"Cupidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... more hurtful to our farmers, clerks and country milliners, than to those to whose tastes it was originally addressed,—as the small-pox is most fatal among the wild men of the woods,—and this, from the unprincipled cupidity of publishers, is broad-cast recklessly over all the land we had hoped would become a healthy asylum for those before crippled and tainted by hereditary abuses. This cannot be prevented; we can only ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Hardness and insolence come in its train; an insolence which grows till it ends by exasperating and alienating everybody; a hardness which grows until the man can at last scarcely take pleasure in anything, outside the service of his goddess, except cupidity and greed, and cannot be touched with emotion by any language except Fustian. Such are the fruits of the worship of the ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the General. "They are as good as gold. German credit is very high; the Imperial Government has just floated a loan of several milliards. And you have our stamped Quittungen." He became at once voluble and persuasive in his cupidity, and forgot something of his habitual caution. "You surely do not doubt the word of the German Government?" he said. The maire doubted it very much, but he discreetly held his tongue. "And our requisitioning officers have not been niggardly," continued the General; "they have put a ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... circumstances too strong for him to the rapacity and greed that gathered about his bed. And other forces came to the support of rapacity and greed; there was the picture collector's mania, that most intense of all passions; there was the cupidity of the Sieur Fraisier, whom you shall presently behold in his den, a sight to make you shudder; and lastly, there was the Auvergnat thirsting for money, ready for anything—even for a crime—that should bring him the capital he wanted. The first part of the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... greed. He was holding back the child, or so I now believed, in order to wring a larger, possibly a double, amount from the wretched mother. Fifty thousand was a goodly sum, but one hundred thousand was better; and this man had gigantic ideas where his cupidity was concerned. I remember how firmly he had once stood out for ten thousand dollars when he had been offered five; and I began to see, though in an obscure way as yet, how it might very easily be a part of his plan to ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... situation. The Spaniards, foiled in their views upon Brussels, had recently avowed an intention of avenging themselves in the commercial capital. They had waited long enough, and accumulated strength enough. Such a trifling city as Alost could no longer content their cupidity, but in Antwerp there was gold enough for the gathering. There was reason for the fears of the inhabitants, for the greedy longing of their enemy. Probably no city in Christendom could at that day vie with Antwerp in wealth and splendor. Its merchants lived ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... tantamount to saying that if the existing arrangements were inadequate to the ends desired, Government saw no way out of the difficulty, and people must just be left unprotected, and go to sea to be drowned or spared according as chance or the cupidity of ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... with Barunda's uncle, make way with the treasure before Muda Saffir arrived to claim it, or, failing that, learn its exact whereabouts that he might return for it with an adequate force later. That he was taking his life in his hands he well knew, but so great was the man's cupidity that he reckoned no risk too great for the acquirement of ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... with literary merit. Bad story writing is not a crime. Mr. Hall Caine walks the streets openly, and cannot be put in prison for an anticlimax. The objection rests upon the theory that the tone of the mass of boys' novelettes is criminal and degraded, appealing to low cupidity and low cruelty. This is the magisterial theory, and this ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... remained in charge. These scowled at the invaders, and crossing themselves muttered curses beneath their breath upon those whom their priests had taught them to regard as devils. There was nothing to tempt the cupidity of the soldiers in these villages. Malcolm's duty was confined to a casual inspection, to see that no stragglers had entered for the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the terrible castigation of comedy, the ruthless light of laughter that glares on the stage. When men are heroically dying for their country, it is not the time to show their lovers and wives and fathers and mothers how they are being sacrificed to the blunders of boobies, the cupidity of capitalists, the ambition of conquerors, the electioneering of demagogues, the Pharisaism of patriots, the lusts and lies and rancors and bloodthirsts that love war because it opens their prison doors, and sets them in the thrones of power and popularity. ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... audience think in simultaneous terms of glamour and adventure—with perfect personal safety, of course!—and of steaks, chops and roasts. The more gifted viewers back on Earth might even envision filets mignon. The infinitesimal diamond with its prismatic glitterings, of course, roused cupidity of another sort. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... whose countenance was expressive of avarice and cupidity, was a devoted servant of Samuel, who paid ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... propagandism. True, it was not actually born of that deep principle, but rather of high adventure and of the alluring mystery of discovery. Religion, however, very soon became its prevailing impulse. The expedition of Verrazzano had its raison d'etre in nothing higher than the cupidity of Francis I., who was dazzled by legends of Mexican gold and Peruvian silver; but religion inspired Cartier to his great adventure ten ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... sense of consistency. He had to try to extricate his master from the cruel dilemma, either of having been an accomplice in a scheme now denounced by himself as a pirate's conspiracy, or of having betrayed, out of cowardice and cupidity, a faithful servant to foreign vengeance. That is the meaning of the exordium of this pamphlet published in November by the King's Printers, Bonham Norton and John Bill: 'Although Kings be not bound to give account of their actions to any but God ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... they tried to calm her the more she sobbed, and persisted in her demands. She no longer wanted the body, she insisted on having the clothes, as much perhaps through the unconscious cupidity of a wretched being to whom a piece of silver represents a ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... thing—the disappointment of the baffled drunkard—a little more terrible in his case perhaps because of the remnants of refinement still to be traced in his well-shaped features. His weak eyes for once were eloquent, but with the eloquence of cupidity and unwholesome craving, his lean cheeks twitched ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... giving a refusal that could not be mistaken. Decided, namely, to go with a big expedition, and look thoroughly into that wing of his Dominions; where no doubt much has fallen awry since Magnus Barefoot's grand visit thither, and seems to be inviting the cupidity of bad neighbors! "All this we will put right again," thinks Hakon, "and gird it up into a safe and defensive posture." Hakon sailed accordingly, with a strong fleet; adjusting and rectifying among his Hebrides as he went long, and landing withal on the Scotch coast to plunder and punish ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... inspiration of Apollo, who discovered to them internally things hidden and past, or present and future, I must not place them here in the rank of evil spirits. The devil has no other share in the matter than he has always in the crimes of men, and in that multitude of sins which cupidity, ambition, interest, and self-love produce in the world; the demon being always ready to seize an occasion to mislead us, and draw us into irregularity and error, employing all our passions to lead us into these snares. If what he has foretold is followed by fulfilment, either by chance, ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... Eve, of all the novels, contains perhaps the most instructive political lesson England can learn. Europe has always had, and most assuredly England has been over-rich in those alarm-monger critics, watchdogs for ever baying at Slav cupidity, treachery, intrigue, and so on and so on. It is useful to have these well-meaning animals on the political premises, giving noisy tongue whenever the Slav stretches out his long arm and opens his drowsy eyes, but how rare it is to find a man who can ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... cupidity was clearly excited by Bennett's offer, while the bare mention of the amount at stake was sufficient ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... it been a question of money, Roddy pointed out, the friends of Rojas would already have set him free. That they had failed to do so proved, not that the prison officials were incorruptible, but that their fear of the wrath of Alvarez was greater than their cupidity. ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis
... and talented of old time circus men; Sam and Robert Stickney, sons; Emma Stickney, his daughter; Tom King and wife, Millie Turnour, Jimmy Reynolds, the clown whose salary of one hundred dollars a week had so excited the cupidity of Alfred; Woody Cook, who came from Cookstown, Fayette County, only a few miles from Brownsville, and who, like Alfred had left home to seek his fortune; James Kelly, champion leaper of the world; James Cook and wife, of the Cook ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... valley of the Chaco, one degree or more north of Zuni, are ruins of what some suppose to have been the famous "Seven Cities of Cevola." In 1540, Spanish cupidity having been strongly incited by tales of the greatness and vast wealth of Cevola, Coronado, then governor of New Galicia, set out with an army to conquer and rob its cities. The report in which he tells the story of this conquest and of his disappointment is still in existence. The Cevolans defended ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... errors of the past in order to draw a warning for the future. It must ever be lamented that the introduction of so stupendous and useful a thing as locomotion by rail, should have become the occasion of such widespread cupidity and folly; for scarcely ever had science offered a more gracious boon to mankind. It is charitable to think that the foundation of the great error that was committed, lay in a miscalculation as to the relation between expenditure and returns. We can suppose that there was a certain faith ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459 - Volume 18, New Series, October 16, 1852 • Various
... apart considerably disturbed. I felt that the ground had dropped away beneath my feet. To be sure, everything was tranquil at present; but now I understood the source of that tranquillity and how soon it must fail. With opportunity would come more scheming, more speculation, more cupidity. How was I to meet it, with none to back me but a scared man, an absorbed ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... these floating fish-ponds, as I was informed by an alderman prior to the reform of that ancient borough. But lamprey has now either migrated, or been exterminated by clearing the Ouse of stones[5], or by the excessive cupidity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... influential at the court of France. The Duc de Morny, whose speculative spirit was easily seduced by the golden visions of large financial enterprises in a land the wealth of which was alluringly held up to his cupidity, took him under his powerful protection. There is little doubt that this was an important factor in the Mexican imbroglio. It is interesting to know that a just Nemesis overtook Jecker, whose unworthy intrigues ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... his madness the following anecdote will sufficiently show. Former kings had invested the Bohemian nobles with possessions which he, moved by cupidity, determined to have back. This is the method he took to obtain them. All the nobles of the land were invited to meet him at Willamow, where he received them in a black tent, which opened on one side into a white, and on the other into a red one. Into ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... directs its course. An American attends to his private concerns as if he were alone in the world, and the next minute he gives himself up to the common weal as if he had forgotten them. At one time he seems animated by the most selfish cupidity, at another by the most lively patriotism. The human heart cannot be thus divided. The inhabitants of the United States alternately display so strong and so similar a passion for their own welfare and for their freedom, that it may be supposed that these passions are united and ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... cash advances required by the Spanish government. "The contract once made," says Captain Widdrington, "it is clear that, excepting any qualms of conscience the lessee may be influenced by, there is no check upon his cupidity. The temptation to charge exorbitant prices is increased by the habit of the government requiring large sums to be paid down. This practice, which was unavoidable during the civil war, when it frequently ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... that no offer of the kind had been made, or that it had been made by some over-zealous official, whose act had been disavowed. No such statement has appeared. On the contrary, we read that "the price placed upon the rebel's head has excited native cupidity." It may therefore be desirable to point out that what is alleged to have been done is opposed to the customs of warfare, whether against foreign ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... and I managed to be pretty good friends. If I could be exchanged, or sent home, I told him that my mother would pay liberally for my ransom; and I suppose this idea excited the cupidity of the commandant, for a trapper coming in the winter, whilst I still lay very ill with fever, Museau consented that I should write home to my mother, but that the letter should be in French, that he should see it, and that I should say I was in ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... existence by a fanatic. His son and successor was also murdered, when the Soui dynasty came to an end, and with it the magnificent and costly palace erected at Loyang, which was denounced as only calculated "to soften the heart of a prince and to foment his cupidity." ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... telling it as it really happened. On the person of David Bain were found a pocket-book and purse, recognized as the property of the late Mr. Bruce, and containing bank-notes and bills to a considerable amount; the sight of which, in the possession of his lodger, had evoked the cupidity of the bell-man. He made a full confession, and in due time suffered the penalty due to his offence. Meanwhile the minister, in the thankfulness of his soul to find his nephew guiltless, embraced him tenderly, and freely permitted that courtship to proceed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... still more rapidly. Roger Trew had remained on the beach to watch the movements of the supposed pirates. The boxes of collections were at once carried to a place of concealment which had been arranged, and a few other articles which were likely to excite the cupidity of the pirates. All things were now ready for commencing our march, but we were unwilling to begin it till we ascertained that we were really likely to be attacked. We were still in hopes that the pirates might pass by, or ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... encouraging. America was at peace. Canada was but slowly developing. While her exports of lumber and fish attracted the attention of the British merchant, her great resources were unknown except to the fur trader and the few United States speculators whose cupidity kept pace with their knowledge. Though the known sympathy of the United States for France was regarded as a possible excuse for hostility towards England, as yet this sympathy had found no official ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... almost extinct, and the colonial governments in a state of revolution, having no pretension to it, and sufficiently employed in their own concerns, it was in a great measure derelict, and the object of cupidity to every adventurer. A system of buccaneering was rapidly organizing over it which menaced in its consequences the lawful commerce of every nation, and particularly of the United States, while it presented a temptation to every people, on whose seduction its success principally ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... NOT involve greater moral turpitude than did his yielding to the second temptation or to the third—greater or at least as great—and that therefore the severer sentence is justified? His first misdeed was prompted by hunger, ignorance, drunkenness, or cupidity; the others were the fruit of desperation itself—and how many of you have known what ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... act of secret turpitude I would open my prison doors only to close them the faster on others who may or may not have been my friends—or did he imagine he had found in me a Massey to be moulded and manipulated into the service of the crown, or a Corridon to have cowardice and cupidity made the incentives to his baseness. I only wonder how the interview ended as it did; but I knew I was a prisoner, and self-respect preserved my patience and secured his safety. Great, my lords, as have been my humiliation in prison, ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... trust. Pearson, the captain of his yacht, a close-mouthed, close-fisted Yorkshireman, had a wife as reticent as himself. Pearson and his wife and their son Steve knew that their living depended on their secrecy. And cupidity apart, the three were devoted to their master and his mistress. Pearson and his son Steve were acquainted with the ways of certain gentlemen of Scale, who sailed their yachts from port to port, up and down the Yorkshire coast. Pearson was a man who observed life dispassionately. ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... instruments were carried apart. A bag contained the clothes we expected to wear out in the journey, which, with a small tent just sufficient to sleep in, a sheepskin mantle as a blanket, and a horse rug as a bed, completed my equipment. An array of baggage would have probably excited the cupidity of the tribes through whose country we ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... the lower court. The teachers, on the other hand, defended their long effort in the courts, the State Board of Equalization, and the Legislature against the charge of "dragging the schools into politics," and declared that the exposure of the indifference and cupidity of the politicians was a well-deserved rebuke, and that it was the politicians who had brought the schools to the verge of financial ruin; they further insisted that the levy and collection of taxes, tenure of office, and pensions to civil servants ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... long been practiced, either for the production of eunuchs, or castrata, through vengeance or jealousy, for excessive cupidity, as a punishment for crime, in fanaticism, in ignorance, and as a surgical therapeutic measure (recently, for the relief of hypertrophied prostate). The custom is essentially Oriental in origin, and was particularly used in polygamous countries, where ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the foot of the cliff was held & market which for centuries supplied Calabar and the New World with slaves. Down through the forest paths, down the quiet waters of the Creek, countless victims of man's cupidity had poured, had been huddled together there, had been inspected, appraised, and sold, and then had been scattered to compounds throughout the country or shipped across the sea. And there still a market, was held, and along the upper borders of the Creek human sacrifice ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... war continues any time, if the revolution throws into the arms of Russia Hungary, and our Sclav provinces, and gives to Prussia our German countries, what will become of the great Catholic Empire of Germany? Will not your majesty have hastened, without intending it, the satisfaction of that cupidity which is everywhere aiming at our ruin, and the triumph either of Protestantism or the Greek schism?" Francis Joseph replied by describing the not less serious dangers which the triumph of the Italian ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... complained bitterly of the French, the pastor said they were a vain, immoral nation, and that on that account all Germany would soon rise against us; that they were weary of the evil doings of our soldiers and the cupidity of our generals, and had formed the Tugend-Bund[1] ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... after all this had relatively changed, after the Western nations had made their marvellous advances in civilization, they were too apt to exhibit to China only their barbaric side—that is, their ravenous cupidity backed by their insolent strength. We judge, for example, of England by the poetry of Shakespeare, the science of Newton, the ethics of Butler, the religion of Taylor, the philanthropy of Wilberforce; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... here under the consideration of your visual or auscultating powers, and thus emancipate yourselves from the servitude of crassous ignorance. And that you may be induced to apprehend how sincerely I desire this in consideration of the studious cupidity that so demonstratively emicates at your external organs, from this present particle of time I retain you as my abstractors. Geber, my principal Tabachin, shall register and initiate you ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... your history I base on premise. Ford has been located in Chicago, where, with an ample supply of money, he is repeating his New York operations; but Harold Melville has never been heard of until this day. I think the true explanation is easily arrived at. Goaded by cupidity—and perhaps envy of your superior talents—Ford took advantage of the situation and, finding the automobile speeding along a deserted road, knocked you on the head, tumbled you out of the car, and made off with your combined winnings. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation • Edith Van Dyne
... gold fields bring in view every trait of human character. The more vicious standing out in bold relief, and stamping their impress upon the locality. This phase and most primitive situation can be accounted for partly by the cupidity of mankind, but mainly that the first arrivals are chiefly adventurers. Single men, untrammeled by family cares, traders, saloonists, gamblers, and that unknown quantity of indefinite quality, ever present, content to allow others ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... minds of farmers and millers very much as Aurore Dupin scandalized the leaders of society at La Chatre. Most prominence is given to the more pleasing characters, but the existence of brutality and cupidity among the peasant classes is nowhere kept out of sight. Her long practical acquaintance with these classes indeed was fatal to illusions on the subject. The average son of the soil was as far removed as any other living creature from her ideal ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... in the way of repairing a roof or making a house comfortable. Such a thing is utterly unknown here. To fix the rent, to collect the rent, to make office rules as whim or cupidity dictates, to enforce them, in many instances with great brutality, is the sole business of the landlord; and the whole power of the Executive of England is at his back. This is not a good school in which to learn loyalty. Submission ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... of the adventures of the great Genoese navigator had over-excited the minds of the hearers. Imagination already caught glimpses of golden continents situated beyond the seas. All the passions which are engendered by cupidity were seething in the people's hearts. The admiral, under pressure of public opinion, must set forth again with the most brief delay. He was himself also, eager to return to the theatre of his conquests, and to yet enrich the maps of the day with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... sacrifices this country has made for the protection of the French part of San Domingo have too frequently been diverted from purposes of public utility to answer the worst ends of private peculation and inordinate cupidity." ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... from having, at a former period, been their tutelary genius. It is called, if I mistake not, by the white people resident in the neighbourhood, "The Sacrifice Rock," and is still deeply venerated by the few Indians spared by the cupidity of ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... young men who have the chance or the hope of exercising authority among your fellow-men, the noble and most Christian moral of that heathen book is this: that the path to solid and beneficent influence over our fellow-men lies, not through brute force, not through cupidity, but through the highest morality; through justice, truthfulness, humanity, self-denial, modesty, courtesy, and all which makes man or woman lovely in the eyes of mortals ...
— Lectures Delivered in America in 1874 • Charles Kingsley
... and I am very glad to hear that your schoolfellow displays a wisdom beyond his years. You see, the world is far from perfection; and weak, wicked, foolish people might have their cupidity excited by the sight of such an object, with results that would be extremely painful to every one here. May I ask, then—by the way—is ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... costume of the time, are seated at a table; before them are a heap of money and a book, in which one is writing with his right hand, while he tells down the money with his left. The faces express craft and cupidity. The details of the ink-horn on the table, and the bird on its perch behind, ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... liberality, the principal chief fixed his covetous eye upon an axe, and expressed a most eager desire to become possessed of it. Captain Owen, however, notwithstanding his wish to conciliate the natives as much as possible, did not think proper to gratify his cupidity; but he promised, that it should be presented to the King at the next interview with him. In the afternoon, a tornado arose and drove most of the canoes away; the chiefs, however, remained on board until it was over, and then left us under an arrangement that the Captain should pay a visit to the ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... grinned as he listened to these words. They betrayed the meaner motives of action in the case of the companion, who could acknowledge the argument of cupidity, while insensible to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... bargain they suddenly find they have no money, and after some hesitation reluctantly produce the gold, and say they are willing to part with it at a disadvantage, thereby usually inducing the belief that it has been stolen. The cupidity of the owner of the cattle is aroused, and he accepts the gold at a rate which would be very advantageous if it were genuine. At other times they join a party of pilgrims, to which some of their confederates have already obtained admission in disguise, and offer to sell their gold as being in great ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... fleshed their swords with preliminary bloodshed on their way to the holy war may have owed their victims money; some who in 1348 shared the worst crime that Christian nations have committed perhaps believed that Jews spread the plague. But the problem is not there. Neither credulity nor cupidity is equal to the burden. It needs no weighty scholar, pressed down and running over with the produce of immense research, to demonstrate how common men in a barbarous age were tempted and demoralised by the tremendous power over pain, and death, and hell. We have ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... men marched about, their faces lighted up as for holy war, with a smoke of cupidity. How disentangle the passion for equality from the passion of cupidity, when begins the fight for equality of possessions? But the God was the machine. Each man claimed equality in the Godhead of the great productive machine. Every man equally was part of this Godhead. ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... priests, and both hated Spaniards. Wakening from their apathetic misery, the starveling garrison hailed him as a deliverer. Yet Hawkins secretly rejoiced when he learned their purpose to abandon Florida; for although, not to tempt his cupidity, they hid from him the secret of their Appalachian gold mine, he coveted for his royal mistress the possession of this rich domain. He shook his head, however, when he saw the vessels in which they proposed to embark, and offered them all a free passage to France in ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... instruments. These not only disqualified him for resisting, but increased the amount of the temptations that surrounded him. Thus, while his personal accomplishments fitted him for gaining the affections of the sex, fortune made him a desirable prey for their cupidity. The breath of flattery blew upon him in every direction, and inflamed his vanity and self-love, while all the wiles and allurements which artful wantonness could practise upon unsuspicious youth, were played off against his heart; and thus his passions, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1810 • Various
... remaining great primeval trees, and of their often notable progeny, in our Eastern States, rests with those who care for trees, not alone with those who ought to care. To talk about the greatness and beauty of a fine oak or maple or tulip, to call attention to its shade value, and to appeal to the cupidity of the ground owner by estimating how much less his property will be worth when the trees are gone or have been mishandled, will aid to create the necessary public sentiment. And to provide wise laws, as may be often done with proper attention, is ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... says the Wise Man, "under the sun." We have seen enough, of late years, of railway manias, and the almost incredible anxiety of all classes to realise something in the numerous El Dorados which infatuation or cupidity set afloat in periods of excitement. But, from the following account of De Tocqueville, it appears that a hundred and thirty years ago the same passions were developed on a still greater scale in France; and even our ladies of rank and fashion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... a study—all that was good and evil in her was aroused at the sight of the rich and costly jewels—vanity, cupidity, gratitude, tenderness. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... his superior way; and then I saw come out in his face the singular, eager, consuming cupidity of the ...
— Options • O. Henry
... of sea Dyaks from Sakarran, who were readily attracted by hope of plunder, and who, supported by the fire-arms of their allies, were certain to overcome any single tribe that held out. The misfortunes of the Dyaks of Sarawak did not stop here. Antimony ore was discovered; the cupidity of the Borneons was roused; then Pangerans struggled for the prize; intrigues and dissensions ensued; and the inhabitants of Sarawak in turn felt the very evil they had inflicted on the Dyaks; while the Dyaks were compelled, amid their other ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... have said, Cauchon expected also to receive the Archbishopric of Rouen for his zeal in bringing Joan of Arc to the stake. Cupidity, lust of place and power, and fear of the enemies of the French were the principal motives which influenced these men, whose names should for ever be execrated. In truth, a vulgar greed induced them to destroy one of the noblest creatures ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... spirit of cupidity, now that I had seen money glistening before me, I began to complain that I had received so little, and again expressed to Ali Mohamed my wish of bringing the case before the cadi; 'for,' said I, 'if I am entitled to these five hundred reals, I am entitled to all my father left; and you ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... Fred fell in with some of his evil companions, and let them know that he was well provided with money. That would be enough to excite their cupidity." ...
— The Telegraph Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... well known Scottish adage, "can never see green cheese but their een reels." He was extremely covetous and that not only of nice articles of food, but of many other things which do not generally excite the cupidity of the human heart. The following story is in corroboration of this assertion:—Being on a visit one day at the house of one of his parishioners, a poor lonely widow, living in a moorland part of the parish, he became ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... benevolence. It is still a question, it appears to me, whether some of these provisions do not merely sanction by the forms of law what was formerly done, not always well, without it, and whether the measure of protection which they afford to the tribes against the cupidity of the whites is very efficacious. It was heretofore pretended by the British traders that all this country belonged to Great Britain, and they told the Indians that the war of 1812 would settle all this. It did so; but, contrary to their wishes and the predictions to the Indians, it settled ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... was still the land of the vine and olive. Ceasing to be the butcher, she became the banker of Rome; and the poor Spaniards, who always esteem it a privilege to pay another person's reckoning, were for a long time happy in being permitted to minister to the grasping cupidity of Rome, who during the last century, probably extracted from Spain more treasure than from all the ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... sufficient barriers; but these he himself had humbled and overthrown: he stood, therefore, single, front to front with what he feared; he alone remained the champion of the civilization, the riches, and the enjoyments of the nations of the south, against the rude ignorance, and the fierce cupidity, of the poorer people of the north, and against the ambition of ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... thereby at property. The pickpocket, the blackleg, and the charlatan make especial use of their dexterity of hand, their subtlety of mind, the magic power of their eloquence, and their great fertility of invention. Sometimes they offer bait to cupidity. Therefore the penal code—which much prefers intelligence to muscular vigor—has made, of the four varieties mentioned above, a second category, liable only to correctional, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... other, looking up at his attentive companion in a cool, sullen manner, in which, however, heartless cupidity and indifference to the means were far more conspicuous than any feelings of ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... Christian's boast that he never lost sight of his principal object,—revenge on the Countess of Derby. He maintained a close and intimate correspondence with his native island, so as to be perfectly informed of whatever took place there; and he stimulated, on every favourable opportunity, the cupidity of Buckingham to possess himself of this petty kingdom, by procuring the forfeiture of its present Lord. It was not difficult to keep his patron's wild wishes alive on this topic, for his own mercurial imagination ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... uncovered earth. Sickness increased, until none of the party was wholly free from it. Although in the midst of plenty, they were suffering from hunger. The Indians were besetting them with offers of trade, having large stores of game, fish, and other provisions; but their cupidity was extreme, and, on account of the low state of the treasury, which must be conserved against many months of the future, but few purchases could be made of even the barest necessities. When their own hunters were unsuccessful, the men often ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... lives up to them. We recall, especially, the cases of two men associated together in business. One man set his standards high. Intellectually, he knew the value of ethics in conduct. He truly wished to make practical in his dealings the high principles he admired. But his cupidity was strong and his will and courage were weak, so he oftentimes argued himself, by specious casuistry, into words and acts which were untruthful and dishonest. Oftentimes, indeed, they came dangerously near to ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... Fathers likely to go on forever; for who, they thought, would ever cross the awful eastern plains to interfere with their Arcadian existence, or what invading force would ever approach them over the lonely sea? But history repeats itself. The Missions soon became too rich not to excite cupidity; and those who coveted their lands and herds declared, as an excuse for violence, that the poor Indians were held in a state of slavery, and should be made to depend upon themselves. At length, in 1833, the Mexican Government by a decree of secularization ruined the Missions; but the Indians, although ...
— John L. Stoddard's Lectures, Vol. 10 (of 10) - Southern California; Grand Canon of the Colorado River; Yellowstone National Park • John L. Stoddard
... a Robber having entered these Vaults by night, He observed yonder Ruby, whose value is inestimable. Do you see it, Segnor? It sparkles upon the third finger of the hand, in which She holds a crown of Thorns. This Jewel naturally excited the Villain's cupidity. He resolved to make himself Master of it. For this purpose He ascended the Pedestal: He supported himself by grasping the Saint's right arm, and extended his own towards the Ring. What was his surprize, when He saw the Statue's hand ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... appeared a snare, and the burdens of a complex society a source of needless peril and temptation. Furthermore, it was the rule of his life to share the fruits of his skill and success with his less fortunate brothers. Thus he kept his spirit free from the clog of pride, cupidity, or envy, and carried out, as he believed, the divine decree—a matter profoundly important ...
— The Soul of the Indian - An Interpretation • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Purchasing of merit was the ecclesiasts' chief doctrine, their strongest point. They fearlessly proclaimed it in public, and through its influence erected numerous churches and cloisters and satiated the avarice and cupidity of the Pope. And I too, alas, was one of these knaves until God delivered me. And now, God be praised, I am execrated and condemned by the hellish seat of the Roman dragon with its scales because I assailed this papal doctrine ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... cause which led to the overthrow of the Shogunate was the jealousy and cupidity of the Southern Daimios. Notably among them were the Daimios of Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and Hizen. Their ancestors "had of old held equal rank and power with Iyeyasu, until the fortunes of war turned against ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... or like the favor of women, not to be had for the asking. And since the water was denied, his tongue ached with dryness, and Yan-a-ate lost its savor. Also was his heart moved by the prayers of men and the cries of women. But his tongue troubled him more than did his heart, his tongue and his cupidity, so that he was moved to try his cunning where the strength and ...
— In the Time That Was • James Frederic Thorne
... since the failure of the expedition undertaken by the brothers Roberval, more than half a century before. Several new attempts were made at this time, none of which was very successful. The fur trade, however, held out great inducements to private enterprise, and stimulated the cupidity of the merchants of Dieppe, Rouen and St Malo. In the heart of one of them something nobler than cupidity was aroused. In 1603, M. De Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, obtained a patent from the King conferring upon him and several of his associates a monopoly of the fur trade of New France. To M. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... thought, trying to appeal to a cupidity I don't possess; as if I would cheat people by buying up their very homes for sordid speculation. "Miss Francis," I said, "purely out of generosity and in remembrance of old times I am inclined to consider helping you. I suppose you have the details of the equipment you will need, the ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... it would very speedily be discovered what they are," answered Murray. "It will be better if we get Jos to talk over the old pirate skipper, and having excited his cupidity in suggesting a good ransom, produce our captives, and charge him to treat them well. What do ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Newbern editors seemed to believe,—that the attack on Hatteras Inlet was sure to end in failure,—they nevertheless thought it the part of wisdom to prepare for the worst; and they at once began the work of concealing everything that was likely to excite the cupidity of the lawless Union soldiers. Remembering what their Mobile papers had said about the ragged, half-starved appearance of the Massachusetts troops who marched through the streets of Baltimore, they even hid their clothing and carted the contents of their smoke-houses and corn-cribs into the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... the Republicans would never attempt to confiscate the private fortune of the banished monarch; while, on the other hand, the royal exile would not venture to appeal to the courts against his banker, thereby exposing his enormous wealth to the cupidity of ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... surprised to find how disappointed and hurt she felt at this cupidity on the part of Naomi, and she would not ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... related in the same book that Ananda having asked the Buddha how came Mokenren's mother to suffer in the Gakido, the Teacher replied that in a previous incarnation she had refused, through cupidity, to feed certain ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... view of the case, Philosophy inquiring for life's chief goods, cannot make them to be fortune's prizes, scattered to tempt the cupidity of all; but which a few only can catch, while their luck proves the disappointment and vexation of the many. The supposition were monstrous. We so instinctively recoil from supposing such to be the appointment of nature's Author, and so consciously grasp it for a truth clear ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... political action; she was stocked with muskets and gunpowder, with bales of longcloth, of cotton prints, of silks; with bags of rice and currency brass guns. She contained everything necessary for dealing death and distributing bribes, to act on the cupidity and upon the fears of men, to march and to organize, to feed the friends and to combat the enemies of the cause. She held wealth and power in her flanks, that grounded ship that would swim no more, without masts and with the best part of her deck cumbered by the ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... all that you already so well know in as few words as I could, but leaving out no argument by which I could hope to work upon either the cupidity, the benevolence, or the patriotism of the Jew. He, with his hands folded under his beard, listened without once interrupting me, but with an expression of countenance so stolid, that when I had ended I could guess no better than when I ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... The Indians, whose cupidity had been aroused by English gold, had searched the forest far and near for the regicides. Their knowledge of the forest and cunning in following a trail had two or three times brought them face to face with Cromwell's stern old battle-trained warriors. Then they ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... harrying even the border lands of Castile. Among the enterprises of the Cid the most famous was that against Valencia, then the richest and most flourishing city of the peninsula, and an object of cupidity to both Christian and Moslem. The Cid appeared before the place at the head of an army of 7000 men, for the greater part Mahommedans. In vain did the Valencians implore succour from the emir of Cordova, and from their co-religionists in other parts of the peninsula. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... load of wood without the certificate from a licensed weighbridge or a loaf of bread without, if required, having to prove its weight; and we send those to gaol who practise on the credulity and cupidity of fools by means of the "confidence trick." Why not, therefore, where interests which may be said to be national are involved, ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... in transmitting to their posterity false notions on such subjects; for while the old world is accustomed to see Christianity used as an ally of government, and perverted from its one great end to be the instrument of ambition, cupidity, and selfishness, the new world has been fated to witness the reaction of such abuses, and to run into nearly as many errors in the opposite extreme. The two persons just mentioned, had been educated ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... Barnum's motives were attacked, and the most foolish slanders were circulated. Not only every legal man in the House was arrayed against him, but occasionally a "country member," who had promised to stick by and aid in checking the cupidity of railroad managers, would drop off, and be found voting on the other side. "I devoted," says Barnum, "many hours, and even days, to explaining the true state of things to the members from the rural regions, and, although the prospect of carrying ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... repeal of the decrees, and evaded a correction of other outrages, has mingled with the conciliatory tendency of the repeal as much of irritation and disgust as possible." "In fact," he adds, "without a systematic change from an appearance of crafty contrivance and insatiate cupidity, for an open, manly, and upright dealing with a nation whose example demands it, it is impossible that good-will can exist; and that the ill-will which her policy aims at directing against her enemy should not, by her folly and iniquity, ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... fact that the Swiss reinforcements were a different and far less efficient body than the volunteers of Granson and Morat had been. French gold, scattered freely, had done its work in exciting the cupidity of every man who could bear arms. There were some staunch leaders, like Waldemar of Zurich and Rudolph de Stein, but their kind was in the minority. Berne aided with money rather than with men, but she was not a generous ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... insanity, and eternal woe—be cherished; and twenty-five millions of dollars be wasted, and worse than wasted; and all this, that the producers and venders may feed and fatten on the gains? This objection lies equally against the temperance reform and every other reform, where cupidity and avarice ...
— A Disquisition on the Evils of Using Tobacco - and the Necessity of Immediate and Entire Reformation • Orin Fowler
... (there are no roads in the districts here referred to) for a traveller to go upon, not only because the hospitality of the people has been damped by frequent communication with travellers, but, by intercourse with the semi-civilised merchant, their natural honour and honesty are corrupted, their cupidity is increased, and the show of firearms ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... such apparently harmless savages as our neighbours—were apt to develop treacherous tendencies, and, once provided with a boat, it would be difficult to prevent them visiting our own particular island of Eden, when, if any of our possessions should chance to excite their cupidity, who could say what might happen? There was, of course, a way whereby this danger might be reduced to a minimum, and that was by so reducing the dimensions of the boat that she should be incapable of carrying more than two men at a time; and this I ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... Nelson to go with you, taking the treasure, to the barracks and see that the money is taken out of the cases and repacked in ammunition-boxes. It would be unwise in the extreme to tempt the cupidity of any wandering parties that you might fall in with by the sight of treasure-cases. Your suggestion quite justifies the opinion that I had formed of you from the brief narrative that you gave me of the battle of Corunna. For the present, gentlemen, I have appointed Mr. O'Connor as an ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... tragedy Grillparzer constructed on the basis of a mythological story. The Fleece, like the hoard of the Nibelungen, is the occasion, but the curse attached to it is not the cause, of crimes; this cause is the cupidity of human nature and the helplessness of the individual who allows the forces of evil to gain sway over him. Jason, in overweening self-indulgence, attaches himself to a woman to whom he cannot be true. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... double reckoning on his first voyage, by which he deceived his sailors as to their true distance from Spain, as evidence of a false nature. He is charged with ambition, cupidity, and arrogance, in demanding titles, dignities, and money as fruits of his discoveries. He was, we are told, a fanatic, a visionary, a tyrant, a buccaneer, a liar, and a slave-trader. He was proud, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... of the future good that was to be accomplished—the success that was to crown their efforts for taming the heathen and teaching them the knowledge of their Saviour and the blessings of civilized life. The sequel has shown how little the zeal of the few can accomplish, when opposed to the cupidity of the many. ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... game. The keen-eyed savages saw the advantages of the white man's implements and utensils. Steel knives, axes, vessels of metal, guns, powder and shot, blankets, ornaments and trinkets excited his cupidity. Alas, too, love of the white man's "fire water" soon became a ruling passion and the poor Indian too often received a very indifferent compensation ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... from attack on the highroads that neighbored the Aretine dominion, and if any brawl broke out between Florence and one of her neighbors, a brawl never provoked by Florence, too magnanimous for such petty dealings, but always inaugurated by the cupidity or the treachery of her enemies, the Aretines were sure to be found taking part in it, either openly or secretly, to the disadvantage and ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... triumvir with Pompey and Caesar; was avaricious, and amassed great wealth; appointed to the province of Syria, provoked out of cupidity war with the Parthians, in which he was treacherously slain; Orodes, the king, cut off his head, and poured melted gold into his mouth, saying as he did so, "Now sate thyself with the metal of which thou wert so ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... riches concealed in the wreck; but Phips was obliged to return to England before completing the business. Provisions had run low, and the presence of so vast a treasure on board had stimulated the cupidity of the crew to a dangerous degree, so that each day of delay in reaching port was full of hazard. Every precaution was taken to guard the treasure, but what probably prevented the crew from rising was the promise Phips gave them, when matters had become most suspicious, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... speaking the truth, but not the whole truth. The merchants had offered, in slaves and goods, an amount which had excited his cupidity; and he was, moreover, glad to be rid of the presence of one who was the cause of constant dispute and trouble in his councils. At the same time, he still believed in the supernatural powers of his visitor; ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... was a study. Disappointed cupidity succeeded his first incredulity. He began to consider that he must convince Fred that he had acted in good faith. With an effort he smoothed down his face and ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... all the regular and legitimate forces of society, and whom one regarded with a mixture of terror and pity. There is nothing of that in Derues, not even a trace of courage; nothing but a shameless cupidity, exercising itself at first in the theft of a few pence filched from the poor; nothing but the illicit gains and rascalities of a cheating shopkeeper and vile money-lender, a depraved cowardice which dared not strike openly, but slew in the dark. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tell me that you will take the rooms for six months more?" she asked as I approached her, startling me by something coarse in her cupidity almost as much as if she had not already given me a specimen of it. Juliana's desire to make our acquaintance lucrative had been, as I have sufficiently indicated, a false note in my image of the woman who had inspired a great poet with immortal lines; but I may say here definitely that I recognized ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James
... brethren, my disinterestedness; I do not sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. If I embraced a profession so directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. I obeyed my parents. I would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if I could have done it safely. You are witnesses to what I assert. I have not disgraced my ministry by exacting the requitals, which are a part ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... that," exclaimed the other, with a gleam of cupidity in his shifty eyes. "I'm goin' right away to dig lumps of gold fer to buy di'monds ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... on a raft. The pauper has a Boston cracker, resolves to keep it till the multimillionaire is beginning to starve, then make him pay $50,000 for it. Millionaire agrees. Pauper's cupidity rises, resolves to wait and get more; twenty-four hours later asks him a million for the cracker. Millionaire agrees. Pauper has a wild dream of becoming enormously rich off his cracker; backs down; lies all night building castles in the air; next day raises his price higher and higher, till ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and the light of a lantern flashed to the ceiling. Wondering that such a place should excite the cupidity of housebreakers, yet convinced that such the intruders were, Alec moved gently into the embrasure of one of the windows, against the corner of which abutted a screen of book-shelves. A certain light rustling, however, startled him into doubt, and the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs demanded of him—with which the peasant bought himself a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to such cupidity, he ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... struggles or on wretched expedients. Thus she immediately guessed the state of this melancholy sexagenarian's mind, and the illusions which attracted him to her, and scented the spoils which offered themselves to her cupidity of their own accord, and divined under what guise she ought to show herself, to make herself accepted ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... thence in flickering brilliance on the pavement floor, its rays sometimes arrested, to revolve in heightened lustre from the glittering sword or the suit of half-mail of one or other of the noble knights assembled there. The rich plate of the abbey, all at least which had escaped the cupidity of Edward, was arranged with care upon the various altars; in the centre of the church was placed the abbot's oaken throne, which was to supply the place of the ancient stone, the coronation seat of the Scottish kings—no longer there, its absence felt by one and ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Those who tried to stop it fell victims to their own courage, and, unless they recanted, languished for years in prison, or were executed as possessed by devils themselves. At Treves the persecution was encouraged by the cupidity of the magistrates who profited by confiscation of the property of those sentenced. At Bonn schoolboys of nine or ten, fair young maidens, many priests and scores of good women were ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... spiritualism are undoubtedly due. In some persons this force is found to exist abnormally, when its manifestations are certainly extraordinary. The trouble is that we are not always satisfied with its feeble and uncertain utterances, and are too often impelled by cupidity or other equally unworthy motive to practise the charlatanism of the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... whom I had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She was a cousin,—an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the complacent ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... and undivided; they were the property of all." Let us go no farther. Grotius tells us how this original communism came to an end through ambition and cupidity; how the age of gold was followed by the age of iron, &c. So that property rested first on war and conquest, then on treaties and agreements. But either these treaties and agreements distributed wealth equally, as did ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... resists with the same constancy the temptations of happiness as those of adversity—est animus tibi et secundis temporibus dubusque rectus.' Is not this Count Larinski? Listen further: 'Lollius detested fraud and cupidity; he despised money which seduces most men—abstinens ducentis ad se cuncta pecuniae.' This trait is very striking; I find even, between ourselves, that our dear count despises money entirely too much, he turns from it in horror, its very name ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... of the Republic was veiled in so much ideology and marred by tyrannous cupidity, its foreign policy was based on sound realism. The French plenipotentiaries, like Joseph II, but far more clearly, perceived that the possession of the key positions on the Scheldt and on the Meuse was essential to the security of the country and to ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... hard with anger and cupidity, points) Who's to pay for that? Ten shillings. You're ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... inserts the blackened end of the stone in the hole. Next he prays to the ancestors that nothing may go well with the country. If this malevolent rite should be followed by the desired effect, the sorcerer soon sees messengers arriving laden with presents, who entreat him to stay the famine. If his cupidity is satisfied, he rubs the stone again, inserts it upside down in the ground, and prays to his ancestors to restore plenty to ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... them as legal prey, and too often treated them as the brute animals of the forest. Expelled from the coasts, and dispossessed of their hunting grounds, they had been gradually driven westward, until they had too much cause to apprehend that the cupidity of their invaders would be satisfied only with their utter extermination. "The red men are melting," to borrow the expressive metaphor of a celebrated Miami chief of the last century, "like snow before ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... priest, thoroughly ashamed of having contributed to gratify his cupidity, and very much disposed to think the religion we were taught was nothing but a tissue of fables and impostures, to which the thirst of gold and silver had given birth. I cannot tell you all the sad and painful reflections that occupied my mind during the remainder of that day; I was overcome by ...
— The Village in the Mountains; Conversion of Peter Bayssiere; and History of a Bible • Anonymous
... makes a sign, as if saying the zapello is not worth their anger, and they retire, but reluctantly, like wolves forced from their prey. Then, as if by way of appeasing their spite, they go stalking about the camp, picking up and secreting such articles as tempt their cupidity. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... independent German state, but the governor of a French province—the despised oppressor of an enslaved people, robbed of their honor, independence, and nationality. Now, I commenced this war for the sake of my own honor and that of my people. I commenced it to set bounds to French cupidity and thirst for conquest; to preserve to Germany her German and to Prussia her Prussian character, and to drive back the Confederation of the Rhine beyond the frontier of the Rhine. The fortune of war has not sustained me in these efforts, and victory perched upon the eagles of France. But the ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... operations, and the exploration and settlement of a territory of considerably over a hundred thousand square miles was before us, and the destiny of a new State was in embryo. It would not be prudent to expose the lives of the men and valuable property we had hauled so far to the cupidity of the natives; and therefore a safe place for storage and for defense was the first necessity in selecting a headquarters. We had some hundred and fifty horses and mules, wagons, ambulances, arms, provisions, merchandise, mining, material,—and ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston
... our caravan may excite his cupidity, and he may be induced to delay us to obtain possession of its contents. However, we had better put this question to the Griquas, who probably can ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... keen, and the growing cupidity of the men did not escape her. Coming out with a big meat sandwich, she said: "'Twill not do to sit down, Sherm; take this in yer fist and go. They'll all be slippin' away like snakes if ye don't. I'll take John and the ore—we'll make it somehow—and ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... have been told to 'Replenish the earth'—as well as to subdue it. In these latter days, through a cupidity as amazing as criminal, you are not 'replenishing' so much as impoverishing the earth, and think you that no interest will be exacted for your reckless plunder? You mistake! You complain of the high taxes imposed upon you by ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... uttering it with astonishing vigour, '"were not defined, beyond the pittance of twenty-two shillings and six per week. The rest was left contingent on the value of my professional exertions; in other and more expressive words, on the baseness of my nature, the cupidity of my motives, the poverty of my family, the general moral (or rather immoral) resemblance between myself and—HEEP. Need I say, that it soon became necessary for me to solicit from—HEEP—pecuniary advances towards the support of Mrs. Micawber, and our ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... which we are powerless, have enabled our people to flourish as well or better than they do; ergo, the Company or their officers have hitherto been and are still the cause of its not faring better with the country. On account of their cupidity and bad management there is not hope, so long as the land is under their government, that it will go on any better; but it will grow worse. However, the right time to treat this subject ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... amount of more remote evil. Besides, he felt a strong reliance on the liberality of the English authorities in the end, and had little doubt of being able to extricate himself and his ship from any penalties to which the indiscretion or cupidity of his subordinates might have rendered ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... drama, based on the true principles of art, that was to be the envy of all nations; he was to drive from the stage the silly, childish plays, the "mirrors of nonsense and models of folly" that were in vogue through the cupidity of the managers and shortsightedness of the authors; he was to correct and educate the public taste until it was ripe for tragedies on the model of the Greek drama—like the "Numancia" for instance—and comedies that would not only amuse but ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... To the east end of the latter there has since been added a small chapel, called the Bishop's Chapel. Another chapel, (of St. Mary Magdalen,) was also connected with the south aisle of the church. The parishioners seem to have hitherto neglected the Lady Chapel, and to have shown their cupidity in ages long past. Through the influence of Dr. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, they were allowed to purchase the church of that wholesale sin-salesman, Henry VIII.; but after the parish had obtained the grant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... Tangiers, "is situate upon the sea-shore; a large city without either seed, water, or tree." This was written five hundred years ago; yet the ruins of fortifications and watch-towers along the rocks, show that even this human oven was the object of cupidity in earlier times; and the British guns, bristling among the precipices, show that the desire is undecayed even ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... means," replied Harry. "I have a fine gold watch, and about seventy dollars in gold. These will be sufficient, I think, to attempt the cupidity of any Dutchman in the ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... blind the one-eyed are kings, and the Falling Wall basin lies amid inhospitable deserts, barren hills and landscapes slashed to rags and ribbons by mountain storms—regions that have failed to tempt even a white man's cupidity. The Indians fought for the basin with arrows, bullets, tomahawks and scalping knives; the whites have fought chiefly in the land offices and courts, but, exasperated by delays and inflamed by defeat, they have at times boiled over and appealed to the rifle and the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... prey upon ignorance, degrade the mind, discourage industry, and sow discord. Ambition and avarice have at all times been the ruling passions of the priesthood. The priest every where rises superior to sovereigns and laws; we see him every where occupied with the interests of his pride, of his cupidity, and of his despotic, revengeful humour. In the room of useful and social virtues, he everywhere substitutes expiations, sacrifices, ceremonies, mysterious practices, in a word, inventions lucrative to himself and ruinous ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... of the English rendered the conquest of Canada inevitable and sure. The possession of that vast country of Canada, after so much blood, and such immense expenses it had cost the English in these different expeditions, excited too much the cupidity of the English to consent to a peace upon reasonable conditions, and induced them to extend their conquest to ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... the whole world along with them, from taking fire. Apart from their conflicting interests, the two Empresses have privately a rooted aversion to one another. What with Russian exorbitancy (a Czarina naturally uplifted with her Tchesmes and Kaghuls); what with Austrian cupidity, pride, mulishness, and private trickery of Kaunitz; the adroit and heartily zealous Friedrich never had such a bit of diplomacy to do. For many months hence, in spite of his intensest efforts and cunningest appliances, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... towards people of fashion. As is usual in hasty judgments, the many have been stigmatized with the vices of the few: the misconduct of reckless servants has been held forth as bespeaking the habits of the whole class, and the misdealing cupidity of a few purveyors of fashionable luxuries has been set down as the almost uniform rule of conduct of the worthiest classes in the empire. Such has been the exaggeration of a certain description of evils ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... omnipotence of the king was in his eyes the darkest of crimes. A Master of Arts at Oxford, a writer of some merit, polished in manner, he seemed out of place in the forests of Virginia. Perhaps it was his passion to rule which brought him to the colony, perhaps it was cupidity, for he accumulated there a fortune ...
— Bacon's Rebellion, 1676 • Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker |
