"Croesus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case," said I, "the game is up, and the whole scheme exploded. I would as soon undertake to evoke the ghost of Croesus." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... her behalf. "Now, Mrs. Smith, I'll make a bargain with you. There is a rich widower on the big boat, and he's got lots of niggers and money. I'll give him to you if you'll go on that boat; and, I tell you, he's rich as Croesus." I had to enter somewhat into these familiarities, and told her I would not think of being so selfish as to take ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... Babylonian sexagesimal system, a system which owes its origin and popularity, I believe, to the fact that sixty has the greatest number of divisors. Shekel was translated into Greek by Stater, and an Athenian gold stater, like the Persian gold stater, down to the times of Croesus, Darius, and Alexander, was the sixtieth part of a mina of gold, not very far therefore from our sovereign. The proportion of silver to gold was fixed as thirteen or thirteen and a third to one; ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... thinking that whatever I said was the wisest and the wittiest, and that whatever I did was the best. The simplest little jeu d'esprit of mine seemed to him wonderfully witty. Once, when he said, 'I wish for your sake, dear, I were as rich as Croesus,' I answered, 'You are Croesus, for you are king of Lydia.' How often he used ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a martial spirit is abroad in the Third Estate. Walbrook s'en va t'en guerre. If there is one moneyed man in the lot, it seems sufficient to keep the others going. I often wonder how you manage; for, to do you justice, you don't plunder your Croesus. You deserve statues—as Sydney Smith ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... Latin name given him by Jesuit missionaries in China; his real name was K'ung-foo-tseu. He was born about 550 B.C., in the province of Loo, and was the contemporary of Belshazzar, of Cyrus, of Croesus, and of Pisistratus. It is claimed that Confucius was a descendant of one of the early emperors of China, of the Chow dynasty, 1121 B.C.; but he was simply of an upper-class family of the State of Loo, one of the provinces of the empire,—his father and grandfather having been prime ministers ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... manner, mentions his large possessions and riches; but were he as rich as Croesus, he should not have my consent, if he has no greater merit; though that is what the generality of parents look out for first; and indeed an easy fortune is so far from being to be disregarded, that, when attended with equal merit, I think it ought to have a preference given to it, supposing affections ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... daring antagonist. I had to-day an extraordinary—the usual prejudice, my dear Herle, is, I believe, somewhat inclined to that pronunciation of the word,—the most extraordinary windfall. I am rich, and I protest King Croesus himself sha'n't intimidate me to-night. Come!" he cried, and he drew from his pocket a plump purse and emptied its contents upon the table; "come, lay ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... hand to his mouth and hissed out some foul gibberish or other, and said afterwards that it was Greek. Trimalchio himself then favored us with an impersonation of a man blowing a trumpet, and when he had finished, he looked around for his minion, whom he called Croesus, a blear-eyed slave whose teeth were very disagreeably discolored. He was playing with a little black bitch, disgustingly fat, wrapping her up in a leek-green scarf and teasing her with a half-loaf of bread ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... gold and silver inks and the Tyrian purple of the vellum. He declared that he had never seen anything to compare with the library of Pamphilus; and when he was given twenty-five volumes of Origen in the martyr's delicate writing, he vowed that he felt richer than if he had found the wealth of Croesus. ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... that's all right! I oughtn't to have left it about, that's all. I'm not exactly a Croesus, like you, you know, Paul, and now and then I'm obliged to raise the wind somehow. Yes! I know what you're going to say. My allowance is a good one, and I ought to make it do. But, you ...
— A Monk of Cruta • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Lyndon's income. Let this be flung in the teeth of my detractors, who say I never could have so injured the Lyndon property had I not been making a private purse for myself; and who believe that, even in my present painful situation, I have hoards of gold laid by somewhere, and could come out as a Croesus when I choose. I never raised a shilling upon Lady Lyndon's property but I spent it like a man of honour; besides incurring numberless personal obligations for money, which all went to the common stock. Independent of the Lyndon mortgages and incumbrances, ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... with Croesus, some think not agreeable with chronology; but I cannot reject so famous and well-attested a narrative, and, what is more, so agreeable to Solon's temper, and so worthy his wisdom and greatness of mind, because, forsooth, it does not agree ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... is not a new thing under the sun. When Saul disguised himself before his conference with the Witch of Endor, he made an elementary attempt at a scientific test of the supernormal. Croesus, the king, went much further, when he tested the clairvoyance of the oracles of Greece, by sending an embassy to ask what he was doing at a given hour on a given day, and by then doing something very bizarre. We do not know how the Delphic oracle found ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... as Jean remained glum and silent, and only picked up the iron spoon with a toss of her head, "you do not look overpleased, and yet we are bidden to rejoice with them that do rejoice. Why, he is a baronet, Jean, and as rich as Croesus, and she is Lady Redmond, bless her dear heart! Why, I went into the nursery just now, and it was just a lovely sight, as I told Fergus. The bairn had been pulling at her hair, and down it came, a tumbling ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... d'Artagnan. Nevertheless, when he waited at the dinner given by his master, and saw him take out a handful of gold to pay for it, he believed his fortune made, and returned thanks to heaven for having thrown him into the service of such a Croesus. He preserved this opinion even after the feast, with the remnants of which he repaired his own long abstinence; but when in the evening he made his master's bed, the chimeras of Planchet faded away. The bed was the only one in the apartment, which ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the same breath you tell me how much you have stolen and are taking with you. If you were a Croesus, I wouldn't go with you." She flamed into sudden, fierce passion. "Will you never understand that I hate ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... doing all this time? Daylight appreciated the interviews with them that appeared—interviews delightfully placid and non-committal. Leon Guggenhammer even hazarded the opinion that this Northland Croesus might possibly be making a mistake. But not that they cared, John Dowsett explained. Nor did they object. While in the dark regarding his intentions, of one thing they were certain; namely, that he ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... that; I've got a French fellow sleeping around here somewhere," he cries, as Armand signals the sanctum is unlocked. "He always turns up if any one but HIMSELF tries to steal anything. He's got a patent on that," laughs the "Croesus ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... single man, or a man with an uncongenial wife whom he doesn't love and who doesn't love him, may be as rich as Croesus, and gain all the honours in the world, and he won't possess an atom of the happiness of a poor man congenially married. Did I ever tell you about the day I ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... good fellow, you'd best go teach the dumb son of Croesus! I want to talk and not be a dummy. Well—but after this silence, and these ...
— On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art • James Mactear
... stood desolate, he appeared abroad arrayed in gold and purple. But that the divine wrath would eventually overtake such priests as lived in pride and luxury, and levied taxes on the provinces like men, who meant to equal the wealth of Croesus: "for the Lord had said, that as they measured out to others, so would he measure out to them: and the Ancient of Days could not lie." Upon hearing this, and much more to the same effect, the pope asked John of Salisbury what he himself thought? Who ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... physical suffering over and above the psychical and intellectual suffering of the first. But the psychical and mental suffering is permanent, and therefore more productive of results. Look at him, your Croesus plagued with a mad hunger-fever; how breathlessly he rushes after still greater and greater gains; how he sacrifices the happiness and honour, the enjoyment and peace, of himself and of those who ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... question me," replied Pillichody, feigning to brush away a tear. "He was my friend, and I would rather banish him from my memory. The sight of your beauty transports me so, that, by the treasures of Croesus! I would rather have you without a crown than the wealthiest ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Persia until 546. Appreciating the great strength of Babylon, he did not at first attempt its capture, but began at once by intrigue to pave the way for its ultimate overthrow. In 545 he set out on a western campaign against Croesus, the king of Lydia, the ancient rival of Media. After a quick and energetic campaign, Sardis, the rich Lydian capital, was captured, and Cyrus was free to advance against the opulent Greek colonies that lay along the eastern shores of the Aegean. These in rapid succession fell into his hands, ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... wonderbook. Anyway, he would make another note of it. What would it be like, he wondered, to have a million dollars to spend, and unlimited access to the Sears-Roebuck treasures. Picturing himself as such a Croesus, he innocently thought that his first act would be to take train for Chicago and inspect the warehoused accumulations of those princes of trade with his own ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... family, your health, your easy conscience; all is too smooth, too well with you. It can't last, your lordship, it can't last,' and the doctor shook his bald head, as no doubt Solon did at Croesus when he snubbed that ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... without any sense of its personality, as the French use the word Barnum—for our crude young nation has the distinction of adding a verb to the French language, the verb to barnum—it is expressed in the well-known name Croesus. This is a standard—impossible to be reached perhaps, but a standard. If one may say so, the country is sown with seeds of Croesus, and the crop is forward and promising. The interest to us now in the observation of this phase of modern life is not in the least for purposes of satire or of reform. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... pictures, nobody can hope to rival an obscure collector, one Elie Magus, a Jew, an old monomaniac, the prince of picture-lovers," the Count replied modestly. "And when I say nobody, I do not speak of Paris only, but of all Europe. When the old Croesus dies, France ought to spare seven or eight millions of francs to buy the gallery. For curiosities, my collection is good enough ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of the picture—Holbein's allegory of the 'Triumph of Riches,' and the 'Triumph of Poverty,' and of his portrait sketches. In the 'Triumph of Riches,' Plutus, an old man bent double, drives in a car, drawn by four white horses; before him, Fortune, blind, scatters money. The car is followed by Croesus, Midas, and other noted misers and spendthrifts—for Cleopatra, the only woman present, is included in the group. In the 'Triumph of Poverty,' Poverty is an old woman in squalor and rags, who is seated in a shattered vehicle, drawn by asses and oxen, and guided by Hope ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... down to Menlo and dropped in at the Maynards. There were a lot of the props of San Francisco society, all as rich as croesus, sitting on the veranda crocheting socks or sacks for a crop of new babies that are due. One or two were hemstitching lawn, or embroidering a monogram, or something else equally useless or virtuous. They were ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hundred pistoles!" said D'Artagnan to himself; "he calls that being as poor as Job! If I had them I should think myself as rich as Croesus." ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average American abroad. The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts compound ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... came so frightfully early this year, that I was very much afraid my new bonnet a l'Imperatrice would not be out from Paris soon enough. But fortunately it arrived just in time, and I had the satisfaction of taking down the pride of Mrs. Croesus, who fancied hers would be the only stylish hat in church the first Sunday. She could not keep her eyes away from me, and I sat so unmoved, and so calmly looking at the Doctor, that she was quite vexed. But, whenever she turned away, I ran my eyes over the whole congregation, ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis
... room were without exception meant for the country residence of an American Croesus, who had taken a tremendous fancy to the young sculptor and his work and jealously tried to keep his creations from straying into another's possession. He looked upon himself as a Medici of the nineteenth century. His marble palace in extensive grounds ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... Crete). The Francois Vase (Archaeological Museum, Florence). Consulting the Oracle at Delphi. The Discus Thrower (Lancelotti Palace, Rome). Athlete using the Strigil (Vatican Gallery, Rome). "Temple of Neptune," Paestum. Croesus on the Pyre. Persian Archers (Louvre, Paris). Gravestone of Aristion (National Museum, Athens). Greek Soldiers in Arms. The Mound at Marathon. A Themistocles Ostrakon (British Museum, London). An Athenian ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... in character. The one that follows is a good illustration of a type of such tales pleasing to modern minds. We no longer produce the formal fable or allegory. In Tolstoy's story are two historical characters of so pronounced individuality that their names always suggest definite ideas—Croesus, riches and worldly greatness; Solon, wisdom and worldly poverty and lowliness. These ideas are brought into conflict, and the outcome allows us to see which is the basic one in Tolstoy's theory of life. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... faculties desert me before the marble and gold luxury of a modern palace, and its gorgeous splendour has no charm for me. The interest I felt was due to the man himself, and, most of all, to the connection existing between him and my own home. How came this American Croesus to be acquainted with the nomenclature, customs, and topography of my own country and language? How came the latter upon the lips of his five-year-old boy? In my childhood I had known a five-year-old boy, the son of a count, who could speak only Latin, and ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... Maria Child's reply to her husband when he wished he was as rich as Croesus: "At any rate, you are King of Lydia;" and Lucretia Mott's humorous comment when she entered a room where her husband and his brother Richard were sitting, both of them remarkable for their taciturnity and reticence: "I thought you must both ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... shall make as much again at the theatre, without counting extras. Camusot will pay for my dresses as before. He is fond of me! We can live like Croesus on fifteen ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... can but expect bold adventures. The discovery and exploration of the New World and the defeat of the Spanish Armada had now made England monarch of sea and land. The imagination of the people was aroused, and tales of a wealth like that of Croesus came from mariners who had sailed the seven seas, and were willingly believed by an excited audience. Indeed the nations stood ready with open-mouthed wonder to accept all stories, no matter how marvelous or preposterous. America suddenly appeared to all people ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... became fashionable in the last decade of Queen Victoria, it was necessary for St. Raphael to have an ancient monument. An arch of the aqueduct was imported to the beach with as little regard for congruous setting as Mr. Croesus-in-Ten-Years shows in importing an English lawn to his front yard at Long Branch and a gallery of ancestral portraits to his ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... or possessed on earth were and are the fruit of endeavor that had no capital to begin with save energy, intellect, and the will. From Croesus down to Rockefeller the story is the same, not only in the getting of wealth, but also in the acquirement of eminence; those men have won most ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... was in the saddle. "Permit me to present to you the boy Croesus—the only one extant. His marbles are plunks and his kites are made of fifty-dollar notes. He feeds upon coupons a la Newburgh, and his champagne is liquid golden eagles. Look at him, gentlemen, while you can, and watch him while ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon
... to Edward—you know Edward—my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner's daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my father's before he failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a Croesus of wealth—became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Thesaurochrysonicocraesides)—Ver. 290. This is a name made up of several Greek words, and seems to mean "a son of Croesus, abounding in treasures of gold," in allusion to Croesus, the wealthy king of Lydia. The author indulges in similar pleasantry in the ...
— The Captiva and The Mostellaria • Plautus
... reduced to indigence, he went to London to try to recover some part of the sums which had been lent on Government security. Instead of receiving any satisfaction, the Scottish Croesus was thrown into prison, in which he died, 19th December 1655. It is said his death was hastened by the want of common necessaries. But this statement is somewhat exaggerated, if it be true, as is commonly said, that though he was not supplied with bread, he had ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to restore the whole place," the organist said bitterly. "They would, if they had any sense of decency. They are as rich as Croesus, and would miss pounds less than most people would miss pennies. Not that I believe in any of this sanitary talk—things have gone on well enough as they are; and if you go digging up the floors you will only dig up pestilences. Keep the fabric ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... to the Tribune. At first Nye was paid the princely stipend of $5 a week for these letters. This was raised to $10, and when Field informed Nye that he was to receive $15 per letter, the latter promptly packed his grip and took the first train for Denver, to see what sort of a newspaper Croesus presided over the order-blank of the Tribune. When he appeared before Field he was whiskered like a western farmer and his head had not pushed its way through a thick growth of hair. He was altogether a different looking personage ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... them be not subjected to privation and abuse. The sane man who can prove that he is rich in material wealth is not nearly so happy as the mentally disordered man whose delusions trick him into believing himself a modern Croesus. A wealth of Midaslike delusions is no burden. Such a fortune, though a misfortune in itself, bathes the world in a golden glow. No clouds obscure the vision. Optimism reigns supreme. "Failure" and "impossible" are as words from an unknown tongue. And the unique satisfaction about ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... devotion of their wives. Kerner, the Suabian author, said this beautiful word in testimony of his wife after their long years of happiness together: "She hath borne with me." Martin Luther said of his wife, the devoted Catherine: "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." Bismarck, the man of "blood and iron," says of his wife: "She it is who made me what ...
— The Wedding Day - The Service—The Marriage Certificate—Words of Counsel • John Fletcher Hurst
... 530, Happy among men.]—The crown of his triumph! Early Greek thought was always asking the question, What is human happiness? To the Herald Agamemnon has achieved happiness if any one ever did. Cf. the well-known story of Croesus asking Solon who was the happiest man in the world (Herodotus, ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... Croesus! The whole transaction is but an affair of battered kermis, intrinsically not worth a moment's consideration; but it serves its purpose of affording an interesting insight into the character of ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... well, wealth makes no difference to the garb of mankind. All of the latter have the same dirty, unkempt appearance; all wear the same suit of shiny black, rusty high boots, and a shabby slouch-hat or peaked cap. Furs alone denote the difference of station, sable or blue fox denoting the mercantile Croesus, astrachan or sheep-skin his clerk. Otherwise all the men look (indoors) as though they had slept in their clothes, which, by the way, is not improbable, for on one occasion I stayed with an Irkutsk Vanderbilt who lived in palatial style. His house was a dream of beauty and ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... threshing-floor of Oman for six hundred shekels of gold by weight ($4,500.) The Lydians were the first people who coined money. The word "money" is derived from the temple of Jupiter Moneta, where the Roman mint was established. Croesus (B.C. 560) coined the golden stater, which contained one hundred and thirty-three grains of pure metal. Darius, son of Hystaspes, (B.C. 538) coined the daric, which contained one hundred and twenty-one grains of pure metal; it ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... who practically make bets as to what its future price will be, and manipulate the price, if possible, to win their bets. If it is ever again held for investment simply, it is when it is locked in the safe of some modern Croesus. ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... that was a match for that of Cyrus was the Lydian host under King Croesus. A conflict took place between the two, ending in the defeat of the most powerful potentate of Asia Minor. But Cyrus treated Croesus with consideration, and the Lydian king is said to have become the friend of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... millionaire who made a slide for the idiots of the kingdom; they stigmatized our liberty as a sophistry, unless we have in it the sustaining element of justice; and where is the justice that punishes his country for any fatal course a mad young Croesus may take! They shackled the hands of testators, who endangered the salvation of coroneted boys by having sanction to bequeath vast wealth in bulk. They said, in truth, that it was the liberty to be un-Christian. Finally, they screeched ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... nature—a bounteousness and richness in the yield of the soil and the depths of the earth hardly equalled in any other part of the world, and in consequence princely fortunes were accumulated in an incredibly short space of time. Millionaires abounded, and monopolists, compared with whom Croesus was poor, flourished. But bitter poverty and starvation also flourished, especially in the large cities, bringing in their train the usual discontent and hatred of the established order of things. Yet these old-fashioned evils were scarcely noticed in the general magnificent prosperity of the country. ...
— The Dominion in 1983 • Ralph Centennius
... common-sense," cries she. "What were we talking of? The marriage of Maurice to this little plebeian—this little female Croesus. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... you are off to-morrow morning," observed Robert. "You have no time to make inquiries about the mysterious Croesus. You must really make ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... about lines and shades, said to him, "Do you see my lads yonder grinding colours, they admired just now your purple and gold, but now they are laughing at you for beginning to talk about what you don't understand."[408] And Solon, when Croesus asked him about happiness, replied that Tellus, an obscure Athenian, and Bito and Cleobis were happier than he was.[409] But flatterers proclaim kings and rich men and rulers not only happy and fortunate, but also pre-eminent for wisdom, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... during the early seventies. E'en as I write, Memory, with tender hand, pushes back the sombre curtain, and I see them now—that charmed circle; the poet with the brow of Jove and Minerva's lips; the rugged warrior at his side, with the dignity of Mars himself; perhaps some Croesus with his gold, drawn by the spell of Wisdom's enchantment into the magic circle; and this your humble disciple of Thucydides, sitting spellbound under the drippings of the sacred font, getting the material for these pages. ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... desert-weary. The world looked so bright to me that day, when first I smelled the sweet resinous pines, and dreamed of my work, and all the glory of the victory, I knew that I should win over poverty and want. I was so poor in worldly goods, but oh!—Croesus could not have bought my proud hopes! So rich, so overflowing with high hope! As I think of my feelings that day, among the primroses and pine cones, it seems a hundred years ago, and I recall the image of a girl long ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... keeping you all waiting was my meeting with this ridiculous fellow." She shoved Corliss forward. "Oh! you have not met! Baron Courbertin, Mr. Corliss. If you strike it rich, baron, I advise you to sell to Mr. Corliss. He has the money-bags of Croesus, and will buy anything so long as the title is good. And if you don't strike, sell anyway. He's a ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... a subject! They shall be ready in an hour!" cried Trip, in whose imagination Parnassus was a raised counter. He had in a teacup some lines on Venus and Mars which he could not but feel would fit Thalia and Croesus, or Genius and Envy, equally well. "In one hour, sir," said Triplet, "the article shall be executed, and delivered ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... her purifying spittle; for she knows right well how to check the evil eye. Then she dandles him in her arms, and packs off the pinched little hope of the family, so far as wishing can do it, to the domains of Licinus, or the palace of Croesus. 'May he be a catch for my lord and lady's daughter! May the pretty ladies scramble for him! May the ground he walks on turn to a rose-bed.' But I will never trust a nurse to pray for me or mine; good ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... gives of the gifts that Croesus sent to the Oracle at Delphi is a splendid example of barbaric magnificence. First, the King offered up three thousand of every kind of sacrificial beast, and burned upon a huge pile couches coated with silver and gold, and golden goblets, and robes and vests of purple. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... who made Aunt Betsy's gowns and bonnets—all of a solid and substantial architecture, as if modelled on the adjacent cathedral. Ida, left alone amidst all the fascinations of the chief shop in a smart county town, and feeling herself a Croesus, had much need of fortitude and coolness of temper. Happily she remembered what a little way that five-pound note had gone in preparing her for her summer visit to The Knoll, and this brought wisdom. Before spending sixpence ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... mean, as if you had everything to buy. Besides, I look upon Mason as a sort of Croesus. What on earth has he got to do with his money? And then as to time;—upon my word I don't understand what a man means when he says he has not got time ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... people, and is the cleanest and most respectable city the Turks own. In ancient times Croesus lived here after he had made his pile, and at the present day great numbers of wealthy men make it their home, and there is a good deal of luxury seen in the suburbs. It has the trade from Asia Minor. Homer was born here, and wrote and sang his immortal poetry along its rocky shores. ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... attachments. He's a pal of Uncle Bill's, and as rich as Croesus. Amateur deep sea yachtsman before the war. He's awfully gone ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... richer than Croesus, if friendship count as riches, Amelie. The hare had many friends, but none at last; I am more fortunate in possessing ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... matter passed off in mutual badinage; but Mildred did not forget her intention. On the contrary, "society" at Madeira was soon profoundly agitated by the intelligence that the lady Croesus, Mrs. Carr, was about to give a magnificent ball, and so ill-natured—or, rather, so given to jumping to conclusions—is society, that it was freely said it was in order to celebrate her engagement to Arthur Heigham. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... or five-days' cruise, and that Caroline had asked her to go—the only other young person besides the daughter of the house. And great persons were going, visiting nobility from England, a young American Croesus and his wife, a tenor from the Metropolitan. Annie had been delighted with this invitation; even Leslie, just returned from California and Hawaii, had expressed an almost surprised satisfaction in ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... fed the hungry stranger, cheerfully dispensing a portion of what he thankfully received from the Lord of all, whose bounty had enriched his possessions, and thus enjoying the luxury of doing good: this was indeed to his benevolent spirit, a feast which all the wealth of a Croesus ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... quite true, signore, I regret being obliged to break the ill news so abruptly; but this gentleman thought himself too poor to purchase my little bracelet, and it was necessary to inform him that he is suddenly made wealthy—not yet so great a Croesus as yourself, Signor Merreek, but still a ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... it was his friend Rodolphe changed into a Croesus, Marcel again set to work on his "Passage of the Red Sea," which had been on his easel ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... concluded, and the Halys fixed as the boundary between the two kingdoms. Alyattes drove the Cimmerii (see SCYTIHA) from Asia, subdued the Carians, and took several Ionian cities (Smyrna, Colophon). He was succeeded by his son Croesus. His tomb still exists on the plateau between lake Gygaea and the river Hermus to the north of Sardis — a large mound of earth with a substructure of huge stones. It was excavated by Spiegelthal in 1854, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... thought to him that he was wealthy enough to buy every one of those close-ranged, bulky, window-lit mansions that faced him, if he chose. He could have matched gold, equipages, jewels, art treasures, estates and acres with any Croesus in this proud city of Manhattan, and scarcely have entered upon the bulk of his holdings. He could have sat at table with reigning sovereigns. The social world, the world of art, the fellowship of the elect, adulation, imitation, ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... was the precious baby drest? In a robe of the East, with lace of the West, Like one of Croesus's issue— Her best bibs were made Of rich gold brocade, And the ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... ashes than build it up with money gained under false pretenses. Then, Luther adds, there is danger that the common man will ask awkward questions. For example, "If the pope releases souls from purgatory for money, why not for charity's sake?" or, "Since the pope is rich as Croesus, why does he not build St. Peter's with his own money, instead of taking that ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... till ten o'clock precisely, and then the director of the Comptoir General de Credit, who, by the way, was an honest man—at least, as honest as is to be found in business—courteously conducted his last visitor to the head of the stairway. The visitor named was an old villain, as rich as Croesus, who, by a not uncommon chance, enjoyed the general esteem of the public; whereas, had justice been done to him, he would have been lodging at the expense of the State in one of those large establishments provided by a thoughtful government for ...
— The Lost Child - 1894 • Francois Edouard Joachim Coppee
... matter of a paltry poisoned dagger at stake and a fortune that may be mythical or may be like that of Croesus, for all I care, we could play the game according to rules," he exclaimed. "But when you begin to tamper with a life like that of Inez de Mendoza—you have passed the bounds of all consideration. You have the Star? Telephone the story ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... incident occurred while Alyattus, father of Croesus, was king of the Lydians. The modern astronomer, reckoning backward, estimates this eclipse as occurring probably May 25th, 585 B.C. The date is important as fixing a mile-stone in the chronology of ancient history, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... in his petition for office,—and in what degree were such petitions less disgraceful than a request for money which had been hopelessly expended on an impossible object, attempted at the instance of the great Croesus who, when asked to pay it, had at once acknowledged the necessity of doing so? Could not Mr. Finn remember that he himself had stood in danger of his life before a British jury, and that, though he had been, no doubt properly, acquitted of the crime imputed to him, circumstances had ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... porches and balconies and towers and minarets and all sorts of gingerbread effects to compel the eye of the passer-by. But when he became enormously rich, so rich that his name was one of the synonyms for wealth, so rich that people said "rich as Roebuck" where they used to say "rich as Croesus," he cut away every kind of ostentation, and avoided attention more eagerly than he had once sought it. He took advantage of his having to remove to New York, where his vast interests centered; he bought a small and commonplace and, for a rich man, even mean house in ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... better adept at. Why can there not rise one who is greater than Alexander and of stouter heart than Julius Caesar? There is no limit to the greatness of mankind. Behold, here is a city rich beyond even the wealth of Croesus; and a country which the emperor is longing to bestow upon some orderly king! Heavens, what an opportunity! I could pray, Jerusalem should pray, that the hour may bring forth ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... empty but full, choked with evil life. Wretched are they that hunger and thirst after nothing good, for they also shall be filled. Herein is democracy, that whether you are a beggar's son or the son of Croesus you cannot escape from yourself—you cannot bribe or frighten yourself into being anything else than what your own hungers and thirsts have ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... so in future. You will be beside me, Henry; the father and son together can offer a bold face to the world in spite of these crumbling walls. We can despise the dross of that vile Croesus, and keep the Rayleigh mansion-house in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... greatest Greek sculptors and painters was treasured at Ephesus. A splendid but sensuous worship centred round the gross figure of the goddess Artemis, whose temple was one of the greatest triumphs of ancient art. In the British Museum are preserved some fragments of the old temple built by Croesus, King of Lydia, in B.C. 550. The vast {184} temple which replaced this older structure was built about B.C. 350, with the help of contributions from the whole of Asia. The wealth of the city was increased by the crowds which attended the festivals, and many trades were ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... less composure, inwardly rejoicing in what he considered his triumph, 'you have to make the best of it, I suppose—satisfy mother—marry Cromwell when he comes back, rich as Croesus, with ship-loads of treasure. That's what the handsome girls are for, to marry off ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... it publicity. My love and hope for Lisa are so great, I cannot bear to describe her "case," nor paint her unhappy childhood in the hues it deserves, for the sake of gaining sympathy and aid. I may have to do it, but would I were the little Croesus of a day! Still, Christmas ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to eat, it was worse. Until the "permit" system had come into vogue, money could buy much (of what was going); but the "permit" system lowered mammon to his rightful level. Money for the moment had lost its value; a "permit" was all-important—even Croesus himself would have starved without one. To procure these useful scrips all sorts of formalities had to be entered into, and the amount of time lost in waiting to prove one's right to live was provocative ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... nearly of the same purport: it signifies the great prince; as by Rabsares is meant the chief [282]Eunuch; by Rabmag, the chief of the Magi. Many places in Syria and Canaan have the term Sar in composition; such as Sarabetha, Sariphaea, Sareptha. Sardis, the capital of Croesus, was the city of Sar-Ades, the same as Atis, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... Scotia to a girl with looks like you? You could have married that typhoid case a dozen times last winter if you'd crooked your little finger! Why, the fellow was crazy about you. And he was richer than Croesus. What queered it?" she demanded bluntly. "Did ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... he went to Cyprus, where he dwelt long and made useful changes. He is also said to have visited, at Sardis, Croesus, the king of Lydia, a monarch famous for his wealth and good fortune. About this visit a pretty moral story is told. It is probably not true, being a fiction of the ancient story-tellers, but, fiction or not, it is ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... heads lied to God." Avarice, ambition, or cowardice ruled hearts that should have been actuated by a love of poverty, self-sacrifice or courage. "Quite recently," says Jerome, "we have seen to our sorrow a fortune worthy of Croesus brought to light by a monk's death, and a city's alms collected for the poor, left by will to his ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... their digging up iron, the substance by means of which they might acquire freedom and independence. This is quite in the manner of Tacitus. The word iron was figuratively used by the ancients to signify military force in general. Thus Solon, in his well-known answer to Croesus, observed to him, that the nation which possessed more iron would be master of all his ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath, with a distant relation, who had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Croesus, felt so estranged and solitary in his native isle, that, when the Captain "claimed kindred there," to his own amaze "he had his claims allowed;" while a very protracted sitting of Parliament still delayed in London the Squire's habitual visitors in the later summer; so that—a ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... be a tortoise! Think of it, in a garden of inert clods A brisk, brindled little tortoise, all to himself— Croesus! ...
— Tortoises • D. H. Lawrence
... Croesus, having received from the Pythoness, this answer, that by passing the river Halys, he would destroy a great empire, he understood it to be the empire of his enemy, whereas he destroyed his own. The oracle consulted by Pyrrhus, gave him an answer, which might be equally understood of the ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... old man, who could not ride a few squares in the omnibus without attracting the attention of every body and exciting public curiosity to such a degree, was the millionaire, the Croesus of the South, the largest land-owner in the United States. He had reached the advanced age of seventy, and his remarkable vigor and health had never given way under the pressure of the severest and most incessant labor. Generation upon ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Young FRANK he frowneth grimly, And thou turn'st haughty pale. 'Tis not the taint of "City," For here be scores who sport Their Mayfair manners pretty In Cop-the-Needle Court. Ah, chill me not so coolly, A Croesus though I be— The one who loveth truly I swear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, March 4, 1893 • Various
... from India, and what English lady is this, married to a growling old Scotch Croesus with great flaps of ears? Can this be ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... Herodotus. The embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as would be told by a poet whose head was full of the Greek mythology; and the ambiguous answer returned by Apollo is in the exact style of the prophecies which, according to Herodotus, lured Croesus to destruction. Then the character of the narrative changes. From the first mention of Lucretia to the retreat of Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from foreign sources. The villainy of Sextus, the suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of the sons of Brutus, the defence ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the fat would have been in the fire with a vengeance. As it is, I shall have all my work cut out to put the mater in a good temper again. I am sending you some money by Mickey Mellowes; he's a friend of mine and as rich as Croesus, and as selfish as the devil. If he offers to take you out, let him, by all means. It wouldn't be a bad thing if he took a fancy to you; he doesn't care a hang for any one but himself. If only I'd got half his money ... but what's the use of talking about ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... Limerick we're going, but only to Castle Blatherbrook, where we're to play for the entertainment of the wedding guests, for it's Mr Maurice O'Finnahan is to marry Miss Kathleen O'Brien; and Mr O'Brien, the lady's father, will be after paying us well, for he's as rich as Croesus, and we'll bring away a bottle or two of the cratur to ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Barwig, you make yourself miserable for nothing. You expect too much. She is a petted, pampered, feted young lady of fortune, the daughter of a Croesus; do you think she can always think of you? Who are you that she should spare you so much time? You overrate yourself; you—you idiot." People stopped in the streets to look at the old man, who was walking so rapidly and gesticulating so excitedly. When Von Barwig saw that he was observed, ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... with an illustration. Croesus was a rich man, a king. One day Croesus said to Solon, the philosopher, "Do you not think I am a happy man?" Solon answered, "Alas, I do not know, Croesus; that life is happy that ends well." A few years later when Croesus had lost his wealth, his kingdom, and his health, and had been ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... him, and said, I would gladly give any money to have an opportunity to sit and eat with Ardalus. This Ardalus was a Troezenian by birth, by profession a minstrel, and a priest of the Ardalian Muses, whose temple old Ardalus had founded and dedicated. Here Aesop, who was sent from Croesus to visit Periander, and withal to consult the oracle at Delphi, sitting by and beneath Solon upon a low stool, told the company this fable: A Lydian mule, viewing his own picture in a river, and admiring the bigness and beauty of his body, raises his crest; he waxes proud, resolving ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... things passed harmless; the cold hand Of an all-pitiless Demon held me back, Back by a single hair, which would not break. In Fantasy, Imagination, all 140 The affluence of my soul—which one day was A Croesus in creation—I plunged deep, But, like an ebbing wave, it dashed me back Into the gulf of my unfathomed thought. I plunged amidst Mankind—Forgetfulness[137] I sought in all, save where 'tis to be found— And that I have to learn—my Sciences, My long pursued and superhuman art, Is mortal here: I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... invaders many arts, not before practiced in war, such as archery and cavalry movements, Cyaxares was prepared to extend his empire to the west over Armenia and Asia Minor, as far as the river Halys. He made war in Lydia with the father of Croesus. But before these conquests were made, he probably captured Nineveh and destroyed it, B.C. 625. He was here assisted by the whole force of the Babylonians, under Nabopolassar, an old general of the Assyrians, but who had rebelled. In reward he obtained for ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... genuine novel, they asked for a new Greek romance, and Julian read to them from Herodotus about the rise and fall of empires, and "Strange stories of the deaths of kings." One of his stories was the famous one of Croesus, and the irony of his fate, and the warning words of Solon, all of which, rendered into quaint rich English, struck Cyril so much, that, mingling up the tale with reminiscences of Longfellow's "Blind Bartimeus," he produced, with much modesty at the breakfast-table ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... short sigh she let go her train of thought and left the verandah,—it was time to change her costume and prepare "effects" to dazzle and bewilder the uncertain mind of a crafty old Croesus who, having freely enjoyed himself as a bachelor up to his present age of seventy-four, was now looking about for a young strong woman to manage his house and be a nurse and attendant for him in his declining ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... Young Croesus went to pay his call On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall: And, though his wound was healed and mended, He hoped ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... Midas, Croesus, Delphic treasures! they were all nothing to Timon and his wealth; why, the Persian King could not match it. My spade, my dearest smock-frock, you must hang, a votive offering to Pan. And now I will buy up this desert corner, and build a tiny castle for my treasure, big enough for me to live in all ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... meant to support or adorn. The oriental ideal of unlimited wealth and power, enjoyed merely for its own sake, never appealed to their fine and lucid judgment. Nothing could better illustrate this point than the anecdote related by Herodotus of the interview between Solon and Croesus, King of Lydia. Croesus, proud of his boundless wealth, asks the Greek stranger who is the happiest man on earth? expecting to hear in reply his own name. Solon, however, answers with the name of Tellus, the Athenian, giving his reasons in ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... eleven hundred thousand francs,—to an Englishman a mere nothing. All this luxury, called princely by persons who do not know what real princes are, was built in the garden of the house of a purveyor made a Croesus by the Revolution, who had escaped to Brussels and died there after going into bankruptcy. The Englishman died in Paris, of Paris; for to many persons Paris is a disease,—sometimes several diseases. His widow, a Methodist, had a horror of the little nabob establishment, and ordered it to be ...
— Paz - (La Fausse Maitresse) • Honore de Balzac
... riches in bonds or stocks; No bank books show, our balance to draw; Yet we carry a safe-key, that unlocks More treasure than Croesus ever saw. We wear no velvets, nor satins fine; We dress in a very homely way; But, ah! what luminous lustres shine About Sunbeam's gowns and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... said. "Come be reasonable. You want to be a Croesus—so that you can eat and drink your head off—don't you! Well! You will! You will be one of the three wealthiest men in the world—you will have the world at your feet, if only you stick to me for the next seven months: till we have passed the seventh stage. If you don't—if ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... a rich man more is expected in the way of pecuniary favors (and justly too), and consequently applications of all kinds are daily, I might say for the last few months almost hourly, made to me, and the fabled wealth attributed to me, or to Croesus, would not suffice ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... and though Rosa tried to look offended, she was forced to smile. "He's fat, I know," she admitted, "and he makes funny noises when he breathes; but he is richer than Croesus, and I adore ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... of his "national debt." But by these seventeen years of sober industry, rigid economy, and unflinching faith to his obligations he earned the title of "Honest old Abe," which proved of greater service to himself and his country than if he had gained the wealth of Croesus. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... get Relief from petty trouble, May read the latest day's gazette About the "Klondike" bubble: How shanties rise like golden courts. Where sheep wear glittering fleeces, How gold is picked up—by the quartz— And all get rich as Croesus. ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... hot winds wither every leaf. God plants companion, child, or friend in the life-garden; but death blasts the tree under which the soul finds shelter; then begins the desert pilgrimage. Soon comes loss of health; then the wealth of Croesus availeth not for refreshing sleep, and the wisdom of Solomon is vanity and vexation of spirit. The common people, too, know blight and blast; their life is full of mortal toil and strife, its fruitage grief and ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... his treasures, had refused to call him the most fortunate of men, on the ground that "no man can be called happy before his death," because none can tell what disasters may befall him. Cyrus, according to the narrative, touched by the tale, delivered Croesus from death, and thereafter bestowed on him honor ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... uncle, who made me his heir and allowed me four hundred a year; so I was a sort of Croesus among Staff Corps officers. When the smash came he disowned me by cable. By selling my ponies and my other belongings I was able to walk out of my quarters penniless but free ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... do, which is, caution those who are gamesters from their hearts. I have watched you to-night, and I tell you, that you will be ruined if you continue to frequent that table. You have no command over yourself. I do not know what your means may be, but this I do know, that if you were a Croesus, you would be a beggar. I cared nothing for you while you were the Mr Newland, the admired, and leader of the fashion, but I felt for you when I heard that you were scouted from society, merely because it was found out that you were not so rich as you were supposed to be. I had a fellow-feeling, ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... mounds of earth, or, in later periods, by the towering height of the tumulus. Those of the Chinese and of Thibet have only a few metres of elevation. Farther to the west the dimensions increase; the tumulus of the king Alyattes, father of Croesus, in Lydia, was six stadia, and that of Ninus was more than ten stadia in diameter. In the north of Europe the sepulchre of the Scandinavian king Gormus and the queen Daneboda, covered with mounds of earth, are ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... cup of life as though they had indeed but to-day and to-morrow in which to live and enjoy. Have they no shadows, too, no secrets? They seem so harmless, yet if the great white truth shone down, might one not find a murderer there, a dying man who knew his terrible secret, yonder a Croesus on the verge of bankruptcy, a strong man playing with dishonor? But those are the things of the other world which we do not see. The men look at us to-night and they envy you because you are with me. The women envy me more because I ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to tax, their cynical contempt for the law, their sorcery to debase most gifted men to the capacity of splendid slaves, their pollution of the ermine of the judge and the robe of the Senator, their aggregation in one man of wealth so enormous as to make Croesus seem a pauper, their picked, paid, and skilled retainers who are summoned by the message of electricity and appear upon the wings of steam. If we look into the origin of feudalism and of the modern corporations—those Dromios of ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the path of justice by the force of law. The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given to them in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessed by Gyges, the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was ...
— The Republic • Plato
... man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God can confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom he may live in peace and tranquility—to whom he may confide his whole possessions, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... twenty-eight-mile portage, and while he caught his breath and swallowed, the price went up to forty-three. Fifteen husky Indians put the straps on his packs at forty-five, but took them off at an offer of forty-seven from a Skaguay Croesus in dirty shirt and ragged overalls who had lost his horses on the White Pass trail and was now making a last desperate drive at the country by ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick, The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick, And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys, But what about conditions with ...
— Something Else Again • Franklin P. Adams
... judgment, that the principal point of greatness in any state, is to have a race of military men. Neither is money the sinews of war (as it is trivially said), where the sinews of men's arms, in base and effeminate people, are failing. For Solon said well to Croesus (when in ostentation he showed him his gold), Sir, if any other come, that hath better iron, than you, he will be master of all this gold. Therefore let any prince or state think solely of his forces, except his militia of natives be of good and valiant soldiers. And ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... course. I have just seen him, and he says I am welcome to the hand of his daughter. Now, is not that a long stride up the ladder! The most beautiful and attractive woman in the city for a wife, and an old daddy in law as rich as Croesus!" ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... man of poor estate, and weak of limb, But of a generous, truthful soul, Nor calls, nor deems himself A Croesus, or a Hercules, Nor makes himself ridiculous Before the world with vain pretence Of vigor or of opulence; But his infirmities and needs He lets appear, and without shame, And speaking frankly, calls each thing By its right name. I deem not him magnanimous, But simply, a great ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... Phrygia, about 620 years before Christ. He had more than one master and it was the last, Iadmon, who gave him his liberty because of his talents and his wisdom. The historian Plutarch recounts his presence at the court of Croesus, King of Lydia, and his meeting Thales and Solon there, telling us also that he reproved the wise Solon for discourtesy toward the king. Aesop visited Athens and composed the famous fable of Jupiter and the Frogs for the instruction of the citizens. Whether he left any written fables is very uncertain, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... Homer, has written in the Shah Nameh the annals of the fabulous and heroic kings of the country: of Karum (the Persian Croesus), the immeasurably rich gold-maker, who, with all his treasures, lies buried not far from the Pyramids, in the sea which bears his name; of Jamschid, the binder of demons, whose reign lasted seven hundred years; of Kai Kaus, in whose palace, built by demons on Alburz, ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... if you were as Rich as Croesus, I should not wish, while I am a schoolgirl, to dress any better ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... to have been the friend and pupil of Arnold de Villeneuve, by whom he was instructed in all the secrets of alchymy. Tradition asserts of him, that he made great quantities of gold, and died as rich as Croesus. He was born at Cahors, in the province of Guienne, in the year 1244. He was a very eloquent preacher, and soon reached high dignity in the Church. He wrote a work on the transmutation of metals, and had a famous laboratory at Avignon. He issued two Bulls against the numerous pretenders ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... combat with a foreign foe. However, it is but deferred, and I promise you that as soon as you are two years older, I will bestow knighthood upon you. I myself would willingly," he added, with a smile, "have laid Van Voorden under an obligation. He is a very Croesus, and I regard him as my banker, for he is ever ready to open his money-bags, and to make me advances upon any tax that may have been ordered. Have you seen him since ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... must be filled with jewels. Anson, fasten the torch somehow and put these in the bags. Here are some rare laces, looted from some dead Croesus, I warrant,—put those in too;—those infernal papers—they can ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... he was historical, would seem to have been a Phrygian slave, or at least one not to be specially and symbolically adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty. He lived, if he did live, about the sixth century before Christ, in the time of that Croesus whose story we love and suspect like everything else in Herodotus. There are also stories of deformity of feature and a ready ribaldry of tongue: stories which (as the celebrated Cardinal said) explain, though they do not excuse, his having been hurled over a high ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... of Lydian Cybele, rose the citadel of Meles, the palace fortress of the kings and the satraps. A frowning castle it was without, within not the golden-tiled palaces of Ecbatana and Susa boasted greater magnificence and luxury than this one-time dwelling of Croesus. The ceilings of the wide banqueting halls rose on pillars of emerald Egyptian malachite. The walls were cased with onyx. Winged bulls that might have graced Nineveh guarded the portals. The lions upbearing the throne in the hall of audience ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the better, for then he can immediately use his influence on his workmen. Come, let us go at once to Gotzkowsky, this Croesus of Berlin, who bought for our king three hundred thousand dollars' worth of pictures in Italy, without having been paid for them up to this day, and yet is able to take a contract for commissary stores to the amount of eight millions. Let us go to him; ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite, events. By the help of this artifice, the daemons, who of themselves are not capable of knowing futurity, concealed their ignorance, and amused the credulity of the Pagan world. When Croesus was upon the point of invading the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi upon the success of that war, and was answered, that by passing the river Halys, he would ruin a great empire. What empire, his own, or that of his enemies? He was to guess that; but whatever ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Becky's mind, the time could not be far off when the odd sort of relations existing between the Belmont family and Mr. Dangerfield must be defined. The Croesus himself, indeed, was very indulgent. He was assiduous and respectful; but he wisely abstained from pressing for an immediate decision, and trusted to reflection and to Aunt Becky's good offices; and knew that his gold would operate by its ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Peter Terreros, after such displays of munificence, was ennobled by the title of Count of Regla. Among the common people he is the subject of more fables than was Croesus of old. When his children were baptized, so the story goes, the procession walked upon bars of silver. By way of expressing his gratitude for the title conferred upon him, he sent an invitation to the king to visit him at his mine, assuring his majesty that if he would ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson |
