"Greediness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of taking great delight in your victuals; feed not with greediness; lean not on the table; neither find fault with what ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... punishment of greediness to lose the substance by grasping at the shadow; while the man who would take what does not belong to him deserves to ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... retrospective avowal is to create a kind of feeling which is essentially unlike our feeling at what is actually avowed. Still it is clear that his unlucky career as apprentice brought out in Rousseau slyness, greediness, slovenliness, untruthfulness, and the whole ragged regiment of the squalider vices. The evil of his temperament now and always was of the dull smouldering kind, seldom breaking out into active ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... shows us a "fair" at which pewter goblets are being given away. These so excite the greediness of the crowd that a fray results, in which three children are seriously wounded. While dying, the unfortunates have terrible visions of life and humanity. "It seemed to them that ferocious demons were chuckling and sneering ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... to act a more liberal part, from a mere motive of interest, independent of the lofty and honourable principle of keeping a clan together, to be in readiness to serve his king. I added, that I could not help thinking a little arbitrary power in the sovereign, to control the bad policy and greediness of the chiefs, might sometimes be of service. In France a chief would not be permitted to force a number of the king's subjects out of the country. Dr Johnson concurred with me, observing, that 'were an oppressive chieftain ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... difficulties were a trifle, however, compared with the annoyances caused by the stupidity of his father and the greediness of his brothers. While living like a poor man in Rome, he kept continually thinking of their welfare. The letters of this period are full of references to the purchase of land, the transmission of cash when it was to be had, and the establishment of Buonarroto ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... have been for ten years, and have worked some havoc among the cattle and young horses. The cowboys have been carrying on the usual vindictive campaign against them; a number have been poisoned, and a number of others have fallen victims to their greediness, the cowboys surprising them when gorged to repletion on the carcass of a colt or calf, and, in consequence, unable to run, so that they are easily ridden down, roped, and then dragged ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... accustomed to such pictures. He would feel hunger and cold. Physical discomfort would overwhelm mental agony. If a biscuit shot out from the pocket of a corpse, wouldn't the living hand grab for it in brute greediness? ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Zokitarezoul, and he took upon himself to restore them. It is true, that his Scheme ruined some Families; but besides that their Number was but small, and their Ruin rather owing to their inconsiderate Greediness, such a desperate Distemper could not have been well removed by a ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon
... underrate their own powers, inattention to studies, want of application, power to learn too easily, lack of retentive memory, exaggeration and boldness, bad temper, sullenness, disposition to quarrel, cowardice, cruelty, caprice as distinct from versatility, selfishness, greediness, laziness, and its various causes, and generally the germs of all faults and vicious propensities, which, if not cured at an early age, would ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... far as rank was concerned, for it would never do to give a common person even approximately as much as a cabecilla. One rancheria would take all red beads, another white, another blue, and so on. Not once did I see a trace of greediness or even eagerness, though interest was marked. The whole thing was conducted in the most orderly fashion, the various rancherias awaiting their ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... plunderer than as a fighter, and now his sole end and aim was the conveying of his precious booty and his precious body as speedily as possible to some place of security before he should be overtaken. But by means of this very booty with which in his greediness he had overloaded himself, and the keeping of which he had far more at heart than the maintaining of his own or his country's honor, he was fated in the end to overwhelm himself with ruin and disgrace, since, by the unwieldy clog thus laid upon ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... exile (who was labouring to disturb the general tranquillity in that province), before his enterprise could become dangerous. He also delivered Africa from great dangers at a time when it was thrown into confusion by an unexpected disaster: when Firmus, unable to bear the greediness and arrogance of the soldiers, was exciting the people of Mauritania to every kind of discord and disturbance. With similar resolution would he have avenged the disasters sustained in Illyricum, had he not left that important duty ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... satisfaction with which the Indians fell upon the half-finished supper. They caused it to vanish with astonishing celerity, and resembled wolves rather than human beings in their greediness. ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... themselves not very easy to answer, but what was a more serious obstacle than the argumentative puzzles of partisans was a want of moral and political courage; was the sycophancy of one class, and the greediness ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... were much oppressed by the Manjour officials, who displayed great rapacity in collecting tribute. It was no unusual occurrence for a native to be tied up and whipped to compel him to bring out all his treasures. The Goldees call the Manjours 'rats,' in consequence of their greediness ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... the pardon for the base gratifications of taste, greediness, too great a desire for wine, or for sweets; but especially the forgiveness for sins of the tongue, that universally guilty member, the provoker, the poisoner, the inventor of quarrels, the inciter to wars, which makes one utter words ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... you can.' The boy looked very silly, and turned away without offering a word, for I believe I might speak pretty sharp; and I dare say it will cure him of coming marauding about the house for one while. I hate such greediness—so good as your father is to the family, employing the man all the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... aspirations,—the same ardent desire to improve their condition; the same wishes for what they have not; the same indifference towards what they have; the same restless love of social superiority; the same greediness of acquisition; the same desire to know; the same impatience of all ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that she from reason wandered wide, And termed her project sudden and unsound; Nor deemed her less to blame than those who hide, Through greediness, their treasure under ground, And keep it from the use of all beside, Though hence no profit to themselves redound. Rightly were prisoned lion, snake, and bear, But ill whate'er ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... cool shadow and the green lights and the fragrant mellow scents of the woods about them; while their horses slouched along on the turf, switching their tails and even stopping sometimes for a second in a kind of desperate greediness to snatch a green juicy mouthful at ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... bread, and rubbed the crusty part of it with the bit of garlic, till it looked as polished as a new dining-table. That done, he turned the bread, crumb uppermost, and saturated it with oil, added a few drops of vinegar, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and, with a gleam of something very like greediness in his bright eyes, took up the knife to cut himself a first mouthful of the horrible mess that he had just concocted. "The best of breakfasts," said the Professor, seeing me look amazed. "Not a cannibal meal of chicken-life in embryo (vulgarly ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... you never think of the duties of your profession, that you wallow in greediness and drunkenness, and let ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... greediness he snapped at his shadow to get the other piece of meat, and dropped his own. Suppose I try to catch that other vessel and the crew prove too strong for me, ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than of our own. Man can in nothing fix himself to his actual necessity: of pleasure, wealth, and power, he grasps at more than he can hold; his greediness is incapable of moderation. And I find that in curiosity of knowing he is the same; he cuts himself out more work than he can do, and more than he needs to do: extending the utility of knowledge to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... more rapacious. And while they count on each side Dukes, Earls and Barons in their genealogy, the very wealth with which, through your means, they project the support of their insolence, and which they will grasp with all the greediness of avarice, they will think honoured by being employed in their service, while the instrument, all amiable as she is, by which they attain it, will be constantly held down as the ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... changes its idiom; at the end of a thousand years the writings made in any language can only be read with difficulty; after two thousand years none of these writings will be understood. Besides wars, vandalism, the greediness of tyrants and of those who guide religious opinions, who always rely on the ignorance of the human race and are supported by it, how many are the causes, as proved by history and the sciences, of epochs after ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... their friends, was increased tenfold by the practices of public nurses: for being hardened to affliction by nature of their employment, and incapable of remorse for crime by reason of their vileness, they were guilty of many barbarous usages. "These wretches," says Dr. Hodges, "out of greediness to plunder the dead, would strangle their patients, and charge it to the distemper in their throats. Others would secretly convey the pestilential taint from sores of the infected to those who were well; and nothing indeed ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... evil for evil; because a man may forgive an injury, but he must never forget a good turn. He that refuses to do good to them whom he is bound to love, or to love that which did him good, is unnatural and monstrous in his affections, and thinks all the world born to minister to him; with a greediness worse than that of the sea, which, although it receives all rivers into itself, yet it furnishes the clouds and springs with a return of all they need. Our duty to those who are our benefactors is, to esteem and love their persons, to make them proportionable ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... is the cassia's cool shade. While I pour vinegar and ground ginger, I feel from joy as if I would go mad. With so much gluttony the prince's grandson eats his crabs that he should have some wine. The side-walking young gentleman has no intestines in his frame at all. I lose sight in my greediness that in my stomach cold accumulates. To my fingers a strong smell doth adhere and though I wash them yet the smell clings fast. The main secret of this is that men in this world make much of food. The ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the Cedars as soon as she could shake the dust off her feet, and see nothing more of the Balls. Even the Rubb connection seemed to her to be better than the Ball connection, and less exaggerated in its greediness. Were it not for her cousin John, she would have resolved to go on the morrow. She would have faced the indignation of her aunt, and the cutting taunts of her uncle, and have taken herself off ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... you need not to doubt; And my coming hither was to find you out, That at my elbow you might be in readiness, To help, if need were, in this weighty business. To tell you the story it were but too tedious, How the Pope and I together have devised, Firstly to inveigle the people religious, For greediness of gain who will be soon pressed: And, for fear lest hereafter they should be despised, Of their own freewill will maintain Hypocrisy, So that Avarice alone shall conquer the clergy. Now, of the chiefest of his carnal cardinals He doth appoint certain, and give them authority To ride ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... of botany, which was a great danger to the company. He knew, he thought, the uses, medicinal or otherwise, of all plants, herbs and fruit, wild or not wild. This, in addition to the greediness of the men—who, although actually gorged with food, were always willing to devour anything else they found—led once or twice, as we shall see, to the poisoning of himself and his companions so dangerously as not only to cause ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... is as natural, and therefore as much implanted by God, as the hunger of the body. Neither must be gratified unlawfully; but when God sends food to either we should accept it thankfully, without either asceticism or greediness, and use the strength it gives us as a means of service. Does not the essence of the wrong sort of love consist in our looking on the affection we receive, or crave for, as a self-ending pleasure, instead of as a gift which is only sent to us to make us happier, ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... their own land, the fleece was not given to Athamas and Ino. The other people took it, for they said, "It is quite right that we should have it, to make up for all our trouble in helping to get it." So, with all their greediness, these wretched people remained as poor and as miserable ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... when he had become a changed man, and repented of his former greediness, he let out the story bit by bit to be a lesson to others, until his friends and neighbours, who loved to listen to anything about fairies, had gathered it all as I have told it to you here. And you may be quite sure it is all true, for the old man was not ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... sees very far. But I can tell him of greater evils yet behind. There is one possibility of wickedness, which, at this alarming crisis, has not yet been mentioned. Every one knows the malice, the subtlety, the industry, the vigilance, and the greediness of the Scots. The Scotch members are about the number sufficient to make a house. I propose it to the consideration of the supporters of the bill of rights, whether there is not reason to suspect ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... looked at the sky instead. And watching the white clouds so bright against the intense blue, Ashurst, on his silver-wedding day, longed for—he knew not what. Maladjusted to life—man's organism! One's mode of life might be high and scrupulous, but there was always an, undercurrent of greediness, a hankering, and sense of waste. Did women have it too? Who could tell? And yet, men who gave vent to their appetites for novelty, their riotous longings for new adventures, new risks, new pleasures, these suffered, no doubt, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nodded. "That is so, when shareholders must be satisfied. Well, I expect I'm lucky because my partner's a good sort. When you needn't bother about other folk's greediness, you can take a cautious line. Now I come to think of it, I heard some of your people grumbling. I hope your boat will get across ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind; having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who, being past feeling, have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... a baby that he had seen: "I know, because I have seen, jealousy in a babe. It could not speak, yet it eyed its foster-brother with pale cheeks and looks of hate." Children are already men. The egoism and greediness of the grown man may be already ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... that there came to the surface of her character a trait that was not beautiful. She developed a love of money, a passion for material things. This definite greediness declared itself in her only now that she was poor and solitary. Probably it had always existed in her, but had been hidden. She hid it no longer. She tacitly proclaimed it, and she ordered her life so that ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... enter four ships to one at any other port; speculators of all grades and greediness flocked to meet them; and money was poured into the once-quiet town by the million. And, with tastes restricted elsewhere, these alien crowds reveled in foreign delicacies, edibles and liquors, of which every cargo was largely made up. The lowest attache of a blockade-runner became a ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... settled himself at the other end of the sofa and fell upon the chicken with extraordinary greediness; at the same time he kept a constant watch on his victim. Kirillov looked at him fixedly with angry aversion, as though unable ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... by reason of having to care for that daikon; and you persuaded your companions to go with you, and to gather upon the leaves of that daikon, and on the leaves of other vegetables planted by those poor people. Out of your greediness you ravaged those leaves, and gnawed them into all shapes of ugliness,—caring nothing for the trouble of those poor folk... Yes, such a creature you were, and ...
— Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things • Lafcadio Hearn
... of all your evils is in the sinfulness of the nation. The principle of duty is weakened among you; that of moral obligation is loosened; that of religious obedience is destroyed. Look at the worldliness of all classes—the greediness of the rich, the misery of the poor, and the appalling depravity which is spreading among the lower classes through town and country; a depravity which proceeds unchecked because of the total want of discipline, and for which there is no other corrective ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... by William Charles for "Little Nancy, or, the Punishment of Greediness," published in Philadelphia by Morgan & ...
— Forgotten Books of the American Nursery - A History of the Development of the American Story-Book • Rosalie V. Halsey
... lord of that fair estate and many others in that dim time centuries before the building of the villa. Atlas was he named not at his baptism, but half in admiration, half in derision by his mates, for his burliness of body and his inordinate greediness of all kinds, for he coveted, say they, the entire earth, clutched at a mighty part thereof, and ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... little. But greediness is not an Italian fault. No greedy people would have a five-syllabled word ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... following day, Clapperton returned the visit of Mahomed Gomsoo, the chief of the Arabs, of whose excessive greediness he had been warned at Kano, but at the same time recommended to make him a handsome present, and to endeavour by all means to keep him in good humour, on account of his great influence. On receiving the presents, Gomsoo promised to give Clapperton a letter to the sultan of Youri, who was ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... either about his meat, or about the workmanship, or colour of his clothes, or about anything that belonged to external beauty. In all his conversation, far from all inhumanity, all boldness, and incivility, all greediness and impetuosity; never doing anything with such earnestness, and intention, that a man could say of him, that he did sweat about it: but contrariwise, all things distinctly, as at leisure; without trouble; orderly, soundly, and agreeably. ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... you must guard against the sin of greediness, and especially on the night of the Nativity. Quickly, now, light the candles and sound the first bell for Mass; midnight is very near, and we must ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... his treasure, was the feat of a moment. The brat's clamour drew out the father; and to him Beck (pocketing the coral, that its golden bells might not attract the more experienced eye and influence the more formidable greediness of the paternal thief) loudly, and at first fearlessly, appealed. Him he charged and accused and threatened with all vengeance, human and divine. Then, changing his tone, he implored, he wept, he knelt. As soon ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... He was not sure they wouldn't continue to chew their cud amidst their bovine dreams. Each cow was already balloon-like, but the inflation was still going on. And each beast was still ready to horn the others off in its greediness. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... of dyspepsia of the soul, which cannot digest ordinary meats, and tries to feed on spiced dreams, highly seasoned thoughts; it is then want of appetite for wholesome meals which has begotten this greediness for strange dishes, this trouble of the mind, this wish to escape from myself, and jump were it but for a moment over the permitted ...
— En Route • J.-K. (Joris-Karl) Huysmans
... sleep. He awoke in a high fever and delirious. Some days later he came to himself, rose and went out. It was eight o'clock, and the sun had disappeared. The heat was as intolerable as before, but he inhaled the dusty, fetid, infected town air with greediness. And now his head began to spin round, and a wild expression of energy crept into his inflamed eyes and pale, meager, wan face. He did not know, did not even think, what he was going to do; he only knew that ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... huge whale off the Bampton Shoals, was of a reddish-brown, with here and there almost true circular blotches of pure white. This poor fellow was twelve feet in length, and his death was caused by his frantic greediness to get at the whale and take his toll of blubber. The whale was struck late in the day, and the sea was so rough that the officer in charge, after having twice tried to get up and use his lance, determined to end the matter with a bomb before darkness ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... inasmuch as an honest and incorruptible man was not praised for these virtues, but rather drew upon himself the suspicion of envying others for their increasing their possessions, and of wishing to prevent them from becoming rich by the base means which in their greediness they considered to be fair. [78] Operae pretium est, 'it is worth while (properly "the labour has its reward") to compare the extensive country-houses of our present aristocracy with the small temples of the gods ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... wonder, and when I do that I don't generally want any more for some time. By home I mean at my grandad's, where they always have seven or eight courses, and I can't resist any of them. I lose my self respect, but satisfy my voracity, which has the effect of improving the greediness out of my mind. But I am in a hurry this evening, and I have already outstayed my time. I only came in for a moment to ask you if you ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... in the habit of snatching away his dinner, and allowed him no peace of his life. Upon hearing this the Argonauts spread a plentiful feast on the seashore, well knowing from what the blind king said of their greediness that the Harpies would snuff up the scent of the victuals and quickly come to steal them away. And so it turned out, for hardly was the table set before the three hideous vulture-women came flapping their ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various
... not the greediness of the belly nor lust of the flesh take hold of me; and give not over me thy ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... to the means of defence and means of escape,—in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger,—in the midst of houses, yet having no home,—among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist,—I say, let him be placed in this ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... enabled me to remark that Bertha (they had called her Bertha) seemed to recognize the various dishes, and to prefer some to others. At that time she was twelve years old, but as fully formed in figure as a girl of eighteen, and taller than I was. Then the idea struck me of developing her greediness, and by this means of cultivating some slight power of discrimination in her mind, and to force her, by the diversity of flavors, if not to reason, at any rate to arrive at instinctive distinctions, which would of themselves constitute ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... their characters. Cornelis and Sybrandt clutched each his coin with one glare of greediness and another glare of envy at Kate, who had got two pieces. Giles seized his and rolled it along the floor and gambolled after it. Kate put down her crutches and sat down, and held out her little arms to Gerard with a heavenly gesture of love and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... of the struggle for existence, natural selection, and the survival of the fittest, fairly intoxicated the Germans from the first. These theories fell in well with their militarism and their natural cruelty and greediness. Their philosophers took them up eagerly. Weissmann fairly made a god of natural selection, as did other German thinkers. And when they were ready for war, the Germans at once applied the law of the jungle to human affairs. The great law of evolution, the triumph of the strong, the supremacy ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... comes of greediness and of trying to be too clever. Now, perhaps, you will learn to stop ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... thing but the worst bread, and oil, or soups made of the wild herbs, of which tyranny cannot deprive them. Notwithstanding the wretchedness in which they are left by the government, they have still to satisfy the greediness of their priests, but these contributions they pay with cheerfulness. Many of the convents indeed are too rich to require their assistance, but those which are poor, together with all the parish priests and church officers, live upon the people. Such is the condition of this Christian ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... as a concrete term, has, or may have, a corresponding abstract term. Sometimes the concrete term is modified to form the abstract, as 'greedy—greediness'; sometimes a word is adapted from another language, as 'man—humanity'; sometimes a composite term is used, as 'mercury—the nature of mercury,' etc. The same concrete may have several abstract correlatives, as 'man—manhood, humanity, human nature'; 'heavy—weight, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... being pretty well satisfied by them of the real truth of the case, and that Mr Fitzpatrick was no thief, she was at length prevailed on to set some cold meat before them, which they were devouring with great greediness, when Partridge came into the kitchen. He had been first awaked by the hurry which we have before seen; and while he was endeavouring to compose himself again on his pillow, a screech-owl had given him such a serenade at his window, that he leapt ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... "the recital would be too painful for your hearing, and that of this noble assemblage. But I will, in a word, declare that there is no kind of outrage, oppression, and extortion of which they have not been guilty. Their insatiable greediness has been fed by constant plunder; and, alike cruel and rapacious, nothing but the ruin and absolute destruction of their victims would content them. Merciless as creditors, they have ground their unfortunate debtors to the dust. The tears of the widow they have robbed of her husband ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... have done enough to have it thought; 800 And that's as good as if w' had done't, And easier pass't upon account: For if it be but half deny'd, 'Tis half as good as justifi'd. The world is nat'rally averse 805 To all the truth it sees or hears But swallows nonsense, and a lie, With greediness and gluttony And though it have the pique, and long, 'Tis still for something in the wrong; 810 As women long, when they're with child, For things extravagant and wild; For meats ridiculous and fulsome, But seldom any thing that's wholesome; And, like the world, men's jobbernoles 815 Turn round ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... needle, and thread. Then she cut the wolf's body open, and no sooner had she made one snip than out came the head of one of the kids, and then another snip, and then one after the other of the six little kids all jumped out alive and well, for in his greediness the rogue had swallowed them down whole. How delightful this was! so they comforted their dear mother and hopped about like ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... reactions. You can't count on them as you can on chemicals. I suppose that merely means that one doesn't know them so well. They are far harder to know; there is a queer element of muddle about them that baffles one. You never know when greediness—the main element in most of us—will stop working, checked by something else, some finer, quite different motive force. And them checking that again, comes strong emotion, such as love or hate, overthrowing everything and making chaos. Of course, you ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... much he cared; then she hastened to reassure him. "But do not trouble yourself over that. Even though I go with him, it will do no harm. If he tries to marry me to anyone, I will pretend that I think the marriage beneath me. I will work upon his greediness, and so trick him into waiting; and in a year you will come and ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... I shall now tell thee of that assemblage of qualities which springs from Tamas. They are stupefaction of judgment, obscuration of every faculty, darkness and blind darkness. By darkness is implied death, and by blind darkness is meant wrath. Besides these, the other indications of Tamas are greediness in respect of all kinds of food, ceaseless appetite for both food and drink, taking pleasure in scents and robes and sports and beds and seats and sleep during the day and calumny and all kinds of acts proceeding from heedlessness, taking pleasure, from ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... mere motive of interest, independent of the lofty and honourable principle of keeping a clan together, to be in readiness to serve his king. I added, that I could not help thinking a little arbitrary power in the sovereign, to control the bad policy and greediness of the Chiefs, might sometimes be of service. In France a Chief would not be permitted to force a number of the king's subjects out of the country. Dr. Johnson concurred with me, observing, that 'were an oppressive chieftain a subject of the French king, he would ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... remained, they enjoyed sea-stores, which to them were real luxuries, but now they had little whereupon to feast, except a miserable compound of wheat and barley boiled with water, and even to the larger portion of this the worms successfully laid claim. Crabs and oysters were sought with indolent greediness, and this unwholesome fare, with the increasing heats of the season, produced sickness, which preyed rapidly on their strength. The rank vegetation of the country pleased the eye, but it was fatal to the health. In ten ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... abuse the masters and justly, for their greediness, they ought not to imitate their greediness by driving their poor little children into unhealthy trades, and so destroying them body and soul. This practice robs the children of education at the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... the brandy, and their mean rascality was shown by some seizing the glass and covering it with the full hand to conceal their greediness. Nobbler-drinking is an old colonial habit; it gives pluck to the coward when he is 'up to something;' so happened it ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... it—I mean, the things you discussed with Mamma. You imagine, I dare say, that I selfishly objected to what she was doing. Nothing of the kind. I didn't quite see why she had kept it from me, that was all. It was as if she felt afraid of my greediness. But I'm not greedy; I don't think I'm more selfish than ordinary people. And I think Mamma is doing exactly what she ought; I'm very glad she felt about ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... a kind of law, to relate these particulars with a scrupulous accuracy; and to dwell gravely on a tedious detail of trifling and ridiculous ceremonies, such as the flight of birds to the right or left hand, signs discovered in the smoking entrails of beasts, the greater or less greediness of chickens in pecking corn, and a thousand ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... my cloths would cover him, and his biggest wife too all over, he laughed at this, but still held out; and as we have meat, and he sent maize and calabashes, I went away. He turns round now, and puts the blame of greediness on me. I cannot enter into his ideas, or see his point of view; cannot, in fact, enter into his ignorance, his prejudices, or delusions, so it is impossible to pronounce a true judgment. One who has no humour cannot ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... form their character and train their intellect. This good lady, in whose name Mary sermonizes, seizes upon every event of the day to teach her charges a moral lesson. The defects she attacks are those most common to childhood. Cruelty to animals, peevishness, lying, greediness, indolence, procrastination, are in turn censured, and their opposite virtues praised. Some of the definitions of the qualities commended are excellent. For example, Mrs. Mason says to the ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... Bishop of Rome is so exceeding and outrageous, that it could not well be uttered with other words, or more mildly. For he is not ashamed to say in open assembly, "that all jurisdiction of all kings doth depend upon himself." And to feed his ambition and greediness of rule, he hath pulled in pieces the "empire of Rome," and vexed and rent whole Christendom asunder. Falsely and traitorously also did he release the Romans, the Italians, and himself too, of the oath whereby ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... aiming at great objects: and so he pacified the barbarians with money, and hurrying into Iberia, got possession of the country. He there found nations strong in numbers and fighting men, but owing to the greediness and tyranny of the governors who had from time to time been sent among them, ill-disposed to the Roman administration in general; however, he regained the good will of the chiefs by his personal intercourse with them, and the favour of the mass by remission of taxes. But ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... being punished for his greediness," your Aunt Amy replied; "but it isn't well to rejoice while others are in trouble, even when they brought it upon themselves, as did Mr. Gander. Suppose you repeat Mr. ...
— The Gray Goose's Story • Amy Prentice
... the gardener, under the brick, and was given to the black cat to eat. Now had he minded what his mother had told him the day before, he would have been alive and frisking about with the rest. See, Alfred, what comes of disobedience and greediness." said his mother. "Yes, mamma, (said Alfred) I will remember how poor Whitefoot was served, and not disobey you, though you know, I could not be killed by a brick trap as he was." "No, Alfred, but you might get hurt in a hundred different ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... foes; F. cinerea is bold and audacious; others are termed "thieves" and "cowards"; some are phlegmatic; and to complete the list of failings and traits which are human enough in character, one species is said to present an invariable greediness as its prevailing characteristic. The common ants resemble the termites in the general details of their life. We see in an ant's nest the same restless activity of the workers, the same earnest attention paid to the young and pupae, the same instinct in shielding the young from danger, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... Accomplishment, and the Poor, who studied it for a Livelihood. The first they instructed out of Interest, and the latter out of Charity, if they discovered a singular Talent. Very few modern Masters refuse Scholars; and, provided they are paid, little do they care if their greediness ...
— Observations on the Florid Song - or Sentiments on the Ancient and Modern Singers • Pier Francesco Tosi
... Errington included a definite indifference to the sufferings of those less fortunate than herself. Legacies came to her as often as mendicants to Victor Hugo's Bishop of D——. She received them with a quiet greediness so prettily concealed at first that nobody called it vulgar. As time went on this greediness grew to gluttony. Mrs. Errington began to feel that fatal influence which came upon the man who built walls with his gold, and each ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... and stole tiger-striped horses sacred [Footnote: Supplying [Greek: therous] (Reiske's conjecture).] to the Sun God from the island in the Red Sea. This mere statement, I think, must instantly make plain all his officiousness and greediness. Yet, on second thought, I will add one thing more. At home he castrated one hundred nobly born Roman citizens, though none of us knew of it until after he was dead. From this fact one may comprehend the extent alike of his lawlessness ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... Lord, Father and God of my life, Give me not a proud look, And turn away concupiscence from me. Let not greediness and chambering overtake me, And give me not over to a ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... Naples. "Naples was beautiful, yes; but one always loves one's own country the best." She was very attentive and good, but at the end was rapacious of more and more buonamano. "Have patience with her, sir," said the blameless Antonino, who witnessed her greediness; "they do not understand certain matters ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... work as nature has ordained it; and this ordinance he does accept, if he puts forth no positive volition the other way, whether expressly, as none but a wrong-headed theologian is likely to do, or virtually, by taking his pleasure with such greediness that the motion of his will is all spent therein as in its last end and terminus, so that the pleasure ceases to be referable to aught beyond itself, a case of much easier occurrence. Or lastly, the natural subordination of ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... disposed of at auction. The Eastern people had caught the mania. Every vessel coming west was loaded with them, their money and means, bound for Chicago, the great fairy-land of fortunes. But as enough did not come to satisfy the insatiable greediness of the Chicago sharpers and speculators, they frequently consigned their wares to Eastern markets. In fact, lands and town lots were the staple of the country, and were the only article of export." The contagion spread ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... I told my mother all that had happened, and she declared that my little sister should have no dessert for two days. Regina was greedy, but her pride was greater than her greediness. She turned round on her little heels and, dancing her jig, began to sing, "My little stomach isn't at all pleased," until I wanted to rush at her ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... that is the meaning of the wild and startled look that the creatures of the forest wear; and it is a very tragic thing indeed to realize, and makes one full of mercy. If he knows his own heart he can read the same thing in the faces of men, and he no longer even laughs at their pride and their greediness, but sees them quite infinitely wretched and pitiable. I do not speak merely of the poor and hopeless people, the hunted creatures of society; for this terror is not merely physical. It is the same imperative ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... to whom money had given rank. The ruling lords stood aloof from the speculators; and were better friends of the people than the new moneyed aristocrats, since they, brought directly in contact with the people, oppressed them, and their greediness and injustice were not usually countenanced by the Senate. The two classes of nobles had united to put down Tiberius Gracchus; but a deep gulf still yawned between them, for no class of aristocrats was ever more exclusive than the governing class ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... of Westminster hall, and daily committed excesses which the most distinguished royalists have warmly condemned. We are informed by Clarendon that there was hardly a man of note in the realm who had not personal experience of the harshness and greediness of the Star-chamber, that the High Commission had so conducted itself that it had scarce a friend left in the kingdom, and that the tyranny of the Council of York had made the Great Charter a dead letter on the north of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... her maternal self-sacrifice. The baby, Milita, who attracted attention because of her whiteness and ruddiness, had the strength that her mother lacked. The greediness of this strong, enslaving creature had absorbed all ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... true God was followed—as all ignorance of him is apt to be—by great wickedness in their practice. They were "given over" on this account, as St. Paul, the inspired apostle, declares, "to a reprobate mind; to work all uncleanness with greediness." They learned to confound good and evil; vices were then commonly practised, such as are not named among Christians. False principles and false maxims of every kind abounded. Slavery prevailed, even in the most civilized ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... greater part of it, at least), for lack of her usual source of excitement; and how often she regretted having 'used him up so soon,' like a child that, having devoured its plumcake too hastily, sits sucking its fingers, and vainly lamenting its greediness. ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... not blow a thing to cool it, is not only that it is an inelegant and vulgar action intrinsically, but because it may be offensive to others—cannot help being so, indeed; and it, moreover implies, haste, which, whether from greediness or a desire to get away, is equally objectionable. Everything else may be as easily traced to its origin in the fit ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... Only my tongue is dumb. What aim is there in business? Money? I have plenty of it! I could choke you to death with it, cover you with it. All this business is nothing but fraud. I meet business people—well, and what about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. Try to free them from this bustle—what will happen? Like blind men they will grope about hither ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... give to his Judge, needs not fear, be his Cause right or wrong. Because of the corruption of the great Men, and their greediness of Bribes. ...
— An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies • Robert Knox
... away the soul, ravishes it, and renders it idle. It cannot help being sensible of its peace, and it desires to be always alone. It has again acquired a spiritual greediness. To rob it of solitude is to rob it of life. It is still more selfish than before, what it possesses being more delightful. It seems to be in a new rest. It is going along calmly, when all at once it comes to another descent, steeper and longer than the former ...
— Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... animate her dying tongue. She avowed the religion she had so long concealed; renounced all hope and aid which did not come by and through its dictates; rejected with contempt the ceremonial of the Romish church; loaded the astonished priests with reproaches for their greediness and hypocrisy, and commanded them to leave her house. They went in bitterness and rage, but it was to return with the inquisitorial power, its warrants, and its officers; and they found only the cold corpse ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... declined to let any one have it. Each one evinced his earnestness by taking hold of my baggage while asking for it. After taking turns at their chances in this way for a while, at the same time crowding the path in front of me so that I could not proceed, one of them in his greediness almost tore my satchel out of my hands, I responded to his supplication with such a tremendous no, that the next fellow assumed a stooping posture and asked me in a whisper! These people deserve our pity rather ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... for these little stratagems utterly disgusts me. I would so willingly reverence and trust any man of high standing and ability. I am so utterly unable to comprehend this petty greediness. And yet withal you will smile at my perversity. I have a certain pleasure in overcoming these obstacles, and fighting these folks with their own weapons. I do so long to be able to trust men implicitly. I have such a horror of all this literary ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... scene that clearly showed us the coarse cunning, greediness and cowardice of a low-class Hindu, of an outcast, as they are ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... bread and butter. Whether it was a sense of his goodness or my own greediness that prompted me I know not, but I pushed my half eaten egg across to him and begged him to finish it. He looked queerly ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... the greediness with which this little bait was swallowed, tested the extent of Mrs Wititterly's appetite for adulation, proceeded to administer that commodity in very large doses, thus affording to Sir Mulberry Hawk an opportunity of pestering Miss Nickleby with questions and remarks, to which she was absolutely ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... course, preying on the weak. Certain it is they are driven to any extremity for food, and eat every insect, and every creeping thing, however loathsome and repulsive. Snails, lizards, ants— all are devoured with the readiness and greediness of mere animals. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... that hour; but it was transitory. On the morning of the 16th, some friends, or what is still more odious, some Refugees, cast into the Prison yard a quantity of warm bread, and it was devoured with greediness. The prison gate was opened, we marched out about the number of 250. Those belonging to the North and Eastern States were conducted to the North River and driven on board the flag ship, and landed at Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Those who ate of ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... plains along the Tola, where his bones will dry beneath the rays of Nature's dissipating fire and be scattered by her winds over the sands of the prairie? It is splendid, this indifference of Nature to death, and her greediness for life! ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... all their greediness and eagerness, they left ten feet square untouched on each side ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... is characterised and tainted by a devouring greediness of wealth; and a cause which asserts right against wealth, must stir up bitter opposition, especially in cities where this divinity is most adored." "The passion for gain is every where sapping pure and generous feeling, and every where raises ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... silvers whitely to the moon, one sees them whisking to and fro on innumerable errands of seed gathering, but the chief witnesses of their presence near the spring are the elf owls. Those burrow-haunting, speckled fluffs of greediness begin a twilight flitting toward the spring, feeding as they go on grasshoppers, lizards, and small, swift creatures, diving into burrows to catch field mice asleep, battling with chipmunks at their own doors, and getting down in great numbers toward the long juniper. ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... good proof of your greediness to devour my labours, and I will dish up such a meal for you in my next volume, as shall go nigh to produce extermination by surfeit. One favour, alone, I crave—give me abuse enough; let no squeamish pretences of respect ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... for a long Time been the Diversion and Amusement of the whole World; the People both in the City and at Court have given themselves over to this Vice, and all Sorts of People have read these Works with a most surprizing Greediness; but that Fury is very much abated, and they are all fallen off from this Distraction: The Little Histories of this Kind have taken Place of Romances, whose Prodigious Number of Volumes were sufficient to tire and satiate such whose Heads ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... first rank had ever been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. At a later period, when he possessed an ample fortune, he was one of the most liberal of men; but till his means had become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He had the effrontery to ask for a thousand louis more, in order to enable him to bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in his company. The indelicate rapacity of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so bad with me, as that I needed to solicit surety for thirty pounds: yet partly from the greediness that extravagance always produces, and partly from a desire of seeing the humour of a petty usurer, a character of which I had hitherto lived in ignorance, I condescended to listen to his terms. He proceeded to inform me of my great felicity in not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... were caught through their own folly and greediness, but the captain showed himself to be a man of undaunted courage, and full of resources. "Hold on!" he sung out, before a sheet was hauled in. "We may lose our sticks if we attempt to run. I'll try ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... was not the result of some momentary pique, to infer that she really gave him up to Thomasin, would have required previous knowledge of her transfiguration by that man's influence. Who was to know that she had grown generous in the greediness of a new passion, that in coveting one cousin she was dealing liberally with another, that in her eagerness to ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... all pleased to see him notwithstanding, for I am sorry to say that Don's greediness had so grown upon him of late that he was actually afraid that his humble friend (who was a little slow to find out when he wasn't wanted) would accompany him on to the steamboat, and then of course the good things would have to ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... drift into the gentle and devious stream of inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to assert that there is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all things than, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... deceiving my tutor, my masters, my parents, from love of play, eagerness to see vain shows and restlessness to imitate them! Thefts also I committed, from my parents' cellar and table, enslaved by greediness, or that I might have to give to boys, who sold me their play, which all the while they liked no less than I. In this play, too, I often sought unfair conquests, conquered myself meanwhile by vain desire of preeminence. And what could I so ill endure, or, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... their carriage, if they have one. Moreover, the hold of the plant on the light, sandy soil is very slight; and the careless gatherer, not provided with knife or scissors, will almost invariably pull the root with the flower, thus totally annihilating that plant. When one witnesses such greediness, and remembers that these vandals are in general on the wing, and cannot stay to enjoy what they have rifled, but will leave it all to be thrown out by hotel servants the next morning, he cannot wonder at the indignation ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... in the exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the poor, pressed him to succor the commonwealth and compose the differences. Solon, reluctantly at first, engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and the greediness of the other; he was chosen archon, however, after Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest. There was a saying of his current before ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch |
