"Lucre" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mingled with the desire of distinction and promotion. The boast of the soldiers, as we find it recorded in their solemn resolutions, was that they had not been forced into the service, nor had enlisted chiefly for the sake of lucre, that they were no janizaries, but freeborn Englishmen, who had, of their own accord, put their lives in jeopardy for the liberties and religion of England, and whose right and duty it was to watch over the welfare of the nation which they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... grounds. The last are the only ones which the elector would like to avow. The best side of their character is that which people are anxious to show, even to those who are no better than themselves. People will give dishonest or mean votes from lucre, from malice, from pique, from personal rivalry, even from the interests or prejudices of class or sect, more readily in secret than in public. And cases exist—they may come to be more frequent—in which almost the only restraint upon a majority of knaves consists in their involuntary ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... beside the vine-covered arbor and amidst the shrubbery which her own hand planted, is the monument to the faithful wife and loving mother. How appropriate! How beautiful! And to the old landholders of New England, what motive to hold sacred from the hand of lucre so strong as the ground loved by the living as the burial- place of ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... for Jesus' sake."—2 Cor., iv, 11. "For they, which believe in God, must be careful to maintain good works."—Barclay's Works, i, 431. "Nor yet of those which teach things which they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake."—Ib., i, 435. "So as to hold such bound in heaven, whom they bind on earth, and such loosed in heaven, whom they loose on earth."—Ib., i, 478. "Now, if it be an evil to do any thing out of strife; then such things that are seen ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of more stories; but how often did we say: 'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul'? I had as clean and strong a heritage as you, but a different one. It is no use to comfort oneself with nice little aphorisms about the needle's eye, and saws about filthy lucre, and telling God's estimate of money from the kind of people He gives it to; I tell you biting poverty is a terrible thing, an unspeakable thing. It is a misfortune for a child to grow up under a sense of injustice. I used to have times of revolt against it all, when I hated with the blind, ferocious ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... depopulation of France! Not merely were there those who were resolved to have no children, not only were infanticide and crime of other kinds rife upon all sides, but one-half of the babes saved from those dangers were killed. Thieves and murderesses, eager for lucre, flocked to the great city from the four points of the compass, and bore away all the budding Life that their arms could carry in order that they might turn it to Death! They beat down the game, they watched in the doorways, they ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... an heiress. Should it be said that an Armine came crouching for lucre, where he ought to have commanded for love? Never! Whatever she might think, his conduct had been faultless to her. It was not for Henrietta to complain. She was not the victim, if one indeed there might chance ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... the god had transformed himself into a bribe. Gold delights to penetrate through the midst of guards, and to break through stone-walls, more potent than the thunderbolt. The family of the Grecian augur perished, immersed in destruction on account of lucre. The man of Macedon cleft the gates of the cities and subverted rival monarchs by bribery. Bribes enthrall fierce captains of ships. Care, and a thirst for greater things, is the consequence of increasing wealth. Therefore, Maecenas, thou ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection?—He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the worthless—assure him, that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of Lucre, I will do anything, be anything—but the horse-leech of private oppression, or ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... Though MURRAY with his MILLER may combine To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line? [24] No! when the sons of song descend to trade, Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade, Let such forego the poet's sacred name, Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame: Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain! [25] And sadly gaze on Gold they cannot gain! 180 Such be their meed, such still the just reward [xv] Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard! For this we spurn Apollo's venal son, And bid a ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... him opening an address to a genteelish sort of young lady, whom he walked with: "Miss, though your father is master of a coal-lighter, and you will be a great fortune, 'tis true; yet I wish I may be cut into quarters if it is not only love, and not lucre of gain, that is my motive for offering terms of marriage." As this lover proceeded in his speech, he misled us the length of three streets, in admiration at the unlimited power of the tender passion, that could soften even the heart of a butcher. We then adjourned to a tavern, and from ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... Sidney. Desire of lucre, the worst and most general country vice, arises here from the necessity of looking to small gains; it is, however, but the ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... trust that the Lord Jesus, who hath helped me to reject the wages of unrighteousness hitherto, will also help me still, so that I shall distribute that which God hath given me freely, and not for filthy lucre's sake. Other things I might speak in vindication of my practice in this thing: but ask of others, and they will tell thee that the things I say are truth: and hereafter have a care of receiving ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... jay do you take me for?" snorted Cupid. "Men don't accept no lucre from ladies where I live. I'll go chuck the guy back his marshmallers and his dirty money, since you put it that way, ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... uncharitable, and covetous persons of this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to be had, received, or hoped for," shall forfeit principal and interest, and suffer imprisonment and fine at the ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... He described it as "a country in which all sense of right and wrong is forgotten . . . where the name of Jesus is scarcely ever mentioned but in blasphemy, and His precepts [are] almost utterly unknown . . . [where] the few who are enlightened are too much occupied in the pursuit of lucre, ambition, or ungodly revenge to entertain a desire or thought of bettering the moral state of their countrymen." This report, in which Borrow confesses that he "made no attempts to flatter and cajole," must have caused the British ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... planned it. She fully believed that Rhodes meant to bring English civilisation, English laws, the English sense of independence and respect for individual freedom into that distant land. The fact that lucre lay at the bottom of the expedition never crossed her mind; even if it had she would have rejected the ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... God, prescribing the medicines himself and correcting the faults of their erroneous recipes. For unless we take this way with them, they shall not fail to do as many bold blind apothecaries do who, either for lucre or out of a foolish pride, give sick folk medicines of their own devising. For therewith do they kill up in corners many such simple folk as they find so foolish as to put their lives in the hands of such ignorant and unlearned ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... presenting me with that thousand 'to get married on,' Even at the time it seemed peculiarly un-Petrine. Well, anyhow, in simple decency, he cannot combine the part of Shylock with that of Judas, and expect to have back his sordid lucre, so I am that much to the good, apart from everything else. Yes, I can see how it all happened,—and I can foresee what is going ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... marble then, and reeked with gore; Then first the flamen tasted living food; Next his grim idol smeared with human blood; With heaven's own thunders shook the world below, And played the god an engine on his foe. So drives self-love, through just and through unjust, To one man's power, ambition, lucre, lust: The same self-love, in all, becomes the cause Of what restrains him, government and laws. For, what one likes if others like as well, What serves one will when many wills rebel? How shall he keep, what, sleeping or awake, A weaker may ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... that I am possest With more then halfe the Gallian Territories, And therein reuerenc'd for their lawfull King. Shall I for lucre of the rest vn-vanquisht, Detract so much from that prerogatiue, As to be call'd but Viceroy of the whole? No Lord Ambassador, Ile rather keepe That which I haue, than coueting for more Be cast from ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... habitation in many parts of Europe. Southey relates it as attached to the Spanish convent of San Salvador de Villar, where the tomb of the Abbot to whom the adventure happened was shown. And he is very severe on "the dishonest monks who, for the honour of their convent and the lucre of gain, palmed this lay (for such in its origin it was) upon their neighbours as a true legend." In Wales, the ruined monastery at Clynnog-Fawr, on the coast of Carnarvonshire, founded by St. Beuno, the ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had discovered a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in oblivion, voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so long enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that it was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous—that he had agreed to give up the estates for his uncle's life, and was only in the meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues. But the universal comment was, "He could not have ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fellows would be impatient, burdened with so much of the filthy lucre as Mark has. But not he. He is doing his little best to ...
— The Campfire Girls of Roselawn - A Strange Message from the Air • Margaret Penrose
... liberally for whatsoever they received; and there was policy in their so doing, for there were not a few who preferred lucre to their country, and the effigy of a prince upon a coin to allegiance to their lawful monarch. But, while such obeyed with alacrity the command of the governor of Fast Castle, to bring provisions to his garrison, there were many others who acquiesced in it reluctantly, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the words with which the soldier answered his general, 'These actions are not performed for pay.'"—"That's very right; I like to see pride."—"Sire, I am not proud, but I have a soul; and if I thought that your Majesty could believe that I embraced your Majesty's cause for the sake of filthy lucre, I should request your Majesty to cease to rely on my services."—"If I had believed that to be the case, I should not have trusted you. No person ever received a more honourable and splendid proof of my confidence, than that which ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... painted paper." "Peg Hughes," as she is called, replies, congratulating herself upon her generosity, treating the loss of her estate as "the only piece of carelessness I ever committed worth my boast," and charging "Madam Gwynne" with vulgar avarice and the love of "lucre of base coin." We can glean nothing more of the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... So the count began to ask him, "Give me your dog," says he; "take what you like for her." "No, count," he said, "I am not a tradesman; I don't sell anything for filthy lucre; for your sake I am ready to part with my wife even, but not with Milovidka.... I would give myself into bondage first." And Alexey Grigoryevitch praised him for it. "I like you for it," he said. Your grandfather took her back ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... only tell you, Toll, how it yearns over the American people! Can't you see, my boy, that the hope of the nation is in educated and devoted young men? Don't you see that we are going to the devil with our thirst for filthy lucre? Don't you understand how noble a thing it would be for one of fortune's favorites to found an institution with his wealth, that would bear down its blessings to unborn millions? What if that institution should also bear his ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... usual fate of private libraries, manifested a constant fear that his noble collection of books would be merged in some other library after his death. Every generous soul must heartily despise Tito Melema for basely disposing of Bardo's library for lucre. There are plenty of good people, however, who would uphold him in that transaction. Indeed, do not most of us with unseemly haste and unnatural greed dispose of the effects of our deceased friends and relations? The funeral is hardly over ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... length Thir Ministry perform'd, and race well run, Thir doctrine and thir story written left, They die; but in thir room, as they forewarne, Wolves shall succeed for teachers, grievous Wolves, Who all the sacred mysteries of Heav'n To thir own vile advantages shall turne Of lucre and ambition, and the truth 510 With superstitions and traditions taint, Left onely in those written Records pure, Though not but by the Spirit understood. Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names, Places and titles, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... friend," he at length said aloud, on perceiving that the old gentleman had fairly exhausted himself and was lying panting on his back, "you are indeed a lamentable instance of the lengths to which the greedy lust of lucre will carry our poor human nature. It is really distressing to see Marguerite, a faithful, attached servant, suddenly converted into a tormenting harpy by the prospect of a legacy! Lawyers and priests flock around you like birds of prey, drawn hither by the scent of gold! Oh, the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... every man has found in physicians great liberality and dignity of sentiment, very prompt effusion of beneficence, and willingness to exert a lucrative art where there is no hope of lucre.' Johnson's Works, vii. 402. See ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... will know the motive," said the stranger, eagerly; "he will know that you are doing this—not for lucre of gain, but to save the life of the innocent, and prevent the commission of a worse crime than that which the law ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... fled. In Holland and England intelligent enterprise had not yet degenerated into mere greed for material prosperity. The love of danger, the thirst for adventure, the thrilling sense of personal responsibility and human dignity—not the base love for land and lucre—were the governing sentiments which led those bold Dutch and English rovers to circumnavigate the world in cockle-shells, and to beard the most potent monarch on the earth, both at home and abroad, with a handful ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... are determined to proceed then in your own system? Are you aware that an unworthy motive may be assigned for this rapid succession of publication? You will be supposed to work merely for the lucre ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... was certainly not of ancient lineage, but since he had attained that position which enabled him to be received as an equal in the great world, and had by his skill accumulated a portion of that filthy lucre which is the platform whereon society moves and has its exclusive being, he had the advantage of talking to Donna Faustina, wherever he met her, in spite of her father's sixty-four quarterings. Nor did those meetings take place only under the auspices of so much heraldry ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... and finally Geffrey Earl of Essex, constables of the of London, withheld that portion from the said house until the reign of King Stephen, and thereof made a vineyard to their great commodity and lucre. The Isle of Ely also was in the first times of the Normans called Le Ile des Vignes. And good record appeareth that the bishop there had yearly three or four tun at the least given him nomine decimae, ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... was in a blaze. More than a hundred thousand people fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, and fever, and the haunts of tigers, to the tyranny of him to whom an English and a Christian government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and their blood, and the honor of their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representations to Fort William; but the Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ministerial favours, whose prospect he regarded as the only motive of those abandonments which had left the Whig party suddenly so feeble. "Is this a time," exclaimed the orator, "for selfish intrigues and the little traffic of lucre? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician has his price? Nay, even for those who have no direct object, what is the language which their actions speak? 'The throne is in danger'—'we will support the throne; but ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... the savage did her answer mark, Her glowing eye-balls glittering in the dark, And said but this: Since lucre was your trade, Succeeding times such dreadful gaps have made, 'Tis dangerous climbing: to your sons and you I leave the ladder, and ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... and fashion who sacrifice so largely to their dissipation or their vanity, that they have nothing left for mouths without food, and limbs without raiment! How far does it throw back into the shade those men of prosperous enterprise and gilded state who, in the hope of some additional lucre, have thousands and ten thousands at their beck; but who, when asked for decent contributions to what they themselves acknowledge to be all-important, turn away with this hollow excuse, 'I cannot afford it.' Above all, how should her example redden the faces ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... I reserved for myself two days' grace, and you must wait till to-morrow. I imagine we shall come to an arrangement, and then you will tell me how much you want paid down. And now, basta cosi!' she cried, noticing Sanin was about to make some reply. 'We've spent enough time over filthy lucre ... a demain les affaires. Do you know what, I'll let you go now ... (she glanced at a little enamelled watch, stuck in her belt) ... till three o'clock ... I must let you rest. Go ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... Cumber; the whole thing is regulated—the seconds, and bottle houlders, and all is appointed. There's the Rev. Christopher Gammon, Rev. Vesuvius M'Slug, who's powerful against Popery, the Rev. Bernard Brimstone, and the Rev. Phineas Lucre, with many more on the side of truth. On that of Popery and falsehood there's the Rev. Father M'Stake, the Rev. Father O'Flary, the Rev. Father M'Fire, and the Rev. Nicholas O'Scorch, D.D. Dr. Sombre is to be second ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... on my demob. To shun the retrogression To any sort of office job; I'd jest as a profession And burst upon the world a new Satirical rebuker, Acquiring fame and maybe too A modicum of lucre. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 7th, 1920 • Various
... he said, "good St. Michael! if you put in the one scale all the lucre I have gotten in my life, set in the other, if it please you, the noble foundations whereby I have so splendidly shown my piety. Forget not the Duomo of Santa Maria Novella, to which I contributed a good third; nor my Hospital beyond the walls, that I built entirely ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... nor the versification of the young scholar was that of the Augustan age. In English composition he succeeded much better. In 1687 he distinguished himself among many able men who wrote in defence of the Church of England, then persecuted by James II., and calumniated by apostates who had for lucre quitted her communion. Among these apostates none was more active or malignant than Obadiah Walker, who was master of University College, and who had set up there, under the royal patronage, a press for ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seek. Yet the Lord was right, for there was not one in all Israel so royal as he, and it was he who redeemed it and made it a nation. Samuel had grown old—he was always a priest rather than a captain—and his sons, whom he made judges, turned aside after lucre, took bribes, and perverted judgment. The people were weary of their oppression and the hand of the Amalekites and the Philistines were very heavy on the land. They therefore prayed for a king, and the thing displeased Samuel, and he tried to turn them from it. But they refused ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... Irish policeman is talking to a traveller who has stepped off a transcontinental train, and who asks with a drawl, "What makes Winnipeg?" Scraping a lump of mud from his boot-heel, the Bobby holds it out. "This is the sordid dhross and filthy lucre which keeps our nineteen chartered banks and their one and twenty suburban branches going. Just beyant is one hundred million acres of it, and the dhirty stuff grows forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Don't be like ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... face of life. He did not fight to rend the world apart; He fought to make it one in mind and heart, Building a broad and noble bridge to span The icy chasm that sunders man from man. Wherever wrong had fixed its bastions deep, There did his fierce yet gay assault surprise Some fortress girt with lucre or with lies; There his light battery stormed some ponderous keep; There charged he up the steep, A knight on whom no palsying torpor fell, Keen to the last to break a lance with Hell. And still undimmed ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... contrive; on the tops of coaches, for example; and amongst these there are fellows with dark sallow faces and sharp shining eyes; and it is these that have planted rottenness in the core of pugilism, for they are Jews, and, true to their kind, have only base lucre in view. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... services and sacrifices, told the House that he had borne a great part in the Revolution, that he had made four voyages to Holland in the evil times, that he had since refused great places, that he had always held lucre in contempt. "I," he said, turning significantly to Nottingham, "have bought no great estate; I have built no palace; I am twenty thousand pounds poorer than when I entered public life. My old hereditary mansion is ready ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Man of Lucre know What riches from my labours flow?— A DREAM is my reply. And who for wealth has ever pin'd, That had a World within his mind, Where every treasure he may find, And joys ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... that matter, the streets of London, in the dismal summer of 1665, were, comparatively speaking, always deserted; and the few now wending their way homeward were tired physicians and plague-nurses from the hospitals, and several hardy country folks, with more love of lucre than fear of death bending their steps with produce to the market-place. These people, sleepy and pallid in the gray haze of daylight, stared in astonishment after the two furious riders; and windows were thrown open, and heads thrust ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... persuasion. He hath attended thee in thy fever and thy frenzy, without calling in the aid of the physician, therefore do I believe that he must be the man of whom thou speakest; yet doth he not follow up the healing art for the lucre of gain." ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... that if any young female person was to inquire particulars of my birth, origin, &c., he was to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, especially making it clear that I was neither a tip-top Rajah, nor a Leviathan of filthy lucre. ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... conveyance, that applications were made in manner most humble, even to Meg Dods herself, entreating she would permit her old whiskey to ply (for such might have been the phrase) at St. Ronan's Well, for that day only, and that upon good cause shown. But not for sordid lucre would the undaunted spirit of Meg compound her feud with her neighbours of the detested Well. "Her carriage," she briefly replied, "was engaged for her ain guest and the minister, and deil anither body's fit should gang intill't. Let every ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... criticism, no villain fancies disturbed his soul. No laziness, no feebleness in effort, injured his work, no desire for money, no faltering of aspiration, no pandering of his gift and genius to please the world, no surrender of art for the sake of fame or filthy lucre, no falseness to his ideal, no base pessimism, no slavery to science yet no boastful ignorance of its good, no morbid naturalism, no devotion to the false forms of beauty, no despair of man, no retreat from men into a world of sickly or vain beauty, ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... his whys and his wherefores, a fine pain unknown to the brute beast. If these questionings come from us with greater persistence, with a more imperious authority, if they divert us from the quest of lucre, life's only object in the eyes of most men, does it become us to complain? Let us be careful not to do so, for that would be denying the best of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... was shot in the leg—a black sailor, who, with two roughs, had undertaken the risk for lucre. The ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... each to his special science, contemptuously indifferent to moral and political interests, their sole aim is to acquire an easy reputation, and in France (through paid Academies and professorships) personal lucre, by pushing their sciences into idle and useless inquiries (speculations oiseuses), of no value to the real interests of mankind, and tending to divert the thoughts from them. One of the duties most incumbent on opinion and on the Spiritual Power, is to stigmatize as immoral, and effectually ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... the New York Independent resigned his position, because the worldly proprietor would insist upon running the commercial column of that sheet in a secular manner, with an eye to the goods that perish. The godly party wished him to ignore the filthy lucre of this world, and lay up for himself treasures in heaven; but the sordid wretch would seize every covert opportunity to reach out his little muckrake after the gold of the gentile, to the neglect of the things ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... slave-port, with a miserable old man for its master, the mission once more set forth for Shoa; yet even here we glean a specimen of Arab speech. "Trees attain not to their growth in a single day," said an Arab, when remonstrating with the sultan on his inordinate love of lucre. "Take the tree as your text, and learn that property is to be gathered only by slow degrees." "True," said the old miser; "but, sheik, you must have lost sight of the fact, that my leaves are already withered, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... the lost Mexican mine. I don't catch on to that Sunday-school yarn about the pious, scientific sharp who collected leaves and vegetables all over the Divide, all the while he scientifically knew that the range was solid silver, only he wouldn't soil his fingers with God-forsaken lucre. I ain't saying anything agin that fine-spun theory that Key believes in about volcanic upheavals that set up on end argentiferous rock, but I simply say that I don't see it—with the naked eye. And I reckon it's about time, ...
— In a Hollow of the Hills • Bret Harte
... of lucre," said the man in black; "but does not grudge a faithful priest a little private perquisite," and he took out a very ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the seats divine Can touch immortals, 'tis a soul like thine; A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried, Above all pain, all passion, and all pride, The rage of power, the blast of public breath, The lust of lucre, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... the end of lucre and desire Of riches, gotten by unlawfull meanes. What monstrous evils this hath brought to passe, Your scarce-drie eyes give testimoniall; The father sonne, the sister brother brings, To ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... permitted or connived at the persons soe commissionated by him ... unwarrantably ... to lay and impose what levies and imposicons upon us they should or did please, which they would often extort from us by force and violence, and which for the most part they converted to their owne private lucre and gaine. And ... Sir William Berkeley, haveing by these wayes and meanes, and by takeing upon him contrary to law the granting collectors places, sherifs, and other offices of profitt to whome he best pleased, ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... some other profession Than that of moulding the human mind, I might have secured a greater possession Of lucre and treasures and powers combined, Than all I may now of these truly own; But I have in my casket some jewels I treasure Far more than all stocks and houses and lands, In gold and silver their worth has no measure, For none may compute warm hearts and true hands, When the ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... the true Iagoism of, alas! how many! Note Iago's pride of mastery in the repetition of "Go, make money!" to his anticipated dupe, even stronger than his love of lucre: and when Roderigo ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... Mere lucre ought not, perhaps, to influence you in such a case; and if you comply through regard to my peace or your own reputation, I shall certainly esteem you more highly than if you are determined by the present offer; yet such is my aversion to this alliance, that the ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... the edge of the fender, her eyes shut, toasting, and all but roasting herself at the fire,—a note was brought in, which from its fat, soft look, by a hopeful and not unskilled palpation I diagnosed as that form of lucre which in Scotland may well be called filthy. I gave it across to Madam, who, opening it, discovered four five-pound notes, and a letter addressed to me. She gave it me. It was from Hugh Miller, editor of the Witness newspaper, asking me to give ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... o'er-ride The power of gold, and league on virtue's side. No need to marvel at the stories told Of simple-sage Democritus of old, How, while his soul was soaring in the sky, The sheep got in and nibbled down his rye, When, spite of lucre's strong contagion, yet On lofty problems all your thoughts are set,— What checks the sea, what heats and cools the year, If law or impulse guides the starry sphere, "What power presides o'er lunar wanderings, What means the jarring harmony of things, Which after all is wise, and which the fool, ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... in the coffin along with me. Let me be carried to the grave by my own men, rigged in the black caps and white shirts which my barge's crew were wont to wear; and they must keep a good look out, that none of your pilfering rascallions may come and heave me up again, for the lucre of what they can get, until the carcase is belayed by a tombstone. As for the motto, or what you call it, I leave that to you and Mr. Jolter, who are scholars; but I do desire, that it may not be engraved in the Greek or Latin lingos, and much less in the French, which I abominate, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... lowly cell; In the homes of poverty, smoke-begrimed, With the sober-minded she loves to dwell. But she turns aside From the rich man's house with averted eye, The golden-fretted halls of pride Where hands with lucre are foul, and the praise Of counterfeit goodness smoothly sways; And wisely she guides in the strong man's despite All things to ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... food, more especial when there ain't no more going of the rounds; and as for that there claim, well, she's been a good nigger to me; but between you and me, stranger, speaking man to man, now that there ain't any filthy lucre between us to obscure the features of the truth, I guess she's ...
— A Tale of Three Lions • H. Rider Haggard
... of Rome the priesthood was a profession, not of lucre but of honour. It was embraced by the noblest citizens—it was forbidden to the plebeians. Afterwards, and long previous to the present date, it was equally open to all ranks; at least, that part of the profession which embraced the flamens, or priests—not ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... this morning." "Not without my brother: excuse me, sir," said the coy lady, withdrawing with the dignity of a princess. "When your friend arrives, for whose advice I presume you wait, you will be able to decide your heart. Mine cannot be influenced by base lucre, or ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... superstition, he went so far into the other extreme, as to be censured for an atheist. The day before his death, a monk relating a terrible dream, which seemed to forebode him some misfortune, the King being told the matter, turned it into a jest; said, "The man was a monk, and dreamt like a monk, for lucre sake;" and therefore commanded Fitzhamon to give him an hundred shillings, that he might not complain he ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... charm, but if she is not all the world to him, why, he shall not be all the world to her. If it is money he craves, for the restoration of that old home of his, why money let it be. But there, shall not be the two things, the desire of one for filthy lucre, the desire of the other for love. ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... forcible; to the public encouragements and honours bestowed on the cultivators of literature; to the emulation excited among the generous youth, by exhibitions of their performances at the solemn games; to an inattention to the arts of lucre and commerce, which engross and debase the minds of the moderns; and above all, to an exemption from the necessity of overloading their natural faculties with learning and languages, with which we in these later times are obliged to qualify ourselves, for writers, if we ...
— Essays on Wit No. 2 • Richard Flecknoe and Joseph Warton
... that however anxious people were to save their souls, they were unwilling to part with their "filthy lucre" to buy through tickets to the celestial city, consequently, that winter being impecunious, I was constrained to accept the offer of my cousin, the "prudential committee," to teach the district school in Barrington, N.H., for the generous stipend of $14 per month and ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... of his brain, the flash of his eye, the tremor of his masterful hands—all these now worked in fullest harmony and told her here was a man. Preciosa, never inclined to make too much of worldly considerations, now set them aside altogether. Any idea of mere lucre slipped from her mind, and if she thought at all of a mother's strained social ambitions for a favourite child, it was but to feel with a wilful joy that she was extricating herself from the selfish ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... Ellis Island," he explained to Mrs. Vanderlyn. "A case of sheep and goats, all right, according to the tenets of this land of liberty and lucre. If you've got money you're a sheep. Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, has wide-open arms for you. No one tries to stop your entrance. If you've none, why you're the goat ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the crowd which began to give way. They stared at one another speechless, and He continued to thunder forth: "My house shall be a holy refuge for the downcast and the suffering, said the Lord. And you make it a den of assassins, and, with your passion for lucre, leave no place for men's souls. Out with you, ye cheats and thieves, whether you higgle over your goods or with the Scriptures!" He swung the phylacteries high over the Rabbis and teachers so that they bent their heads and fled through the curtained entrances. But ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... those very taxes wrung from the people on the pretence of saving them from the poverty and distress which you say the enemy would inflict, but which you take care no enemy shall be able to aggravate. Oh! shame! shame! is this a time for selfish intrigues, and the little dirty traffic for lucre and emolument? Does it suit the honor of a gentleman to ask at such a moment? Does it become the honesty of a Minister to grant? Is it intended to confirm the pernicious doctrine, so industriously propagated by many, that all public men are impostors, and that every politician ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... evacuate a billet William furnishes the Babe with enough money to compensate the farmer for all damages we have not committed, and then effaces himself. Donning a bright smile the Babe approaches the farmer and presses the lucre into his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... was a notable Undertaker in Latin Verse, and had well deserved of his Country, had not lucre of Gain and private Ambition over-swayed his Pen, to favour successful Rebellion. He wrote in Latin his Marston-Moor; A Gratulatory Ode of Peace; Englished afterwards by Thomas Manley, and other Latin pieces, besides English ones, not a few, which (as we ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... "There's the rub. Not lucre. Perish the thought! But one begins to be a power, an influence. People whisper in the Tube, 'Who's that?' 'That! Don't you know? Why Him—He! The man who is making the Government a laughing-stock. The man who holds the Empire in the palm of his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 11, 1914 • Various
... know the great ones, Who buy fat jobs, and steal the public lucre, What times befall the poverty-stricken devils Who grind ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... during the three weeks George Gould was lazing and luxuriating in a foreign land "the business revival added at least $15,000,000 to the value of the Gold securities." Gadzooks! how sweet idleness must be when sugared with more than $714,000 per day! I'm willing to loaf for half the lucre. How refreshing it is to contemplate our plutocrats lying beside their nectar like a job lot of ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... bridge!" he cried, "keen-talon'd fiends! Lo! one of Santa Zita's elders! Him Whelm ye beneath, while I return for more. That land hath store of such. All men are there, Except Bonturo, barterers: of 'no' For lucre there an 'aye' ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... last end to all the human acts of a given individual? Is there one supreme motive for all that this or that man deliberately does? At first sight it seems that there is not. The same individual will act now for glory, now for lucre, now for love. But all these different ends are reducible to one, that it may be well with him and his. And what is true of one man here, is true of all. All the human acts of all men are done for the one (subjective) last end just indicated. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... plum-pudding after a nightmare of mince-pie. Through this magnificence had drifted, while yet the Leatherstonepaughs saw Rome in all its idealizing mists, generations of artists. Sometimes these artists had had a sublime disdain of base lucre, and sometimes base lucre had had a sublime disdain of them. Some of the latter class—whose name is Legion—had marked their passage by busts, statuettes and paintings that served to remind Signora Anina, their landlady, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... as a people in that our material prosperity itself did not prove a greater curse. More than every other disaster was to be feared the growth of a temper for mere material thinking and enjoyment, the love of lucre and of those merely material comforts and delights which lucre can buy. There was among us quite too little care for the ideal side of life. Too many who purchased books loved them only for the money they cost. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... patience with ye! Puir thing! d'ye think she'll not be sufficiently sad when my coffin be borne away, and she be left desolate! Tearing my pictures from the walls, and ransacking every nook and corner, and packing up and carting away what's dearer to her than household gods, and all for filthy lucre's sake! No; let her enjoy the few years that will be spared to her; when she walks about the house let her feel it all her own, such as it be, and nothing missing but her brother. I'd rather my bones were torn from my ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... their lives for a Christian purpose, or is it lucre you seek, Mr. Praiseworthy?" she enquires, giving the Elder a significant look, and ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... I am possess'd With more than half the Gallian territories, And therein reverenced for their lawful king: Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd, Detract so much from that prerogative, As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole? No, lord ambassador, I 'll rather keep That which I have than, coveting for more, Be cast from ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... is, that he's no he, but a woman in disguise. My faith on it, Jeromio's in the secret, as sure as my name is Obey Springall! Jeromio understands all manner of lingoes, and would be likely to consort with any foreigners for filthy lucre: he has ever ventures of his own, ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... little used in England among lawyers as the eating of swine's flesh was among the Jews.' When you remember the terms of friendship whereon he lived with Moll Cutpurse, his hatred of the thief-catcher, who would hang his brother for 'the lucre of ten pounds, which is the reward,' or who would swallow a false oath 'as easily as one would swallow buttered fish,' is a trifle mysterious. Perhaps before his death an estrangement divided Hind and Moll. Was it that the Roaring Girl was too anxious to ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... dismal bed) And hide on their chill knees once more their patient head. Where are those good old times? Who thanks us, who, For our good word? Men list not now to do Great deeds and worthy of the minstrel's verse: Vassals of gain, their hand is on their purse, Their eyes on lucre: ne'er a rusty nail They'll give in kindness; this being aye ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... approach; the Jews always remained; nothing could have induced them to forsake their wretched habitations; they might be known by their thick pronunciation, their voluble and hasty way of speaking, the vivacity of their motions, and their complexion, animated by the base passion of lucre. We noticed in particular their eager and piercing looks, their faces and features lengthened out into acute points, which a malicious and perfidious smile cannot widen; their tall, slim, and supple form; the earnestness ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... not have me back in the Settlements, to scandalize them that is of my faith? No, friend; my lot is cast in the woods, and thee must not ask me again to leave them. And, friend, thee must not think I have served thee for the lucre of money or gain; for truly these things are now to me as nothing. The meat that feeds me, the skins that cover, the leaves that make my bed, are all in the forest around me, to be mine when I want them; and what more can I desire? Yet, friend, if thee thinks theeself obliged by ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... usual fee. No blame whatever attaches to men who keep these private asylums or set traps for passing souls; it is their profession, and in the exercise of it they are actuated by no harsh or unkindly feelings. But there are also wretches who from pure spite or for the sake of lucre set and bait traps with the deliberate purpose of catching the soul of a particular man; and in the bottom of the pot, hidden by the bait, are knives and sharp hooks which tear and rend the poor soul, either killing ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... word of God; and not only to wyne agane, bot also to owircum:—as saith[396] Paule, 'A bischope most be faltles, as becumith the minister of God, not stubburne, not angrie, no drunkard, no feghtar, not gevin to filthy lucre; but harberous, one that loveth goodnes, sober mynded, rychteous, holy, temperat, and such as cleaveth unto the trew word of the doctrine, that he may be able to exhorte with holsome learning, and to improve that which thei say against him.'" The Fourte parte of his sermon was, how Heresyes should ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... settle down at last into a mere mechanical, a plodding, every-day merchant, whose finest fancies are given to the condition of the money-market, who governs his actions by a decline of Erie, and narrows his ideas down to the requirements of filthy lucre, like a mere 'wintry clod of earth'! Ay, poor Clarian, poor anybody, when we wake from our bright youth-dream and tread the rough pathway of a reality ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... because no one could pass through it without having a dead body over his head. He therefore opened the tomb, in which he found—of treasures indeed nothing, but the corpse, and an inscription to this effect: "If thou hadst not been insatiably eager for riches, and greedy of filthy lucre, thou wouldst not have opened the depository of the dead." So much for this queen and the reports that have ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... lobbyist to buy assemblymen.[1237] Within three days after its passage (April 5) the Governor had approved it, the Mayor had appointed Tweed to the position of most power, and Sweeny had taken the place of most lucre. Thereafter, as commissioner of public works, the Boss was to be "the bold burglar," and his silent partner "the dark plotter." A week later the departments of police and health, the office of comptroller, the park commission, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... And they did wax strong in love towards Mosiah; yea, they did esteem him more than any other man; for they did not look upon him as a tyrant who was seeking for gain, yea, for that lucre which doth corrupt the soul; for he had not exacted riches of them, neither had he delighted in the shedding of blood; but he had established peace in the land, and he had granted unto his people that they should be delivered from all manner of bondage; therefore ...
— The Book Of Mormon - An Account Written By The Hand Of Mormon Upon Plates Taken - From The Plates Of Nephi • Anonymous
... credit of the Confederate Government abroad was excellent; and either from love of "filthy lucre" or of the cause, some of the best firms in England were ready and eager to furnish supplies. It appeared quite practicable to send in machinery, iron plates, etc., for building small vessels of war; and several firms offered to engage in ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... this great rural improvement arises, we have reason to believe, not so much out of the actual lucre of gain as the fatal vis inertiae—that indolence which induces the lords of the soil to be satisfied with what they can obtain from it by immediate rent, rather than encounter the expense and trouble of attempting the modes of amelioration which require immediate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume XIII, No. 369, Saturday, May 9, 1829. • Various
... utterance, which is much wiser than anything we have lately articulated or brought into word or action, our outlooks are rather lamentable. The great majority of the powerful and active-minded, sunk in egoistic scepticisms, busied in chase of lucre, pleasure, and mere vulgar objects, looking with indifference on the world's woes, and passing carelessly by on the other side; and the select minority, of whom better might have been expected, bending all their strength to cure them by methods which can only ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... that a reward had been offered throughout the country for any tidings of me; and they had seen a description of me that had been forwarded to the police office in town. Those harpies, therefore, for the mere sake of filthy lucre, were resolved to deliver me over into the hands of my father and ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... need of an ecclesiastical superior, of a character capable of imposing his authority made itself felt more and more. Disorders of all kinds crept into the colony, and our fathers felt the necessity of a firm and vigorous arm to remedy this alarming state of affairs. The love of lucre, of gain easily acquired by the sale of spirituous liquors to the savages, brought with it evils against which the missionaries endeavoured ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... is full ob mercenary men," Dolf went on, "searchin' fur de filty lucre; I'se glad I neber was one ob dem. I allers has 'spised de dross; gib me lobe, I says, and peace wid de fair one ob my choice, and I ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... base lucre and pale melancholy! In the flames of the pyre these, alas! will be vain; Mix your sage ruminations with glimpses of folly, 'Tis delightful at times to ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell
... riches, I have but to walk a hundred yards from my house, on the neighbouring plateau, once a shady forest, to-day a dreary solitude where the Cricket browses and the Wheat-ear flits from stone to stone. The love of lucre has laid waste the land. Because wine paid handsomely, they pulled up the forest to plant the vine. Then came the Phylloxera, the vine-stocks perished and the once green table-land is now no more than a desolate stretch where a few tufts of hardy ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... Puchol, carried away by an easily comprehensible desire for lucre, and thinking it brought the same amount to the famous financier whether he played through Recquillart or through Muller, had made the last bid for the Minister through ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... she love him? Tell me that! Give me one good reason for her folly, and I will forgive her—do anything for her!— anything but let her have the rascal! That I WILL NOT! Take for your son-in-law an ape that loathes your money, calls it filthy lucre—and means it! Not if I can help it!—Don't let me see her! I shall come to hate her! and that I would rather not; a man must love and cherish his own flesh! I shall go away, I must!—to get rid of the hateful face of the minx, with its selfrighteous, ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... state the expence of the two systems, as they now stand in each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... resist all the entreaties and proffers of the elves, until one of them offered him a large lump of mutton-suet, and begged him to take a bite of it. Fusi, who had up to this time gallantly resisted all such offers as gold and silver and diamonds and such filthy lucre, could hold out no longer, and crying, "Seldom have I refused a bite of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... were wont to enter from their state barges. Mac's rather hazy notions of that lady wrapped her in a halo of romance, and now he walked the lovely aisles which she had trod. Was it, he thought, worth while gradually to spoil this wonderful building for the sake of lucre from ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... 'She is fond of lucre,' said the man in black; 'but does not grudge a faithful priest a little private perquisite,' and he took out ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... hot here in Suez. Great James! to think of the way I've been sweating about this blame' ship without a scrap of need of it. Here, hurry up with the lucre-boxes. I want to get across to the old Parakeet and wash the taste of a lot of things ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... 300 points up, at the old three-ball style of billiards, for stakes of $100 a side, and I beat him by a score of 300 to 252, no account of the averages or high runs being kept for the reason, as I presume, that nobody thought them worth keeping, though enough of the filthy lucre changed hands on the result to keep some of my ball-playing friends in pocket money ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson
... knowledge of his own folly, understood too late, filled him with shame. How could he have been so wicked as to bring a girl upon such a quest in the company of an unprincipled Jew, of whose past he knew nothing except that it was murky and dubious? He had committed a great crime, led on by a love of lucre, and the weight of it pressed upon his tongue and closed his lips; he ...
— Benita, An African Romance • H. Rider Haggard
... fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all points to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion, the other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one feats, the other humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, and the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... rehearse our measureless wealth, it is for thee, dear Mother, We own it all and several to-day indissoluble in thee; Think not our chant, our show, merely for products gross or lucre— it is for thee, the soul in thee, electric, spiritual! Our farms, inventions, crops, we own in thee! cities and States in thee! Our freedom all in thee! our ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... deluge all; and avarice creeping on, Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun. Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks, Peeress and butler shared alike the box; And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town, And mighty dukes packed cards for half-a-crown: Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms.—Pope. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... be reflective—say, for example, Winston Churchill—he takes his hero up to the mountain of success and then conducts him down again to the valley of humiliation, made conscious that the love, after all, either of his family or of his society, is better than lucre. Theodore Dreiser's stubborn habit of presenting his rich men's will to power without abatement or apology has helped to keep him steadily suspected. The popular romancers have contrived to mingle passion for money and susceptibility ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... after." But never can a vehement and sustained spirit of fortitude be kindled in a people by a war of calculation. It has nothing that can keep the mind erect under the gusts of adversity. Even where men are willing, as sometimes they are, to barter their blood for lucre, to hazard their safety for the gratification of their avarice, the passion which animates them to that sort of conflict, like all the shortsighted passions, must see its objects distinct and near at hand. The passions of the lower order are hungry and impatient. Speculative plunder,—contingent ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... suffer to waste away and vanish the faith for which he died. He hath chosen in all countries pure hearts for its depositaries; and I would rather take it from a friend and neighbour, intelligent and righteous, and rejecting lucre, than from some foreigner educated in the pride of cities or in the moroseness of monasteries, who sells me what Christ gave me,—his own flesh ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor |
