"Venality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had introduced a nation of warriors into the heart of the empire; the venality of the officials had converted them into enemies; Valens, instead of seeking to remove their causes of hostility, marched with an army against them. We cannot here describe the various conflicts that took ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... is, to a public function. We, no doubt, know the meaning of the symbols they bear; but how easily might the ordinary man, waiting here, mistake the figure with the mirror for Vanity and that with the scales Venality: 'Pay us what we ask,' she might be saying, 'or else your life is a forfeit,'—so the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of things is the fault of the Press. What has rendered it such a pliant tool in the hands of German Imperialism is either credulity or venality; and both are contemptible qualities. Credulity is probably the more prevalent, at least in this country, where shoals of newspapers, blinded by their own prejudices, were the dupes of German duplicity. But there has been venality, too, both crude and subtle. The case of the "Vlaamsche ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... all this teaching and grilling, remaining in the lower grades, was getting on in years, and grew more than the other fellows of my class, of course I was excluded because I was too big. I suffered all the more from the venality of those at the head. Our rector liked gifts; and a week before the examinations, he sent us all to our parents for presents. According to the number of these presents, we were promoted ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... change in attitude there has been much justification, for in my country, as elsewhere, the people do not always select their best men as representatives, and, with the imperfections of human nature, there has been so much of ignorance and, at times, venality, that the instinct of the people is to take the conduct of affairs into their own hands. On the other hand, this change of attitude has led, in many instances, to government by organized minorities, for, with the division of the masses into political parties, it is easy for an organized minority ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... uncommon occurrence to be so excluded; and indeed that exclusion grew at last so common, that the public tables became an aristocratic instead of a democratic institution. Aristotle, in later times, makes it an objection to the ephoral government that poor men were chosen ephors, and that their venality arose from their indigence—a moral proof that poverty in Sparta must have been more common than has generally been supposed [142];—men of property would not have chosen their judges and dictators in paupers. Land was held and cultivated by the Helots, who paid a certain fixed proportion ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Windsor, cannot have been pleased that Pitt and Dundas had a state secret which was withheld for him; but he replied on the morrow in terms, part of which Earl Stanhope did not publish. "I am so thoroughly convinced of the venality of that nation [France] and the strange methods used by its Directors in carrying on negotiations that I agree with him [Pitt] in thinking, strange as the proposal appears, that it ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... sloop, keep a battalion under arms, send an embassy, or defray even the charges of his own household? Was he to dissolve the Parliament? And what was he likely to gain by appealing to Sudbury and Old Sarum against the venality of their representatives? Was he to send out privy seals? Was he to levy ship-money? If so, this boasted reform must commence in all probability by civil war, and, if consummated, must be consummated by the establishment of absolute monarchy. Or was the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; he had absolute control over the resources of his vernacular tongue, and not only unrivalled skill in composition, but tact and judgment. Thus he was generally successful, in spite of the venality and corruption of the times. The courts of justice were the scenes of his earliest triumphs; nor until he was praetor did he speak from the rostrum on mere political questions, as in reference to the Manilian and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's sake. He saw oppression on every hand, injustice everywhere, hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, of the enslaved ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... future. The present was as bad as possible, but belonged to the passing and not to the coming hour. Truth was abroad, felt the philosophers, and must prevail. Feudal privilege, oppression, vice and venality in government, the misery of the poor—all would slowly fade away. The human mind was never keener than in the eighteenth century; reasonableness, hope, and thoroughness characterized its activity. Natural science, metaphysics and historical studies made ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... I answered coolly, disgusted by the man's venality and meanness, and fully persuaded that I must trust him no farther than the length of my sword. 'All I want you to do, M. Fresnoy,' I continued stiffly, 'is to place yourself at my disposal and under my orders ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of venality," said Newman. "She has kept your secret all these years. She has given you a long respite. It was beneath her eyes your husband wrote that paper; he put it into her hands with a solemn injunction that she was to make it public. She was too good-hearted ...
— The American • Henry James
... were quartered in the town. But long before the advent of the Kinglakes its glory had departed; its manufactures had died out, its society become Philistine and bourgeois—"little men who walk in narrow ways"— while from pre-eminence in electoral venality among English boroughs it was saved only by the near proximity of Bridgewater. A noted statesman who, at a later period, represented it in Parliament, used to say that by only one family besides Dr. Hamilton Kinglake's ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... days of snow-white purity all political delinquency is abominable in the eyes of British politicians; but no delinquency is so abominable as that of venality at elections. The sin of bribery is damnable. It is the one sin for which, in the House of Commons, there can be no forgiveness. When discovered, it should render the culprit liable to political death, without hope of pardon. It is treason against ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... were bribed by Jugurtha. Even the consul Bestia, who had been sent into Africa with an army to punish the insolent usurper, sold himself to the robber. An investigation was ordered; but many prominent officials at Rome were implicated in the offences, and the matter was hushed up with money. The venality of the Romans disgusted even Jugurtha, who exclaimed, "O venal city, thou wouldst sell thyself if thou couldst ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... foreigners heavily, keeps them waiting, and treats them impolitely. From Americans, for instance, there is a chorus of complaint on the ground of incivility. Not that Americans shine in this matter of passports for their own country. America sets Europe an unenlightened example of red-tape and venality. ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... converted into a Roman province, but into a client State, because the country could not be held without an army on the frontiers. The Jugurthan war was important in its consequences, since it brought to light the venality of the governing lords, and made it evident that Rome must be governed by a degenerate and selfish oligarchy, or by a tyrant, whether in the form of a demagogue, like Gracchus, or a military chieftain, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... and it was under their sanction that jurisprudence, in some of the most important departments of life, reached perfection. If injustice was suffered, it was not on account of the laws, but the depravity of men, the venality of the rich, and the tricks of lawyers. But the laws were wise and equal. The civil jurisprudence could be copied with safety by the most enlightened of European states. And, indeed, it is the foundation of their civil codes, especially in France ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... to his cost. "Whilst I was at Moscow," says a pleasant traveller, "a quarto volume was published in favor of the liberties of the people,—a singular subject when we consider the place where the book was printed. In this work the iniquitous venality of the public functionaries, and even the conduct of the sovereign, was scrutinized and censured with great freedom. Such a book, and in such a country, naturally attracted general notice, and the offender was taken into custody. After being tried in a very summary way, ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments • Henry M. Brooks
... country was in possession of the clergy; and we have the testimony of unimpeachable witnesses to the unworthy uses to which it was put. Hector Boece, John Major, and Ninian Winzet were all three faithful sons of the Church, and all three cried aloud at the venality, avarice, and luxurious living of the higher clergy. "But now, for many years," wrote Major, "we have been shepherds whose only care it is to find pasture for themselves, men neglectful of the duties of religion. By open flattery do ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... see about one quarter of our number march out and away home. We could not complain at this—much as we wanted to go ourselves, since there could be no question that these poor fellows deserved the precedence. We did grumble savagely, however, at Captain Bowes's venality, in selling out chances to moneyed men, since these were invariably those who were best prepared to withstand the hardships of imprisonment, as they were mostly new men, and all had good clothes and blankets. We did not blame the men, however, since it was not in human nature to resist an ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... King's Lynn, and Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. He had been Secretary at War from February 1708 to September 1710, and the Commissioners of Public Accounts having reported, on Dec. 21, 1711, that he had been guilty of venality and corruption, he was expelled from the House of Commons, and ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... that on the same day and practically at the same hour Carpenter gave instructions looking to the pilfering of the French private diplomatic cipher, Marston began to lay plans to test Carpenter's venality, and Madeline Spencer betook herself to Union Station to meet the man-in-the-case, whose face she had never seen, and whose name ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... their deserted halls with the same frequency or energy as before; and, however the representatives of that day might maintain their integrity uncorrupted, yet, as every facility was afforded to the undue influence of the crown, the time might come when venality would prove stronger than principle, and the unworthy patriot be tempted to sacrifice his birthright for a mess of pottage. Thus early was the fair dawn of freedom overcast, which opened in Castile under more brilliant auspices, perhaps, than in any ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... himself to Essex, but witnessed against him at his trial, which served him little; became at last in succession Attorney-General, Privy Councillor, Lord Keeper, and Lord Chancellor; was convicted of venality as a judge, deposed, fined and imprisoned, but pardoned and released; spent his retirement in his favourite studies; his great works were his "Advancement of Learning," "Novum Organum," and "De Augmentis Scientiarum," ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... won their successes for the most part on sporadic impulses of heroism; shone by an extraordinary intellectual and artistic acumen. But taking them by and large, they were too apt to ineffectualize those successes, in the fields of national and political life, by extraordinary venality and instability of character. I shall draw here deeply on Professor Mahaffy, who very wisely sets out to restore the balance as between Greeks and Persians, and burst bubble-notions commonly held. Greek culture was extremely varied, and therein lay its strength; you ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... a more favorable opportunity to assail the sensualism of the century, the venality of consciences, and the corruption instituted by the government: instead of that, what does the Academy of Moral Sciences do? With the most automatic calmness, it establishes a series in which luxury, so long ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon |
