"Griping" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cracks in the soil, portending earthquake, as it gradually widens, is the symptom of convulsions that level and destroy,—the division, in one word, of the rich and the poor—the Havenots and the Haves. Under an oligarchy, that most griping and covetous of all forms of government, the inequality of fortunes had become intolerably grievous; so greatly were the poor in debt to the rich, that [201] they were obliged to pay the latter a sixth of the produce of the land, or else to engage their personal ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... clergyman, griping hard at his breast as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain. "Many, many a poor soul hath given its confidence to me, not only on the death-bed, but while strong in life, and fair in reputation. And ever, after such an outpouring, O, what a relief have I witnessed in those sinful ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... queer thief, and he seized my right-hand, And I writh'd and I struggled, yet could not withstand His hot, griping grasp, though I drank lemonade— He grinn'd and he clutch'd me, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... caused his excommunication by his own people. Finding himself an outcast, he sought society among a few sceptical friends, one of whom was a physician named Van den Ende, whom a sense of injustice united to him by the bond of common sympathy. His life was passed in retirement, in hard, griping poverty. Possessing a mind of great originality, and a fondness for demonstrative reasoning never surpassed, he lived a model of chaste submissive virtue, searching for speculative truth; branded as an atheist ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... being thus put to their shifts, manie of them as hunger-starued were constrained to yeeld themselues into the griping hands of their enimies, whereas other yet keeping within the mounteins, woods and caues, brake out as occasion serued vpon their aduersaries, and then first (saith Gyldas) did the Britains not putting their trust in man but in God (according to the saieng of Philo, Where mans helpe ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... I, hastily; nor was I contented until I had obtained a renewal of his promise to that effect. This seemed to give the Abbot some little chagrin: perhaps the Hermit had offered a reward for my discovery. However, I knew that Anselmo, though a griping was a trustworthy man, and I felt safe in his renewed promise. I saw him depart with great satisfaction, and gave myself once more to ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to see her for five minutes, Kew," cries the other, griping his comrade's hand in ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... signs, the wandering pair retreat, To seek for shelter at a neighbouring seat. 'Twas built with turrets, on a rising ground, And strong, and large, and unimproved around; Its owner's temper, timorous and severe, Unkind and griping, caused ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... true, are wicked as well as false speeches, but yet are decent enough in the mouth of an Eteocles, an Ixion, and a griping usurer. If therefore we mind our children that the poets write not such things as praising and approving them, but do really account them base and vicious and therefore accommodate such speeches to base and vicious persons, they will never ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Hayward's Creek. Natives kept much aloof today, I suppose in consequence of my finding their piece of gratuitous information false. Self and all the party affected with griping and vomiting with the exception of Middleton and Davis. Cannot make out the cause; I wish it would rain that I could start through the desert out of this and get on to the waters to north and west ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... for your brothers and sisters, and your humanity and benevolence to the poor and needy. Happy indeed are those poor children, who have found a friend and protector when they were needful and helpless; but much happier those who, without ever feeling the griping hand of penury and want themselves, have received the inexpressible delight that never fails to arise from the pleasing reflection of having raised honest poverty to ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin
... foetid. When the doctor said he would engage to find the same phenomena in every healthy man of the three kingdoms, the apothecary added, that the patient was manifestly comatous, and moreover afflicted with griping pains and borborygmata. "A f—t for your borborygmata," cried the physician; "what has been done?" To this question, he replied, that venesection had been three times performed; that a vesicatory had been applied inter scapulas; that the patient had taken occasionally of a cathartic apozem, and between ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... smitten down again, and, in that moment, Barnabas was astride him; felt the shock of stinging blows, and laughing fierce and short, leapt in under the blows, every nerve and muscle braced and quivering; saw a scowling face,—smote it away; caught a bony wrist, wrenched the bludgeon from the griping fingers, struck and parried and struck again with untiring arm, felt the press thin out before him as his assailants gave back, and so, ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... have wives but of doubtful virtue, considered this matter duly, I believe their inordinate ardour after gain would be a good deal cooled, when they could not be certain (though their mates could) for whose children they were elbowing, bustling, griping, and perhaps cheating, those with whom they have concerns, whether friends, neighbours, or more certain next-of-kin, ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... high ideals prevail, and the intellectual life is taken as a matter of course. In the world outside it appears otherwise, though the conditions of success are in fact just the same. It is not true, though it seems so, that the common life is a game of "grasping and griping, with a whine for mercy at the end of it." It is your own fault if you find it so. It is not true that the whole of man is occupied, with the effort "to live just asking but to live, to live just begging but to be." The world of thought and ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... a febrifuge, and Padre Mercado states that it cures "all forms of asthma, suffocative affections of the chest, and griping pains of the belly." He also states that it yields marvelous results in malarial fevers, given during the cold stage in doses of 4-8 grams in water or wine in which it has macerated 12 hours. He also recommends its use before breakfast ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... the conventional littleness of the Real,—he grasps the imagination, and compels it to follow him, not to the heaven, but through all that is most wild and fantastic upon earth; a sorcery, not of the starry magian, but of the gloomy wizard,—a man of romance whose heart beat strongly, griping art with a hand of iron, and forcing it to idealise the scenes of his actual life. Before this powerful will, Glyndon drew back more awed and admiring than before the calmer beauty which rose from the soul of Raphael, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... has sent me Riding swift on his errands On the bit-griping steed Through dark woodways unbeaten, To bid thee, King Gunnar, Come to his fair bench With helm well-adorned, To the house of ...
— The Story of the Volsungs, (Volsunga Saga) - With Excerpts from the Poetic Edda • Anonymous
... (our right worshipful representatives that are to be) be not so griping in the sale of your ware as your predecessors, but consider that the nation, like a spend-thrift heir, has run out: Be likewise a little more continent in your tongues than you are at present, else the length of ...
— The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers • Jonathan Swift
... his end was come, and perhaps the world's. He shied slap into the hedge and stuck there—alone; for, his rider swaying violently the reverse way, the girths burst, the saddle peeled off the pony's back, and David sat griping the pommel of the saddle in the middle of the road at Eve's feet, looking up in her face with an uneasy grin, while dust rose around him in a little column. Eve screeched, and screeched, and screeched; then fell to, with a face as red as a turkey-cock's, and beat David ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... ungenerous spirits, this sympathy goes not beyond a slight feeling of the imagination, which serves only to excite sentiments of complacency or ensure, and makes them apply to the object either honorable or dishonorable appellations. A griping miser, for instance, praises extremely INDUSTRY and FRUGALITY even in others, and sets them, in his estimation, above all the other virtues. He knows the good that results from them, and feels that species of happiness with a more ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... neither M'Clutchy nor M'Slime was at all a favorite with Darby. Darby was naturally as avaricious, and griping, and oppressive as either of them; and as he was the principal instrument of their rapacity and extortion, he deemed it but fair and just that they should leave him at least a reasonable share of their iniquitous gains. They were not, however, the gentlemen to leave much behind them, and the upshot ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... him. Sir Redmond was looking straight before him, with the fixed gaze that sees nothing. There was the white line around his mouth which Beatrice had seen once before. Again that griping ache was in her throat, till she could have cried out with the pain of it. She wanted to speak, to say something—anything—which would drive that look ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... which follows on sincere repentance than the turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and natural slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the agonies of awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Boeuf, a hard and griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting church and churchmen at defiance to purchasing from them pardon and absolution at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar, an infidel of another stamp, justly characterize his associate when ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... which a beautiful fountain incessantly played. Twenty great doors opened on the squares and on the streets, and over these was sculptured in stone the coat-of-arms of the king of Mexico, an eagle griping in his talons a jaguar. In the interior were many halls, and one in particular is said by a writer who accompanied Cortes, known as the Anonymous Conqueror, to have been of sufficient extent to contain three thousand men.... In addition to these were more ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... not think that I have ever concealed my real opinion from you. It is fully ten years ago since I spoke to you of the necessity of breaking up this association. Can you recall what I said? I said only our extreme need and griping poverty justified our acts. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... man! that seekest name mongst earthly men Devoid of God and all good virtuous lere; Who groping in the dark do nothing ken But mad; with griping care their souls do tear, Or burst with hatred or with envie pine Or burn with rage or melt out at ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... himself been a wrestler in his youth, and who had been brought ashore to witness the contest, called warningly aloud, "Save thyself, O king!" At this Arthur roused his failing strength to one final effort, and, griping his rival round the waist with a mighty grasp, raised him bodily from the ground and threw him backward till he fell flat, like a log, on both shoulders and both hips; while Arthur himself fell fainting a moment later. Nor did he recover until he found himself in the boat, his head resting on ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... great a love A Virgil breed. Nor let the gentry grudge to go Into those places whence they grew, But think them blest they may do so. Who would pursue The smoky glory of the town, That may go till his native earth, And by the shining fire sit down Of his own hearth, Free from the griping scrivener's bands, And the more biting mercer's books; Free from the bait of oiled hands, And painted looks? The country too even chops for rain; You that exhale it by your power, Let the fat drops fall down again In a full shower. And you ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... not trouble his past. He has nothing to apprehend. He has anticipated more than fortune would ever have granted him. He has tricked fortune; and his creditors—bah! who feels for creditors? What are creditors? Landlords; a pitiless and unpitiable tribe; all griping extortioners! What would become of the world of debtors, if it did not steal a march ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... had he not himself found out how difficult it was to get a position, to procure employment without friends and helpers? He, a man, had walked in search of it, day after day and felt the griping pangs of hunger; had wished for night, and, later, wished for the morn, only to find ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... Cherries free from rotten, and pick the stalk from them; put them into an earthen Pan. Bruise them, by griping and straining them in your hands, and let them stand all night; on the next day strain them out (through a Napkin; which if it be a course and thin one, let the juyce run through a Hippocras or gelly bag, upon a pound of fine pure Sugar in powder, to every Gallon of juyce) and to every gallon put ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby
... dumps, and frig and wriggle it. He would flay the fox, say the ape's paternoster, return to his sheep, and turn the hogs to the hay. He would beat the dogs before the lion, put the plough before the oxen, and claw where it did not itch. He would pump one to draw somewhat out of him, by griping all would hold fast nothing, and always eat his white bread first. He shoed the geese, kept a self-tickling to make himself laugh, and was very steadable in the kitchen: made a mock at the gods, would cause sing Magnificat ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... startled Phrenzy stares, Bristling her ragged hairs! Revenge the gory fragment gnaws; See, with her griping vulture claws Imprinted deep, she rends the mangled wound! Hate whirls her torch sulphureous round. The shrieks of agony, and clang of arms, Re-echo to the hoarse alarms, Her trump terrific blows. Disparting from behind, the clouds disclose, Of kingly gesture, a gigantic ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... and rinse your mouth a bit; It is hot work, this race of wit, And sets the bellows piping; Next Vol. you'll grind the flats again, And file the sharps unto the grain, Their very stomachs griping. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... as bad as they pretended; indeed, the odor of ammonia was hardly noticeable. But it made a good griping point. ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... fell upon their faces and waited. The shells ploughed the ground around them, smothering them with dirt. A horrible, griping pain started in my young friend's stomach, and began creeping upwards. His head and heart both seemed to be shrinking and growing cold. A shot tore off the head of the man next to him, sending the blood spurting into his face; a minute later another ripped open the back of a poor fellow ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... whenas his soveraine Dame So rudely handled by her foe he sawe, With gaping jawes full greedy at him came, And ramping on his shield, did weene the same 365 Have reft away with his sharpe rending clawes: But he was stout, and lust did now inflame His corage more, that from his griping pawes He hath his shield redeem'd, and foorth his swerd ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... by the light he spies Lucretia's glove, wherein her needle sticks: He takes it from the rushes where it lies, And griping it, the needle his finger pricks; As who should say 'This glove to wanton tricks Is not inured: return again in haste; Thou see'st our ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... Vomiting, griping, and diarrh[oe]a, are so common among infants, and arise in general from causes apparently so evident, that, unless severe or of long duration, they rarely form the subject of minute inquiry. Hence these complaints are, perhaps, not so often attributed to deteriorated milk as they ought to ...
— Remarks on the Subject of Lactation • Edward Morton
... bearded, broad-shouldered, beetle-browed, brusque bully of a brigand; this fierce, ferocious, bloodthirsty, relentless, ruthless ruffian; this hard-hearted, implacable, inexorable villain; this cruel, vengeful, vindictive, griping, grasping, scowling fiend; this demoniac miscreant, without pity, and without remorse, ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... of the weight. And who would take upon him to give a reason that Arius and his Pope Leo, the principal heads of the Arian heresy, should die, at several times, of so like and strange deaths (for being withdrawn from the disputation by a griping in the bowels, they both of them suddenly gave up the ghost upon the stool), and would aggravate this divine vengeance by the circumstances of the place, might as well add the death of Heliogabalus, who was also slain ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... that of its object. It possessed self-evidence. Its occurrence was attended with yielding and assent on the part of the soul. For it is as natural for the soul to assent to the self-evident as it is for it to pursue its proper good. The assent to a griping phantasy was called "comprehension," as indicating the firm hold that the soul thus took of reality. A gripping phantasy was defined as one which was stamped and impressed from an existing object, in virtue of that object itself, ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... the aggressors reeled back, right and left, from the shock of his mighty shoulders; and griping another, the tallest, by the collar, he whirled him some paces off on his back in the streaming kennel, as one might do with a very weak, light little child. "Au large, canaille!" he said, as he ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... him. "Young gentleman," said he, in a very mild tone, "you appear to have met with some disappointment from that griping wretch, Levi. If you have any business to transact, my house is close by; I shall be happy to treat ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 559, July 28, 1832 • Various
... like that in every bunch. The cook was mad at us for griping about his coffee, so our group of scientists on this cockeyed Saturn Expedition were getting whole wheat flour as punishment, while Captain Muller probably sat in his cabin chuckling about it. In our agreement, ...
— Let'em Breathe Space • Lester del Rey
... minister and his agents answered that Westminster Hall was open; that, if any man had been illegally imprisoned, he had only to bring his action; that juries were quite sufficiently disposed to listen to any person who pretended to have been oppressed by cruel and griping men in power, and that, as none of the prisoners whose wrongs were so pathetically described had ventured to resort to this obvious and easy mode of obtaining redress, it might fairly be inferred that nothing had been done which could not ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... opened. Her eyes dilated, her lips became parched; her heart and brain burned with a fierce eagerness—money, money! at last uttered the griping spirit ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... retains A splendid shilling: he nor hears with pain New oysters cried, nor sighs for cheerful ale; But with his friends, when nightly mists arise To Juniper's Magpie or Town Hall[4] repairs. Meanwhile he smokes and laughs at merry tale, Or pun ambiguous or conumdrum quaint; But I, whom griping penury surrounds, And hunger sure attendant upon want, With scanty offals, and small acid tiff (Wretched repast!) my meagre corps sustain: Then solitary walk or doze at home In garret vile, and with a warming puff. Regale chilled fingers, or from tube as black As winter chimney, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... They always sent in their patient lists to the Times. Tom was griping because he'd have to do ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... fees the court had been ordered to decide upon just compensation, the later act allowed the physician or surgeon to charge whatever he declared under oath in court to be just for medicines. Nor did the act of 1692 make reference to "rigorous though unskilful" or "griping and avaricious" physicians and surgeons as ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... home and always ready to listen if you got something griping you, like when a teacher blames you for something you didn't do. Some kids I know, they have to phone a string of places to find their mother, and then she ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... or less, according to the Age and Strength of the Person) with so much Powder of Cinnamon as is common for a Dish of Chocolate, and to give this Dish as if it were ordinary Chocolate. I have had great Experience of this, it is a good Purge without Griping; several have mistaken the Effect for the Benefit of Nature only, being entirely ignorant of the officious Deceit which I made use of for their sakes. What Advantages may not there be drawn from this Method of Purging apply'd to Children, who are so backward to take any ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus
... hope it held court-cards. We are all players. The lean and sanctified bigot, who looks in holy horror on this printed pasteboard, as though it were the legitimate offspring of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, plays his own pious game at winning souls, and risks—charity. The griping money-catcher, who shudders at the thought of losing gold in spendthrift play, takes his own close and cunning game at winning wealth, and risks—esteem. The ambitious aspirant, who scorns such empty things as cards, plays boldly at his daring game at winning position, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... well as his own; feels indeed that wrongs are offered to them in him, and to him in them. Antonio has scorned his religion, balked him of usurious gains, insulted his person: therefore he hates him as a Christian, himself a Jew; hates him as a lender of money gratis, himself a griping usurer; hates him as Antonio, himself Shylock. Moreover, who but a Christian, one of Antonio's faith and fellowship, has stolen away his daughter's heart, and drawn her into revolt, loaded with his ducats ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson |
