiful, that is, when they are not grotesque; ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the Duke interrupted him, indignantly ordered him to give the boy the sovereign, and quit his service instantly. 'You have lost,' said the Duke, 'your money, your situation, and your character, by your covetousness; learn, henceforth, that honesty is the best policy.' The boy, by this time, recognised his assistant, in the person of the Duke, and the Duke was so delighted with the sterling worth and honesty of the boy, that he ordered him to be sent to school, kept there, ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own—in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... shrink from becoming a particeps criminis; he will but endeavour to dilute the crime. The intervention of an extrinsic, impartial, and capable authority—if such can be found—will undoubtedly restrain the covetousness as well as the factiousness of a ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... of all, walking down the street hanging on Jack's arm, I had to ask myself whether the Fixed Period was the cherished conviction of our hearts. It was so of some, no doubt; and I had been able, by the intensity of my will,—and something, too, by the covetousness and hurry of the younger men,—to cause my wishes to prevail in the community. I did not find that I had reconciled myself to the use of this covetousness with the object of achieving a purpose which I believed to be thoroughly good. ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope |
