"Usury" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... It is, therefore, not from treasuries and mines, but from the food of your unpaid armies, from the blood withheld from the veins and whipped out of the backs of the most miserable of men, that we are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, under the false names of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... N. debt, obligation, liability, indebtment^, debit, score. bill; check; account (credit) 805. arrears, deferred payment, deficit, default, insolvency &c (nonpayment) 808; bad debt. interest; premium; usance^, usury; floating debt, floating capital. debtor, debitor^; mortgagor; defaulter &c 808; borrower. V. be in debt &c adj.; owe; incur a debt, contract a debt &c n.; run up a bill, run up a score, run up an account; go on tick; borrow &c 788; run into debt, get into debt, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... one natural, that which is pursued for the sake of a livelihood, the other unnatural, that which is pursued for the sake of accumulation. "The motive of this latter," he says, "is a desire for life instead of for good life"; and its most hateful method is that of usury, the unnatural breeding of money out of money. And though he rejects as impracticable the compulsory communism of Plato's "Republic", yet he urges as the ideal solution that property, while owned by individuals, should be held as in trust for the common good; ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... proposed that Tom should start a loan office in Boston and use Kidd's money in exacting usury. This suited Tom, who promised to screw four per cent. a month out of the unfortunates who might ask his aid, and he was seen to start for town with a bag which his neighbors thought to hold his crop of starveling turnips, but ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... made me more irritable; and when I got into my own house, I was ready to find fault with everything, and to vent the bitterness of my spirit on my poor little wife. But, to my surprise, she did not answer me back, far less repay my disparaging remarks with usury, which she might very well have done, and would have done a few days before. I could not help seeing, too, that she had been taking pains to make the room look tidier than usual. My supper was ready for me, my slippers set by the fender, and ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... of assailing their honour or good fame; of restraining or obstructing others in the exercise of their rights, or in the use and enjoyment of their properties; of practising deceptions, impositions, frauds, and all forms of insincerity, usury, extortions, and violence; of laying obstructions in the way of the weak or helpless; of giving false testimony; of speaking untruth; of reporting even truth, when it may lead to discord and strife; of occasioning danger; ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... over-rul'd, That laws were broke, tribunes with consuls strove, Sale made of offices, and people's voices 180 Bought by themselves and sold, and every year Frauds and corruption in the Field of Mars; Hence interest and devouring usury sprang, Faith's breach, and hence came war, to most men welcome. Now Caesar overpass'd the snowy Alps; His mind was troubled, and he aim'd at war: And coming to the ford of Rubicon, At night in dreadful vision fearful[594] Rome Mourning appear'd, whose hoary ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... the curia was this very Cardinal Ugolini. Almost a septuagenarian in 1216 he inspired awe at first sight by the aspect of his person. He had that singular beauty which distinguishes the old who have escaped the usury of life; pious, enlightened, energetic, he felt himself made for great undertakings. There is something in him which recalls Cardinal Lavigerie and all the prelates whose red robes cover a soldier or a despot rather than ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... wrongs, or had crossed the sea and joined the standard of William. Their place was supplied by men who had long suffered oppression, and who, finding themselves suddenly transformed from slaves into masters, were impatient to pay back, with accumulated usury, the heavy debt of injuries and insults. The new soldiers, it was said, never passed an Englishman without cursing him and calling him by some foul name. They were the terror of every Protestant innkeeper; for, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into noble and serf, such as was coming into vogue along many parts of the coast at the time of the Spanish conquest, neither has slavery ever gained a foothold with this people. The wealthy often loan rice to the poor, and exact usury of about fifty per cent. Payment is made in service during the period of planting and harvesting, so that the labor problem is, to a large extent, solved for the land-holders. However, they customarily join the workers in the fields ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... thou now dost fly; Hope therefore stills the pangs of memory, Which coupled with desire my soul distress. So finding in thee grace to plead for me— Thy thoughts for me sunk in so sad a case— He who now writes, returns thee thanks for these. Lo, it were foul and monstrous usury To send thee ugliest paintings in the place Of ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... but it was not annihilated. She did not derive, as our author chooses to assert, any advantages from the debility of her credit. Its consequence was the natural one: she borrowed; but she borrowed upon bad terms, indeed on the most exorbitant usury. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a righteousness, to say the very least, equal to that in which it was originally created, or it will be cast out as an unprofitable and wicked servant. All the talents entrusted must be returned; and returned with usury. A modern philosopher and poet represents the suicide as justifying the taking of his own life, upon the ground that he was not asked in the beginning, whether he wanted life. He had no choice whether he would come into existence ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... world. That homage has been paid in no stinted measure, and, as the British public has been apprised in rather a startling manner, with a somewhat intoxicating effect. The lords of the Money Power, the thrones and dominions of Usury, have shown themselves as assiduous as ministers and peers; and these potentates happen, like the aristocracy, to be unfriendly to your cause. Caressed by peers and millionnaires, the editor of the "Times" could hardly fail to express the feelings of peers and millionnaires towards a Republic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... overreach you in a bargain, and think it all right. If your business comes in contact with his, he will use every means in his power to break you down, even to the extent of secretly attacking your credit. He will lend his money on usury, and when he has none to lend, will play the jackal to some money-lion, and get a large share of the spoil for himself. And further, if you differ in faith from him, in his heart will send you to hell with as much pleasure as ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... l'Auxerrois, where he had been married. He first acted on commission for the Benedictine-Camalduian fathers of the forest of Senart, who had heard of him as a man wholly given to piety; then, giving himself up to usury, he undertook what is known as "business affairs," a profession which, in such hands, could not fail to be lucrative, being aided by his exemplary morals and honest appearance. It was the more easy for him to impose on others, as he could not be accused of any of the deadly vices which ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... back—but would have to maintain only the former usurer—that is, the present employer—its success would be more certain; the general prosperity of the community would be increased thereby, and there would be therefore more enterprises, more demand for labor, and consequently higher wages. Usury kills off the enterprising members of a community by bankrupting them, and leaves only the very rich and the very poor; for every dollar the employers of labor pay to the lenders of money has to come eventually out of the pockets of the laborers. Usury is therefore ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... talent, he put it out to usury, and it multiplied under the mighty hand of God, so that during his long itinerant ministry, multitudes were led to the Saviour. . . . Those who would be fishers of men will find their souls kindled by the weird narrative of this ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... also that usury is no deadly sin. And they sell benefices of Holy Church. And so do men in other places: God amend it when his will is! And that is great sclaundre, for now is simony king crowned in Holy Church: God amend it ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... is brute stupidity. A few brave souls swagger through their prime with some bravado, knowing the final cost, but willing to pay it by installments through the dribbling years which follow; but the usury of time makes that folly. The wise choke such gypsy impulses—admit the mortgage of the Present to the Future—and surrender the brisk liberty of youth to the limping freedom of old age. But Donaldson was too thoughtful a man to belong to either the first or second class and ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... great rivers and inland seas. Trade and travel began, at first only a trade in adventitious things, in metals and rare objects and luxuries and slaves. With trade came writing and money; the inventions of debt and rent, usury and tribute. History finds already in its beginnings a thin network of trading and slaving flung over the world of the Normal Social Life, a network whose strands are the early roads, whose knots are the first towns ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... words, bad wit! O, where dwells faith or truth? Ill usury my favours reap from thee, Usurping Sol, the hate ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... other way, I would kill him with as little compunction as I would drive a mosquito from my face. It is high time this was said. What grasshoppers we are before the statute of men! what Goliaths against the law of God! What capitalist heeds your statute of usury when he can get illegal interest? How many banks are content with six per cent. when money is scarce? Did you never hear of a merchant evading the duties of the custom-house? When a man's liberty is concerned, we must keep the law, must we? betray the ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... applied, talked now in another dialect both of kings and persons; and said that they must now be of another temper than they were the last Parliament." The debt of vengeance was swollen by all the usury which had been accumulating during many years; and payment ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... enterprise which failed in 1827, leaving him still more embarrassed financially, but endowed with a fund of experience which he turned to rich account as a novelist. Henceforth the sordid world of debt, bankruptcy, usury, and speculation had no mystery for him, and he laid it bare in novel after novel, utilizing also the knowledge he had gained of the law, and even pressing into service the technicalities of the printing office [See 'Illusions perdues' (Lost Illusions)]. But now at the age of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... with prominent business houses in this and other cities. Among the recent letters received in correspondence of this sort are letters from the Secretary of State of every State in the Union with regard to rates of interest and usury laws, and letters from each of our city banks as to methods of reckoning time on paper, the basis of interest calculations, the practices concerning deposit balances, and other business matters subject to change. The aim of the proprietor ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... Prince. But what is the use? We must not have any misunderstandings with him, for we need him. He has this whole region in his pocket and understands electioneering better than any one else. Besides, he is considered well-to-do and lends out money at usury which is contrary to the ordinary practice ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... in me Thoughts—what the daughter of that Man should be, Who call'd our Wordsworth friend. My thoughts did frame A growing Maiden, who, from day to day Advancing still in stature, and in grace, Would all her lonely Father's griefs efface, And his paternal cares with usury pay. I still retain the phantom, as I can; And ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... things, because they are foreign, absent Owe ourselves chiefly and mostly to ourselves Passion has a more absolute command over us than reason Passion has already confounded his judgment Passion of dandling and caressing infants scarcely born Pay very strict usury who did not in due time pay the principal People are willing to be gulled in what they desire People conceiving they have right and title to be judges Perfect friendship I speak of is indivisible Perfect men as they are, they ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... Upon hearing his Name, I knew him to be a Gentle man of a considerable Fortune in this County, but greatly in Debt. What gives the unhappy Man this Peevishness of Spirit is, that his Estate is dipped, and is eating out with Usury; and yet he has not the Heart to sell any Part of it. His proud Stomach, at the Cost of restless Nights, constant Inquietudes, Danger of Affronts, and a thousand nameless Inconveniences, preserves this Canker in his Fortune, rather than ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... giving. No one writes down his gifts in a ledger, or like a grasping creditor demands repayment to the day and hour. A good man never thinks of such matters, unless reminded of them by some one returning his gifts; otherwise they become like debts owing to him. It is a base usury to regard a benefit as an investment. Whatever may have been the result of your former benefits, persevere in bestowing others upon other men; they will be all the better placed in the hands of the ungrateful, whom shame, or a favourable opportunity, or imitation of others may some ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... times worth while to gain wealth by commerce, were it not so perilous; or by usury, were it equally honorable. Our ancestors, however, held, and fixt by law, that a thief should be condemned to restore double, a usurer quadruple. We thus see how much worse they thought it for a citizen to be a money-lender than a thief. Again, when they praised a good man, they praised him ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume II (of X) - Rome • Various
... or the death of his wife, his principal dwelling-house, called Satis, on Boley Hill, with the house adjoining, the closes, orchards, and appurtenances, his plate and his furniture, should be sold, and the proceeds be placed out at usury by the Mayor and citizens of Rochester for the perpetual support of an alms-house then erected and standing near the Market Cross; and how he further ordained that there should be added thereto six rooms, "with a chimney in each," and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... position in a characteristic speech, especially answering General Banks's argument that we should pay this amount from a spirit of friendship for Russia. "If," said General Butler, "we are to pay this price as usury on the friendship of Russia, we are paying for it very dear indeed. If we are to pay for her friendship, I desire to give her the seven million two hundred thousand dollars in cash, and let her keep Alaska, because I think it may be a small sum to give ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... baneful and corroding system, acting almost as prejudicially to the general interests of the community as a direct tax of several thousand dollars annually laid on each county for the benefit of a few individuals only, unless there be a law made fixing the limits of usury. A law for this purpose, I am of opinion, may be made without materially injuring any class of people. In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be means found to cheat the law; while in all other cases it would have its intended effect. I would favor ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Bill Montaig," he said, "I know more 'bout this matter 'n you think for. I know 't you ben makin' your brags that you'd fix me in this deal. You allowed that you'd set up usury in the fust place, an' if that didn't work I'd find you was execution proof anyways. That's so, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... pretence, written by bankers, members of Parliament, or orthodox clergymen, are of course not wanting; and show that the progress of civilization consists in the victory of usury over ecclesiastical prejudice, or in the establishment of the Parliamentary privileges of the borough of Puddlecombe, or in the extinction of the benighted superstitions of the Papacy by the glorious light of Reformation. ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... longer reckon on maintaining my position in Vienna, or my establishment at Penzing. Not only did there seem no prospect of even a temporary nature of earning money, but my debts had mounted up, in the usual style of such usury, to so great a sum, and assumed so threatening an aspect, that, failing some extraordinary relief, my very person was in danger. In this perplexity I addressed myself with perfect frankness—at first only for advice—to the judge of the Imperial Provincial Court, Eduard Liszt, the youthful uncle ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... of the poet is silent. At that fatal threshold Dives relinquishes his millions and Lazarus his rags. The poor man is as rich as the richest and the rich man is as poor as the pauper. The creditor loses his usury and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation. The proud man surrenders his dignity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures. James Nelson Burnes, whose life and virtues we commemorate ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... moderate return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheerful heart and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. This is a lesson the American has yet to learn,—capability of amusement on a low key. He expects rapid and extraordinary returns. He would make the very elemental laws pay usury. He has nothing to invest in a walk; it is too slow, too cheap. We crave the astonishing, the exciting, the far away, and do not know the highways of the gods when we see them,—always a sign of the decay of the faith and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... reasonable to him. He knew the Rutherfords. They would make him pay his debt to them with usury. ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... an excuse as a drowning wretch to a straw. And yet this hard father—this cautious, moral, money-loving man, three months afterwards, suffered a rogue—almost a stranger—to decoy him into a speculation that promised to bring him fifty per cent. He invested in the traffic of usury what had sufficed to save a hundred such as I am from perdition, and he lost it all. It was nearly his whole fortune; but he lives and has his luxuries still: he cannot speculate, but he can save: he cared ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... your word. Maybe Jim would be willing to go over there and sleep, and you could come here nights. I'd feel safer, knowing you were under my own roof. I guess Jim could take care of their silver and old usury notes as well ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... then we shall be the grandest nation in the world. No power in Europe can stand before us. All will be freedom, and civilization, and great ideas, and fine taste in dress. I shall recover the large estates, that would now be mine, but for usury and fraud. And you will be one of the first ladies in the world, as nature has always intended you ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the leader of the sect, hiding his identity under the pen-name of "A Brother-Biblist," called upon the Jews to divest themselves, of those character traits and economic pursuits which excited the hatred of the native population against them: the love of money, the hunt for barter, usury, and petty trading. This appeal, which, sounded in unison with the voice of the Russian Jew-baiters and appeared at a time when the wounds of the pogrom victims were not yet healed, aroused profound indignation ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... rapine and robbery, under the first head he describes a kind of usury, which was practised in the days of Ben Jonson, and I am told in the present, as well as in the times of Maillard. "This," says he, "is called a palliated usury. It is thus. When a person is in want of money, he goes to a treasurer (a kind of banker ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... into a fury, while Aglaia could not refrain from beginning to scold; or at night Matvey would steal into the prayer-room and say softly: "Cousin, your prayer is not pleasing to God. For it is written, First be reconciled with thy brother and then offer thy gift. You lend money at usury, you deal in vodka—repent!" ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... executioner of petty commerce. In the markets no power on earth is so respected as that of the man who controls the flow of money; all other human institutions are as nothing beside him. Justice herself takes the form of a commissioner, a familiar personage in the eyes of the market; but usury seated behind its green boxes,—usury, entreated with fear tugging at the heart-strings, dries up all jesting, parches the throat, lowers the proudest look, and makes the ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... important, but perhaps of still greater importance are the Raffeisin banks, which aim at the promotion of farming by means of co-operative credit. The loans which they make, at an interest of five per cent. or six per cent., are dealing a death-blow at that curse of Irish life—the gombeen man, whose usury used to mount up to thirty per cent. The extremely rare cases of default in the repayment of these loans for agricultural purposes will not be surprising to those who recall the tribute paid by Mr. Wyndham, in ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the taste for beauty in works of art, in the words of Pindar. He says to Agesidamus, a youth of Locri—ideai te kalon, horai te kekramenon—whom he had kept waiting for an intended ode, that a debt paid with usury is the end of reproach. This may win your good-nature on behalf of my present essay, which has turned out far more detailed and circumstantial than I had at ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... behind and before, to return with peace to his own soul, that man must needs find honey in this lion, that can plead his innocency and uprightness. All the people curse me, saith Jeremiah, but that without a cause, for I have neither lent nor taken on usury; which it seems was a sin at that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... knows, or values thy sterling piety half so tenderly and reverentially as I do. But this is no common case. Were Marie one of those base and grovelling wretches, those accursed unbelievers, who taint our fair realm with their abhorred rites—think of nothing but gold and usury, and how best to cheat their fellows; hating us almost as intensely as we hate them—why, she should abide by the fate she has drawn upon herself. But the wife of my noble Morales, one who has associated so long with zealous Catholics, that she ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... Farmers What Crops Are Grown Where Drought Means Death Reducing the Ravages of Famine Usury and a Remedy Where America Is Behind Landowner and Farm Laborer ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... bought and sold plate, and foreign gold and silver coins. These we melted and culled. Some were recoined at the Mint, and with the rest we supplied the refiners, plate-workers, and merchants who required the precious metals. Whenever we received money at usury, we gave a bond, and my patron was always able to lend it out again, either to the Government or to others at a still higher rate of usury. At times, the stranger from the country might have supposed that all the gold and silver in England had been collected in Lombard ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the revelation of a talent hidden in a napkin, and I set about putting it to usury. I wrote a lecture—"Women and Politics"—as a reason for my anomalous position and a justification of those men who had endorsed my right to be a political leader, and gave sketches of women in sacred and profane history who had been so endorsed ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... as the governor. In spite of very determined opposition he was enabled to repair the wall of the city and dedicate it with great ceremony (Neh. chs. 6 and 12). Nehemiah is counted as one of the greatest reformers. He corrected many abuses such as those of usury and restored the national life of the Jews based upon the written law. Together with Ezra he restored the priests to their positions and renewed the temple worship. He went back to the Persian court where he remained several years and then returned to Jerusalem and continued ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... premium stipulated to be paid, however it may exceed the usual or legal rate of interest. The affair is, however, only regarded as valid upon the ground of necessity; and thus exacting more than the interest allowed by law is not deemed usury. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... built the bank, and established his offices in Blackwater when he might have started a new town at the mine; but no moneylender was ever universally popular and Eells was ruthless in exacting his usury. But on the other hand he had brought a world of money in to town, for the Willie Meena had paid from the first; and it was his pay-roll and the wealth which had followed in his wake that had made the camp what it was; so no one laughed as long or as loud as John ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... and by some process of exchange it went to Sir Henry Wotton. His English history was offered in vain. His digest of the Laws was offered in vain. In vain he wrote a memorandum on the regulation of usury; notes of advice to Buckingham; elaborate reports and notes of speeches about a war with Spain, when that for a while loomed before the country. In vain he affected an interest which he could hardly have felt ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved."—Psalm xv. 1-5. Yes, my friends, there is a tabernacle of God in which, even in this life, He will hide us from strife. There ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the grave before his time, and by an anticipated and living burial sought to provide for the welfare of his realms and the grandeur of his son, the benefit thus conferred was surely far greater. He added, that the debt would be paid to him and with usury, should Philip conduct himself in his administration of the province with a wise and affectionate regard to their true interests. Posterity would applaud his abdication, should his son Prove worthy of his bounty; and that could only be by living in the fear of God, and by maintaining law, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... bear with him no longer. Here I've been running to each dirty Moor, Inquiring who will lend him. I, who ne'er Went for myself a begging, go a borrowing, And that for others. Borrowing's much the same As begging; just as lending upon usury Is much the same as thieving—decency Makes not of lewdness virtue. On the Ganges, Among my ghebers, I have need of neither: Nor need I be the tool or pimp of either - Upon the Ganges only there are men. Here, ...
— Nathan the Wise • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... such cruel usury as indifference to injustice. A wrong, uncared for in a North End tenement house will avenge itself, sooner or later, on Beacon Hill or ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... income, and adding to his capital by lending money on unquestionable security. No one here speaks of him as a usurer; on the contrary, he is considered to have been of a charitable disposition, because, being moderate in all things, he was so even in usury; and would ask only ten per cent a year, while throughout the district they ask twenty and even thirty per cent, ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... hypocrite, who combines with Cheatly to supply young heirs with cash at most exorbitant usury. (See CHEATLY.)—Shadwell, Squire ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... forced from Senate and from Plebs: Consul and Tribune break the laws alike: Bought are the fasces, and the people sell For gain their favour: bribery's fatal curse Corrupts the annual contests of the Field. Then covetous usury rose, and interest Was greedier ever as the seasons came; Faith tottered; thousands ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... sure to be ill spent, that there is a curse on it, that it brings a curse in the gnawing of a man's own conscience, and a curse too in the way it flows away from his family as fast as it flowed to them. "He that by usury and unjust gain increases his wealth, shall gather for him that will pity the poor." So said Solomon of old. And men who worship Mammon find it come true daily, and see that, taking all things together, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of the things which he ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... was not an unusual thing for more than one thousand peasants in the winter—in a single commune—to be seen awaiting their turn to have their taxes "flogged out." Of course, before this was endured all means had been exhausted for raising the required amount. Usury, that surest road to ruin, and the one offering the least resistance, was the one ordinarily followed. Thus was created that destructive class called Koulaks, or Mir-eaters, who, while they fattened upon the ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... very great evil. First of all, there are many things of ancient society not reproved or reprobated by the founders of Christianity, which are inconvenient to, and inconsistent with, our moral sense, and which would violate the laws of modern society. Such are the laws and customs of usury and polygamy. No man in his senses would attempt to establish polygamy in modern society, because it is not prohibited and condemned by the writers of the New Testament. To argue, therefore, that slavery is congenial with the spirit of the Christian religion because it is not condemned by its ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... again by Charity. The warmth in Kedzie's greeting was due to her fear of losing him. But he did not know that. He only knew that she was exceedingly cordial to him, and it was his nature to repay cordiality with usury. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... discharging: for I tell you, I am my father's heir; and if you discharge me, I'll discharge my pestilence at you: for to let my house before my lease be out, is cut-throatery; and to scrape for more rent, is poll-dennery;[143] and so fare you well, good grandsire Usury. Come, father, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... the prevalent economic and political discontent. Farmers were overmortgaged, laborers were underpaid, and the poor were growing poorer, while the rich were daily growing richer. "The paramount issues," the new party declared, "are the abolition of usury, monopoly, and trusts, and we denounce the Republican and Democratic parties for creating and perpetuating ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... and Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter—we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of savages. We have no use for him. We have no criminal so ruthless nor so blood-guilty as he. He is not fit to touch our ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... and lament (to himself) his own shortcomings—should mourn over and mend, as he best can, the "confusions of his wasted youth;" he should feel how ill he has put out to usury the talent given him by the Great Taskmaster—how far he is from being "a good and faithful servant;" and he should make this rather understood than expressed by his manner as a writer; while at the same ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... just grinding the poor down. I believe that the reason we are in such a wretched state in this country to-day is on account of crowding the poor, and getting such a large amount of money for usury. People evade the law, and pay the interest, and then they give a few hundred dollars to negotiate the loan. There is a great amount of usury, and see where we are to-day! See what a wretched state of things we are having, not only in this country, ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... out of this fatal place, I shall not only avoid the fate of my comrades, but perhaps find some new occasion of enriching myself. Who knows but fortune waits, upon my getting off this dangerous shelve, to compensate my shipwreck with usury? After this, I immediately went to work on a float. I made it of good large pieces of timber and cables, for I had choice of them, and tied them together so strong, that I had made a very solid little float. When I had finished it, I loaded it with some bales of rubies, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... exercise, of all other classes, most influence on the trade of Central Africa. With the exception of a very few rich Arabs, almost all other traders are subject to the pains and penalties which usury imposes. A trader desirous to make a journey into the interior, whether for slaves or ivory, gum-copal, or orchilla weed, proposes to a Banyan to advance him $5,000, at 50, 60, or 70 per cent. interest. The Banyan is safe enough not to lose, whether the speculation the trader ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... of the Eighth Commandment is to do good, to give and lend willingly, to be liberal; the contrary is covetousness, stealing, usury, fraud, and to wrong ...
— Selections from the Table Talk of Martin Luther • Martin Luther
... conferred on him the right of this property.... This change has been effected by the taking of interest on Capital ... and it is not a little curious that all the lawgivers of Europe endeavoured to prevent this by Statutes—viz., Statutes against usury.—Rights of Natural and Artificial Property Contrasted (An Anonymous work, published in ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... themselves. And meanwhile the people are dying of hunger, crushed down by taxes. The only reform that has been accomplished is that the men have taken to wearing caps and the women have left off their head-dresses! And the poverty! the drunkenness! the usury!" ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... lives; that many who have sung their success with women have not dared to declare their love to one woman; that all Sterne's sentiment was perfectly ideal, and proceeded always from the head and never from the heart; that Seneca's morality was no barrier to his practicing usury; and that, according to Plutarch, Demosthenes was a very questionable moralist in practice. Why, then, necessarily conclude that a moralist is a moral man, or a sarcastic satirist a deceitful one, or the man who describes ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... had joined the police force as a humble constable. But he did not remain one long; and became in turn a Fleet Street publican, the proprietor of a Haymarket night-house, an auctioneer, a picture dealer, a bill discounter (with a side line in usury), and the editor of a Sunday organ. Next, the theatre attracted his energies; and in 1852 he secured a lease of Drury Lane at the moderate rental of L70 a week. On Boxing-night he offered his first programme there. This consisted of Uncle Tom's Cabin (with "fierce bloodhounds complete"), ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... on a large and comprehensive scale. It is thus carried out: A penniless man starts in business, supplied with abundant capital by his friends: they may demand 6, 7, or 10 per cent. for the use of it; and if they manage, which they may, to avoid the residue of the law of usury, they are safe from the law of partnership. The new man, by his prompt payments and abundant command of capital, works himself into good credit. It is an understanding, that when he has been thus set afloat, the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... others derive as much benefit as possible, finds his faith growing stronger and stronger, as he continues to witness evidences of the influence of that faith on others. Had Gordon, like one in the parable, wrapt his faith up in a napkin, instead of making good use of it by putting it out to usury, he might never have acquired the strong faith which so characterised him. As it was, he not only to the last day of his life had cause to thank God for the full assurance he enjoyed, but the number ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... village inhabited by factory workers. The best house belongs to Gregory Tzibukine, who traffics in everything: brandy, wheat, cattle, lumber, and usury, on the side. His eldest son, Anissme, is employed at the police station and seldom comes home; the second son, Stepan, is deaf and sickly; he helps his father both well and badly, and his wife, the pretty and coquettish Axinia, runs all day ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... inconvenience from the rarity of the air, and had to stop to breathe much oftener than I liked. In truth, the spurt we had made, beginning at the Grands Montees, involved an over-expenditure of energy whose effects I could not escape, and nature was already demanding usury for the loan. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... great democrat had the imperishable honour of emancipating personal freedom in principle from capital, he attempted moreover to impose a police limit on the excessive power of capital by usury-laws. He did not affect to disown the democratic antipathy to stipulations for interest. For Italian money-dealing there was fixed a maximum amount of the loans at interest to be allowed in the case of the individual capitalist, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury and the accumulations of ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... to our ears, being at once publicly notorious and brought before us upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit, that you, the abbot afore-mentioned, have been of long time noted and diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of simony, of usury, of dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, and possessions of the said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of the goods, spiritual ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... urgent questions of the day. Mill still held to competition, to the full liberty of individuals, to the inevitable mechanical working of economic laws; he still doubted the expediency of factory legislation, and condemned any laws in restraint of usury. He was opposed, broadly, to all authoritative intrusion upon human existence wherever its necessity could not be proved conclusively to be in the interest of a self-reliant community. Yet he was forced to make concessions ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... will yield to you the comforts, if not the luxuries, of subsistence. In ten weeks the face of the bill will be thus repaid. For his forbearance in the matter of time, which hath most seriously inconvenienced him, he requires that you shall pay him the further sum of L2 as usury, and likewise that you do liquidate and save him harmless from the charges of us, his solicitors, which charges, from the number of grave and complicated questions which have become a part of this case and demanded solution, we are unable to make less ...
— Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof • Franklin H. Head
... forty-seventh year of his age, both victims to their ignorance of Mrs. Fawcett's Political Economy for the Young, the Nicomachean Ethics, Bastiat's Economic Harmonies, The Fourth Council of Lateran on Unfruitful Loans and Usury, The Speeches of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach and Mr. Brodrick (now Lord Midleton), The Sermons of St. Thomas Aquinas, under the head "Usuria," Mr. W. S. Lilly's First Principles in Politics, and other ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the rates of usury, and the accumulations ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... Tead that flames with many a flake, And many a bachelor to waite on him, In theyr fresh garments trim. Bid her awake therefore, and soone her dight, For lo! the wished day is come at last, That shall, for all the paynes and sorrowes past, Pay to her usury of long delight: And, whylest she doth her dight, Doe ye to her of joy and solace sing, That all the woods may answer, and ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... next him, how his feet Plunge floundering mid the marshes yellow-flowered, His restless head just reaching to the rocks, His bosom tossing with black weeds besmeared, How writhes he twixt the continent and isle! What tyrant with more insolence e'er claimed Dominion? when from the heart of Usury Rose more intense the pale-flamed thirst for gold? And called forsooth DELIVERER! False or fools Who praised the dull-eared miscreant, or who hoped To soothe your folly and disgrace with praise! Hearest thou not the harp's gay simpering air And merriment afar? then come, advance; And ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... usury disdains His treasure to employ; Whom no reward can ever bribe The guiltless ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... a remark, which both Mr. Macbean and I thought new. It was this: that 'the law against usury is for the protection of creditors as well as of debtors; for if there were no such check, people would be apt, from the temptation of great interest, to lend to desperate persons, by whom they would lose their money. Accordingly there are instances of ladies ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... property, and required notes payable to his order for an additional interest of two and a half per cent spread over the whole duration of the loan. Such were the rules his father had told him to follow. Usury, that clog upon the ambition of the peasantry, is the destroyer of country regions. This levy of seven and a half per cent seemed, therefore, so reasonable to the borrowers that Jean-Jacques Rouget had his choice of investments; and the notaries of the different ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of these evil times, but though they shall die as ye shall, yet shall not their deaths be fruitful as yours shall be; because ye, forsooth, are fighting against villeinage which is waning, but they shall fight against usury which is waxing. And, moreover, I have been telling thee how it shall be when the measure of the time is full; and we, looking at these things from afar, can see them as they are indeed; but they who live at the beginning of those times and amidst ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... the kidnapping of slaves. Still the descendants of Dyak slaves remain the property of their masters. Besides these, there are slave debtors, whole families who have sold themselves to pay the accumulations arising from taxes or impositions of the Malays which they had no hope of repaying. Usury, which was the fountain of this evil, has been forbidden at Sarawak, and many are the slave debtors whom the Rajah's purse ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... lending money on usury, asserted it to be as great a sin as murder. Some time after, he applied to a parishioner to lend him twenty pounds. "What!" said the other, "after declaring your opinion that to lend money on usury, was as bad as murder?" "I do not mean," answered the parson, "that ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... unnatural sins, according to Lev. 28:22, 23: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind . . . thou shalt not copulate with any beast." To the seventh commandment which prohibits theft, is added the precept forbidding usury, according to Deut. 23:19: "Thou shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury"; and the prohibition against fraud, according to Deut. 25:13: "Thou shalt not have divers weights in thy bag"; and universally all prohibitions relating to peculations and larceny. To the eighth commandment, forbidding ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... take by assault the second capital of his future states was to expose himself to the dislike of the Flemings; and Joyeuse knew the Flemings too well not to feel sure that if the duke did take Antwerp, sooner or later they would revenge themselves with usury. This opinion Joyeuse did not hesitate to ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... way of barter. Silver is rarely lent out at interest, except between mercantile men in large cities. The legal interest is twelve per cent. but it is commonly extended to eighteen, sometimes even to thirty-six. To avoid the punishment of usury, what is given above twelve per cent. is in the shape of a bonus. "Usury, in China," observes Lord Macartney, "like gaming elsewhere, is a dishonourable mode of getting money; but by a sort of compact between necessity and avarice, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... souls, and out of these scarcely 10,000 or 15,000 do any work, and they are always lean from overwork and are getting weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness, avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury, and other vices, and contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and slavishness, and by imparting to them their own vices. Therefore public slavery ruins them; useful works, in the field, in military service, and ...
— The City of the Sun • Tommaso Campanells
... and Salutations, Carriage and Horseback Riding, Croquet, Archery, and Matinee parties, and the Art of Conversation." While Asa Bundy interested himself in "History of Banking, Forms of Notes, Checks and Drafts, Interest and Usury Tables, etc.," Truman Baird, who meant some day to go to Congress, might perfect himself in Parliamentary law and oratory, an exposition of the latter art being illumined by wood-cuts of a bearded and handsome ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... the captain. "I've got to play something though: got to pay the shot, my son." And he struck up "John Brown's Body" in a fine sweet baritone: "Dandy Jim of Carolina" came next; "Rorin the Bold," "Swing low, Sweet Chariot," and "The Beautiful Land" followed. The captain was paying his shot with usury, as he had done many a time before; many a meal had he bought with the same currency from the melodious-minded natives, always, as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... house, and not told wherefore.'—'You shall see stranger things than that,' he answered, 'ere your head be hoarier by twain s'ennight from now.'—'Well! say on,' quoth I.—'Have you,' pursueth he, 'any money lent unto any friend, or set out at usury? You were best to call it in, if you would see it at all.'—'Friend,' said I, 'my money floweth not in so fast that my back lacketh it not so soon as it entereth my purse.'—'The better,' quo' he.—'Good lack!' said I, 'I alway thought it the worse.'—'The worse ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... the dreamer watched the preparations for the wedding. The Earldom of Envy, the Kingdom of Covetousness, the Isle of Usury were granted as marriage gifts to the pair. But Theology was angry. He would not permit the wedding to take place. "Ere this wedding be wrought, woe betide thee," he cried. "Meed is wealthy; I know it. God grant us to give ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... appointed them to office and hold them there—the Government, and the nation which creates Government as its representative. Ignorance does not excuse; knowledge on these subjects is a sacred duty. Man cannot break the bonds of his brotherhood with man; the blood shed will be required of him, and the usury of ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... sell them dear was a legal offence (forestalling): to buy goods in the market in the morning and to sell them in the afternoon in the same place was not thought a useful occupation and was forbidden under the name of regrating; usury, instead of leading as now directly to the highest offices of the State, was thought wrong, and the profit of it mostly fell to the chosen people of God: the robbery of the workers, thought necessary ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... peasantry. He draws no less gloomy a picture in respect of capital and property. Nine-tenths of Manila, and all important provincial real estate, is mortgaged. Capital is furnished at exorbitant rates of interest, and usury prevails. In the country, no security is accepted save real property, and then only when the lender is satisfied that his debtor will be unable to pay, and that the security ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... follow from the preacher's denunciations of usury, luxury, and scandalous fashions, are the opening of the gaols—which meant no more than the discharge of the poorest debtors—and the burning of various instruments of luxury and amusement, whether innocent ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... gambled when a child in the nursery, or had tried to gamble, for cakes and toys. He had gambled when at school for coppers, pocket-knives, and marbles. He had gambled when at the University, and had felt the claws of the Children of Usury. He gambled away his nine thousand pounds, or such remainder of it as had not been forestalled, when he came of age. Later on, when in the army, and on home allowance again, for his father would not ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... demanded security and still more securities; he asked for renewed promises. He submitted an account of the total sum, and demanded an endorsement. But it was impossible for any one to make head or tail out of this welter of interest, commissions, indemnities, and usury. Herr Carovius himself no longer knew precisely how matters stood; for a consortium of subsequent indorsers had been formed behind his back, and they were exploiting his zeal on behalf of the young Baron for ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... Game, and stopp'd the small Caravans; thus I gradually lessen'd the wide Disproportion, which there was at first between me and the rest of Mankind: I enjoy'd not only my full Share of the good Things of this Life, but enjoy'd them with Usury. I was look'd upon as a Man of Consequence, and I procur'd this Castle by my military Atchievements. The Satrap of Syria had Thoughts of dispossessing me; but I was then too rich to be any Ways afraid of him; I gave the Satrap a certain Sum of Money, upon Condition ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... Since "there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance," let us give joy to heaven. Heaven will render it back to us with usury. Let us leave on our way the alms of pardon for those whom earthly desires have driven astray, whom a divine hope shall perhaps save, and, as old women say when they offer you some homely remedy of their own, if it does no good it will do ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... gods would hardly bear the palm; Like them unawed, content, and calm. His fortune was a little nook of land; And there the Scythian found him, hook in hand, His fruit-trees pruning. Here he cropp'd A barren branch, there slash'd and lopp'd, Correcting Nature everywhere, Who paid with usury his care. 'Pray, why this wasteful havoc, sir?'— So spoke the wondering traveller; 'Can it, I ask, in reason's name, Be wise these harmless trees to maim? Fling down that instrument of crime, And leave them to the scythe of Time. Full soon, unhasten'd, they will ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... agents—capital is the requisite which is most perfectly secured from the control of monopoly. The rate of interest for the use of capital is regulated so perfectly by the law of supply and demand, that all the anti-usury laws which have ever been enacted have been able to accomplish but little in enabling the borrower to secure loans at a less rate than that prescribed by competition. The reason for this is plain on consideration. The total supply of accumulated ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker |
