"Covetous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... least work? We have to fight against that spirit in worldly matters. For we know, that if we yield to it,—if we sacrifice our duty to our pleasure or our gain,—it is certain to make us do something mean, covetous, even fraudulent, in the eyes of God ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... substance and accidents, Andreas deduced that every love not dedicated to God was bound to offend Him, and advanced eighteen points against the love of woman, starting with the well-known argument that woman was naturally of a base disposition, covetous, envious, greedy, fickle, garrulous, stubborn, proud, vain, sensual, deceitful, etc. "He who serves love, cannot serve God," he declared, "and God will punish every man who, apart from matrimony, serves Venus. What good could come from acting against the will of God?" ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Smaragdine tablet. But surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... place and removed to Port Royal. De Charnise was a Catholic; the difference in religion might not have produced any unpleasantness, but the two noblemen could not agree in dividing the profits of the peltry trade,—each being covetous, if we may so express it, of the hide of the savage continent, and determined to take it off for himself. At any rate, disagreement arose, and De la Tour moved over to the St. John, of which region his father had enjoyed a grant ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... The servants were all happy, and greatly attached to their master and mistress. Such a man was soon known and talked of. A giant lived a great many miles off, who was altogether as wicked as your father was good; he was envious, covetous, and cruel, but had the art of ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... court of the greatest of monarchs. While such as Eustachius, himself an able discoverer, could join in the cry, it is no wonder if a lower soul, like that of Sylvius, led it open-mouthed. He was a mean, covetous, bad man, as George Bachanan well knew; and, according to his nature, he wrote a furious book—"Ad Vesani calumnias depulsandas." The punning change of Vesalius into Vesanus (madman) was but a fair and gentle stroke for a polemic, ...
— Historical Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... legs; he gives his tongue for a pouch. There should be a legend of the pelican applying honestly to Adam to buy a pouch, and the wily stork waiting and waiting on the chance of snatching one without paying for it, until all had been served out; afterwards living all its life on earth in covetous dudgeon, unconsoled by its wealth of beak, legs, wings, and neck, and pining hopelessly for the lost pouch. There are many legends of this sort which ought to exist, but don't, owing to the negligence of Indian solar myth merchants, or whoever it is has ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Eaton's] treatise, devoted to the Almond Tumbler ALONE, which is a sub-variety of the short-faced variety, which is a variety of the Tumbler, as that is of the Rock-pigeon, Mr. Eaton says: 'There are some of the young fanciers who are over-covetous, who go for all the five properties at once [i.e., the five characteristic points which are mainly attended to,—C.D.], they have their reward by getting nothing.' In short, it is almost beyond the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... suspicion—or this whatever it was—protected him from those who might entertain covetous and ulterior designs upon his inheritance even better than though he had been brusque and rude; while those who sought to question him regarding his plans for the future drew from him only mumbled and evasive replies, which left them ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... his brother, was a noted brawler and bully, a tyrant to his children, a plague to his neighbours, and kept a rendezvous for drunkards and idlers, at the sign of the Bull's Head, at ——. He was not destitute of parts, and was no less dreaded for cunning than malignity. He was covetous, and never missed an opportunity of overreaching his neighbour. There was no doubt that his niece's property would be embezzled should it ever come into his hands, and any power which he might obtain ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... those men who had in various ways acquired other's property: in shoals they went to Castle-covetous, and burthens bore ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... a man of his word, was George Bross; not for anything would he have gone back on his promise to keep secret that afternoon's titillating discovery; likewise he was a covetous soul, loath to forfeit the promised treat; withal he was human (after his kind) and since reprisals were not barred by their understanding, he began then and there to ponder the same. One way or another, that day's humiliation must be balanced; else he might never again hold up his ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and other Southern States. The Indians made but little use of the major part of their land; vast tracts lay untrodden save by hunters. Naturally, as the white population grew and the lands open for settlement became scarcer and poorer, the rich tribal holdings were looked upon with covetous eyes. In the decade following the War of 1812, when cotton cultivation was spreading rapidly over the southern interior, the demand that they be thrown open for occupation to white ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... cause of the downfall of the Templars was probably the enormous wealth of the order. There had not been wanting indications for some years of covetous eyes and itching hands turned toward the possession of the Knights. Sometimes complaints were made because the rents of their estates were all sent out of the country; sometimes the grievance alleged was that they were exempted from ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not a time-server nor a covetous man. "Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... suppose that the youth was one whom ordinary people would call a lover of money; I do not believe he was covetous, or desired even the large increase of his possessions; I imagine he was just like most good men of property: he valued his possessions—looked on them as a good. I suspect that in the case of another, he would have regarded such possession almost as ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... "Forasmuch as usury is by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures it is evident to be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to be had, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... be turned out and his cottage pulled down, but somehow it never came to pass; and his pigs and cow went grazing on the common, and his geese hissed at the passing children and at the heels of the horse of my lord's steward, who often rode by with a covetous eye on the inclosure still unmolested. His dwelling was some miles from our village; so Benjy, who was half ashamed of his errand, and wholly unable to walk there, had to exercise much ingenuity to get the means of transporting himself and Tom ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... obvious good humour, the animal hilarity of it all, was absorbingly amusing. The trappers gazed with pleasure that showed how near akin are naturalist and hunter. Of course, they had some covetous thought connected with those glossy hides, but this was September still, and even otter were not yet prime. Shoot, plump, splash, went the happy crew with apparently unabated joy and hilarity. The slide improved with use and the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... Ferrara, added Veronese's works to the treasures of the house of Este. The last ten years of his life were given up to visiting churches on the mainland and on the little islands round Venice, all covetous to possess something by the brilliant Veronese, whose name was in every mouth. Torcello, Murano, Treviso, Castelfranco, every convent and monastery loaded him with commissions, and it is significant ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... Squire Leech was a covetous man. He had a passion for money-making and he had availed himself of all the opportunities which the country afforded. He had about as much property as his friend. He began to think he had been plodding along in a very slow, unsatisfactory ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... city, at first of necessity, afterwards by choice, finding there fuel and shelter in abundance besides large stores of non-perishable food supplies. When, in the next generation, these provisions became exhausted it was inevitable that the refugees should fix covetous eyes upon the threshing-floors and herd-stalls of their rural neighbors. But although the outlaws had continued to gain in numbers, their natural increase was not proportionate to the growing power of their adversaries. Little by little the Doomsmen began to lose ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... view of the fact that sad occurrences in the past have made it evident that the local population, incited by evil-minded persons from covetous or other motives, has taken part in the disorders, it is the duty of the gubernatorial administration to make it clear to the local communes that they are obliged to adopt measures for the purpose ... of impressing upon the inhabitants the gross criminal offence implied in ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... growing very weary of the dulness of the Sanctuary, and covetous of the advantages enjoyed by Adam, began to meditate acquiescence in the fashion of the day, and a transfer of his allegiance to the party in power. Emboldened by the clemency of the victors, learning that no rewards for his own apprehension had been offered, hoping that the stout earl would ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thought that it was so came suddenly into my mind and bewildered me; but in a little I was sure of it. I need not give long instances—but I saw, or thought I saw, that when the mind of the man or woman was pure and pitiful, the light was pure and clear, but that when the thoughts were selfish, or covetous, or angry, or unclean, there came a darkness into the light, as when you drop a little ink into clear water. Few came to see me; and I suppose that they were full of pity and perhaps a little love for me in my helpless state, so that the light about ...
— Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories - Reprinted from The Hill of Trouble and The Isles of Sunset • Arthur Christopher Benson
... What temper and conduct did he manifest at home? What was his influence as a companion? Did he lead to hell or heaven? What did Christians find him to be as a fellow-Christian? Was he cruel and covetous, slothful and indifferent, uncharitable and censorious; or loving, zealous, and self-denying, the author of peace and lover of concord, a friend and brother? Oh! surely, even now we can easily see how there can be no want of means at the great day of judgment, by which, without any revelation ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... secret apprehensions, by an abrupt but decisive question, which he addressed to the orthodox bishops. "If you truly profess the Christian religion, why do you not restrain the king of the Franks? He has declared war against me, and forms alliances with my enemies for my destruction. A sanguinary and covetous mind is not the symptom of a sincere conversion: let him show his faith by his works." The answer of Avitus, bishop of Vienna, who spoke in the name of his brethren, was delivered with the voice and countenance ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... from those mild lips? Thou calledst Herod fox—most worthily, he was crafty and wicked; the Scribes and Pharisees a generation of vipers, they were venomous and cruel; Judas a devil, he was both covetous and treacherous. But here was a woman in distress, and distress challenges mercy; a good woman, a faithful suppliant, a Canaanitish disciple, a Christian Canaanite, yet rated and whipped out for a dog by thee who wert all goodness and mercy! How different are thy ways from ours! Even ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... proper "don't care" attitude of the buyer. He presently left the "running down" business almost entirely to Miklos, being occupied in silent and feverish speculations as to how much he could afford to spend, and a passion of covetous fear lest somehow A——, or Z——, or K——, the leading collectors of the moment, should even yet forestall him, early and "exclusive" as Miklos assured him their information ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... looked up at him, apparently in calm surprise—certainly without alarm. Then Olly began to haul in the hook. It was a fearful fly to look at, such as had never desecrated those waters since the days of Adam, yet those covetous fish rushed at it in a body. The biggest caught it, and found himself caught! The boy held on tenderly, while the fish in wild amazement darted from side to side, or sprang high into the air. Oliver was far too experienced a fisher not to know ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... suddenly saying it. He had assured her he was perfectly sensible of her goodness in so plotting out his future, but was also sorry if he had put it into any one's head—most of all into the girl's own—that he had ever looked at Biddy with a covetous eye. He wasn't in the least sure she would make a good wife, but liked her quite too much to wish to put any such mystery to the test. She was certainly not offered them for cruel experiments. As it happened, really, he wasn't thinking of marrying ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... merely a child of the people; but I am willing to eat my boots if it can be satisfactorily proved that there is a princess living on the face of the earth who would not be delighted at seeing another woman cast covetous eyes on the man she loved, and would not call her a cat (or ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... They were natives of this district. Their ancestor had filled a minor office in the capital, and had, in years gone by, been acquainted with lady Feng's grandfather, that is madame Wang's father. Being covetous of the influence and affluence of the Wang family, he consequently joined ancestors with them, and was recognised by them as ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... spend the money in Nottingham town," shouted another of the trotting bowmen. "For sure the Prince himself could do no handsomer thing. A piece I'll toss to the heralds, and another to you, Staveley, for you are a covetous worm——" ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... he had made a large and extensive consignment to a certain wealthy society of merchants at Madrid, who showed no willingness after his death to account for the proceeds. Would to God we had left these covetous and wicked men in possession of their booty, for such they seemed to hold the property of their deceased correspondent and friend! We had enough for comfort, and even splendour, already secured in England; but friends exclaimed upon the folly of permitting ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... hundred years after Buddha there were from time to time, such personages in the world, who attained the end of the Holy Path; but in these latter days people are more insincere, covetous and contentious, and the discipline is too hard for degenerate times and men. The three trainings already spoken of are the correct causes of deliverance; but if people think them as useless as last ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... of reaching. There might be seen in Banks's fine bust of him, the cause why Warren Hastings, though he was endowed with many good qualities which endeared him to his friends, was, nevertheless, covetous, self-willed, domineering, unjust, and, in some instances, pitiless, as Governor-General of India. What a contrast to this did the bust of the Marquis of Wellesley, by Nollekens, present. Not only did it indicate that the disposition of that distinguished ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... demonstrated the fact that the Canadians were loyal and patriotic to their heart's last drop in preserving British connection, and were true to their Flag and the freedom it symbolized. Again, the invasion enlightened the Fenian foemen and all other schemers who cast covetous eyes in our direction, that the Canadians were capable of protecting themselves, and were ready at all times to do their duty on the field of battle in defence of their native land and its institutions. Finally, it taught our people a lasting ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... country." He swung the armlet aloft on his sword—it was of red gold, bright and shining—that they might ferry him over to Gelfrat's march. At this the haughty boatman himself took the oar, for he was greedy and covetous of gain, the which bringeth oft to a bad end. He thought to win Hagen's red gold, but won, in lieu thereof, a grim death ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... if fate had become weary of fighting against them, Peter, who had been watching the sentry's weapons with covetous eyes till it was beginning to grow dusk, suddenly ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... enlarged by regular accumulations at compound interest) her first idea was to carry out her grandfather's wishes; but it was not until Horace Jewdwine's last visit that her idea became a determination. Horace had been strolling round the library, turning over the books, not exactly with the covetous eye of the heir apparent, but with that peculiar air of appropriation which he affected in all matters of the intellect. In that mood Lucia had found him irritating, and it had appeared that Horace had been irritated, too. He had always felt ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... she had at this very time been put to her sober choice, which she would have abandoned, it would have been Philander, as not in so good circumstances at that time to gratify all her extravagances of expense; but she would not endure to think of losing either: she was for two reasons covetous of both, and swore fidelity to both, protesting each the only man; and she was now contriving in her thoughts, how to play the jilt most artificially; a help-meet, though natural enough to her sex, she had not yet much essayed, and never to this purpose: she knew well she should have need of all ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... with cloths of purple and scarlet; so that, the vessel rowing slowly against the stream, the Romans that crowded on the shore to meet him had a foretaste of his following triumph. But the soldiers, who had cast a covetous eye on the treasures of Perseus, when they did not obtain as much as they thought they deserved, were secretly enraged and angry with Aemilius for this, but openly complained that he had been a severe and tyrannical commander over them; nor were they ready ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... admire and detest the folly of those who when they see a rich man, though they neither owe him anything, nor are in any sort dependent on his bounty, yet merely because he is rich give him little less than divine honours; even though they know him to be so covetous and base-minded, that notwithstanding all his wealth, he will not part with one farthing of it to them as ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... horseback; gave a lesson in fencing to his cousin Sigismund, the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General. Meantime he viewed with the eye of a philosopher the strife of the covetous relatives who hovered around ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... the Jews against him. It was not because of any outward title bestowed upon Festus, that he so called him, else he would have given the same compilation to his predecessor Felix, who had the same office, but being a covetous man we find he gives him no ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... in the time when he was upon the Bench had the credit, I do not know how well deserved it was, of not being much given to hospitality. He was never covetous, and he was very fond of society and conversation. But I fancy he had some fashions of his own in housekeeping which he thought were not quite up to the ways of modern life. At any rate, he was, so far as I know, never known ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... her covetous maidenly eyes on him, and if she doesn't marry him before the year is over, he will have to be clever," he decided, as he left them and went to look up Haydon. "Serves Dan right if she did, for he never gives any other fellow half a chance with the old ladies. The ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... a base friend, by whom they were offered to the various Governments for L30,000. The Russian Ambassador is reported to have paid L10,000 to get hold of those concerning his master. His Majesty of Prussia appears to have had a covetous eye on Hanover. He always entertained a paternal regard for that country. The sovereigns in general seem to have compromised themselves deeply in their efforts to ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Hobbes; and his morality was such as naturally proceeds from loose opinions. His sentiments with respect to women he picked up in the court of Charles; and his principles concerning property were such as a gaming-table supplies. He was censured as covetous, and has been defended by an instance of inattention to his affairs; as if a man might not at once be corrupted by avarice and idleness. He is said, however, to have had much tenderness, and to have been very ready to apologize for ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... themselves masters of one town after another in spite of the despairing appeals of the conquered to the Theban king. From the accession of Khuniatonu, they set to work to annex the countries of Nukhassi, Nii, Tunipa, and Zinzauru: they looked with covetous eyes upon Phoenicia, and were already menacing Coele-Syria. The religious confusion in Egypt under Tutankhamon and Ai left them a free field for their ambitions, and when Harmhabi ventured to cross to the east of the isthmus, he found them definitely installed in the region stretching from the Mediterranean ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... is also true that this greed may possess one who has little or nothing. It may be found in unrestrained excess under the rags of the pauper and beggar. They who aspire to, or desire, riches with avidity are covetous whether they have much, little, or nothing. Christ promised His kingdom to the poor in spirit, not to the poor in fact. Spiritual poverty can associate with abundant wealth, just as the most depraved cupidity ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... our messengers." Hugh answered simply that he knew the king had taken great trouble about his election, so it was his business to keep the king from spiritual dangers, to coerce the oppressor and to dismiss the covetous nonsuited. It would be useless and stupid to come to court for either matter, for the king's discretion was prompt to notice proper action and quick to approve the right. Hugh was irresistible. The king embraced him, asked ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... refrained from selling to the Indians such things as might harm them. They were like children, and would have given in exchange for worthless beads and trinkets the most expensive and valuable furs. In this way, Mr. Bradley could have made much money, but his heart was not covetous, and he tried his best to teach the Indians what articles were really ...
— Three Young Pioneers - A Story of the Early Settlement of Our Country • John Theodore Mueller
... warlike people on the earth. We read of no mutinies or disobedience of orders among his followers. It were hard to say whether the fiery Numidian, the proud and desultory Spaniard, the brave but inconstant Gaul, or the covetous Balearic, was most docile to his direction, or obedient to his will. Great indeed must have been the ascendency acquired by one man over such various and opposite races of men, usually the prey of such jealousies and divisions; and whom the most powerful coalition in general ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... merchant, by declaring that his baggage is on the road. This he does with a thoroughness that alarms his friend. He borrows money right and left and lavishes it upon beggars. He promises to pay his creditors twice over when his baggage comes. By and by the king—a very covetous man—hears of Ma'aruf's amazing generosity, and desirous himself of getting a share of the baggage, places his treasury at Ma'aruf's disposal, and weds him to his daughter Dunya. Ma'arfu soon empties the treasury, and ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... make such a bargain for the delivery up of themselves, as Thamar did with Judah; instead of a kid, the necessary provisions for human life, they are contented to do it for rings and bracelets. The great dealers in this world may be divided into the ambitious, the covetous, and the voluptuous; and that all these men sell themselves to be slaves— though to the vulgar it may seem a Stoical paradox—will appear to the wise so plain and obvious that they will scarce think it ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... better with him than it was with either of those two wretched married beings? And why? He had not, at any rate as yet, sacrificed for money or social gains any of the instincts of his nature. He had been fickle, foolish, vain, uncertain, and perhaps covetous;—but as yet he had not been false. Then he took out Mary's last letter ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... work is usually ascribed to Archimattheas, and it certainly gives a vivid picture of the medical customs of the time. The instruction for the immediate coming of the physician to his patient runs as follows: "When the doctor enters the dwelling of his patient, he should not appear haughty, nor covetous, but should greet with kindly, modest demeanor those who are present, and then seating himself near the sick man accept the drink which is offered him (sic) and praise in a few words the beauty of the neighborhood, the situation of the house, and the well-known generosity of the family,—if ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... mendicant negro, called Jonathan Strong, in rags on the streets of London. They took him into their service, and after he had become plump, strong, and acquainted with his business, the man who had brought him from the colonies, an attorney, seeing him behind a carriage, set covetous eyes on him. The lad was waylaid on a false message to a public-house, seized, and committed to the Compter, where, however, he managed to make Mr Sharp acquainted with his position. The indefatigable philanthropist ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... our Lord and to your Majesty's honor. It will conduce much to the conversion of these natives to have some religious of the society of Jesus, and friars of the order of St. Francis, come to these districts; because it has a most edifying influence upon the covetous disposition of these barbarians, to see that those fathers do not receive or have anything to do with money—which will be a good example for them. May your Majesty provide in this regard according to your pleasure, for it would ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... he could not bear—so covetous was he—to reveal its existence to his own son, and he chose to leave him penniless rather than apprise him of this treasure. Some land, a little only, he did leave him, whereon to toil and moil for ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... a Goose that laid him a golden egg every day. Being of a covetous turn, he thought if he killed his Goose he should come at once to the source of his treasure. So he killed her and cut her open, but great was his dismay to find that her inside was in no way different from that of any ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... food, clean garments, shoes with silver buckles, a sufficiency of things for the needs of the animal, and a canonry to satisfy self-love, that inexpressible sentiment which follows us, they say, into the presence of God,—for there are grades among the saints. But the covetous desire for the apartment which the Abbe Birotteau was now inhabiting (a very harmless desire in the eyes of worldly people) had been to the abbe nothing less than a passion, a passion full of obstacles, and, like more guilty passions, full of hopes, ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese, expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire—each is hungry, likewise, to extend her trade with ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... could implant the contented love of field and wood, wide airs and flying clouds life, love, ease, labour, sorrow—all that is best in our experience—could be tasted here and thus; while the troubles bred by the covetous brain and the scheming mind would find no place here. It is a better lot, after all, to live and feel than to express life and feeling, however subtly and ingeniously, and I for one would throw down in an instant all my vague dreams and impossible ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in Sheridan, (which made him a sort of Catiline in wit, "covetous of another's wealth, and profuse of his own,") occurred during the preceding Session. As he was walking down to the House with Sir Philip Francis and another friend, on the day when the Address of Thanks on the Peace as moved, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... covetous spirit we sold, Those beautiful fields, the delight of the day, Would have brought us more good than a burthen of gold, [1] Could we but have been ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... was a born trader, and he was quick to note the covetous glance that the white chechako cast toward ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... me the maid, great Judge of the world! Millions of souls pour out their plaints to thee—turn on them thine eye of compassion, but leave me, Almighty Judge—leave me to myself. (Clasping his hands in agony.) Can the bountiful, the munificent Creator be covetous of one miserable soul, and that soul the worst of his creation? The maiden is mine! Once I was her god, but now I am ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... this conversation with interest was Louis Wheeler. Rodney did not fail to see the covetous gleam of his eyes ...
— Cast Upon the Breakers • Horatio Alger
... copy. On one occasion, indeed, his wit, which was mostly subordinate to nature and tenderness, has seduced him into a string of felicitous antitheses; which, it is obvious to remark, have been a model to Addison and succeeding essayists. "Who would not be covetous, and with reason," he says, "if health could be purchased with gold? who not ambitious, if it were at the command of power, or restored by honour? but, alas! a white staff will not help gouty feet to walk better than a common cane; nor a blue riband bind up a wound so well as a fillet. The glitter ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... books, and costly toys. They should never have any but the simplest books; the so-called classical ones. They should be amply provided with means of preparing their own playthings. The worst feature of our system are the playthings which imitate the luxury of grown people. By such objects the covetous impulse of the child for acquisition is increased, his own capacity for discovery and imagination limited, or rather, it would be limited if children with the sound instinct of preservation, did not happily ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... the Covetous, whose god was gold, Once, by strange chance, found riches manifold Hid in a rocky cavern, where a band Of robbers who were ravaging the land Kept their bright spoils. Cassim had learnt the spell By which the dazzling heaps were guarded well. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... a very pleasant person; he was stiff, and cold, and dry, and very mean and covetous in some ways—though he liked to make a grand show, and dress all his court in cloth of gold and silver, and the very horses in velvet housings, whenever there was any state occasion. Nobody greatly ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... state of things was to come to an end; her freedom, on which she looked as her most precious possession, was to be taken roughly from her. One of the men whom she had despised, one of that set of libertines, of idle voluptuaries who had dangled round her skirts whilst casting covetous eyes upon her fortune, was to become her master, her supreme lord, and she—a slave to his desires ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... disorder. In the treasuries of the monkish communities there are many precious stones, and the priceless manis. One of the kings (once) entered one of those treasuries, and when he looked all round and saw the priceless pearls, his covetous greed was excited, and he wished to take them to himself by force. In three days, however, he came to himself, and immediately went and bowed his head to the ground in the midst of the monks, to show his repentance of the ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... the Creator himself, be only traced in his works. The Devil lurks beneath the venerable broadcloth of an intolerant and ignorant priest; he uses the seducing smiles of a wicked beauty; he stirs the blood of the covetous and grasping; he strides through the gilded halls of ambitious emperors and ministers, who go with "light hearts" to kill thousands of human beings with newly-invented infernal machines; he works havoc in the brains of the vain. The Devil shuffles the cards for the gambler, and destroys ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... that conformed not to Orders of Parliament, to make their complaint to a committee for that purpose; and the Minister, though a hundred miles from London, should appear there, and give satisfaction, or be sequestered;—and you may be sure no Parish could want a covetous, or malicious, or cross-grained complaint;—by which means all prisons in London, and in some other places, became the sad ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... pore, whenever they bent over it, the life-giving oxygen for which their dulled blood and festered lungs were craving in vain; fulfilling God's will itself, though man would not, too careless or too covetous to see, after thousands of years of boasted progress, why God had covered the earth with grass, herb, and tree, a living and life-giving garment of ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... said I: 'in the Bible and such books, you understand, you read of only the best sorts of people; but there were millions and millions of others—especially about the time of the poison-cloud—on a very much lower level—putrid wretches—covetous, false, murderous, mean, selfish, debased, hideous, diseased, making the earth a very charnel of festering vices ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... also,' Mr Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, 'a errand connection, in which I was much respected. But I would not wish to be deemed covetous, and I would rather leave ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... gain righteously; no covetous, money-loving spirit prevailed; with pious intent they gave liberally; there was not a ...
— The Essence of Buddhism • Various
... the Superfluities of Mankind. The World is avaritious, and I hate Avarice. A covetous fellow, like a Jackdaw, steals what he was never made to enjoy, for the sake of hiding it. These are the Robbers of Mankind, for Money was made for the Free- hearted and Generous, and where is the Injury of taking from another, what he hath not ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... vanished. Harvey cites several instances of pseudocyesis, and says we must not rashly determine of the the inordinate birth before the seventh or after the eleventh month. In 1646 a woman, after having laughed heartily at the jests of an ill-bred, covetous clown, was seized with various movements and motions in her belly like those of a child, and these continued for over a month, when the courses appeared again and the movements ceased. The woman was certain that she ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... Mme. Cibot had begun to cherish a hope that her name might be mentioned in "her gentlemen's" wills; she had redoubled her zeal since that covetous thought tardily sprouted up in the midst of that so honest moustache. Pons hitherto had dined abroad, eluding her desire to have both of "her gentlemen" entirely under her management; his "troubadour" collector's life had scared away certain vague ideas ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the unhappy fate of being importuned to ride, shouted at in the guttural tones of desert tribesmen, questioned in unknown tongues, solicited for alms and schemed against and worried for this, that, and the other, by covetous ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... Venetians bore the name of Pantaleone, one of their favourite saints. Hence the application of the name to the characteristic Venetian hose. The "lean and slippered pantaloon" was originally one of the stock characters of the old Italian comedy. Torriano has pantalone, "a pantalone, a covetous and yet amorous old dotard, properly applyed in comedies unto a Venetian." Knickerbockers take their name from Diedrich Knickerbocker, the pseudonym under which Washington Irving wrote his History of Old New York, in which the early Dutch ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... loved you." She, poor child, believed him as though he were speaking to her the sweetest gospel. And he, too, believed himself. He was easy of heart perhaps, but not deceitful; anxious enough for his position in the world, but not meanly covetous. Had she been distasteful to him as a woman, he would have refused to make himself rich by the means that had been suggested to him. As it was, he desired her as much as her money, and had she given herself to him then would never have remembered,—would ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... From the hard hands of peasants their vile trash By any indirection. I did send 75 To you for gold to pay my legions, Which you denied me. Was that done like Cassius? Should I have answer'd Caius Cassius so? When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous, To lock such rascal counters from his friends, 80 Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... Territories: Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington along the Canadian line, Wyoming and Utah in the middle, Arizona and New Mexico on the Mexican border. Besides these Territories there was the unorganized remnant of the Indian country known as Indian Territory, and attracting the covetous glances of frontiersmen in all the near-by ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... a money-lender in the garden hidden among the marigolds'—the child looked at the ball of crumpled blossoms in its hands—'ay, among the yellow marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, "Oh brother, how much do the pious give thee daily?" The mendicant said, "I cannot tell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... to make one complete suit for her. The rest, with Nanny's assistance, she had endeavored to replace again, and she had been hardly able to get it done, the space being over full, although a portion had been taken out. The covetous little Nanny could never satisfy herself with looking at all the pretty things, especially as she found provision made there for every article of dress which could be wanted, even the smallest. Numbers of shoes and stockings, garters with devices on them, gloves, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... think that there was some design in a stone being flung at the window over our stayres this evening, by which the thiefes meant to try what looking there would be after them and know our company. These thoughts and fears I had, and do hence apprehend the fears of all rich men that are covetous and have much money by them. At last Jane rose, and then I understand it was only the dogg wants a lodging and so made a noyse. So to bed, but hardly slept, at last did, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... together with mottoes were worked into many pieces of embroidery. The following mottoes were copied from an old quilt made in the seventeenth century: "Covet not to wax riche through deceit," "He that has lest witte is most poore," "It is better to want riches than witte," "A covetous ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... their gifts and achievements there were certain great evils in Babylonian life. For one thing they were inclined to be greedy and covetous. They lived on a soil almost incredibly rich, and they were constantly increasing their wealth by trade. Babylonian merchants or their agents were to be found in almost every city and town of western Asia and perhaps ...
— Hebrew Life and Times • Harold B. Hunting
... treaty had not been broken since, but the energies of the warlike descendants of those first settlers of Ganymede were expended in casting about for new fields to conquer. Through the ages they cast increasingly covetous eyes on those inner planets, Mars, Terra and Venus. Not having the advantage of the Rulden, they knew of these bodies only what could be seen through their own crude optical instruments and what they had learned by word of ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... meant to impress the city girl who wore and needed none. Sophronia's hair did not kink and curl as Katharine's did, but it was "a hunderd times as long and a great deal prettier colored." Kate had said so herself, yet here was she who was so generously admiring, almost covetous, calmly unobservant of braid, ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... of course, to pay them back when the weary experiments should have crystallized into the coveted philosopher's stone. He had in his daughter Elizabeth a treasure which might well have outweighed the whole of the Archbishop's coffers, but the lust for gold had blinded the covetous ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... observed, another, or perhaps two, will pursue him, trying to snatch the booty from him. A flying bird with his beak engaged in holding a treasure is very much at the mercy of his pursuers; his only resource is either to outstrip his covetous comrades, or else hastily to gobble the desired morsel in a manner that must rob it of some of its sweetness. These gulls are peculiarly fond of settling on the boats that are moored at the foot of the gardens; sometimes as many as fourteen or fifteen may be seen on one little ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... thought of Mr. Park's tobe, which was given to them by the king of Boossa, and they hoped that in consequence of the splendour of its appearance, and its intrinsic value, it might prove an acceptable present to the covetous prince, and be the means of effecting a perfect reconciliation between them. They therefore immediately despatched Ibrahim with it to Rabba, although their hearts misgave them at the time, that ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... of Prometheus, men could not rest content. As years went by, they lost all the innocence of the early world; they grew more and more covetous and evil-hearted. Not satisfied with the fruits of the Earth, or with the fair work of their own hands, they delved in the ground after gold and jewels; and for the sake of treasure nations made war upon each other and hate ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... like a bird in a cage, but perfectly free in themselves, and uninjured by the bodily weakness which enveloped them. This was not all. I was led to perceive that I had been living life with an entirely distorted standard of values; I had been ambitious, covetous, eager for comfort and respect, absorbed in trivial dreams and childish fancies. I saw, in the course of my illness, that what really mattered to the soul was the relation in which it stood to other souls; ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... answered by signs that they had it from the south, where there was a king who possessed abundance of pieces and vessels of gold; and they made our people to understand that there were many other islands and large countries to the south and south-west. They were very covetous to get possession of any thing which belonged to the Christians, and being themselves very poor, with nothing of value to give in exchange, as soon as they got on board, if they could lay hold of any thing which struck their fancy, though it were only ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... upon Miss Glanville's qualifications, and her renommee as a belle celebree, I have no doubt of your possessing the felicity you deserve. But be sure that the fortune is not settled away from you; poor Sir Reginald is not (I believe) at all covetous or worldly, and will not ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... friend. He had won a favorable reputation in leading the expedition against Roanoke Island and the North Carolina coast; and, called to reinforce McClellan after the Peninsula disaster, commanded the left wing of the Army of the Potomac at Antietam. He was not covetous of the honor now given him. He had already twice declined it, and only now accepted the command as a duty under the urgent advice of members of his staff. His instincts were better than the judgment of his friends. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... the spoiles, as in olde tyme thei did, but thei leave it to the discreacion of the souldiours. This manner maketh twoo moste great disorders: the one, that whiche I have tolde: the other that the souldiour becometh more covetous to spoyle, and lesse observeth the orders: and manie times it hath been seen, howe the covetousnesse of the praye, hath made those to leese, whome were victorious. Therefore the Romaines whiche were princes of armies, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... become a second nature to scour the horizon with jealous eyes: never for a moment during their long martyrdom had their covetous sight fixed upon a stationary object. But it came at last. Out of a cloud a sail burst like a flickering flame. What an age it was a-coming! how it budded and blossomed like a glorious white flower, that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... by the barbarous Jew, and on the next came also the youngest brother to the same place, where he was met by the base assassin, who would have killed him also, had not the extraordinary beauty of the young prince struck his covetous mind with the idea of making him a slave, and selling him for a large sum of money. Speaking therefore to him in a kind manner he brought him refreshments, and inquired if he was willing to be his servant, and employ himself in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... gone, the old man began mumbling prayers out of his breviary, and fingering over jewels and gold, with the dull greedy eyes of covetous old age. ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... tranquil existence, have not only besought them of God in prayer, but have sought them with such ardour that they have spared no pains and shrunk from no danger in the quest, and have attained their end only to lose, at the hands of some one covetous of their vast inheritance, a life with which before the days of their prosperity they were well content. Others, whose course, perilous with a thousand battles, stained with the blood of their brothers and their friends, has raised them from base to regal ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... weeks at this port, they sufficiently experienced all the artifices of this covetous and fraudulent people, from whom Captain Clipperton had no way to defend himself, and was therefore obliged to submit to all their demands. Towards the end of September, the season and their inclinations concurred to deliver them from this place; for by this ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... found abundant time for study, who may not? Frederick the Great, too, was busy in camp the greater part of his life, yet whenever a leisure moment came, it was sure to be devoted to study. He wrote to a friend, "I become every day more covetous of my time, I render an account of it to myself, and I lose none of it but with ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... also have a mutual sense of one another's sufferings; and not be covetous of money; but let us, by our good works, confess God, and not ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... most pacific of powers and desires nothing so much as to live in amity with all the world. Its own ample and diversified domains satisfy all possible longings for territory, preclude all dreams of conquest, and prevent any casting of covetous eyes upon neighboring regions, however attractive. That our conduct toward Spain and her dominions has constituted no exception to this national disposition is made manifest by the course of our ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... for corroboration of that noble picture to the history of this same Ferrante. A shock awaits us. We find, in this bastard of the great and brilliant Alfonso a cruel, greedy, covetous monster, so treacherous and so fiendishly brutal that we are compelled to extend him the charity of supposing him to be something less than sane. Let us consider but one of his characteristics. He loved to have his enemies under his own supervision, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... and resources of the monarchy during his reign are best evinced by the expeditions he was enabled to fit out; but being no less covetous than ambitious he contrived to make the expenses fall upon his subjects, and at the same time filled his treasury with gold by pressing the merchants and plundering the neighbouring states. An intelligent person (General Beaulieu), who was for some time at his court, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... maturing; seeking, yet having all things. Thou lovest, without passion; art jealous, without anxiety; repentest, yet grievest not; art angry, yet serene; changest Thy works, Thy purpose unchanged; receivest again what Thou findest, yet didst never lose; never in need, yet rejoicing in gains; never covetous, yet exacting usury. Thou receivest over and above, that Thou mayest owe; and who hath aught that is not Thine? Thou payest debts, owing nothing; remittest debts, losing nothing. And what had I now said, my God, my life, my holy joy? or what saith any man when he speaks of Thee? ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... accustomed to governing and renowned for centuries?"—Ibid., 113. (Speech of the mayor Mouet, Floreal 21, year II.) "Moral purification (in Strasbourg) has become less difficult through the reduction of fortunes and the salutary terror excited among those covetous men.. . Civilization has encountered mighty obstacles in this great number of well-to-do families who have nourished souvenirs of, and who regret the privileges enjoyed by, these families under the Emperors; they ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... God has given the mind, and intends it to be developed and cultivated. If, therefore, its training has made it indolent and dissipated, it only proves its education to be spurious. You might, by a parity of reasoning, blindfold the eye that it might not he covetous, or tie up the hand lest it pick a man's pocket, or hobble the feet lest they run into evil ways, as to keep the mind in ignorance lest ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... here mine 'at I'm goin' to tell you about was called the Creole Belle," he sez. "For a longtime it didn't pay to amount to anything, an' then it began to pay; an' the two friends got covetous, an' first George had Jack killed an' then he gets killed himself ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... happened sometimes that the plague brought out the good in a man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout philanthropy, it happened at other times—and I fear it must be confessed more frequently—that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, were made more brutal and callous ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... be poor, desire not to be too rich. He is rich, not that possesses much, but he that covets no more; and he is poor, not that enjoys little, but he that wants too much. The contented mind wants nothing which it hath not; the covetous mind wants, not only what it hath not, ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... formed our estimate of Bishop Watson's character simply from such samples as these, we might conclude that he was a covetous, unreasonably discontented, and worldly-minded man. But this would be a very unfair conclusion to arrive at. The Bishop gives us only one, and that the weakest side of his character. He was most highly esteemed by some of his contemporaries, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... bodies like crocodiles and leather wings, you know; but they were dragons of a sort, for all that, for they carried brutal things in their hands that belched forth smoke and pain and death, and they were cruel of heart, and they had sold themselves to do evil for the sake of the dollars that covetous men and women would pay them ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... now that Jay Gould eagerly stepped in. Where others saw cessation of plunder, he spied the richest possibilities for a new onslaught. For years he had been a covetous spectator of the operations of the Credit Mobilier; and, of course, had not been able to contain himself from attempting to get a hand in its stealings. He and Fisk had repeatedly tried to storm their way in, and had carried trumped-up cases into the courts, only to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... iron and brass, of which they are extremely covetous, these poor creatures brought bear furs, the skins of sea-calves, sea-dogs, sea-wolves, and all the animals generally known as seals. Jean Cornbutte obtained these at a low price, and they were certain ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... of acquiring it: alas! does not every thing tell me, that in this world money is the greatest blessing; that it is amply sufficient to render me happy? In the country I inhabit, do I not see all my fellow-citizens covetous of riches? but do I not also witness that they are little scrupulous in the means of obtaining wealth? As soon as they are enriched by the means which you censure, are they not cherished, considered, ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... Sister Ward? Why, her Guardian is mine, we are Fellow Sufferers: Ah! he is a covetous, cheating, sanctify'd Curmudgeon; that Sir Francis Gripe ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... way, however, there continued to be difficulties. And such difficulties had already been, that the poor young man, not yet come to his Heritages, and having, with probably some turn for expense, a covetous unamiable Stepmother, had fallen into the usual difficulties; and taken the methods too usual. Namely, had given ear to the Austrian Court, which offered him assistance,—somewhat as an aged Jew will to a young Christian gentleman in quarrel with papa,—upon ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... mischiefs done to the cause of what he took for saving truth by evil-doing in the heart and centre of the most powerful of all the churches. His translation of Farini, followed by his article on the same subject in the Edinburgh in 1852, was his first blast against 'the covetous, domineering, implacable policy represented in the term Ultramontanism; the winding up higher and higher, tighter and tighter, of the hierarchical spirit, in total disregard of those elements by which it ought to be ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'I wonder they don't murder you! I would if I was them. If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and—no, ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... had but Nature here the benefit of Art added unto [77]it, it would equal, if not exceed many of our European Countries; the Vallyes were every where intermixt with running streams, and no question but the earth {{22 }} hath in it rich veins of Minerals, enough to satisfie the desires of the most covetous. ...
— The Isle Of Pines (1668) - and, An Essay in Bibliography by W. C. Ford • Henry Neville
... affairs are possessed of considerable wealth, and as the number of persons by whose assistance they may rise is comparatively small, the government is, if I may use the expression, put up to a sort of auction. In democracies, on the contrary, those who are covetous of power are very seldom wealthy, and the number of citizens who confer that power is extremely great. Perhaps in democracies the number of men who might be bought is by no means smaller, but buyers are rarely to be met with; and, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... as conceived it possible that there could be wealth like this: it was a fairy-land of Mammon in his eyes: he stood gasping like a man enchanted; and in the contemplation of these little hills of gold—in their covetous longing contemplation, he forgot the noisy quarrel he had turned aside to see, and thirsted for ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... man" as far divorced from living, breathing, complex reality as the "economic man" of Ricardo. Men, he thought, are always the same, governed by calculable motives of self-interest. In general, he thought, men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly and covetous, to be ruled partly by an appeal to their greed, but chiefly ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the neighboring places, who gave accounts of Pizarro, varying according to the character and situation of the parties. Some represented him as winning all hearts by his open temper and the politic profusion with which, though covetous of wealth, he distributed repartimientos and favors among his followers. Others spoke of him as carrying matters with a high hand, while the greatest timidity and distrust prevailed among the citizens of Lima. All agreed that his power rested ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... hearkens to and hears the mourning which the emperor makes, and the wailing with which the hall is full. And o'er all the city the folk wail who weep and say: "God! what a sorrow and a calamity has accursed death dealt us! Greedy death! Covetous death! Death is worse than any she-wolf, for death cannot be sated. Never couldst thou give a worse wound to the world. Death, what hast thou done? May God confound thee who hast extinguished all beauty. Thou hast slain the choicest creature and the fairest picture—if ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... a covetous undertaker in town, who carted away the corpse, and then told the widow that she must spend much money on the funeral, in order to have her husband buried properly; or else, the tongues of the neighbors would wag. So the poor woman had to sell her cow, ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... will there be which shall not be visited with its own proper punishment. The proud shall be filled with utter confusion, and the covetous shall be pinched with miserable poverty. An hour's pain there shall be more grievous than a hundred years here of the bitterest penitence. No quiet shall be there, no comfort for the lost, though here sometimes there is respite from pain, and enjoyment of the solace ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... "document" from the thirteenth century as this cemetery has come to be of our own time. It is the crude representation of modern Italian life that you see, realistic, unique, and precious, but for the most part base and horrible beyond words. All the disastrous, sensual, covetous meanness, the mere baseness of the modern world, is expressed there with a naivete that is, by some miraculous transfiguration, humorous with all the grim humour of that thief death, who has gathered these poor souls with the rest because someone loved them and they ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... and by and by called up by Sir H. Cholmly, who tells me that my Lord Middleton is for certain chosen Governor of Tangier; a man of moderate understanding, not covetous, but a soldier of fortune, and poor. Here comes Mr. Sanchy with an impertinent business to me of a ticket, which I put off. But by and by comes Dr. Childe by appointment, and sat with me all the morning making me bases and inward parts to several songs that I ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception! Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed her to the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... in which, according to ancient and most wholesome rule, we are bidden to think of the Passion of Jesus Christ our Lord. To think of that, however happy and comfortable, however busy and eager, however covetous and ambitious, however giddy and frivolous, however free, or at least desirous to be free, from suffering of any kind, we are ourselves. To think of the sufferings of Christ, and learn how grand it is to suffer for ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... day to Northolt down, Song to obtain, O sweet reward, And walk the garden of the Bard?— But thy employ, the year throughout, Is wandering the White Tower about, Moulding and stamping coin with care, The farthing small and shilling fair. Let for a month thy Mint lie still, Covetous be not, little Will; Fly from the birth-place of the smoke, Nor in that wicked city choke; O come, though money's charms be strong, And if thou come I'll give thee song, A draught of water, hap what may, Pure air to make thy spirits gay And welcome from an honest heart, That's ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... and flowing vestures, ye bury up your delicate and tender hands in ample and wide-spreading sleeves. Among you indeed naught provoketh war or awakeneth strife, but either an irrational impulse of anger or an insane lust of glory or the covetous desire of possessing another man's lands and possessions. In such cases it is neither safe to slay nor to be slain.... But the soldiers of Christ indeed securely fight the battles of their Lord, in no wise fearing sin, either from the slaughter of the enemy or danger from their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... swarms of locusts in the season of much heat. In particular, there is among this august crowd of Mandarins one Wang Yu, who has departed on three previous occasions without bestowing the reward of a single cash. If the feeble and covetous-minded Wang Yu will place within this very ordinary bowl the price of one of his exceedingly ill-made pipes, this unworthy person ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... remote period of antiquity—probably soon after the dispersion at Babel—it was said that the Mountain-men had said to the Raturans, that it had been reported to them that a rumour had gone abroad that they, the men of Ratura, were casting covetous eyes on the summit of their mountain. The Raturans replied that it had never entered into their heads either to covet or to look at the summit of their mountain, but that, if they had any doubts on the subject, they might send over a deputation to meet ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... rate Ted was game. His covetous nature had been aroused by something he had glimpsed inside of that same bag; and he did not mean to give it up unless ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... them are indicated by their names—"The Rioter," "The Adulterer," "Ndauthina," who steals women of rank or beauty by night or by torchlight, "The Human-brain Eater," "The Murderer." Others of their gods are "proud, envious, covetous, revengeful, and the subject of every basest passion. They are demoralized heathen—monster expressions of moral corruption" (Williams, 184). These gods make war, and kill and eat each other just as mortals do. The Polynesians believed, too, that "the spirits ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Men as they are.—How to regard a miser; a passionate man; a slow man; the covetous; those ruled by their wives; the boasting; the mild tempered; the bully. Six sorts of people from whom you are not to expect much aid or sympathy in life: the sordid, the lazy, the busy, the rich, those miserable from poverty, ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... gold, and the stones of its houses and those which were produced in the ground were rubies and diamonds: in which island there was a pagoda, whither came the angels from heaven to play music and dance. Being covetous of being the lord of this land, he determined to go there, but not in ships because he had not enough for so many people, so he began to cart a great quantity of stones and earth and to throw it into the sea in order to fill it up, so that he might ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other that account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have heard some talk, Such an one is a great rich, man, and another except to it, Yea, but he ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... my power. Old Age, a second child, by Nature cursed With more and greater evils than the first; Weak, sickly, full of pains, in every breath Railing at life, and yet afraid of death; Putting things off, with sage and solemn air, From day to day, without one day to spare; 220 Without enjoyment, covetous of pelf, Tiresome to friends, and tiresome to himself; His faculties impair'd, his temper sour'd, His memory of recent things devour'd E'en with the acting, on his shatter'd brain Though the false registers of youth remain; From morn to evening babbling forth vain praise Of those rare men, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... wickedness must needs cast those under the desert of men, which it hath bereaved of that condition. Wherefore thou canst not account him a man whom thou seest transformed by vices. Is the violent extorter of other men's goods carried away with his covetous desire? Thou mayest liken him to a wolf. Is the angry and unquiet man always contending and brawling? Thou mayest compare him to a dog. Doth the treacherous fellow rejoice that he hath deceived others with his hidden frauds? Let him be accounted no better than a fox. Doth the outrageous ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... surety, deposits a certain sum in coin, corn, or other valuables, and lays his damages at so much. The defendant, if inclined to contest the claim, pays into court the disputed amount, and the question is settled after the traditional and immemorial customs of the tribe. This man, covetous as any other disciple of Justinian, was exceedingly anxious to obtain the honorarium of a Shaykh, and he worked hard to deserve it. Shortly before our departure from Sharma, he brought in some scoriae and slag, broken ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... ere Vivian could ask for the goblet, Rudesheimer, with a fell laugh, had handed it to Grafenberg. The greedy ass drank his portion with ease, and indeed drank far beyond his limit. The cup was in Vivian's hand, Rudesheimer was roaring supernaculum louder than all; Vivian saw that the covetous Grafenberg had providentially rendered his task comparatively light; but even as it was, he trembled at the idea of drinking at a single draught more than a pint of most ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... and king Dhritarashtra, Dhananjaya, afflicted with grief, addressed Dussala who had said so unto him, and answered her, censuring Kshatriya practices the while. 'Fie on Duryodhana, that mean wight, covetous of kingdom and full of vanity! Alas, it was for him that all my kinsmen have been despatched by me to the abode of Yama.' Having said so, Dhananjaya comforted his sister and became inclined to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... thee, tell it him privately; then with Witnesses; lastly, tell the Church; and then if he obey not, "Let him be to thee as an Heathen man, and a Publican." And there lyeth Excommunication for a Scandalous Life, as (1 Cor. 5. 11.) "If any man that is called a Brother, be a Fornicator, or Covetous, or an Idolater, or a Drunkard, or an Extortioner, with such a one yee are not to eat." But to Excommunicate a man that held this foundation, that Jesus Was The Christ, for difference of opinion in other points, by which ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... careful than these two brothers, one of whom was called Clutch, and the other Kind. Though brothers, no two men could be more unlike in disposition. Clutch thought of nothing but how to make some profit for himself, while Kind would have shared his last morsel with a hungry dog. This covetous mind made Clutch keep all his father's sheep when the old man was dead, because he was the eldest brother, allowing Kind nothing but the place of a servant to help him in ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... a handful of gold and silver. Francis looked at it with covetous eyes for a minute or two, then thrust his brother's hand aside with a jerk which almost sent the coins into ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated of the people and the States;"—"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions; a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway and grow rich;"—"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and audacious;"—"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"—"the most ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of the Queen and of all the English; ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
