"Covetousness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... avarice of all the members of the Bonaparte family has already and frequently been mentioned; some of our philosophers, however, pretend that ambition and vanity exclude from the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte the passion of covetousness; that he pillages only to get money to pay his military plunderers, and hoards treasures only to purchase slaves, or to recompense the associates ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... confusion for that which is past, and has cast off the yoke of that worst of slaveries, let him take up this parable against the king of Babylon. There is labor in vice, there is rest in virtue; there is confusion in lust, there is security in chastity; there is servitude in covetousness, there is liberty in charity. Now, there is a labor in vice, and labor for vice, and labor against vice. A labor in vice, when, for the sake of fulfilling our evil desires, the ancient enemy inflicts hard labor upon us. There is a labor for vice, when any one is either ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... emphatically calls them. God had, in punishment of their apostasy from him by idolatry, given them over to the most shameful passions, as described at large by the apostle: Filled with all iniquity, fornication, covetousness, maliciousness, envy, murder, contention, deceit, whisperers, detracters, proud, haughty, disobedient, without fidelity, without affection, without mercy, &c.[7] Such were the generality of our pagan ancestors, and such should we ourselves have been, but ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... a curious statute reciting that "Whereas in all Parts of this Realm divers People of great Power, moved with unsatiable Covetousness ... have sought and found new Inventions, and them continually do execute, to the Danger, Trouble and great abusing of all Ladies, Gentlewomen, and having any Substance ... perceiving their great Weakness and ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... chaplain of great experience, the Rev. J. W. Horsley, wrote, in his interesting work on 'Prisons and Prisoners': 'While covetousness is a factor of crime, the tools education places in the hands make crimes of greed more possible, and possible at an earlier age than in past generations. This week I got the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society to take under its care a child of ten, who ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... the practice of appeals to Rome, and from the ease with which dispensations for non-residence and pluralities were obtained[3]. Again, at the Council of Constance (A.D. 1415) a sermon was preached by Dr. Abendon, an Oxford professor, which painted in very strong language the worldliness and covetousness of the non-resident Bishops and Clergy; and these protests were followed up by an official appeal to the Pope for a reformation, on the part of the Kings of France and England, A.D. 1425, as well as by official instructions given to the English deputation despatched to the Council of Basle (A.D. ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... Powers: memory and intellect, desire and covetousness. The two first are mental and the others sensual. The three senses: sight, hearing and smell cannot well be prevented; touch and taste not at all. Smell is connected with taste in dogs and ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... this Labyrinth. Most Authors are contented to describe Men in general, they represent them Covetous, Courageous and Ambitious, without entering into the Particulars, and without specifying the Character of their Covetousness, Valour or Ambition; they don't perceive Nice Distinctions, which those who know it Remark in the Passions; in Effect, the Nature, Humour and Juncture, give New Postures to Vices; the Turn of the Mind, ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... slavery. Their very children are not exempted from these acts of barbarity. The same Mouley Adaram, whom I have already mentioned, lives at this day wandering in the Desert, and among his banditti, in consequence of having fallen a victim to his father's covetousness. I do not know if this young prince has ever shown any good qualities, but in the Desert he is only considered as a barbarous prince, who will prove a very cruel tyrant, if ever he mounts the throne. It is true, the throne appears at present to be destined for his brother Moulem[36] ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... them to. Every man is not alike inclined to the same sin, but some to one, and some to another. Now, let the man that professes the name of Christ religiously consider with himself, "Unto what sin or vanity am I most inclined? is it pride? is it covetousness? is it fleshly lust?" and let him labor by all means to leave off and depart from that. This is that which David called his own iniquity, and saith, "I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... discussion, or, when the dreary bore came and wouldn't go, or, when misdirected goodness insisted on thrusting upon him intended kindness that was wormwood and poison to the soul. Are we not covetous (not confessedly, of course, but actually)? Is not covetousness the thwarted desire of theft without courage? How many of us, now—speaking man to man—can open up our veiled thoughts and desires and then look the Ten Commandments in ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... imaginary foraging, always a recreation to her, became a sore trial to him. With the demonstration that two really cannot live cheaper than one, the old covetousness smouldering for want of an outlet once more burned hotly within. It expressed itself outwardly in a general uneasiness and irritability. The little fund, her money and his, that lay in savings bank began to spend itself fantastically. ...
— The Collectors • Frank Jewett Mather
... inland caciques Caonabo and Guarionex and their warriors, who attacked and destroyed both the fort and the village of Guacanagari. At the same time it was stated that the Spaniards had made themselves hateful to the natives by their domineering disposition and their lewdness and covetousness. The finding in some of the native huts of objects that had belonged to the colonists, as well as other suspicious circumstances, caused Father Boil and other companions of Columbus to doubt the chief's story and insist that sanguinary vengeance be taken. ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... dangerous to do so at Whitehall, because, as has been already shown, the King lived at Westminster in a congeries of old buildings more or less dilapidated and inconvenient. Wolsey's fall was doubtless hastened by his master's covetousness, and after it, by agreement with the Chapter of York, the King had the house conveyed to himself. Up to this time it had been known as York Place, but was henceforth Whitehall. At Anne Boleyn's coronation in the Abbey, the Royal party ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... believe, our favorite game secures better than all others. Besides this direct use, one who loves it finds many other incidental uses starting up about it,—such as made Archbishop Magnus, the learned historian of Sweden, say, "Anger, love, peevishness, covetousness, dulness, idleness, and many other passions and motions of the minds of men may be discovered by it."—But we promised not to vindicate chess, and shall leave this portion of our topic with the fine verse of the Oriental bard, Ibn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the indignant countess. "She dies through the covetousness and greed of her neighbors. It is they who have sown dissension in Poland, while forcing upon her unhappy people a king who is nothing but the despicable tool of their ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... are temptations which it is not in the power of human nature to resist, and few know what would be their case if driven to the same exigencies. As covetousness is the root of all evil, so poverty is, I believe, the worst of all snares. But I waive that discourse till I come to ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... let her talk to them about their souls, then!—They would even amend a few sins here and there, of which they had been all along as well aware as she. But to be convinced of a new sin; to have their laziness, pride, covetousness, touched; that, she found, was what they would not bear; and where she had expected, if not thanks, at least a fair hearing, she had been met with peevishness, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... administration of their respective rulers Periander and Pisistratus. One of these ambassadorial missions, undertaken at the command of Croesus, was the occasion of his death. Having been sent to Delphi with a large sum of gold for distribution among the citizens, he was so provoked at their covetousness that he refused to divide the money, and sent it back to his master. The Delphians, enraged at this treatment, accused him of impiety, and, in spite of his sacred character as ambassador, executed him as a public ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... good Christians, and men that are to bear arms in defence of the Holy Catholic faith, acknowledged that they did not bring with them suitable dispositions, but, with little regard to God's service, were influenced by covetousness and love of ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Revolution material abundance and all the comforts of life came to be a matter of course for every one, and storing for the future was needless. Then it was that the hunger motive died out of human nature and covetousness as to material things, mocked to death by abundance, perished by atrophy, and the motives of the modern worker, the love of honor, the joy of beneficence, the delight of achievement, and the enthusiasm of humanity, became the impulses of the economic world. Labor was glorified, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... all good things and all good feelings,—religion, reverence, courtesy,—sane contentment, rational ambition,—the right sort of humility, the right sort of pride,—they all go down before it: whilst, in the ignorance which it disseminates, blasphemy, covetousness, bumptiousness, bad taste (and bad art and bad literature, to gratify it), every form of wrong-headedness and wrong-heartedness flourish like the seven plagues of Egypt. But it was all inevitable from the day that meddling German busybody invented printing—if not from the day his heathenish ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... looked eagerly. His eyes shone with covetousness at the sight of the animal. His hand seemed ready to harpoon it. One would have thought he was awaiting the moment to throw himself into the sea and attack ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... waste-paper!—'twill make a royal feast. Your nimble brokers, Gluttony and Lust, bring you whole cargoes from the fair of life. Even Ambition, your grandpapa—War, Famine, Fire, and Plague, your mighty huntsmen, have provided you with many a jovial man-chase. Avarice and Covetousness, your sturdy butlers, drink to your health whole towns floating in the bubbling cup of the world-ocean. I know a kitchen in Europe where the rarest dishes have been served up in your honor with festive pomp. And yet—who has ever known ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the throne of the stage. I meane not the Lords roome (which is now but stages suburbs): no, those boxes, by the iniquity of custome, conspiracy of waiting women and gentlemen ushers, that there sweat together, and the covetousness of sharers are contemptibly thrust into the reare, and much new satten is there dambd by being smothrd to death in darknesse. But on the very rushes, where the comedy is to daunce, yea and under the state of Cambises himselfe must our fethered ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... a brief 'Memoir of Horace Bassett Morse,' 1830; a Discourse on 'The Conduct of Men Considered in Contrast with the Law of God,' 1836; a 'Sermon on the Sin of Covetousness, Considered in Respect to Intemperance, Indian Oppression, Slavery,' etc., 1838; the 'Patriarch of Hebron, or the History of Abraham' ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... remark of the honest trench-digger at once set in motion a train of thought in the mind of the author. He entered his study, wrote in large letters on a sheet of paper these words, 'The Crock of Gold, a Tale of Covetousness,' and in less than a week that remarkable story was written. By the advice of his wife, however, he spent another week in rewriting it, and then gave it to the ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... what manner of wisdom is in them? Every one, from the least even unto the greatest, is given to covetousness; from the prophet even unto the priest every ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... and he recovered all the spoil, which was so great that two hundred horses were the fifth, for the whole spoil was worth a hundred times a thousand maraveds. Rodrigo divided the whole among his people without covetousness, and returned ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... result than a repudiation of solid learning and an alliance with art. We have only to compare the poverty and plainness of the first disciples with the extravagance reached in a few generations. Cyprian complains of the covetousness, pride, luxury, and worldly-mindedness of Christians, even of the clergy and confessors. Some made no scruple to contract matrimony with heathens. Clement of Alexandria bitterly inveighs against "the vices of an opulent and luxurious Christian ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... succeeded in excluding, for a time, jewels and precious metals from among national possessions, the national spirit has remained healthy. Covetousness is not natural to man—generosity is; but covetousness must be excited by a special cause, as a given disease by a given miasma; and the essential nature of a material for the excitement of covetousness ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... world!" brooded Susan bitterly. "I wish to GOD," she added passionately, "that there was some way of telling right from wrong! If you want to have a good time and have money enough, you can steal and lie and marry people like Kenneth Saunders; there's no law that you can't break—pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth! That IS society! And yet, if you want to be decent, you can slave away a thousand years, mending and patching and teaching and keeping books, and nothing beautiful or easy ever ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... himself."[66] Many of our vices, in fact, are simply savage qualities—and some are even savage virtues—in their old age. Thus in an organized society the acquisitiveness and self-assertion proper to a vigorous primitive dependent on his own powers survive as the sins of envy and covetousness, and are seen operating in the dishonesty of the burglar, the greed and egotism of the profiteer: and, on the highest levels, the great spiritual sin of pride may be traced back to a perverted expression of that self-regarding instinct without which the ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... hailed as the advanced thinkers and the men worthy of the suffrage of the people; while those who contended human nature had not been changed, that a nation was simply the individual grown large and the jealousies, the covetousness and ambitions of governments would always make it possible for the strong to prey upon the weak and for the unprincipled under the guise of national necessity to attack their unprepared neighbours and therefore just as much as a city rests in confidence with the presence within ...
— Why I Preach the Second Coming • Isaac Massey Haldeman
... [excessive desire] — N. covetousness, ravenousness &c adj.; venality, avidity, cupidity; acquisitiveness (acquisition) 775; desire &c 865. [greed for money or material things] greed, greediness, avarice, avidity, rapacity, extortion. selfishness &c 943; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... might be two thousand, or fifteen, or twelve hundred, it would in any case undoubtedly be a great thing for him, if he could get it. The gratification to his ambition would be greater even than that of his covetousness. How glorious to out-top the archdeacon in his own cathedral city; to sit above prebendaries and canons and have the cathedral pulpit and all the cathedral services altogether ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... his mind. No one would ever know the depth of his bitter disappointment at the outcome of the race. With Creech's Blue Roan out of the way, another horse, swifter and more dangerous, had come along to spoil the King's chance. Bostil felt a subtly increasing covetousness in regard to Wildfire, and this colored all his talk and action. The upland country, vast and rangy, was for Bostil too small to hold Sage King and Wildfire unless they both belonged to him. And when old ...
— Wildfire • Zane Grey
... make a name and achieve fame. Some, too, are drawn on by the hope of wealth through finding gold, diamonds, and so on. But from what I have seen of gold and diamond prospectors on the spot in the act of prospecting, I should say it was quite as much love of adventure as covetousness of wealth that drew them into unknown parts. For experience shows them only too often that it is not the prospector but the company promoter and financier who make the money even when the prospector finds the gold or diamonds. Yet prospectors ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... As for the mast, Godfrey had not been deceived. If the staff still rose above the last rock on the cape, it was bereft of its flag. Evidently the savages after coming to the place had gone off with the red cloth which had excited their covetousness, and had regained their boat at the ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... gentleman had hardly suffered more during that fatal night than he did this night, during which Dionysia was away from the house. He knew very well that Blangin and his wife were honest people, in spite of their avarice and their covetousness; he knew that Jacques de Boiscoran ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... the megalomania of an autocrat drunk with vanity, the gross vanity of some brainless buffoon; it was not the warlike impulses, the blind infatuation and egoism of a feudal caste; it was not even the impatient and deliberately fanned envy and covetousness of a too prolific race close-cramped on a dreary and ungrateful soil: it was none of these that let loose the hateful war. All these causes, adventitious or fortuitous as they were, only settled the hour of the decision; but the decision itself was taken and written, ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump, and half-embedded stone, on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and hungry, and to such as are of simple taste. If thou fill thy brain with Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shall find no radiance of wisdom in the ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... gold, the sick woman leaned out of her bed and cast a glance of covetousness at the ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... with me." Solon, somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in public business and the compilation of his laws; which when Anacharsis understood, he laughed at him for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. To this Solon rejoined that men keep their promises when neither side can get ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... would be only a selfish, human want. It would be covetousness. But—you still think we were led right to the little ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... what part of Spain I came from, and what money and jewels I had. I mentioned the place, and told him the jewels and money were buried there; but that they might easily be recovered if I myself went back for them. All this I told him, in dread lest my beauty and not his own covetousness should influence him. While he was engaged in conversation with me, they brought him word that in company with me was one of the handsomest and most graceful youths that could be imagined. I knew at once that they were speaking of Don Gaspar Gregorio, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... doubts that have possessed the minds of the ministers of England; that Mr. Hastings is possessed of fidelity and confidence, and yielding protection to us; that he is clear of the contamination of mistrust and wrong, and his mind is free of covetousness or avarice. During the time of his administration no one saw other conduct than that of protection to the husbandman, and justice. No inhabitant ever experienced afflictions, no one ever felt oppression from him; our reputations have always ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and attempted an apology; but the Duke interrupted him, indignantly ordered him to give the boy the sovereign, and quit his service instantly. 'You have lost,' said the Duke, 'your money, your situation, and your character, by your covetousness; learn, henceforth, that honesty is the best policy.' The boy, by this time, recognised his assistant, in the person of the Duke, and the Duke was so delighted with the sterling worth and honesty of the boy, that he ordered him to be sent to school, kept there, and ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... church do not suspect that they have beneath them the stairway of six steps leading down to the vault that was to be the burial place of emperors. "Oh, vanity! Oh, nothingness! Oh, mortals ignorant of their destinies!" It is not enough that contending dynasties dispute each other's crowns; their covetousness and rivalry must extend to their tombs. Not enough that sovereigns have been exiled from their country; they must be exiled from their graves. Disappointments in life and in death. This is the last word of divine anger, the last of the ...
— The Duchess of Berry and the Court of Charles X • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... more or less in all other great national movements—the motives of most of those who took part were mixed, and varied with the individual. Thus it is undeniable that in the breast of many a reforming Scottish laird of the sixteenth century, mistrust of Rome was a subordinate feeling to the covetousness excited by the sight of extensive and well-cultivated Church lands; whilst, again, there are, on the other hand, probably few persons now in existence who would be prepared to justify the intolerance embodied even ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... pursue the wrong. It is the old story of human deficiency. No one abets or praises injustice, fraud, oppression, covetousness, revenge, envy, or slander; and yet how many who condemn these things, are themselves guilty of them. It is no rare thing for him whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence; ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... him. But they, wanting charity toward the beloved of the Lord, sent him away empty, and wholly refused unto him even one fish. Therefore God, the author and the lover of charity, from these fishermen, narrowed in their hearts, and frozen with covetousness, withdrew their wonted gain, and deprived that river of its perpetual abundance of fishes; and the other river, which was called Drobhaois, did he immediately enrich therewith. And this river, as being more fruitful, so is it clearer than all the other rivers in ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... of gold lying useless in his coffers; but locks and bolts placed their contents out of reach. She then bethought herself of the countess's bureau, in which her own cross had been deposited, secure from the old man's covetousness. There, too, the countess kept her treasures. She took a light, observed whether any one saw her, or could follow her, and repaired to the apartment of the Countess Galeazzi, who was from home, spending the evening with ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... diligence; neither shall they live in strife and quarrel with one another; they shall in no wise be disobedient to their Superiors or Abbesses, or cross the will of these. Wherever they are placed under the rules of a cloister they are to observe them throughout. Not whoring, not drunkenness, not covetousness shall they be the ministrants of, but in all ways lead just and sober lives. Neither shall any man enter their cloisters, except to attend mass, and he shall immediately depart." A regulation of the year 869 provided: "If priests keep ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they skew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not. And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... counsels to varying people, and often jealously careful to avoid definite precept. Is He asked, for example, to divide a heritage? He refuses: and the best advice that He will offer is but a paraphrase of that tenth commandment which figures so strangely among the rest. Take heed, and beware of covetousness. If you complain that this is vague, I have failed to carry you along with me in my argument. For no definite precept can be more than an illustration, though its truth were resplendent like the sun, and it was announced ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... individual hearers, to say what I thought would do them good. Not that I ever preached AT anybody; I only sought to explain the principles of things in which I knew action of some sort was demanded from them. For I remembered how our Lord's sermon against covetousness, with the parable of the rich man with the little barn, had for its occasion the request of a man that our Lord would interfere to make his brother share with him; which He declining to do, yet gave both brothers a lesson such as, if they wished to do what was right, would help them to see clearly ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... of this world are multiplied. It shows how modest comfort may become more and more general, and thus an impetus be given to all noble virtues without awakening a blind passion for riches. It teaches moderation instead of exciting covetousness, nor does it come in conflict with the sublime words of Saint Augustine: "The family of men, living by faith, use the goods of the earth as strangers here, not to be captivated by them or turned away by them from the goal to which they tend, which is God, but to find in them ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... Covent Garden and parish shop. And then another time they'll be on my nerves and I feel glad I'm out of it all. And another time again I'm jealous of them, and wish I had Wycombe's or Tony's chances of doing something in the world other than what I am doing. That, of course, is sheer vulgar covetousness and grab. It comes on sometimes when I am tired, or bored, and the parish seems stale, and the conferences and committees I attend unutterably profitless, and I want more clever people to talk to, and bigger and more educated audiences ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay
... results of their own work, they were always casting longing eyes upon the crops and fruits of their neighbours, which they stole, whenever they got the chance, and added to their own store. At last their covetousness made Jupiter so angry that he changed them into Ants. But, though their forms were changed, their nature remained the same: and so, to this day, they go about among the cornfields and gather the fruits of others' labour, and store them up ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... striking feature of these settlements was the steady growth of the tobacco trade. In 1619 twenty thousand pounds were exported, and in 1622 sixty thousand pounds. This increasing importation excited the covetousness of the king, as well as the jealousy of the Spanish government, whose West India tobacco had hitherto monopolized the London market. Directly contrary to the provision of the charter which exempted tobacco from any duty except five per cent., the king ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... of acorns and herbs that we find in the desert, watered by the dew of heaven, and in obedience to the Creator's command; and for this there is none to fight and quarrel with us, seeking by the rule and law of covetousness to snatch more than his share, but in abundance for all is food provided from unploughed lands, and a ready table spread. But, should any of the faithful brethren in the neighbourhood bring a blessed dole of bread, we receive it as sent by providence, and bless the faith that brought it. ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... to have any time to spare for courtship; and his marriage was, as in the case of Calvin, as much a matter of convenience as of love. Miss Charlton, the lady of his choice, was the owner of property in her own right; but lest it should be thought that Baxter married her for "covetousness," he requested, first, that she should give over to her relatives the principal part of her fortune, and that "he should have nothing that before her marriage was hers;" secondly, that she should so arrange her affairs ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Jane's bedroom, fitted with a cupboard and shelves, which were a constant source of covetousness to me, who had none. A small bathroom completed our suite of apartments, and, after the bare boards of the Cruiser, the Moon ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... shalt say unto it, get thee hence." And thus it is with a people, or a person, when once "God sheds abroad His Spirit in their hearts," and makes them "hear joy and gladness," in speaking, or sealing, a pardon upon their souls; they that before were joined to their idols, drunkenness, uncleanness, covetousness, pride, ways of false worship, old superstitious customs, and ceremonies, and the like; so that there was no parting of them; or those who had long been grappling and conflicting with their strong corruptions ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... covetousness is what a man generally acquires more through some niggardness or ill grace, in little and inconsiderable things, than ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... money, even in large sums, is not an inconsistent thing. We preach against covetousness, and you know we do, in the pulpit, and oftentimes preach against it so long and use the terms about "filthy lucre" so extremely that Christians get the idea that when we stand in the pulpit we ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... of proceeding, these poor industrious little insects are absolutely starved, and their greedy masters deservedly experience the old proverb; that "Too much covetousness breaks the bag." ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... the power which our empire gives us, makes them forget to be grateful for being allowed to retain most of their possessions, and more vexed at a part being taken, than if we had from the first cast law aside and openly gratified our covetousness. If we had done so, not even would they have disputed that the weaker must give way to the stronger. Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... universal that it dissolves even the tangles of tariff and theology. What is it? Ah, my friends, the girl who came among us to 'show the world what love will do' has taught us by her own rich life—it is love. But not the sex-mesmerism, the covetousness, the self-love, which mask behind that heavenly name. For God is Love. And to know Him is to receive that marvelous Christ-principle which unlocks for ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Mesdames, ce sont des effets d'un pauvre officier qui est mort. Who will buy?" He opened the hat-trunk, produced an antiquated beaver with a gold cord, and surveyed it with a covetousness that was admirably feigned. For 'Polyte was an actor. "M'ssieurs, to own such a hat were a patent of nobility. Am ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... him to resign the least Tittle he possesses, though he is assur'd, it is in order to get more; and your Diversion arises, from seeing him wrung between Greediness to get Money, and Reluctance to part with any for that Purpose. His Covetousness continually prompts him to follow the Conjurer, and puts him at the same Time upon endeavouring to stop his Fees. All the while he is excellently managed, and spirited on by Face. However, this Character upon the whole is mean and despicable, without any of that free spirituous jocund ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... desire, the evil glides into our veins, and cleaves to our bowels, and from thence proceeds a distemper or sickness, which, when it is of any continuance, is incurable, and the name of this disease is covetousness. It is the same with other diseases; as the desire of glory, a passion for women, to which the Greeks give the name of [Greek: philogyneia]: and thus all other diseases and sicknesses are generated. But those feelings which are the contrary of these are supposed ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... have perilled his name on the roll in her service; and was only eager to understand what were her desires, even without giving her the trouble of explaining them. Moreover, there was no point of law or equity, no manner of roguery or chicanery, no object of avarice, covetousness, or ambition, which he could not have comprehended at once. They were things within his own ken and scope, to which the intellect and resources of his mind were always open. But to other passions, to deeper, more remote motives and emotions, Mr. Shanks was as stolid as a door-post. It required ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... ancient Jewish Scribe, by the shores of the Dead Sea, a certain tribe of men, utterly given up to pleasure and covetousness, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. To them the prophet Moses was sent, and preached to them, warning them of repentance and of judgment to come—trying to awaken their souls to high and holy thoughts, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... will be a true physician for ever and your children and your seed after you for ever shall also possess the healing art, and whomsoever they shall practise healing upon in God's name and mine, provided there be no hatred [in their hearts] nor too great covetousness of a physician's fee to him, God and myself shall send relief." This promise of Declan has been fulfilled in the case of ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... admonition. Finally also the seven sacraments. The list of sins contains the nine foreign sins, the six sins against the Holy Ghost, the four sins that cry to God for vengeance, the five senses the Ten Commandments, and the seven mortal sins: pride, covetousness, unchastity, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. Each of these mortal sins is again analyzed extensively. The Weimar edition of Luther's Works remarks: "If these catalogs were employed for self-examination, confusion, endless torment, or complete externalization of the consciousness of sin was ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... tree-top, but cooled again directly we were off. My kodak was far away at the other end of the Zone. But then, on second thought it was better for once to enjoy nature as it was without trying to carry it away. Kodaking is a species of covetousness, anyway, an attempt to bear away home with us and hoard for our own the best we come upon in our travels. Whereas here, of course, it was impossible. The greatest of artists could not have carried away a tenth of that scene, a scene ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... Ulpha; but he conscientiously refused it, on the ground that the annexation "would be apt to cause a general discontent among the inhabitants of both places, by either thinking themselves slighted, being only served alternately, or neglected in the duty, or attributing it to covetousness in me; all which occasions of murmuring I would willingly avoid." Yet at this time Mr. Walker had a family of eight children. He afterwards maintained one of his sons at Trinity College Dublin, until he was ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Charlotte, aunt Charlotte had at least a right to the free use of the roof over her head. It is necessary that so much should be told; but Linda's troubles did not come from the divided right which she had in her father's house. Linda's troubles, as has before been said, sprang not from her aunt's covetousness, but from her aunt's virtue—perhaps we might more truly say, ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope
... blind egotism which is the heritage of most men, and which led him to judge that her happiness would in some way or other be enhanced by his brief and fickle love. For, as a rule, men do not understand love. They understand desire, amounting sometimes to merciless covetousness for what they cannot get,—this is a leading natural characteristic of the masculine nature—but Love— love that endures silently and faithfully through the stress of trouble and the passing of years—love which sacrifices everything to the beloved and never changes or falters,—this is a ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Roman Catholic decalogue does not contain the commandment forbidding the worship of "graven images," its second being the prohibition against "taking His holy name in vain." To make up the ten, the commandment against covetousness is divided ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... pretence of the watchfulness of ownership, but thinking little of his property and much of his love. Here was a thing that he desired with all his heart, but it seemed to be out of his reach absolutely out of his reach. He was sick and weary with a feeling of longing sick with that covetousness wherewith Ahab coveted the vineyard of Naboth. What was the world to him if he could not have this thing on which he had set his heart? He had told his sister that he would not break his heart; and so much, he did not doubt, would be true. A man ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... is Pitiless; so he hath written himself in all papers of concern wherein he has had to do. But these Diabolonians love to counterfeit their names: Mr. Covetousness covers himself with the name of Good-Husbandry, or the like; Mr. Pride can, when need is, call himself Mr. Neat, Mr. Handsome, or the like; and so of all the rest ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... has, more spiritual and wilful with it than other men, that he grows great. A man's genius is always at bottom religious, at the point where it is genius, a worshipping toward something, a worshipping toward something until he gets it, a supreme covetousness for God, for being a God. It is a faith in him, a sense of identity and sharing with what seems to be above and outside, a sense of his own latent infinity. I have said that all that real teaching is for, is to say to a man, in countless ways, a countless "You can." ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... who had crossed the river in a boat, reached the other side, the buffalo had disappeared, and in its stead stood a beautiful ox. Seeing this handsome creature wandering about, a peasant, struck with covetousness, lured it to his home. It was very gentle, suffering itself to be tied up with the other cattle; but in the dead of night it changed into a snake, bit all the flocks and herds, and then, creeping into the house, killed all the sleeping folk, and crept away. But behind it the old man still followed, ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... soldiers would not be obedient to command, or advance, he was not at all disturbed at that; for he knew that in the case of all those whose army had not been obedient to command, either upon some mismanagement of an affair fortune had deserted them, or that upon some crime being discovered covetousness had been clearly proved against them. His integrity had been seen throughout his whole life, his good fortune in the war with the Helvetii. That he would therefore instantly set about what he had intended to put off till a ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... spirit which was thus strongly developed in the Babylonian people led naturally to the two somewhat opposite vices of avarice and over-luxuriousness. Not content with honorable gains, the Babylonians "coveted an evil covetousness," as we learn both from Habakkuk and Jeremiah. The "shameful custom" mentioned by Herodotus, which required as a religious duty that every Babylonian woman, rich or poor, highborn or humble, should once in her life prostitute herself in the temple ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... Thus, by the covetousness of this woman, who was the grey mare, and the folly of the master, who, in anything but Greek and Latin, was an ass, my good principles were nearly eradicated from my bosom, and in their place were sown seeds which very shortly produced an ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the commissions without a shadow of covetousness and rejoiced in her sister's good fortune; it was reserved for Polly and Ben, when they took up their life in New York, to show her the depths of her own loneliness by the fullness of their comradeship, and her yearning needs ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... finished when vacation began remained to complete the task; for they said they could not go home unless they carried with them their Testament; and the diligent use they made of it afterwards showed that their desire was more than mere covetousness. Even eighteen months after, writing to a friend in America, they say, "Now we have each of us this blessed book, this priceless blessing; would that in it we might all find salvation for our souls. This book is from the unspeakable ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... what Providence had sent for some better purpose than to be carried borne by an old woman like me, whom it had pleased Heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and inconvenience of a wooden one. Well, I was punished; covetousness had its reward; for, presently, the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the candle, it had burned into the red shell of a lobsky's head, and its two black eyes poked ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... should strive to make his fellows happy in time, and in eternity; that he should impart to them the knowledge of Him who is "the way, the truth, and the life"; he will labour with time, talents, means, and prayers, for the attainment of these ends, as diligently as others labour from motives of simple covetousness, or with a view of making provision against future contingencies for themselves or for their families. If any object to selling "houses or lands" it remains for themselves to distinguish[18] between the motives, which ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... the world, by lust, covetousness, sloth, and finally also by that vice which he had used to despise and mock the most as the most foolish one of all vices: greed. Property, possessions, and riches also had finally captured him; ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... lot; but wealth needeth rank,[FN251] I will defend thee for the present against men's domineering; but haply I shall be deposed or die and another rule in my stead, and he shall slay thee because of his love of the goods of this world and his covetousness. So I am minded to marry thee to my daughter and make thee my Wazir and bequeath thee the kingdom after me, so none may hanker for thy riches when I am gone. Then said he, "Hie with this man to the Hammam." So they bore him to the Baths ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... rest besides the Lord? Luxury affects to be called plenty and abundance; but Thou art the fulness and never-failing plenteousness of incorruptible pleasures. Prodigality presents a shadow of liberality: but Thou art the most overflowing Giver of all good. Covetousness would possess many things; and Thou possessest all things. Envy disputes for excellency: what more excellent than Thou? Anger seeks revenge: who revenges more justly than Thou? Fear startles at things unwonted and sudden, which endangers things beloved, and takes forethought for ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... instance the order of the fable is reversed. There the ass put on the lion's skin; here the lion puts on the skin of the ass. To the brother whose weakness is adultery he comes in the form of a harlot, "jeweled and crowned." To the brother whose special sin has been covetousness he comes as a friend. He takes him by the hand, leads him to the top of some high mountain, there shows him the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and pledges to him the enjoyment of all this glory and power if he will but fall ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... comprehensive view of this subject, nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the well-attested fact, that while the Mohammedans, Fulahs, and others towards Central Africa, make a few proselytes by a process which gratifies their own covetousness, three small sections of the Christian converts, the Africans in the South, in the West Indies, and on the West Coast of Africa actually contribute for the support and spread of their religion upwards of 15,000 pounds annually. {7} That religion which so far overcomes the selfishness of the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... I will put it to an issue. The Duke of Albany is generally hated for his greed and covetousness. Your Highness is, it may ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... it be good and desirable for those who already possess everything which can be conceived necessary to happiness. It is the merest insolence of selfishness to preach contentment to a laborer who gets thirty shillings a week, while we suppose an active and plotting covetousness to be meritorious in a man who has three thousand a year. In this, as in all other points of mental discipline, it is the duty of the upper classes to set an example to the lower; and to recommend and justify the restraint of the ambition of their inferiors, chiefly by severe and timely ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... drank 3-1/2 ankers[94] of brandy, from the time we left England or Holland, besides the wine which they had with them—it is too horrible. As to Margaret and Jan, it is not to be told what miserable people Margaret and Jan were, and especially their excessive covetousness. In fine, it was a Babel. I have never in my life heard of such a disorderly ship. It was confusion without end. I have never been in a ship where there was so much vermin, which were communicated to us, and especially not a few to me, because being in the cordage at night I particularly received ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... their constancy, which can abide by an opinion or a purpose or an interest of their States through adversity and through prosperity, through the years and through the generations, are things by which the people of the more mercurial North may take a lesson. And there is another thing—covetousness, corruption, the low temptation of money has not yet found any place ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... have no captains, neither do they march in order, but each one is his own master. The cause of their wars is not a love of conquest, or of enlarging their boundaries, neither are they incited to engage in them by inordinate covetousness [unlike the Spaniards], but from ancient enmity which has existed among them in times past; and having been asked why they made war, they could give us no other reason than that they did it to avenge the deaths of their ancestors. Neither have these people kings or lords, ...
— Amerigo Vespucci • Frederick A. Ober
... Tempter, Giant Discourager, Giant Covetousness, Giant Liar, Giant Lust, Giant Pride, Giant Doubt, Giant Fear, Giant Worldliness, and many others. Thank our God for the weapons of warfare, the shield and the sword, the breastplate and the girdle, which give us power over them. I have not seen a giant for some time; ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... the Negroes of Virginia less cruelly treated? Humanity is not the motive, it is because covetousness cannot obtain so much from their labours, as in the Sugar Islands. Was it otherwise, they would be sacrificed to it here, as well as there; how can we praise such forced humanity? how, on the contrary, not give vent to all the indignation, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... medium of exchange, and as such it is thought to be the best thing on earth. Yet the greed of it is the root of all evil. I want to come back to first principles a little, and exchange from man to man, without this pernicious medium that has filled us with covetousness and a lack of consideration for others. I want to see if people are really so callous and cold to each other as they seem, or if this unreadiness to help is only because we are too greatly separated by the many mediums interposed—which ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... to other authorities, the ace of clubs means a letter; the nine, danger caused by drunkenness; the eight, danger from covetousness; the seven, a prison, and danger from the opposite sex; the six, competence by hard-working industry; the five, a happy but NOT wealthy marriage; the four, danger of misfortunes caused by inconstancy or capricious ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... reached Barker Creek, now a bowlder-strewn arroyo which aroused my covetousness to high degree. How I would love to build, with my own hands, a cottage, bungalow or house of some kind with these great bowlders, of varied sizes ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... constitution you have! What broad shoulders! What a chest! What a back! What powerful limbs!" While pouring out these praises, the "horse-dealer" rubbed his hands and gazed at me with satisfaction and covetousness, already figuring in advance the price I would fetch. "And your height! It exceeds by a palm that of the next tallest captive in my lot. So, seeing you so robust, I have named you Bull. Under that name you are entered in my inventory, at your number; and under that ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... "wear and tear" in his estimates, he managed to pay a foreman's wages. The once easy-going journeyman was a terror to his "bears" and "monkeys." Where poverty ceases, avarice begins. From the day when Sechard first caught a glimpse of the possibility of making a fortune, a growing covetousness developed and sharpened in him a certain practical faculty for business—greedy, suspicious, and keen-eyed. He carried on his craft in disdain of theory. In course of time he had learned to estimate at a glance the cost of ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... represent the mental and moral contest of man with himself, or with his fellow-men, I did not look for their field amongst human monsters, but with natural and civilized man; inasmuch as he is seen to be influenced by the impulses of his selfish passions—ambition, covetousness, and the vanities of life, or, on the opposite side, by the generous amenities of true disinterestedness, in all its trying situations; and, as I have said, the recent struggle in Poland, to maintain her laws and loyal independence, against the combined aggressions of the three most powerful ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... bench, and another roaring under the wrath of God, saying, O that I was with him, how would I rebuke him, and persuade him by all means to leave off these evil courses. O! that they did but consider what I now suffer for pride, covetousness, drunkenness, lying, swearing, stealing, whoring, and the like. O! did they but feel the thousandth part thereof, it would make them look about them, and not buy sin at so dear a rate as I have done; even with the loss of my ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... succession, no dividences; no occupation, but idle; no respect of kindred, but common; no apparel, but natural; no manuring of lands; no use of wine, corn, or metal. The very words that import lying, falsehood, treason, dissimulation, covetousness, envy, detraction, and pardon were ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... and "King Lear." 66. The Babington conspiracy. 67. Weston, alias Edmonds. His exorcisms. Mainy. The basis of Harsnet's statements. 69. The devils in "Lear." 70. Edgar and Mainy. Mainy's loose morals. 71. The devils tempt with knives and halters. 72. Mainy's seven devils: Pride, Covetousness, Luxury, Envy, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth. The Nightingale business. 73. Treatment of the possessed: confinement, flagellation. 74. Dr Pinch. Nicknames. 75. Other methods. That of "Elias and Pawle". The holy chair, ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... credited to Johnson for moderation, that he requires only four of the Seven Deadly Sins, to wit, Pride, Envy, Anger, and Sloth, to explain Milton's political tenets. Had he permitted himself another sentence, an easy place might surely have been made for Gluttony, Luxury, and Covetousness, the three whose absence cannot fail to be remarked by any lover of thorough and detailed treatment in these intricate ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... armed men to watch them day and night, until the houses which he had allotted for our accommodation could be emptied and got in readiness for our reception. All the people lamented our misfortune as if the loss had been their own. So kindly, tractable, and free from covetousness are these good Indians, that I swear to your highnesses there are no better people, nor is there a better country in the world. They love their neighbours as themselves, and their conversation is the sweetest that ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... ended." Notwithstanding Lingard's able defence of the Cardinal, scholars are still generally of opinion that Beaufort—the Chancellor who lent money on the king's crown, the bishop who sold the Pope's soldiers for a thousand marks—is a notable instance of the union of legal covetousness and ecclesiastical greed. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the Second Table of the Commandments, and see how disobedient you have been and still are toward father and mother and all in authority; how you sin against your neighbor with anger, hatred and evil words; how you are tempted to unchastity, covetousness and injustice in word and deed against your neighbor; and you will doubtless find that you are full of all need and misery, and have reason enough to weep even drops of blood, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... Polidamor had by his reputation for riches aroused the covetousness of some chiefs of a band of brigands, who flattered themselves that could they catch him they would obtain possession of an important sum. They placed upon his track three bold fellows, who, after many fruitless endeavors, encountered him one evening accompanied ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... I had ever heard this political blarney with my own ears, though I had understood it was often used by those who wish to give to their own particular envy and covetousness ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... their body, even though they gave him no distinctive title. Our business is to see that every man has his due as far as possible, and not more than his due. The superior must perceive what is the degree of deference which must be rendered to the inferior; the inferior must put away envy and covetousness, and must learn to bestow, without servility, reverence and obedience where reverence and ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... nature; the inflexibility of purpose, the absolute self-devotion, and even the prophetic forecast. Sumner was an old Hebrew prophet in the guise of an American statesman. True to his mother's name, he was at once a Puritan and an Israelite in whom there was no guile; for he was wholly exempt from covetousness and other meaner qualities of the Hebrew nature. In such respects Jews and Yankees are much alike. Either they are generous and ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... not still in anxiety and perplexity about the things of the world, will possibly conceive themselves free. Nay, but look upon the division that Christ makes. Was there not many a heathen man among the nations, as free of that covetousness noted among men? Were there not as gallant spirits among them, that cared as little for riches as any of us,—nay, men every way of a more smooth and blameless carriage than the most part of us are? Yet behold the construction that Christ puts on them, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... Macalisters are always flaunting in their braws! And, there's that Paisley shawl for herself, too; eh, but they would be the canty pair, cocking down the road on Sunday in that rig! they would take the licht frae Meg Macalister's een—thae Macalisters are always so en-vy-fu'!" Love, vanity, covetousness, present opportunity, are all at work upon the poor body. She succumbs. But the half-crown weekly payments have a habit of lengthening themselves out till the packman has made fifty per cent. by the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... into academic prominence. But he soon won a wider fame as a preacher in London, an adviser of the court, an opponent of the "possessioner" monks, and of the forsworn friars, who, deserting apostolic poverty, vied with the monks in covetousness. His attacks on practical abuses in the Church marked him out as a politician as well as a philosopher. His earlier career ended in 1374, the year in which he first became the king's ambassador, not long after proceeding ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... commonwealth, yet they always kept it in reserve; and were never wanting to themselves either in court or parliament, when either they had any prospect of a numerous party of fanatic members of the one, or the encouragement of any favourite in the other, whose covetousness was gaping at the patrimony of the Church. They who will consult the works of our venerable Hooker, or the account of his life, or more particularly the letter written to him on this subject by George Cranmer, may see by what gradations they proceeded: from the dislike of cap and surplice, the ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... aloe plants from which sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure would arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light, purple when slightly turned, and deep red ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... to the safety of an exploring party than presenting them with gifts. These rovers of the wilds seem to consider such presents as the offerings of fear and weakness; and I attribute much of their outrageous conduct to such mistaken notions and their incorrigible covetousness, against which the best security, unfortunately for them and us, appeared to be to ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... servant must be as his master.—Do you remember how he did when a man came asking him to see justice done between him and his brother?—He said, 'Man, who made me a judge and a divider over you? Take heed and beware of covetousness.'—It may be your business to see about it; I don't know; I scarcely think it is. My advice would be to keep quiet yet a while, and see what will come. There appears no occasion for hurry. The universe does not hang on the question of Richard's rights. Will it be much ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... called together the chiefs and addressed them as follows: 'Nobles and warriors, why do we foolishly so often hazard our lives in battle for our kings, when not even our deaths secure to them the kingdom, or put an end to their covetousness? My counsel then is, that they alone should fight who alone are contending for the kingdom; for what must be the lust of dominion, when England, which formerly sufficed for eight kings, is not now enough for two? ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... about Sin, the universal but invisible enemy whom the Church Termagant attempts to shell and dislodge; but are very busy in attacking Sins. These ministers of religion would rout Drunkenness and Want, Ignorance, Idleness, Lust, Covetousness, Vanity, Hate, and Pride, vices of instinctive passion or reflective ambition. Yet the work of these men is to build up; they cut down the forest and scare off the wild beasts only to replace them with civil crops, cattle, corn, and men. Instead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various |
