"Niggard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paid the purchase, by coming so far to do him a service. But I think, from what I have seen of him last night, that he is not such a niggard and misanthrope as I was led to believe. He exhibited considerable emotion, despite the monosyllabic greeting, when he shook my hand. If he were a man to feel annoyance at any person coming after him, he would not have received me as he did, nor ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... should purvey them steed, And bring them hitherward with speed. Forbear your mirth and rude alarm, For none shall do them shame or harm." "Hear ye his boast?" cried John of Brent, 140 Ever to strife and jangling bent; "Shall he strike doe beside our lodge, And yet the jealous niggard grudge To pay the forester his fee? I'll have my share, howe'er it be, 145 Despite of Moray, Mar, or thee." Bertram his forward step withstood; And, burning in his vengeful mood, Old Allan, though unfit for strife; Laid hand ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... scalp of the hair, And the ivory[128] tare from its sockets' repose. Thy skinny, thy cold, thy visageless mould, Its disgust is untold, and its surface is dim; What a signal of wrack is the wrinkle's dull track, And the bend of the back, and the limp of the limb! Thou leper of fear—thou niggard of cheer— Where glory is dear, shall thy welcome be found? Thou contempt of the brave—oh, rather the grave, Than to pine as the slave that thy fetters have bound. Like the dusk of the day is thy colour of gray, Thou foe of the lay, and thou phantom of gloom; ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... A Greek should be like a mole, visible only at night. 2. He should be a niggard of his speech, and a profligate with his liquor, giving freely, but taking cautiously. 3. He must always deprecate play in public, and pretend an entire ignorance of his game. 4. He must be subtle as the fox, and vary as the well-trained hawk; never showing chase too soon, or ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... your excellency?" exclaimed Brunelli, contemptuously. "The Spanish ambassador knows nothing of the art of cookery, or he would not possibly be satisfied with his cook! He is a niggard, a poor fellow, of whom all Rome is speaking to-day, and laughing at him and his master, while they are praising ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... N. parsimony, parcity|; parsimoniousness[obs3], stinginess &c. adj.; stint; illiberality, tenacity. avarice, greed &c. 817a. miser, niggard, churl, screw, skinflint, crib, codger, muckworm[obs3], scrimp, lickpenny[obs3], hunks, curmudgeon, Harpagon, harpy, extortioner, Jew, usurer; Hessian [U.S.]; pinch fist, pinch penny. V. be parsimonious &c. adj.; grudge, begrudge, stint, pinch, gripe, screw, dole ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... fortunes, be mingled with considerations of mournfulness and peril! It is not merely—and, alas! that such a calamity should have to be treated as of secondary magnitude—it is not merely that the niggard state charity of England is now at once to cease and be entirely withdrawn, but we have to contemplate a still more fearful and far wider-spreading misery at the end of autumn and in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... or Userti, or Saptah. Perhaps the divine neck has not been oiled of late, or too much oiled, or too little oiled, or prayers—or strings—may have gone wrong. Or Pharaoh may have been niggard in his gifts to that college of the great god of his House. Who am I that I should know the ways of gods? That in the temple where I served at Thebes fifty years ago did not pretend to bow or to trouble himself as to which of the royal ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... say, so far. It has been decided that you shall go, if you are willing, with us to Petersburg the day after to-morrow to see the balloon, and make your report. All your expenses will be paid on the most liberal scale, for the Tsar is no niggard in spending either his own or other people's money, and you will have a handsome fee into the bargain for ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... to see a niggard man, One of the great Macdonald clan; When others are in quest of gain This man the needy will sustain. Your mother, if an honest dame, Has not retained her wedlock fame; No part is Mac from top to toe, You're either Rose or else Munro. When to the house you turned your ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... defective in this respect. There is no Sonnet of Milton's on the Restoration of Charles II. There is no Sonnet of Mr. Wordsworth's corresponding to that of 'the poet blind and bold' 'On the late Massacre in Piedmont.' It would be no niggard praise to Mr. Wordsworth to grant that he was either half the man or half the poet that Milton was. He has not his high and various imagination, nor his deep and fixed principle. Milton did not worship the rising sun, nor turn his back on a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... necessary to appeal openly," said Yuen Yan when they had returned. "I will make out a deed of final intention conferring all I possess upon Yuen Yan as a mark of esteem for his conscientious services, and this you can produce if necessary in order to crush the niggard baker in the wine-press of your necessitous destitution." Thereupon Yan drew up such a document as he had described, signing it with Chou-hu's name and sealing it with his ring, while Tsae-che also added her sign ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... with pleasure, and then turned white with vexation at the words. "It is in truth great honor to the house of Loring," said she, "yet our roof is now humble and, as you have seen, our fare is plain. The King knows not that we are so poor. I fear lest we seem churlish and niggard in his eyes." ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... trouble unending. But these are serious, simple qualities which do not show much, and are soon forgotten by those who benefit from them. Had she laughed more, danced more, taken more kindly to the fools and their follies, she might have been acid of tongue and niggard of sympathy; the world would have thought her much ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the part of Jupiter. Ever ready to give a dinner, he found a difficulty arise, not usually experienced on such occasions—there was no one upon whom to bestow it. He had the best of wine; kept an excellent table; was himself no niggard host; but his own merits, and those of his cuisine, were forgotten in the invariable pendant to the feast; and the best of wine lost its flavor when the last bottle found its way to the guest's head. Dine alone Sir Piers would not. And as his old friends forsook him, he plunged ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... auaile you to make any fence for your Orchard, if you be a niggard of your fruit. For as liberality will saue it best from noysome neighbours, liberality I say is the best fence, so Iustice must restraine rioters. Thus when your ground is tempered, squared, and fenced, it is time to ...
— A New Orchard And Garden • William Lawson
... of the old sailor from whom he had gleaned the information he sought, he was enabled to purchase a fine vessel and equip her for sea within the space of a few days. He lavished his gold with no niggard hand, and gold is a wondrous talisman to remove obstacles and facilitate designs. In a word, on the sixth morning after his arrival at Leghorn, Fernand Wagner embarked on board his ship, which was manned with a gallant crew, and carried ten pieces of ordnance. A favoring breeze ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... was his pleasure to act as a providence, many a time robbing Peter to pay Paul, and stripping the niggard that he might indulge his fervent love of generosity. Of all usurers and bailiffs he had a wholesome horror, and merry was the prank which he played upon the extortionate money-lender of Warwick. Riding ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... thou spend Upon thy self thy beauty's legacy? Nature's bequest gives nothing, but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free: Then, beauteous niggard, why dost thou abuse The bounteous largess given thee to give? Profitless usurer, why dost thou use So great a sum of sums, yet canst not live? For having traffic with thy self alone, Thou of thy self thy sweet self dost deceive: Then how when nature calls thee ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... had drawn a set of Antony and Cleopatra for the Gobelins. The same idea extended to the furniture coverings which ran to this design as well as to the Fables. Thus originated a set familiar to those of us nowadays who covet and who buy the rare old bits that the niggard hand of the past accords to ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... myself alone:"— O man, forget not thou,—earth's honored priest, Its tongue, its soul, its life, its pulse, its heart,— In earth's great chorus to sustain thy part! Chiefest of guests at Love's ungrudging feast, Play not the niggard; spurn thy native clod, And self disown; Live to thy neighbor; live unto thy ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... naval craft put out to sea. In addition, there were the three little flotillas on Lakes Erie, Ontario, and Champlain; and a few minor vessels elsewhere. All the crews together did not exceed ten thousand men, replacements included. Yet, even with these niggard means, the American Navy won the command of two lakes completely, held the command of the third in suspense, won every important duel out at sea, except the famous fight against the Shannon, inflicted serious loss on British sea-borne ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... will fleck every lake and sea and river with their rich burdens of trade, pouring a fabulous and a willing wealth into the coffers of the king. Gold and silver mines will yield their precious stores, while from these niggard natives we will wrest with mighty arm the tribute they so contemptuously deny the weakling curs who snap and snarl at my heels. Grey tower and fortress will guard every inlet, and watch this sheltered coast. In every vale the low ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... whiles she would give us of her store, and that often, and abundantly. We deem also that every time when she came to us our increase became more plenteous, which is well seen by this, that since she hath ceased to come, the seasons have been niggard unto us." ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... have turned the services of this individual to far greater account had the quantity of books at my disposal been greater; but they were now diminishing rapidly, and as I had no hopes of a fresh supply, I was almost tempted to be niggard of the few which remained. This agent was a Greek bricklayer, by name Johannes Chrysostom, who had been introduced to me by Dionysius. He was a native of the Morea, but had been upwards of thirty-five years in Spain, so that he had almost entirely lost his native language. Nevertheless, his attachment ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... disdain. The King's ministers in Holland had orders to do all they could to thwart the projects of the Prince of Orange, to excite people against him, to protect openly those opposed to him, and to be in no way niggard of money in order to secure the election of magistrates unfavourable to him. The Prince never ceased, until the breaking-out of this war, to use every effort to appease the anger of the King. At last, growing tired, and hoping soon to make his invasion into England, he said publicly, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Ye niggard Gods! you make our Lives too long: You fill 'em with Diseases, Wants, and Woes, And only dash 'em with a little Love; Sprinkled by Fits, and with a sparing Hand. Count all our Joys, from Childhood ev'n to Age, They wou'd but make a Day of ...
— Prefaces to Terence's Comedies and Plautus's Comedies (1694) • Lawrence Echard
... one condition of health is to be alive, and I don't see how to manage that. Look here, Dick, I have just had a quarrel with my father; he is an excellent man and an impressive preacher, but he fails in the imaginative qualities. Nature has been a niggard to him in inventiveness. He is the minister of a little parish called Aghadoe, in the North, where they give him two hundred and ten pounds per annum. There are eight in family, and he actually does not see his way to allow me one hundred and fifty out of it. That's the way they neglect ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Wolseley, was that the Government gave in when the public anxiety became so great at the continued silence of Khartoum, and acquiesced in the despatch of an expedition to relieve General Gordon. Having once made the concession, it must be allowed that they showed no niggard spirit in sanctioning the expedition and the proposals of the military authorities. The sum of ten millions was devoted to the work of rescuing Gordon by the very persons who had rejected his demands for the hundredth part of that total. Ten thousand men selected from the elite ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... I lead Rob thee of thy daily need Of a whiter soul, or steal What thy lordly prayers reveal? Who could be enriched of thee By such hoard of poverty As thy niggard hand pretends To dole me— thy worst of friends? Therefore shouldst thou pause to bless One indeed who blesses thee: Robbing thee, I dispossess But myself—. Pray thou ...
— Afterwhiles • James Whitcomb Riley
... Fairford was a man much liked and respected on all sides, though his friends would not have been sorry if he had given a dinner more frequently, as his little cellar contained some choice old wine, of which, on such rare occasions he was no niggard. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... dangerous enemies in the persons of those unskilful painters who have given to it that hardness, angularity, and want of proper perspective, which, in truth, belonged, not to their subject, but to their own niggard ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... felt the money well spent; those who had won would be the more lavish in the spending. They had simply won a few more pleasures. "Quick come; quick go!" sang the whirling wheels. "The niggard in pound and pence is a usurer in happiness; a miser driving a hard bargain with pleasure. Better burn the candle at both ends than not burn it at all! In one case, you get light; in the other nothing but darkness. Laughter is cheap at any price. A castle in ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... converse, speech, discourse, attire, He practis'd that which wise men still admire, Commend, and recommend. What's that? you'll say. 'Tis this: he ever choos'd the middle way 'Twixt both th' extremes. Amost in ev'ry thing He did the like, 'tis worth our noticing: Sparing, yet not a niggard; liberal, And yet not lavish or a prodigal, As knowing when to spend and when to spare; And that's a lesson which not many are Acquainted with. He bashful was, yet daring When he saw cause, and yet therein not sparing; Familiar, yet not common, for he knew To condescend, and keep his ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... wage of weary days; But now how sweet, how doubly sweet to hold All gay and gleamy to the campfire blaze. The evening sky was sinister and cold; The willows shivered, wanly lay the snow; The uncommiserating land, so old, So worn, so grey, so niggard in its woe, Peered through its ragged shroud. The lone man sighed, Poured back the gaudy dust into its poke, Gazed at the seething river listless-eyed, Loaded his corn-cob pipe as if to smoke; Then crushed with weariness and hardship crept Into his ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... matter of revolutions Maraquita was no niggard. She knew how the thing should be done—well, or not at all. There would be so much for rifles, machine-guns, and what not: and there would be so much for the expense of smuggling them into the country. Then ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... stepped high, nor can I find it in my heart to begrudge him his day. Cunningly had he clutched a few golden moments from the hoard that Fate, the niggard, guards from us so jealously. To myself I acclaimed him as ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... never thought of these things. He was content to go straight ahead without looking down those side paths into which so many immature thinkers stray. He had fought at Sedan, had thrown his life with no niggard hand into the balance. When wounded he had cunningly escaped the attentions of the official field hospitals. He might easily have sent in his name to Prussian head-quarters as that of a wounded officer begging to be released on parole. But he cherished the idea of living to fight another day. Denise, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... cities who refuse To their own child the honours due, And look ungently on the Muse; But ever shall those cities rue The dry, unyielding, niggard breast, Offering no nourishment, no rest, To that young head which soon shall rise Disdainfully, in might and glory, to ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... niggard lands were we driven, 'twixt desert and floes are we penned; To us was the Northland given, ours to stronghold and defend; Ours till the world be riven in the ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... with her two bright sisters, gay and free, Shrinks, as maiden should, from strife: But I'm for madness. What has dull'd the fire Of the Berecyntian fife? Why hangs the flute in silence with the lyre? Out on niggard-handed boys! Rain showers of roses; let old Lycus hear, Envious churl, our senseless noise, And she, our neighbour, his ill-sorted fere. You with your bright clustering hair, Your beauty, Telephus, like evening's sky, Rhoda loves, as young, as fair; I for ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... Ten years' deep, patient, absorbing dissection of pathologic tissue had not rendered the gloss and glow of a girl's cheek less velvet-soft. On the contrary, the healthy, wholesome flesh, the matured beauty of this mountain maid seemed of more worth than any fame to be wrung from the niggard hands of the Royal Academy. The absorption of the true scientist was completely broken up. "Love is worth while," he said, in answer to himself, "and to serve others the only solace in ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... know the Spanish recipe for salad dressing?" asked Elise. "'A spendthrift for oil; a niggard for vinegar; a sane man for salt and a maniac for ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... nature a good and affectionate son, but as I took my way into the great world from which I had been so long secluded I could not help remembering that all my misfortunes had flowed like a stream from the niggard economy of my parents in the matter of school luncheons; and I knew of no reason ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... Why, is Time such a niggard of haire, being (as it is) so plentifull an excrement? S.Dro. Because it is a blessing that hee bestowes on beasts, and what he hath scanted them in haire, hee hath giuen ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... play a tragedy by Morsimus.[49] Oh! you cheat! who turn all into money, who flutter from one extortion to another; may you disgorge as quickly as you have crammed yourself! Then only would I sing, "Let us drink, let us drink to this happy event!"[50] Then even the son of Iulius,[51] the old niggard, would empty his cup with transports of joy, crying, "Io, Paean! ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... plenty reigned around?—Warwick feasting his retainers with beef and ale, was a niggard to the noble Mehevi!—All along the piazza of the Ti were arranged elaborately carved canoe-shaped vessels, some twenty feet in length, tied with newly made poee-poee, and sheltered from the sun by the broad leaves of the banana. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... death of the Queen, Addison was once more in office, and held his old position of Irish Secretary. In the following year he defended the Whig Government and Whig principles in the Freeholder, a paper published twice weekly. In it he gives no niggard praise to the Government of George I., and to the King himself, for his 'civil virtues,' and for his martial achievements. Addison's praise disagrees, it need scarcely be said, with the more minute and veracious description of the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... thought? Seems it to you a natural thing that they should live divinely and not as animals and humanly, they being not gods, but men and animals? It is a law of fate and Nature that everything should adapt itself to the condition of its own being, wherefore then, while you follow after the niggard nectar of the gods, do you lose that which is present and is your own, and trouble yourself about the vain hopes of others? Ought not Nature to refuse to give you the other good, if that which she at present offers to you, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... men: The warrior's weapons fail him; the citizen is buried beneath the ruins of his own penates, when engaged in paying his vows to the gods; another falls from his chariot and dashes out his ardent spirit; the glutton chokes at dinner; the niggard starves from abstinence. Give the dice a fair throw and you will find shipwreck everywhere! Ah, but one overwhelmed by the waves obtains no burial! As though it matters in what manner the body, once it is dead, is consumed: by ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... and heart and brain Given with no reserve— Niggard is she towards us, granting us little gain; Still, ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson
... the portrait of a stern, unbending egotist satisfy us when we remember the life-long devotion that existed between him and Dorothy, and the fact that Coleridge loved him, and that Lamb and Scott were his friends. He may have been a niggard of warm-heartedness to the outside world, but it is clear from his biography that he possessed the genius of a good heart as well as of ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... was the sole shelter which the proud lord of Alberoni afforded to the only surviving branches of his family, when returning to their native city they found their patrimonial estates confiscated, and themselves dependent upon the niggard bounty of a cold and selfish relative. Slowly recovering from a severe wound which he had received in the wars of Lombardy, and disgusted with the ingratitude of the prince he served, the ill-starred Francesco was at first rejoiced to obtain any refuge from the storms of a tempestuous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... an humble means of making all mankind so: And oh! what returns ought I not to make to the divine goodness! and how ought I to strive to diffuse the blessings I experience, to all in my knowledge!—For else, what is it for such a worm as I to be exalted! What is my single happiness, if I suffer it, niggard-like, to extend no farther than to myself?—But then, indeed, do God Almighty's creatures act worthy of the blessings they receive, when they make, or endeavour to make, the whole creation, so far as is in the ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... my anger pure—let no worst wrong Rouse in me the old niggard selfishness. Give me thine indignation—which is love Turned on the evil that would part love's throng; Thy anger scathes because it needs must bless, Gathering into union calm and strong All things on earth, and under, ...
— A Book of Strife in the Form of The Diary of an Old Soul • George MacDonald
... the first water. Oh, he was no niggard of his crowns, our Emperor! I had a bed-fellow of mine, a brave soldier, who was afterwards promoted to be king. This flattered us; for, if it was not one, it was the other. And so, at this game, your father became count; ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... regenerates himself that he may devour himself again? God is the All, you say, who suffices to himself. Eternal he is and shall be, because all that goes forth from him is absorbed by him again, and the great niggard bestows no grain of sand, no ray of light, no breath of wind, without reclaiming it for his household, which is ruled by no design, no reason, no goodness, but by a tyrannical necessity, whose slave he himself is. The coward ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... recketh not who hath the world in hand. By this proverb thou shalt well understand, Have thou enough, what thar* thee reck or care *needs, behoves How merrily that other folkes fare? For certes, olde dotard, by your leave, Ye shall have [pleasure] right enough at eve. He is too great a niggard that will werne* *forbid A man to light a candle at his lantern; He shall have never the less light, pardie. Have thou enough, thee thar* not plaine** thee *need **complain Thou say'st also, if that we make us gay With clothing and with precious array, That it is peril of ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... from that balcony. Gazing with hollow eyes, he tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that winter is at hand. This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit-pedant's round of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean-brained superstition. He drew a second consort from the convent, and raised up seed unto his line by forethought, but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain of ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... withering Gale Hath left unpunished to record their Tale. But who shall hear it? on that barren Sand None comes to stretch the hospitable hand. That shore reveals no print of human foot, Nor e'en the pawing of the wilder Brute; And niggard vegetation will not smile, All sunless ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... nomadic traveller and man of peace, landmarks as barren and bare as the great ironstone belts of Northern Africa, which constrain the power of the unwilling Nile until she surges in angry cataract through such niggard opening as they will allow her. To the man of war, a veritable Gibraltar; a maze of possibilities in defence; a stupendous undertaking in attack, an undertaking which will brook neither error nor miscalculation, and from which nature has eliminated much of the element of chance on the one side ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... Robert. All her little failings would, I know, be a source of irritation to him. If they vex me it is a most pleasurable vexation. I delight to find her at fault; and were I always resident with her, I am aware she would be no niggard in thus ministering to my enjoyment. She would just give me something to do, to rectify—a theme for my tutor lectures. I never lecture Henry, never feel disposed to do so. If he does wrong—and that is very seldom, dear, excellent lad!—a word ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 90 Where my Love abideth. Sleep's no softer; it proceeds On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall, Meandering and musical, 95 Though the niggard pasturage Bears not on its shaven ledge Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch 100 Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... luxury and beauty, but in the interests of thrift he denied the eye its hunger, the taste its satisfaction. When pride asked for dress and show, the youth rebuked his vanity. When companions scoffed at the young merchant as a niggard he subdued his sensitiveness and inured himself to rigid economy. When increasing wealth began to lend influence, and society urged him to give his evenings to gayety, the young merchant denied the social instinct and gave his long winter evenings to broadening his knowledge and culture. ...
— The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service • Newell Dwight Hillis
... cellar, nay, and his very purse too, others had the greatest use and share, whilst he keeps his keys in his pocket much more carefully than his eyes. Whilst he hugs himself with the pitiful frugality of a niggard table, everything goes to rack and ruin in every corner of his house, in play, drink, all sorts of profusion, making sport in their junkets with his vain anger and fruitless parsimony. Every one is a sentinel against him, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne |
