"Venality" Quotes from Famous Books
... one saw venality in full feather, serfdom crushing people like a rock, informers lurking everywhere. No one could safely express himself in the presence of his dearest friend. There was no common bond, no general interest. Fear ... — Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... furnished secret information, for whom he procured differential favors, and by whose government he was rewarded by gold chains and presents of hard cash, bestowed as secretly as the equivalent was conveyed adroitly. Nevertheless, although his venality was already more than suspected, and although his peculation, during his long career became so extensive that he was eventually prosecuted by government, and died before the process was terminated, the lord of Grobbendonck was often employed in most delicate negotiations, ... — The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... had made an enemy of the girl and to no purpose. I had felt her physical attraction, and I knew that only by putting myself beyond its pale could I be true to my own convictions as to her venality. She was the kind of woman to whom any man, even such a one as I, is fish for her net. A girl may whet her appetite by coquetry and deprave it by flirtation, setting at last such a value upon her skill at seduction that she counts ... — Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... was not converted into a Roman province, but into a client State, because the country could not be held without an army on the frontiers. The Jugurthan war was important in its consequences, since it brought to light the venality of the governing lords, and made it evident that Rome must be governed by a degenerate and selfish oligarchy, or by a tyrant, whether in the form of a demagogue, like Gracchus, or ... — Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... can be carried by a cry, there are men of all grades of brilliant ability, ranging from genius to talent To put the matter in plain English will offend neither honesty nor ability, and to give offence to venality or incompetence is not ... — My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
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