"Usury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment. In the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury. The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... his mask to move, With his bright Tead that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to wait on him, In their fresh garments trim. Bid her awake therefore, and soon her dight, For lo! the wished day is come at last, That shall, for all the pains and sorrows past, Pay to her usury of long delight: And, whilst she doth her dight, Do ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... credit side of her governing is the very complete and successful system of land-banks, introduced by Frederick the Great and since modelled somewhat upon the French methods, which have protected the farmer from usury, insured him money at low rates for improvements, for the purchase of tools, cattle, and fertilizers, and enabled him to do, by sensible co-operation, what would have been impossible for him as an individual. So successful has ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... tour of great part of the Island, the Legate, with whom was associated Gilla-Criost, or Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, called the great Synod of Kells, early in the year after his arrival (March, 1152), at which simony, usury, concubinage, and other abuses, were formally condemned, and tithes were first decreed to be paid to the secular clergy. Two new Archbishoprics, Dublin and Tuam, were added to Armagh and Cashel, though not without decided opposition from the Primates both of Leath ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... prevalent economic and political discontent. Farmers were overmortgaged, laborers were underpaid, and the poor were growing poorer, while the rich were daily growing richer. "The paramount issues," the new party declared, "are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and trusts, and we denounce the Republican and Democratic parties for creating ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... and his notion of paradise, Mohammed elevated the condition of woman among the Arabs. Before there was unbridled profligacy: now there was a regulated polygamy. Severe prohibitions are uttered against thieving, usury, fraud, false witness; and alms-giving is emphatically enjoined. Strong ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the white ground. Life is without conflict now drenched with love, red. This true red thus attained is permanent because it is produced [in contrast to mere instruction] from the heart of hearts, the roots of innermost feeling, which is subjected to no usury. ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... wherefore.'—'You shall see stranger things than that,' he answered, 'ere your head be hoarier by twain s'ennight from now.'—'Well! say on,' quoth I.—'Have you,' pursueth he, 'any money lent unto any friend, or set out at usury? You were best to call it in, if you would see it at all.'—'Friend,' said I, 'my money floweth not in so fast that my back lacketh it not so soon as it entereth my purse.'—'The better,' quo' he.—'Good lack!' ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... that even self-love may be the dupe of goodness and forget itself when we work for others. And yet it is but taking the shortest way to arrive at its aim, taking usury under the pretext of giving, in fact winning everybody in a ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... the man, in busy schemes unskilled, Who, living simply, like our sires of old, Tills the few acres, which his father tilled, Vexed by no thoughts of usury ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... wretch to a straw. And yet this hard father—this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three months afterwards, suffered a rogue—almost a stranger—to decoy him into a speculation that promised to bring him fifty per cent. He invested in the traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred such as I am from perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole fortune; but he lives and has his luxuries still: he cannot speculate, but he can save: he cared not if I starved, for he finds an ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his tongue, Who does no wrong to his friend, Who makes no charge against his neighbor; In whose sight the vile are despised, But he honors those who revere the Lord. He keeps his oath at all costs, His money he puts not out to usury, And cannot be bribed to ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... SPASMODIC DRUNKARD, with whom it is always the unexpected which occurs, and who at intervals exacts from his accumulated capital the usury of as prolonged a spree as his nerves and stomach will stand. Science is inclined to charitably label this specimen of man a sort of a physiologic puzzle, to be as much pitied as blamed. Given the benefit of every doubt, when he starts off on one of his hilarious tangents, he becomes a howling ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."—Psalm xv. 1-5. Yes, my friends, there is a tabernacle of God in which, even in this life, He will hide us from strife. There is a hill of God in which, even in the ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... petition, and this when he is able to relieve him, he is a guilty person. What is not by any one intrusted to another ought not to be required back again. No one is to touch another's goods. He that lends money must not demand usury for its loan. These, and many more of the like sort, are the rules that unite us in the bands ...
— Against Apion • Flavius Josephus
... allowed for repaying it, since it is something that is planted. If the loan were not repaid after the first harvest, double the amount was to be paid at the second; at the third harvest, fourfold was due on an unpaid loan; and so on, regularly increasing. This was the only usury among them, although some have stated otherwise; but those persons were not well informed. Now, some who are lazy, and unwilling to exert themselves to pay the tribute, ask a loan for this purpose, and repay a ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... thing for more than one thousand peasants in the winter—in a single commune—to be seen awaiting their turn to have their taxes "flogged out." Of course, before this was endured all means had been exhausted for raising the required amount. Usury, that surest road to ruin, and the one offering the least resistance, was the one ordinarily followed. Thus was created that destructive class called Koulaks, or Mir-eaters, who, while they fattened upon the necessities of the peasantry, also demoralized ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... by roaming the country, he had learned what dogs were—"take thou what thou wilt have, and let me depart in peace, and may a murrain go with thee. But oh, landlord! An I catch yon scurvy varlet, I swear he shall pay full with usury for that he ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... his territory and his subjects. It is, therefore, not from treasuries and mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from the blood withheld from the veins and whipped out of the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, under the false names of debtors and creditors ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... servant, so the Good Book says, Was he who in a napkin hid his gold; But he who shrewdly other talents made The Master praised, and to him also gave The unused talent which he wisely took From him who slothfully no effort made To double that which in his care was placed, And thus by usury much wealth amass; Yet the Americanos from this learn No wisdom, but forthwith condemn The teachings of the Savior of Mankind Which we with thrift and ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... conditions thus developed, I could no longer reckon on maintaining my position in Vienna, or my establishment at Penzing. Not only did there seem no prospect of even a temporary nature of earning money, but my debts had mounted up, in the usual style of such usury, to so great a sum, and assumed so threatening an aspect, that, failing some extraordinary relief, my very person was in danger. In this perplexity I addressed myself with perfect frankness—at first only for advice—to the judge of the ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... from all an account. The teapot, the old stocking-foot, the linen rag, the willow-pattern tureen will yield up their barren deposit in many a house. Suffer your daughters, at least, to put their money to the exchangers, that they may be enabled at the Master's coming to pay Him His own with usury." ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... another; and if I get out of this fatal place, I shall not only avoid the fate of my comrades, but perhaps find some new occasion of enriching myself. Who knows but fortune waits, upon my getting off this dangerous shelve, to compensate my shipwreck with usury? After this, I immediately went to work on a float. I made it of good large pieces of timber and cables, for I had choice of them, and tied them together so strong, that I had made a very solid little float. When I had ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... frequently than not an Israelite, by advancing supplies of necessary articles at reasonable prices. But the necessities of the planter, if not his greed, often betray him into plundering the negro. The planter himself is generally a victim to usury. He still draws on the city factor to the extent of ten dollars a bale upon his estimated crop. He pays this factor two and one half per cent. commission for the advance, eight per cent. interest for the ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... one. unir (s'), to unite. univers, m., universe, the whole universe. usage, m., use, custom, precedent. usure, f., usury, usurious interest; payer avec —, to ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... skill. He had the trick of making usury look like kindness; he always spoke of those fellows, those hidden owners of the money and the horses—heartless wretches who were "after him," holding him responsible for the short-comings of all their debtors. The burdens he thus supposedly assumed won him a reputation as a kind-hearted soul, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... demon of authorized usury, Holbein and Botticelli went out to war together. Holbein, as we have partly seen in his designs for the Dance of Death, struck with all his soldier's strength.[AY] Botticelli uses neither satire nor reproach. He turns altogether away from the criminals; appeals only to heaven for defense against ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... the Public for allowing merit to an act whose only object is to snatch misfortune and imprudence from the rapacious Relief of usury! and give the minor a chance of inheriting his estate without being undone by ...
— The School For Scandal • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... sustained Mr. Washburn's position in a characteristic speech, especially answering General Banks's argument that we should pay this amount from a spirit of friendship for Russia. "If," said General Butler, "we are to pay this price as usury on the friendship of Russia, we are paying for it very dear indeed. If we are to pay for her friendship, I desire to give her the seven million two hundred thousand dollars in cash, and let her keep Alaska, because I think it may be a small sum to give for the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... no other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content with six per cent. when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... for you, that, intending to live by usury and swindling, you read Mr. Adam Smith and Mr. Stuart Mill, and other ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... this most fatal way, that it depends, first, on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles; and, secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking an exorbitant[47] sum for the use of anything; and it is no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, on rent or on price—the essence of the usury being that ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... situation could not grow worse,—no more public nor private credit; no more clear revenue for the State; the portions of the revenue not pledged, anticipated on the following years. Neither labor nor consumption could be resumed for want of circulation; usury reigned on the ruins of society. The alternations of high prices and the depreciation of commodities finally crushed the people. Provision riots broke out among them, and even in the army. Manufactures were languishing or suspended; forced mendicity was preying upon the cities. The fields were ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... indolent peasantry. He draws no less gloomy a picture in respect of capital and property. Nine-tenths of Manila, and all important provincial real estate, is mortgaged. Capital is furnished at exorbitant rates of interest, and usury prevails. In the country, no security is accepted save real property, and then only when the lender is satisfied that his debtor will be unable to pay, and that the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... effort to unify the labor of the world, is at last beginning to be something more than dirty smithing. No longer does the business man thank the better classes for permitting him to make and distribute bread and motor-cars and books. No longer does he crawl to the church to buy pardon for usury. Business is being recognized—and is recognizing ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and the waste of it will make you dwindle, alike in intellectual and moral ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... brilliant genius first came to light, and into vast debts at play, they imparted to the world an important secret which they had discovered. It was, that nobody needed to want money, if they would pay enough for it. Accordingly, they borrowed of Jews at vast usury: but as they had made but an incomplete calculation, the interest so soon exceeded the principal, that the system did not maintain its ground for above two or three years. Faro has proved a more substantial speculation. But I miscarried in applying my remembrance ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... yellow-flowered, His restless head just reaching to the rocks, His bosom tossing with black weeds besmeared, How writhes he twixt the continent and isle! What tyrant with more insolence e'er claimed Dominion? when from the heart of Usury Rose more intense the pale-flamed thirst for gold? And called forsooth DELIVERER! False or fools Who praised the dull-eared miscreant, or who hoped To soothe your folly and disgrace with praise! ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... carried out, and to give a new interpretation to His desires; it is not He who seeks to give to arbitrary acts a favourable colour. His words are to be taken literally; all that He promises He gives with usury. Thus does He ever. I have told thee all that the Creator has done for thee; at this very moment He is showing thee the prize and the reward of the perils and sufferings to which thou hast been exposed in the service of thy fellow-men.' And I listened to this voice, overcome though ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... the present employer—its success would be more certain; the general prosperity of the community would be increased thereby, and there would be therefore more enterprises, more demand for labor, and consequently higher wages. Usury kills off the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting them, and leaves only the very rich and the very poor; for every dollar the employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come eventually out of the pockets of the laborers. Usury is therefore the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... of, when the sneer shall be struck from the face of the well-fed; when the wine of honour shall be poured down the throat of despair; when we shall, so far as to the sons of flesh is possible, take tyranny, and usury, and public treason, and bind them into ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Thou knewest that I was an austere man, taking up that I laid not down, and reaping that I did not sow: Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. (And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.) For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... which his descendants had ever since lived. "Interest on investments" was a species of tax on industry which a person possessing or inheriting money was then able to levy, in spite of all the efforts to put down usury. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... in language, which has a great effect on men's ideas, the invidious word usury which formerly meant the taking of any interest for money, came now to express only the taking of exorbitant and illegal interest. An act passed in 1571 violently condemns all usury; but permits ten per cent, interest to be paid. Henry IV. of France reduced Interest to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... repented of the suffering He has caused to the soul of His beloved, or that He would pay back with usury what she has suffered for His love. If this consolation last for many days, it becomes painful. She calls Him sweet and cruel: she asks Him if He has only wounded her that she may die. But this kind Lover laughs at her pain, and applies to the wound a balm ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... great evil. First of all, there are many things of ancient society not reproved or reprobated by the founders of Christianity, which are inconvenient to, and inconsistent with, our moral sense, and which would violate the laws of modern society. Such are the laws and customs of usury and polygamy. No man in his senses would attempt to establish polygamy in modern society, because it is not prohibited and condemned by the writers of the New Testament. To argue, therefore, that slavery is congenial with the spirit of the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... witness to be given, from a benevolent motive, in order to save an innocent man from a tyrant. This is called "the venial sin of benevolent falsehood." The book then proceeds to describe weights and measures, and the rate of usury, which is put down as five percent. It forbids compound interest. The law of deposits occupies a large space, as in all Eastern countries, where investments are difficult. A good deal is said about the wages of servants, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... joined the police force as a humble constable. But he did not remain one long; and became in turn a Fleet Street publican, the proprietor of a Haymarket night-house, an auctioneer, a picture dealer, a bill discounter (with a side line in usury), and the editor of a Sunday organ. Next, the theatre attracted his energies; and in 1852 he secured a lease of Drury Lane at the moderate rental of L70 a week. On Boxing-night he offered his first programme there. This consisted of Uncle Tom's Cabin (with "fierce bloodhounds ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... the work of his high station In punishing improper conversation, And all the slidings thereunto belonging; Witchcraft, and scandal also, and the wronging Of holy Church, by blinking of her dues In sacraments and contracts, wills and pews; Usury furthermore, and simony; But people of ill lives most loathed he: Lord! how he made them sing if they were caught. And tithe-defaulters, ye may guess, were taught Never to venture on the like again; To the last farthing would he rack and strain. For stinted tithes, or stinted offering, ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... turned aside from their course the waters of human morality, and forced them into a stagnant pool, around which our memory still lingers. Nor do I speak of a cunning humility that is often mere calculation, or, taken at its best, a timidity that has its root in pride—a loan at usury that our vanity of to-day extends to our vanity of to-morrow. And even the sage at times conceives it well to lower himself in his own self-esteem, and to deny superior merits that are his when comparing himself with ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Banking Business.—Nicanor has no paper money to handle, no stocks, no bonds,—and the line between legitimate interest and scandalous usury is by no means clearly drawn. There is at least one good excuse for demanding high interest. It is notoriously hard to collect bad debts. Many and many a clever debtor has persuaded an Athenian jury that ALL taking of interest is somewhat ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... state, whose existence was of so much consequence to the common cause, even when it could not defend itself. It was the wish of these frank-hearted men to receive the Emperor's professions of friendship with such sincere returns of amity—to return his kindness with so much usury, as to convince him that their purpose towards him was in every respect fair and honourable, and that it would be his interest to abstain from every injurious treatment which might induce or compel them to alter their measures ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... life, refraining from meat and professing abhorrence of oaths or of lying. The mystery in which they enveloped themselves won for them the adoring reverence of the Credentes, who formed the great majority of the sect and gave themselves up to every vice, to usury, brigandage, and perjury, and whilst describing marriage as prostitution, condoning incest and all forms of licence.[217] The Credentes, who were probably not fully initiated into the Dualist doctrines of their superiors, looked to them for ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... blessedness of a cheerful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn,—capability of amusement on a low key. He expects rapid and extraordinary returns. He would make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the gods when we see them,—always a sign of the decay of the faith and simplicity ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... ill-gotten gain, mother, it will never prosper; you had better go to bed, and I will do the same. I suppose it would be impossible to sleep with that yellow usury on the floor. I should have Plutus at the head of the imps of darkness about my bed, instead of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John," that I used to pray to "bless the bed that I ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... enterprise which failed in 1827, leaving him still more embarrassed financially, but endowed with a fund of experience which he turned to rich account as a novelist. Henceforth the sordid world of debt, bankruptcy, usury, and speculation had no mystery for him, and he laid it bare in novel after novel, utilizing also the knowledge he had gained of the law, and even pressing into service the technicalities of the printing office [See 'Illusions perdues' (Lost Illusions)]. But now at ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... that there were chiefs who had one, two, and three hundred slaves, and those generally of their own color and nation, and not of other foreign nations. The most general origin of those slaveries were interest and usury. That was so much practiced among them, that no father would aid his son, no son his father, no brother his brother, and much less any relative his relative, even though he were suffering extreme necessity, without an agreement to restore double. If ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... their ministrations, especially in Manila; the fathers adjust dissensions and family quarrels, and reform several dissolute persons. The college at Manila prospers, and enlarges its curriculum. The labors of the Jesuits effect certain important changes in social conditions among the natives. Usury, unjust enslavement, and polygamy are greatly lessened, and sometimes entirely abolished, among the Indians in the mission districts; and most notable of these results, the fathers have much success in gathering not only their own converts, but even many of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... him no longer. Here I've been running to each dirty Moor, Inquiring who will lend him. I, who ne'er Went for myself a begging, go a borrowing, And that for others. Borrowing's much the same As begging; just as lending upon usury Is much the same as thieving—decency Makes not of lewdness virtue. On the Ganges, Among my ghebers, I have need of neither: Nor need I be the tool or pimp of either - Upon the Ganges only there are men. Here, thou alone art somehow almost worthy To have lived upon the ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... said, "I know more 'bout this matter 'n you think for. I know 't you ben makin' your brags that you'd fix me in this deal. You allowed that you'd set up usury in the fust place, an' if that didn't work I'd find you was execution proof ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... their true objects of devotion, mingled among the votaries of Mammon. They were not behind those who wielded the civil power in fabricating ordinances suited to their avaricious purposes. Theological decisions forthwith appeared, in which the anathema launched by the Church against usury was conveniently construed as not extending to the traffic ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... if not, and the common application of the terms "Word of God" to the books of Scripture be against all question tenable, it becomes yet more imperative on the interpreters of that Scripture to see that they are not made void by our traditions, and that the Mortal sins of Covetousness, Fraud, Usury, and contention be not the essence of a National life orally professing submission to the laws of Christ, ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... superfluous. What he was thinking of no one but he himself knew. That he had expected what had taken place in his absence, his bringing Mrs. Burton proved. At last realisation had come, and Mary Landor was paying the price of the brief lethargic respite; paying it with usury, paying it with the helpless abandon of the dependent. The dreary weather-coloured ranch house was not a pleasant place to be in that day. Craig left it thankfully, with a shrug of the shoulders beneath the box-fitting topcoat, as the door closed behind him. The other passenger, ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... the most important personage of the curia was this very Cardinal Ugolini. Almost a septuagenarian in 1216 he inspired awe at first sight by the aspect of his person. He had that singular beauty which distinguishes the old who have escaped the usury of life; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt himself made for great undertakings. There is something in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prelates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... financial plans; the usury is high, but there is great risk, so thinks Antonio; egad! perhaps he is right, though it is possible we may pay him. Altogether a most ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... say also that usury is no deadly sin. And they sell benefices of Holy Church. And so do men in other places: God amend it when his will is! And that is great sclaundre, for now is simony king crowned in Holy Church: God amend it for ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... with the care of their money. My old chief (whose name I should have mentioned before was Ulu-bibi) held large sums in trust for many of the people with whom he was acquainted; but his avarice inducing him to lend the money out on usury, it was very difficult to recover it when it was desired, although it was always religiously paid back. I had not been many months at Scutari, before I found myself in high favour, from my superior howling and the duration of my convulsions. But during ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... have, may more justly be censured? If wealth is to be got, how little good at it is that merchant like to do, if following the precepts of wisdom, he should boggle at perjury; or being taken in a lie, blush; or in the least regard the sad scruples of those wise men touching rapine and usury. Again, if a man sue for honors or church preferments, an ass or wild ox shall sooner get them than a wise man. If a man's in love with a young wench, none of the least humors in this comedy, they are wholly addicted ...
— The Praise of Folly • Desiderius Erasmus
... in the previous year; he was assured that the recent inroads of the fanatics were the direct consequence of his last year's supineness; and he was told that if he again held back, the disturbances would be renewed another year with usury. Moreover, he was assured that the projected expedition would secure the peace of the frontier for a long period; and that the operation would be little more than a military promenade, and would be over before ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... this, shall I have written in vain? O, no; it is but a fulfilment in part of the great mission, "do with all thy might what thy hand findeth to do." If we have but one small talent we are commanded to put it upon usury, "that the Lord may receive his ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... hands, and abated our nuisance so forcibly? And then, what was to be done with the spoil, which was of great value; though the diamond necklace came not to public light? For we saw a mighty host of claimants already leaping up for booty. Every man who had ever been robbed, expected usury on his loss; the lords of the manors demanded the whole; and so did the King's Commissioner of revenue at Porlock; and so did the men who had fought our battle; while even the parsons, both Bowden and Powell, and another who had no parish in it, threatened us with the just wrath of the Church, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... and prudence, and frequently informed us how carefully he would improve my fortune. I was not in haste to conclude the match, but was so much awed by my parents, that I durst not dismiss him, and might, perhaps, have been doomed for ever to the grossness of pedlary, and the jargon of usury, had not a fraud been discovered in the settlement, which set me free from the persecution of grovelling pride, and pecuniary impudence. I was afterwards six months without any particular notice but at last became the idol of the glittering Flosculus, who prescribed the mode ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... company. Upon hearing his name, I knew him to be a gentleman of a considerable fortune in this county, but greatly in debt. What gives the unhappy man this peevishness of spirit is, that his estate is dipped, and is eating out with usury; and yet he has not the heart to sell any part of it. His proud stomach, at the cost of restless nights, constant inquietudes, danger of affronts, and a thousand nameless inconveniences, preserves this canker in his fortune, rather than it shall be said he is a man of fewer hundreds ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... to his overwhelming astonishment it was first made clear to him that he had no longer a penny under heaven, he had gone in his bewilderment to his brother, a man whose share of the patrimony had not been squandered—had been put out to usury rather, bringing in thirty, forty, a hundredfold—a man living in luxury and holding the respect ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... the aspect and distribution of the houses, domestic life—The family patrimony: division of the inheritance—Lending on usury, the rate of interest, commercial intercourse by land and sea—Trade corporations: brick-making, industrial implements in stone and metal, goldsmiths, engravers of cylinders, weavers; the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... received from each, and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said he should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, "Take off your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat." I did, and stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty grinning boys. I was going ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to wit—all that passes from generation to generation, the capital sum without the results of individual usury; then we are freed, at least, from undue pessimism at the thought of the many harmful functions and environments that disfigure our civilization. Many detrimental acquired characters are to be seen all around us, but if they are not ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... dishes which they claim by right of custom, or even in a time of scarcity or famine recede in the smallest degree from their accustomed good fare, they would suffer the richest lands and the best buildings of the monastery to become a prey to usury, and the numerous poor to perish ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... principles to closer contact with the urgent questions of the day. Mill still held to competition, to the full liberty of individuals, to the inevitable mechanical working of economic laws; he still doubted the expediency of factory legislation, and condemned any laws in restraint of usury. He was opposed, broadly, to all authoritative intrusion upon human existence wherever its necessity could not be proved conclusively to be in the interest of a self-reliant community. Yet he was forced ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... enjoy the fruit of his own labor; he had always been a cog in the blind machinery of other people, exchanging so much toil for so much money. Now that he could see his little plantation grow and prosper beneath his hands, every hour repaid with nature's usury, he began to feel the elation that a man finds in independence. At first Fetuao had entered but half-heartedly into his plans; she would sit on a log and watch him with mirthful wonder as he swung his ax on the land Faalelei had given them; and when, for a spell, ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... grinding the poor down. I believe that the reason we are in such a wretched state in this country to-day is on account of crowding the poor, and getting such a large amount of money for usury. People evade the law, and pay the interest, and then they give a few hundred dollars to negotiate the loan. There is a great amount of usury, and see where we are to-day! See what a wretched state ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... becoming the victims of another defeat. The loss of their second chance of seizing the Diamond is mainly attributable, as I think, to the cunning and foresight of Mr. Luker—who doesn't stand at the top of the prosperous and ancient profession of usury for nothing! By the prompt dismissal of the man in his employment, he deprived the Indians of the assistance which their confederate would have rendered them in getting into the house. By the prompt transport of the Moonstone to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... change any Russian banknotes on any terms and let it be understood that they were valueless. A panic on the Belgian market was the immediate consequence. Russian travellers had to deposit their jewellery in pawn and pay exorbitant rates of interest on loans. The bank itself practised a kind of usury, and advanced only sixty per cent. of the face value of notes issued by the Imperial Bank of Russia. When the Belgian Government, after the declaration of war, began to tackle German espionage, this "Russian" bank was ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... As adultery, usury, murder and suicide are among these little eccentricities, offset against superstition, religion and rationalism, the reader may take his choice of theories. Interest is sustained without question, and the two women—an older and a younger one—who as heroines ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... itself in slavery, superstition, and voluptuousness. The people—intoxicated and, as it were, stupefied by their long-continued orgies—had lost the very notion of right and duty: war and dissipation by turns swept them away; usury and the labor of machines (that is of slaves), by depriving them of the means of subsistence, hindered them from continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous form, from this mass of ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Usury laws are necessary to protect the borrowers from the lenders, and, from occasional violations, we can judge what the condition would be if the very respectable business of banking was not strictly regulated ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... annoyed my mother. I remember that she and I and Rosalind argued round and round it for an hour one hot evening in the drawing-room at Queen's Gate. Finally my mother said, 'Oh, very well. If Rosalind wants a lot of fat Yid babies with hooked noses and oily hair, all lending money on usury instead of getting into debt like Christians, let her have them. I wash my hands of the lot of you. I don't know what I've done to ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... please you,' said Isaac, 'before I depart. The gentile despises the Jew. He charges upon him usury and extortion. He accuses him of avarice. He believes him to subsist upon the very life blood of whomsoever he can draw into his meshes. I have known those who have firm faith that the Jew feeds but upon the flesh and blood of Pagan and Christian ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... what he says and feel quite satisfied with themselves. And meanwhile the people are dying of hunger, crushed down by taxes. The only reform that has been accomplished is that the men have taken to wearing caps and the women have left off their head-dresses! And the poverty! the drunkenness! the usury!" ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... applauded. A Brahmana should avoid service of the king, wealth obtained by agriculture, sustenance derived from trade, all kinds of crooked behaviour, companionship with any but his wedded wives, and usury. That wretched Brahmana who falls away from his duties and whose behaviour becomes wicked, becomes, O king, a Sudra. The Brahmana who weds a Sudra woman, who becomes vile in conduct or a dancer or a village servant or does other improper ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... interest upon interest. [Footnote: C. 4, 32, 26, Section 1.] Property would double, at eight and one third, in twelve years, not so rapidly as by our system of compound interest, especially at the rate of seven per cent. In England the usury laws of different monarchs limited interest from ten per cent, to five; but these were repealed in 1854. Only five per cent. can now be recovered upon ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... patron was engaged. Among others we bought and sold plate, and foreign gold and silver coins. These we melted and culled. Some were recoined at the Mint, and with the rest we supplied the refiners, plate-workers, and merchants who required the precious metals. Whenever we received money at usury, we gave a bond, and my patron was always able to lend it out again, either to the Government or to others at a still higher rate of usury. At times, the stranger from the country might have supposed that all ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... farmer, recruited from town, soon repented that he had ever listened to the alluring call of "back to the land" and after a few weeks of disillusion in the country, returned to town and sought to get his money out again at usury. ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... the truth; and each, in the absence of the other, abused his rival heartily. Of the hairdresser Woolsey said, that as for Eglantine being his real name, it was all his (Mr. Woolsey's) eye; that he was in the hands of the Jews, and his stock and grand shop eaten up by usury. And with regard to Woolsey, Eglantine remarked, that his pretence of being descended from the Cardinal was all nonsense; that he was a partner, certainly, in the firm, but had only a sixteenth share; and ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the property of their masters. Besides these, there are slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was a great man in a great way—I may say, indeed, in ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... all things ready," he said, "come to me for the letter of introduction, and also for that which may obtain you a worthy outfit for your journeying to Plassenburg. Or, if you are already Sir Proud-Heart, you can repay me one day, with usury if you will. I care not to stand on observances with you, nor desire that you should feel any obligation ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed: thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... chaos. Fortunately the intrigue failed. Baldwin passed over to the opposition, but he was unable to lead the Reformers of Upper Canada into killing government measures such as extension of the main highways, reform of the usury laws, establishment of a comprehensive municipal system. They followed the sounder leadership of Hincks and supported Sydenham in his wise efforts to promote ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... we find that of the three requisites of production—labor, capital, and natural agents—capital is the requisite which is most perfectly secured from the control of monopoly. The rate of interest for the use of capital is regulated so perfectly by the law of supply and demand, that all the anti-usury laws which have ever been enacted have been able to accomplish but little in enabling the borrower to secure loans at a less rate than that prescribed by competition. The reason for this is plain on consideration. The total supply of accumulated wealth of the whole civilized world is engaged ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... me more irritable; and when I got into my own house, I was ready to find fault with everything, and to vent the bitterness of my spirit on my poor little wife. But, to my surprise, she did not answer me back, far less repay my disparaging remarks with usury, which she might very well have done, and would have done a few days before. I could not help seeing, too, that she had been taking pains to make the room look tidier than usual. My supper was ready for me, my slippers set by the fender, and the arm-chair drawn up ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... by her master proves that she must have been engaged in business on her own account. In other contracts we find the slave taking a mortgage and trading in onions and grain or employing his money in usury. In one case a slave borrows as much as 14 manehs 49 shekels, or 138 3s., from a member of the Egibi firm. In another case it is a considerable quantity of grain in addition to 12 shekels of silver that is borrowed from the slave by two other persons, ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... must not have any misunderstandings with him, for we need him. He has this whole region in his pocket and understands electioneering better than any one else. Besides, he is considered well-to-do and lends out money at usury which is contrary to the ordinary practice of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... fear lest ever again they be lured by specious promises to suffer usury at the hands of Yahn, who is overskilled in Law. Only Yahn sits and smiles, watching his hoard increase in preciousness, and hath no pity for the poor shadows whom he hath lured from their quiet to toil in the form ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... think that, considering the great risk he was taking, a hundred per cent per annum was not an exorbitant usury. ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... government, social organization, and administration of justice. The classes and status of slaves, and the causes of enslavement are recounted. Their customs in marriages and dowries, divorces, adoption, and inheritance are described; also in usury, trading, and punishment for crimes. The standard of social purity is described by Morga as being very low; yet infamous vices were not indigenous with them, but communicated by foreigners, especially by the Chinese. The natives of Luzon appear to be superior, ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... a commodity—a price which would in practice depend on the cost of production. The rule for prices was also the rule for wages: the just wage was the natural complement of the just price. The prohibition of usury and of the taking of interest was another factor in the same circle of ideas. If prices and wages are both to be returns for work done, and returns of an exact equivalence, then, on the assumptions which ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... esceptinte ke, se ne. up : supre. upholster : remburi. upright : vertikala, rekta; honesta. upset : renversi. upstairs : supre. urchin : bubo. urgent : urgxa. use : uzi, utiligi,("—up") eluzi. useful : utila, ("be—") utili. usual : ordinara, kutima. usurp : uzurpi. usury ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... to put Parzival above Percevale le Gallois, though Wolfram von Eschenbach may be thought to have been less fortunate with Willehalm. And though in the lyric, the debt due to both troubadour and trouvere is unmistakable, it is equally unmistakable what mighty usury the minnesingers have paid for the capital they borrowed. The skill both of Northern and Southern Frenchmen is seldom to seek in lyric: we cannot give them too high praise as fashioners of instruments for other men ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... graceful and intelligent, but possessing no claim to rare beauty. A second glance increases your approbation. Goodness of heart is indelible upon that face. The other occupant is a lady about sixty years of age. Time had been generous in its demands by drawing small usury from his allotted spoliations. Lady Bereford had been a beauty in her day, and, judging from the skilful devices practised, wished yet to retain her passing glories. Her fair complexion still showed a lingering bloom, the haughty eye still preserved a kindling glance, while her countenance ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... wild curse Eckert sprang from the door; Pollnitz followed him with a mocking glance. "Revenge is sweet," he said, drawing a long breath; "he has often done me wrong, and now I have paid him back with usury. Eckert is lost. Would that I had his house! I must have it! I will have it! Oh, I will make myself absolutely necessary to the king; I will flatter, I will praise, I will find out and fulfil his most secret, ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... 93 inches round the chest, had landed in their country 150,000 years previously, and finding them very barbarous, slaying one another and unacquainted with the use of letters, the precious metals, or the art of usury, had instructed them in civilization, endowed them with letters, a coinage, police, lawyers, instruments of torture, and all the other requisites of a great State, and had finally drawn up for them this code of law or custom, which they carefully ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... great debt which the English Congregationalists had owed to the Baptists for heroic leadership in the work of foreign missions was repaid with generous usury by the Congregationalists to the Baptists of America. From this time forward the American Baptists came more and more to be felt as a salutary force in the religious life of the nation and the world. But against what bitter and furious opposition on the part of the ancient ignorance ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... Then they grumble at the whole world; say that they were not understood, that their time was the time of sacred ideals. While in the family they are despots and not infrequently give money out at usury. ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... watched the preparations for the wedding. The Earldom of Envy, the Kingdom of Covetousness, the Isle of Usury were granted as marriage gifts to the pair. But Theology was angry. He would not permit the wedding to take place. "Ere this wedding be wrought, woe betide thee," he cried. "Meed is wealthy; I know it. God grant us to give her unto ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... edicts were over-rul'd, That laws were broke, tribunes with consuls strove, Sale made of offices, and people's voices 180 Bought by themselves and sold, and every year Frauds and corruption in the Field of Mars; Hence interest and devouring usury sprang, Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome. Now Caesar overpass'd the snowy Alps; His mind was troubled, and he aim'd at war: And coming to the ford of Rubicon, At night in dreadful vision fearful[594] Rome Mourning appear'd, whose hoary hairs ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... point of sword, To rise above their country: might their law: Decrees are forced from Senate and from Plebs: Consul and Tribune break the laws alike: Bought are the fasces, and the people sell For gain their favour: bribery's fatal curse Corrupts the annual contests of the Field. Then covetous usury rose, and interest Was greedier ever as the seasons came; Faith tottered; thousands saw their gain ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... foreign, absent Owe ourselves chiefly and mostly to ourselves Passion has a more absolute command over us than reason Passion has already confounded his judgment Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born Pay very strict usury who did not in due time pay the principal People are willing to be gulled in what they desire People conceiving they have right and title to be judges Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible Perfect men as they ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... was this difference between them and me so wide? The grandsire of Sir Robert Aleys, I had been told, gathered his wealth by trade and usury in the old wars; indeed, it was said that he was one who dealt in cattle, while Lord Deleroy was reported to be a bastard, if of the bluest blood, so blue that it ran nigh to the royal purple. Well, what was mine? On the father's side, ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard
... classes who have fallen into poverty; for they make concealment a point of honor. Those sorrows, my dear Godefroid, are to us the object of special solicitude. Such persons usually have intelligence and good hearts. They return to us, sometimes with usury, the sums that we lend them. Such restitutions recoup us in the long run for the losses we occasionally incur through impostors, shiftless creatures, or those whom misfortunes have rendered stupid. Through such persons we often obtain invaluable help in our investigations. ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... heathen, and were themselves often powerless to retain their independence. In spite of the thousands of men among them, all able to bear arms, they fell an easy prey to the first comer; the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Philistines, all oppressed them in turn, and repaid with usury the ills which Joshua had inflicted on the Canaanites. "Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord was against them for evil, as the Lord had spoken, and as the Lord had sworn unto them: and they were sore distressed. And the Lord raised ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... Debt.— N. debt, obligation, liability, indebtment[obs3], debit, score. bill; check; account (credit) 805. arrears, deferred payment, deficit, default, insolvency &c. (nonpayment) 808; bad debt. interest; premium; usance[obs3], usury; floating debt, floating capital. debtor, debitor[obs3]; mortgagor; defaulter &c. 808; borrower. V. be in debt &c. adj.; owe; incur a debt, contract a debt &c. n.; run up a bill, run up a score, run up an account; go on ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... proposition in 'Das Kapital' that Jesus of Nazareth did not inculcate. Is it a question of rent? You are as much entitled to immunity from it as the birds of the air, or the grass of the fields. Is it a question of usury or interest? Lend, hoping for nothing again. Is it a question of profit or inequitable exchange? Do unto others as ye would that they should do unto you."[87] "Did Jesus Christ teach Socialism? Unless we are prepared to deny the truth of the Gospel, ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... usury! 'Tis an offensive word: Our enemies, like arrow from the bow, Are aiming it to pierce our very heart While 'tis a practice which costumbre shields. The slothful servant, so the Good Book says, Was he who in a napkin ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... then I got into a Gang; where we play'd at small Game, and stopp'd the small Caravans; thus I gradually lessen'd the wide Disproportion, which there was at first between me and the rest of Mankind: I enjoy'd not only my full Share of the good Things of this Life, but enjoy'd them with Usury. I was look'd upon as a Man of Consequence, and I procur'd this Castle by my military Atchievements. The Satrap of Syria had Thoughts of dispossessing me; but I was then too rich to be any Ways afraid of him; I gave the Satrap a certain Sum of Money, upon Condition that ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Deacon cling to the injunction, "Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness." Meekly insisting that he was only a steward of the Lord, he put out his Lord's money that he might receive it again with usury, and so successful had he been that almost all mortgages held on property near Pawkin Centre were in the hands of the good Deacon, and few were the foreclosure sales in which ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... derive, as our author chooses to assert, any advantages from the debility of her credit. Its consequence was the natural one: she borrowed; but she borrowed upon bad terms, indeed on the most exorbitant usury. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with his disciples about the salary for tuition; Clinias the orator stealing a phial out of the temple; not to mention a thousand others, who were undermining walls, litigating in the forum, extorting money, or lending it upon usury; a sight, upon the whole, ...
— Trips to the Moon • Lucian
... let us limit esteem to the family nor indulgence to egoism. Since "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance," let us give joy to heaven. Heaven will render it back to us with usury. Let us leave on our way the alms of pardon for those whom earthly desires have driven astray, whom a divine hope shall perhaps save, and, as old women say when they offer you some homely remedy of their own, if it does no good it will ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... the Italians, that persons who speak English are wealthy by nature, and tutti originali, it was not such an absurd conception of the case to suppose that if I had lent him five francs once, I should like to do it continually. Perhaps he may yet pay back the loan with usury. But I doubt it. In the mean time, I am far from blaming the Mouse. I merely feel that there is a misunderstanding, which I ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... made a remark, which both Mr. Macbean and I thought new. It was this: that 'the law against usury is for the protection of creditors as well as of debtors; for if there were no such check, people would be apt, from the temptation of great interest, to lend to desperate persons, by whom they would lose their money. Accordingly there ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... a Mississippi borrower, having repaid a mortgage loan to a New York building and loan association, sued in a Mississippi court to recover, as usurious, certain charges collected by the association, the usury law of Mississippi rather than that of New York was held to control. In this case, the loan contract, which was negotiated in Mississippi subject to approval by the New York office, did not expressly state that it was governed ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... cases in which the question of honesty is involved, our proposed limits will permit us to consider only that of usury(14) (so-called). There can be no doubt that usury laws and the opinion that sustains them sprang from the false theory, according to which money was regarded, not as value, but merely as the measure of value. It is now understood that it owes its ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural emotions to me. But consider what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... such contempt, such scorn, such repulsion, concentrated in one single ejaculation! It told the woman everything. It told of a failure so complete that hope became an emotion driven forever from her heart. It told her that the usury of life was beyond all belief. It told her that the interest demanded for every pledged moment was without pity, or mercy, or justice. Now she knew how she had pawned, and, oh God, the interest which was being torn ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... his belly began to swell, and his eyes to stare, and suddainly he cried out, 'Ten pounds in the hundred!' he called for a scrivener to make a bond, swearing that he would not lend his money without a pawne.... There could be no other talke had with this spirit but money and usury, so as all the company deemed this devil to be the author ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... au mont-de-pit, 'the pawning of the family plate.' Monts-de-pit, 'pawnshops,' were founded out of piety to enable people in straitened circumstances to escape the exorbitant usury of the Jews, and borrow money at a reasonable rate of interest. The most ancient of these was established at Perugia, 1477, and situated on a mountain; hence its name. The name and system were introduced into France, ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... is, too, in the other temptations and trials of life, when Satan drives men into sin and disobedience against God's commandment, into such sins as avarice, usury, anger, revengefulness, unchastity, and other vices. Here he uses the same insidious arts, first tearing God's Word out of the heart, then blinding reason with sweet and beautiful thoughts. He says: The thing proposed is not so wicked. God will not be so angry with you. He ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... 1618, and the nobleman Carl von Endern, who copied out the entire manuscript of the Aurora. These friends frequently encouraged Boehme to break his enforced silence, and he himself was restless and melancholy, feeling that he was "entrusted with a talent which he ought to put to usury and not return to God singly and without improvement, like the lazy servant." "It was with me," he writes, describing his years of silence, "as when a seed is hidden in the earth. It grows up in storm and rough weather, against all reason. In winter time, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... to her feet with an angry flush in her face, exclaiming: "Insolent fellow, I am the Princess Mary; if you have a message, deliver it and be gone." You may be sure this sort of treatment was such as the cool-headed, daring Brandon would repay with usury; so, turning upon his heel and almost presenting his back to Mary, he spoke ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... descended to the grave before his time, and by an anticipated and living burial sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the grandeur of his son, the benefit thus conferred was surely far greater. He added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, should Philip conduct himself in his administration of the province with a wise and affectionate regard to their true interests. Posterity would applaud his abdication, should his son Prove worthy of his bounty; and that could ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... relief from the equity of the laws; five years were the customary term, and no solid or costly improvements could be expected from a farmer who at each moment might be ejected by the sale of the estate. Usury, the inveterate grievance of the city, had been discouraged by the Twelve Tables, and abolished by the clamors of the people. It was revived by their wants and idleness, tolerated by the discretion of the praetors, and finally determined ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... family, residing at Minshull, in the county of Chester[CY], during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By what mishap he became an inmate of the King's-bench prison, from when he dates[CZ] his Essayes, it is impossible to conjecture, but as he talks of usury and extortion, as well as of severe creditors; and advises those who are compelled to borrow, to pay as soon as they can, we may suppose that imprudence and extravagance assisted in reducing him to the situation he attempts ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... way is through their wars, whether just or unjust. Those who are driven on their coast by storms are made slaves by the inhabitants of that land. They are so mercenary that they even make slaves of their own brothers, through usury. They do not understand any kind of work, unless it be to do something actually necessary—such as to build their houses, which are made of stakes after their fashion; to fish, according to their method; to row, and perform the duties of sailors; and to cultivate the land. The ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... disappeared into bank and Treasury coffers, is locked up there and reserved for international trade. But Great Britain has other sentiments to consider than the finer feelings of bankers and the delicacies of usury. The pound British will come out of this war like a company out of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... not without his enemies. To be sure he had built the bank, and established his offices in Blackwater when he might have started a new town at the mine; but no moneylender was ever universally popular and Eells was ruthless in exacting his usury. But on the other hand he had brought a world of money in to town, for the Willie Meena had paid from the first; and it was his pay-roll and the wealth which had followed in his wake that had made the camp what it was; so no one laughed as long or as loud ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... earth is so respected as that of the man who controls the flow of money; all other human institutions are as nothing beside him. Justice herself takes the form of a commissioner, a familiar personage in the eyes of the market; but usury seated behind its green boxes,—usury, entreated with fear tugging at the heart-strings, dries up all jesting, parches the throat, lowers the proudest look, and makes the commonest ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... the Sacred mount; the same, against which ye provided for yourselves the protection of tribunes; the same, on account of which two armies of you took post on the Aventine; the same, which violently opposed the laws against usury, and always the agrarian laws; the same, which broke through the right of intermarriage between the patricians and the commons; the same, which shut up the road to curule offices against the commons: ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... his moral sense and reason, the animal over the divine, the earthly over the spiritual, both points of the compass remaining below the Square? What a hideous mockery to call one "Brother," whom he maligns to the Profane, lends money unto at usury, defrauds in trade, or plunders at law ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... On none but the wise man does usury sit well. Consider. His is the art of putting two and two together, and usury is the art of putting interest together. The two are evidently connected, and one as much as the other is the prerogative of the true believer; who, not content, like common men, with simple ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... notorious and brought before us upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you, the abbot afore-mentioned, have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, and possessions of the said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of the goods, spiritual and temporal, of the said monastery, you are so remiss, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... "neither put out money at usury, nor know how to borrow. It is contrary to established usage for an Indian either to do or suffer a wrong, and therefore they neither make contracts nor require securities." Healing, we are told, was ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... being a barren product, it is contrary to nature to make it reproduce itself. Usury, therefore, is unnatural, and, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... invalids walk about and their doctors take to bed, baths freeze and houses burn, the living perish with thirst and the dead swim about on the surface of the water, thieves watch and magistrates sleep, priests lend at usury and Syrians sing psalms, merchants shoulder arms and soldiers haggle like hucksters, greybeards play at ball and striplings at dice, and eunuchs study the art of war and ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... softened to the world at large was manifested in the fact that he threatened to plead usury against the money-lender, and forthwith brought him down with a run to the beggaries of the legal rate. He was wont, moreover, to go to the teller of the bank at Colbury and demand of that distracted man such of his ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... facts and changes in financial matters, and also with prominent business houses in this and other cities. Among the recent letters received in correspondence of this sort are letters from the Secretary of State of every State in the Union with regard to rates of interest and usury laws, and letters from each of our city banks as to methods of reckoning time on paper, the basis of interest calculations, the practices concerning deposit balances, and other business matters subject ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... to legalise excessive usury,—I mean with respect to the affair of loans,—my dignity would not permit me to tolerate so public and scandalous an evil. Therefore I held an assembly of the clergy, where, without so much as mentioning the Cardinal's ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... towns no more exist to serve the farmers who are their reason of existence than do the great capitals; they exist to fatten on the farmers, to provide for the townsmen large motors and social preferment; and, unlike the capitals, they do not give to the district in return for usury a stately and permanent center, but only this ragged camp. It is a "parasitic Greek ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis |
