"Covet" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possessing. Therefore, the tenth and last commandment of the Decalogue, which refers to man's duties towards himself, aims at the human will, and prescribes limits, within which the desires, tending to procure possession, should be confined, forbidding specially to covet that which belongs to others. It is not thereby intended to absolutely prevent the formation of a natural wish, but it is directed to confine it within just limits, that it may not expand and be transformed into ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... see that between puffins and porpoises and whales, and "growlers" and lost dories, I crowded enough into one day to give me dreams that Alice in Wonderland might covet. ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... baseball or football player, an explorer or adventurer, a desperado, or—happy case—a father who has not forgotten how to swim and fish and hunt and play ball. A boy always longs to place his father on the throne of his heart, if he is given a chance, but the fathers who covet that place enough to pay the price for ...
— The Unfolding Life • Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux
... not the stuff a successful man is made of, and what I want isn't likely to be gained in business. I might earn millions, I fancy, if I set them steadily before my eyes and loved the means for the end's sake, easier than I could get what I covet—three or four hundred a year, plenty of leisure, and brain and habits unspoilt by money-making. There's no chance for the man who not only hasn't the necessary keenness, but wouldn't like to have it. If you want to say, 'More ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... effort from your 'passive state,' and will tell me of such faults as rise to the surface and strike you as important in my poems, (for of course, I do not think of troubling you with criticism in detail) you will confer a lasting obligation on me, and one which I shall value so much, that I covet it at a distance. I do not pretend to any extraordinary meekness under criticism and it is possible enough that I might not be altogether obedient to yours. But with my high respect for your power in your Art and for your experience as an artist, it would be quite impossible ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... But the other of these two propositions is undeniable, that they who are under no apprehensions, who are noways uneasy, who covet nothing, who are lifted up by no vain joy, are happy: and therefore I grant you that. But as for the other, that is not now in a fit state for discussion; for it has been proved by your former arguments that a wise man is free from every ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... first and second tables of the moral law; to 'love the Lord their God with all their heart, and their neighbor as themselves;' in teaching them to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor their parents, not to swear, nor drink, nor lie, nor cheat, nor steal, nor covet. Verily, if this is what any mean by sectarianism, then the more we have of it in our common schools the better. 'It is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation,' that there is so little of it. I have not the least ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... possessed thyself of Lydia, invaded Syria, Persia, and Bactriana. Thou art forming a design to march as far as India, and thou now contest hither, to seize upon our herds of cattle. The great possessions which thou hast, only make thee covet more eagerly what ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... richard eateth a snake, folks shall say that 'tis of his subtilty; but when a pauper feedeth upon it, the world shall declare 'tis of his poverty. O dear my son, be content with thy grade and thy good, nor covet aught of thy fellow. O dear my son, be not neighbourly with the ignorant nor do thou break with him bread, and joy not in the annoy of those about thee and when thy foe shall maltreat thee meet him with beneficence. O dear my son, fear the man who feareth ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... that life is more complicated. The burdens are more evenly distributed, and no class is free and at leisure. But to fret over our disadvantages, and to extol the past, is only to ignore the price that was paid for those advantages we covet. There was always somebody to sweat for that leisure. Would a society divided into castes be better? Or again, who would like to have his children sleep three in a bed, and live in the kitchen, in order that the best rooms should always be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... sir, we covet not your delicacies: all we wish to know is the reason of this unheard of decree, and how you have contrived to supply your ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... men's ways are not our ways. They cannot exhaust longing in purposeless words on scraps of soulless paper, and I am glad that they cannot. I love you for your impatience; for your purpose, and for the manliness which will win for you yet all that you covet of fame, accomplishment and love. You expect no reply, but there are ways in which one can keep silent and yet speak. Won't you be surprised when your answer comes in a manner ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... Hampshire; he was a married man, and in very easy circumstances. Most couples find it very easy to have a family, but not always quite so easy to maintain them. Mr Easy was not at all uneasy on the latter score, as he had no children; but he was anxious to have them, as most people covet what they cannot obtain. After ten years, Mr Easy gave it up as a bad job. Philosophy is said to console a man under disappointment, although Shakespeare asserts that it is no remedy for toothache; so Mr Easy turned ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... thought it would really be for my little girl's welfare and happiness in the end," he said, "I should not hesitate for a moment to gratify her in this wish of hers, but, daughter, the ornament you covet would be extremely unsuitable for one of your years, and I fear its possession would foster a love of finery that I do not wish to cultivate in you, because it is not right, and would hinder you in the race I trust you are running for the ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley
... shall not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... gaze. Nothing was too mundane to be transformed by the holiday's magic into a thing mystic and unreal. Even such a prosaic article as a washtub, borrowing luster from the season's witchery and in shining blue dress became a thing to covet and dream about. ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... now neither money nor arms," continued the sheriff; "nothing the villain robbers could covet, and what, ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... soul to daring actions swells, By woe in plaintless patience it excells; From patience prudent, clear experience springs, And traces knowledge through the course of things. Thence hope is form'd, thence fortitude, success, Renown—Whate'er men covet ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... adjust apresurarse a, to hasten to. asegurar, to secure averia, average (damage by sea-water, etc.) buque, ship buque de vapor, steamer buque de vela, sailing vessel cabida, room, space codiciar, to covet deber, to owe, must debido a, owing to direccion, address encaminar, to forward hierro, iron mensual, monthly mercado de granos, grain market muestra, sample peticion, request pormenores, detalles, particulars, details por tanto, por eso, therefore ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano
... I do not covet, M. Binet. Shall we change the subject?" He was very frosty, as much perhaps because he scented in M. Binet's manner something that was vaguely menacing as for ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... some question of Mr. John Gladstone taking Huskisson's place as one of the members for Liverpool, but he did not covet it. He foresaw too many local jealousies, his deafness would be sadly against him, he was nearly sixty-five, and he felt himself too old to face the turmoil. He looked upon the Wellington government as the only government possible, though as a friend of Canning ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... can make no difference in my feeling to you. I tell you that should you become his wife you will still be my love. As to not coveting,—how is a man to cease to covet that which he has always coveted? But I shall be separated from you. Should I be dying, then I should send for you. You are the very essence of my life. I have no dream of happiness otherwise than as connected with you. He might have my whole property and I would ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... waistcoat are doffed; the immortal collars are turned down, displaying the columnar throat and the brawny chest; the snow-white shirt-sleeves are turned up to the elbow, disclosing biceps that SAMSON would envy and SANDOW covet. His braces are looped on either side of his supple hips, and his right hand grasps the axe which, a moment ago had been performing over your head a series of evolutions which, remarkable for the strength and agility displayed, were, perhaps, scarcely ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... compassionate softening. Fanny stood by as at a spectacle provided for her amusement, without rancour, but equally without pity. Beatrice was contemptuous. What right, said her countenance, had a servant-girl to covet jewellery? And how pitiable the spirit that prompted to a filching of half-crowns! For the criminals of finance, who devastate a thousand homes, Miss French had no small admiration; crimes such as the ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... man anything, but to love one another; for he that loveth another, hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... after a while, "my dear boy—dearer to me than you can tell—the truth is, I covet for you the unutterable blessing of a youth given to GOD. What that is, some know, and many a man converted late in life has imagined with heart-wrung envy: an Augustine, already numbered with the Saints, a Prodigal robed and decked with more ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of this?' said Finn, throwing the light of his lantern hither and thither so that every horror might be dragged from the darkness that all seemed to covet. 'All the thousands living in the barracks must come here, and just think of all the young ones above that never did any harm having to take in this stuff;' and the detective struck out spitefully at the noxious air. As he did so, the gurgling of water at the Cherry street end of the vault caught ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... twice the success you crave in life, and I've no reason to think you overrate your power to achieve it; but you greatly overrate me. It would be no condescension on my part to give you my friendship; and no doubt if you attain much of the success you covet you will be ready enough to forget my existence. What induces you to think that a simple girl like me can help you? It seems to me that you are vague and visionary, which perhaps is natural, since you say you are just awaking," she concluded, ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... our friendship and fellowship, but revolted against nature herself, and had no pity on his own children, and cared naught for riches and all the splendour of the world, and chosen ignominy such as this rather than the glory that men covet? And what shall it profit thee to have chosen above all gods and men him whom they call Jesus, and to have preferred this rough life of sackcloth to the pleasures and delights of a ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... their lustfull desire To covet more treasure, being puft with ambition, By their acts and their orders to set all on fire, Pretending religion to rout superstition: He bravely commanded the souldiers to goe In the Parliament-house, in defiance of any; To which they consented, and now you doe know That twelve Parliament men may ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... or may not, come to, some day; I only wish she were ours! If you could have seen her clasp the flag tight in her arms and put her cheek against it, and watched the tears of feeling start in her eyes when I told her that her star was her state! I kept whispering to myself, Covet not ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ither anglers choose their ain, And ither waters tak' the lead O' Hieland streams we covet nane, But gie to us the bonny Tweed; And gie to us the cheerfu' burn, That steals into its valley fair, The streamlets that, at ilka turn, Sae saftly meet and ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... witty, lively, saltatory, can have the volant effects we covet, if it want substance and seriousness. Substance, however, is to be widely distinguished from ponderability. Oxygen is not so ponderous as lead or granite, but it is far more substantial than either, and, as every one knows, infinitely more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... said. "But if I can read my own soul aright, there is no thought of myself in the grief which now tears my heart. What is power to me? What do I desire? A little room, leisure for my devotions, a pittance to save me from want—what more can I ask for? Why, then, should I covet power? If I am sore at heart, it is not for any poor loss which I have sustained. I think no more of it than of the snapping of one of the threads on yonder tapestry frame. It is for the king I grieve—for ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and basin," said she, "as long as they hold water; and as for the look-out—well, as long as I can see my two boys' faces happy, that's the best view I covet." ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... covet the things that we cannot have; but we are happier when we love the things that grow because they must. A patch of lusty pigweeds, growing and crowding in luxuriant abandon, may be a better and more worthy object of affection ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... cousin, Mr. William Fraser, tells me that the Prince sent notice to Sir Alexander Bennerman, by Sir John M'Donell, that he would go some of these days, and view my country of the Aird, and fish salmon upon my river of Beauly, I do not much covet that great honour at this time as my house is quite out of order, and that I am not at home myself nor you: however, if the Prince takes the fancy to go, you must offer to go along with him, and offer him a glass of wine and any cold meat you can get there. I shall send Sanday ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... Jones, smiling. "I do not covet the honor of a command, though I should be ready to go on and assist, if I really believed that military ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... banish hunger without formality, without curious dressing and curious fare. In extinguishing thirst, they use not equal temperance. If you will but humour their excess in drinking, and supply them with as much as they covet, it will be no less easy to vanquish them by vices than ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... them. Some are teachers, some are doctors, with gifts of healing; some are politicians, with gifts of government. The apostle speaks to them as though he were advising young men as to the choice of their profession, and he says: "Among all these professional opportunities covet the best; take that which most fills out and satisfies your life." But then he turns from these professional capacities and adds: "Be sure that these gifts do not crowd out of your life the higher capacity for sympathy. For you may understand all knowledge ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... mean? nay more, I mean To make you Empress of my Earthly Fortunes, Regent of my desires, for did you covet To be a real Queen, ...
— The Laws of Candy - Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... no miser; he did not covet gold for the sake of gold, but that he might buy the row of pearls and smiles that hung from the ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... to make one contented," said Meta. And, certainly, to be wife to a Member of Parliament is not so very delightful that one would covet it for her." ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... they will, the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions, which, on their side, are likewise universally allowed to be greatly indebted to the human understanding. It is by the activity of our passions, that our reason improves: we covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment, and it is impossible to conceive why a man exempt from fears and desires should take the trouble to reason. The passions, in their turn, owe their origin to our wants, and their increase to our ...
— A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of - The Inequality Among Mankind • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... the solemn annual feast I keep, As this day twelve year, on this very hour, I signed the contract for my soul with hell. I bartered it for honours, wealth, and pleasure, Three things which mortal men do covet most; And 'faith, I over-sold it to the fiend: What, one-and-twenty years, nine yet to come! How can a soul be worth so much to devils? O how I hug myself, to out-wit these fools of hell! And yet a sudden damp, I know not why, Has seized my spirits, and, like a heavy weight, ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... and the salt sea air had made us ravenously hungry, and the sandwiches that provident wives had prepared for us were dug out of capacious pockets and eaten with a relish that an epicure might covet. I shall never forget the trip back. Night overtook us before we were out of the first valley, the ascent was very steep, and we had to stop every few ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... One cannot imagine Fra Angelico's existence in a pagan country. Look, in No. 236, at the six radiant and rapturous angels clustering above the manger. Was there ever anything prettier? But I am not sure that I do not most covet No. 250, Christ crucified and two saints, and No. 251, the Coronation of the Virgin, for ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... isolation in the years ahead. But still, I admit, a not unhappy Holland, Dutch and free. Until a fresh Anglo-German struggle begins. Yet, be it noted, a Holland a little helpless and friendless if some renascent Asiatic Power should presently covet her Eastern possessions. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... blood, has no natural affinity with either of the big fighting powers that concern her: Austria or Russia. In her case, therefore, sympathy may be entirely eliminated. She does, however, covet a piece of Austrian territory, Transylvania, in which there is a substantial Rumanian population which has always been ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... At thy feet here I ask from thee: And I wish the good I purchase To repay thee with the product Of unnumbered years of study, Though it now slight effort costs me, Giving to your wildest wishes [Aside. (Here I touch his love,) the fondest Longings of your heart, whatever Passion can desire or covet. If through courtesy or caution You should not accept my offer, Let my good intentions pay you, If from greater acts you stop me. For the pity that you show me, Which I thankfully acknowledge, I will be a friend so faithful, That henceforth ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... against mankind, to quench their life and light for ever;—could not this Caesar do it? No; he had the genius; but not that little quality which all greatest personalities,—all who have not passed beyond the limits of personality: tact, impersonality, the power that the disciple shall covet, to make himself as nothing in the eyes of men:— and because he lacked that for armor, there were knives sharpened which should reach his heart before long.—And then, in literature, two figures ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... another man. I am my father, and his great grandfather, and all his ancestors, pirates all. I know what I covet, and by the Lord! nothing shall stop me, least of all the law. I shall take my own where ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... has brought together, as has never been done before in history, a bewildering mass of delicate and beautiful fabrics, jewelry and household decorations such as women covet, gathered skilfully from all parts of the world, and in the midst of this bulk of desirable possessions is placed an untrained girl with careful instructions as to her conduct for making sales, but with no guidance in regard to herself. Such a girl may be bitterly lonely, but she is expected ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... daring to covet what she saw, had never crossed her, in her humbleness. It was quite away from her. It was something with which she had nothing to do. "But it must be beautiful to be like Miss Faith." And she thanked God, mutely, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... that no one would covet the dangerous honour of making part of the new national representation, the first act of which must necessarily be, to proscribe for ever the dynasty of the Bourbons, and acknowledge Napoleon, in spite of the foreign powers, the sole and legitimate ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... aghast. "Is it money you desire?" said she. "Say how much, and you shall have it from my private purse. But do not rob the poor! The claim that you covet is the tax levied upon all the working classes, and you know ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... bowing to each other.—Such players' tricks are natural to young people, and the more insignificant—that is to say, unoccupied—they are, the stronger hold do they have on them. They are more especially paraded before women: for they covet women, and long—even more—to be coveted by them. But even on a chance meeting they will trot out their bag of tricks: even for a passer-by from whom they can expect only a glance of amazement. Christophe often came across ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... generous, because they cannot prove themselves so; and this they never would do were it not that a love of honour for its own sake forces them to seek a reputation quite at variance with their real character, and to conceal their baseness, a quality whose fruits we covet, though we regard it itself with dislike and shame. No one has ever so far rebelled against the laws of nature and put off human feeling as to act basely for mere amusement. Ask any of those who live by robbery whether ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... they were Apostles, I am a condemned man. They were free; but I am still a servant. Yet if I suffer, I shall become the freedman of Jesus Christ, and shall rise again free: and now in my bonds I learn to covet nothing." [Page 28. Sec. 4.] Again he says, "Remember the Church in Syria in your prayers." [Page 30. Sec. 9.] He prays for his fellow-labourers in the Lord: he implores them to approach the throne of grace with ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... the land, once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace, Exults to see its thistly curse repeal'd; The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring. The garden fears no blight, and needs no fence, For there is none to covet, all are full. The lion, and the leopard and the bear Graze with the fearless flocks; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Apathies are none. No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now; the mother sees And smiles ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... Arthur were thin, prim-looking, rather plain children; but Oliver was the very picture of a father's darling, a boy that any childless man would bitterly covet, any childless woman crave and yearn for, with a longing that women alone can understand; a child who, beautiful as most childhood is, had a beauty you rarely see— bright, frank, merry, bold; half a Bacchus and half a Cupid, he was a perfect image of the Golden Age. Though ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... ceremonies, a sense of high and boundless authority in her pastors; there is rank in her orders sufficient even for ambition. Then the deference, the awe, and the humility with which they are approached by the people—ah! Susan, there is much still in the character of a priest for the human heart to covet. The power of saying mass, of forgiving sin, of relieving the departed spirits of the faithful in another world, and of mingling in our holy sacrifices, with the glorious worship of the cherubims, or angels, in heaven—all this is the privilege of ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... dedicated servants, whom their great Master seems to be sending to and fro to spread righteousness in the earth! I often think it has a tendency to help one a little on the way towards the Land of Promise. When I consider these favors, I am led to covet that a double portion of the spirit of the Elijahs may so rest on the Elishas that others may also be raised to fill up the honorable situations of those worthies, when they shall be removed ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... in the ability to make decisions in detachment of spirit from that which is pleasant or unpleasant to him personally, in the desire to hold onto things not by grasping them but by understanding them and remembering them, and in learning to covet only that which ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... having their strenuous native characters undermined by their delight in the place. They held that the future was theirs, a glorious asset, far more glorious than the past. But a theory, as the Duke saw, is one thing, an emotion another. It is so much easier to covet what one hasn't than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn't. The future doesn't exist. The past does. For, whereas all men can learn, the gift of prophecy ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... Prather concluded; but under his breath he added bitterly: "And you get both the store and Little Rivers!" in the prehensile instinct which gains one thing only to covet another. ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... have already succeeded to some extent; but she is so young that, of course, much of the work yet remains to be done; and Laura is not the person to carry it on; also, I think, would not covet the task. ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may, you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing joy at his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to covet, and which, but for him, might—yes, say what you please, deny it as much as you like—would have ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... MURRAY: To-morrow, next week, next month, you may be happy—but what of the time when those wild oats thrust their ears through the very seams of the floor trodden by the wife whose respect you will have learned to covet! You may drag her into the crowded streets—there is the same vile growth springing up from the chinks of the pavement! In your house or in the open, the scent of the mildewed grain always in your nostrils, and in your ears no music ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... not succeed in making it a business success until 1785. The story is told[1] that he took a working model of it to show to the King. His Majesty patronizingly asked him, "Well, my man, what have you to sell?" The inventor promptly answered, "What kings covet, may it please your Majesty,—POWER!" The story is perhaps too good to be true, but the fact of the "power" could not be denied,—power, too, not simply mechanical, but, in its results, ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... it is clear that God in the person of Christ is the one only and divine answer. Here is God's yea and amen, the Alpha and Omega, sight for the blind, healing for the paralyzed, cleansing for the polluted, life for the dead, the gospel for the poor and sad and comfortless. Now we covet the gracious bestowal of the Spirit, that he may take more deeply of the things of Christ, and reveal them unto us. When the disciples sought to know the Father, the Lord said, He that hath seen me hath seen ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... will suppose his desires emphatically those of the sensualist—he has, therefore, a strong love of life. He is an absolute egotist—his will is concentrated in himself—he has fierce passions—he knows no enduring, no holy affections, but he can covet eagerly what for the moment he desires—he can hate implacably what opposes itself to his objects—he can commit fearful crimes, yet feel small remorse—he resorts rather to curses upon others, than to penitence for his misdeeds. Circumstances, to which his constitution ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... of the large, firm lid, he felt that such a basis for literature would be half the battle. He raised the lid and looked lovingly into the deep interior; he sat ominously silent while his companion dropped the striking words: "Now that's an article I personally covet!" Then when the man mentioned the ridiculous price (they were literally giving it away), he reflected on the economy of having a literary altar on which one could really kindle a fire. A davenport was a compromise, but what was all ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... others, after this, not that torture of life, but that torturing principle of which we so often spoke. Yes, I, even as I am; because by this—this act—this sacrifice—I can win you for her. And I can win that wider America which you have coveted; which I covet for you—which I ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... laborious days; and whenever he happened to have something to do, he would drag himself to the work with such reluctance, that he might have been going to his death. From which one may learn how much our reason and the little wisdom of men are deceived, in that very often, nay, almost always, we covet the very opposite to that which we really need, and, as the Tuscan proverb has it, in thinking to cross ourselves with a finger, poke it into our own eyes. It is the common opinion of men that rewards and honours spur the minds of mortals to the studies of those ...
— Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 06 (of 10) Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi • Giorgio Vasari
... your annoyance all its weight. As she lingers, leading off your thought with pleasant words, she knows well that she is redeeming you from care, and soothing you to that sweet calm which such home and such wife can alone bestow. And in sickness,—sickness that you almost covet for the sympathy it brings,—that hand of hers resting on your fevered forehead, or those fingers playing with the scattered locks, are more full of kindness than the loudest vaunt of friends; and when your failing strength will ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... disobedient." When I see the proud glance, the boastful manner, the display of, "I am better than thou," I feel pity and commiseration for the poor dying creature and see "behind the face a grinning skull". I like the companionship of the servant in the kitchen more than the mistress in the parlor. I covet the humblest walk. I wish for the power, often, to make the rich take back seats, and give the front to the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. I will not have a piece of fine furniture. I have no carpets on my floors. I have two small rooms in Topeka in the building I desire ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... certainly from Mr. Jingle), for the suggestion. Sir, I am a Deller—a Dingley Deller (cheers). I cannot lay claim to the honour of forming an item in the population of Muggleton; nor, Sir, I will frankly admit, do I covet that honour: and I will tell you why, Sir (hear); to Muggleton I will readily concede all these honours and distinctions to which it can fairly lay claim—they are too numerous and too well known to require aid ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... there a blaze of light from a store window invited belated passers to covet the bargains offered within; a half-dozen incandescent bulbs, swung on cross-wires at intervals along the street, glowed feebly as if weary with the effort to beat back the darkness clutching at the throat of the town; over the sidewalk ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... poor, support the weak, do evil to none; covet not that which ye have not and which belongs ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... had never ate fish that tasted so delicious, a conclusion an excellent appetite helped her to arrive at. Edward was highly elated at his success, and laughed and joked over a dinner they enjoyed with a relish an epicure might covet. There is an old proverb about stolen waters being sweet; certainly their stolen ramble and impromptu dinner had a charm which completely blinded them to their duty to their parents, and even their own safety; for Edward proposed they should take a short ramble on the other side, where they ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... Carlton, whose only sign of recognition was a very formal bow. This gave her no uneasiness; she cherished no malice towards Miss Carlton; but her ideas and tastes so widely differed from her own that she did not covet her friendship even had she been inclined to ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... determined to build a town in its neighbourhood and to dwell together. For that purpose they surveyed as much ground as would afford to each what is generally called here a home lot. Forty acres were thought sufficient to answer this double purpose; for to what end should they covet more land than they could improve, or even inclose; not being possessed of a single tree, in the whole extent of their new dominion. This was all the territorial property they allotted; the rest they agreed to hold in common, and seeing that the scanty grass ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... faint and far away, the roar and surge of the troubled sea. With face uplifted, he cried aloud, "O God, my Father, I ask thee not for the things that men deem great. I covet not wealth, nor honor, nor ease; only peace; only that I may live free from those who do not understand; only that I may in some measure make atonement; that I may win pardon. Oh, drive me not from this haven into ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... there was left him no estate that the king might covet, they feared lest he be brought to release him, by the incidence of the vizier's [good] counsel upon the king's heart, and he return to his former case, so should their plots be marred and their ranks degraded, for that they knew that the king would have need of that which he had known from ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... necessarily have some motive, answer me this, you who say that Apuleius tried to influence Pudentilla's heart by magical charms, answer me this! What did he seek to get from her by so doing? Was he in love with her beauty? You say not! Did he covet her wealth? The evidence of the marriage settlement denies it, the evidence of the deed of gift denies it, the evidence of the will denies it! It shows not only that I did not court the generosity of my wife, but that ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... beautiful and delicious fruits we always have the power of giving pleasure to others, and he's a churl and she a pale reflection of Xantippe who does not covet this power. The faces of our guests brighten as they snuff from afar the delicate aroma. Our vines can furnish gifts that our friends will ever welcome; and by means of their products we can pay homage to genius that will be far more grateful ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... some reason why our generals should covet possession of the Hohenzollern redoubt, some good military reason beyond the spell of a high-sounding name. I went up there one day when it was partly ours and stared at its rigid waves of mine-craters and trench parapets ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... for those who covet it. If ever Thou meet'st with one, bowed down by suffering, Who calls on thee for pity and relief, Then if thou heed'st his prayer for my sake, I shall ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... trouble was bound to prove startling any way one looked at it. The prominence of the family, the baldness of its skeleton, and the gleeful eagerness with which it danced into full view left but little for meddlers to covet. A crash was inevitable; it was the clash that Grover & Dickhut were trying to avert. Old Wharton, worn to a slimmer frazzle than he had ever been before his luckless marriage, was determined to divorce his insolent younger half. ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... command me."[142] On another occasion he said: "We want all potentates to content themselves with their own territories; we are content with this island of ours"; and Giustinian, after four years' residence at Henry's Court, gave it as his deliberate opinion to his Government, that Henry did not covet his neighbours' goods, was satisfied with his own dominions, and "extremely desirous of peace".[143] Ferdinand said, in 1513, that his pensions from France and a free hand in Scotland were all that Henry really desired;[144] and Carroz, his ambassador, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... on men at first; diversities in the amount of energy exerted by believers as fellow-workers with God in their own sanctification; and diversities, accordingly, in the fruitfulness which results in the life of Christians. While all believers are safe in Christ, each should covet the best gifts. No true disciple will be contented with a thirtyfold increase of faith, and patience, and humility, and love, and usefulness in his heart and life for the Lord, if through prayer and watching—if by denying ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the point whence she started: the Bombylius is there again, hovering motionless. From this aerial observatory, as quickly recovered as quitted, she inspects the ground, watching for the favourable moment to establish her egg at the cost of another creature's destruction. What does she covet for her offspring: the honey-cupboard, the stores of game, the larvae in their transformation-sleep? I do not know yet, What I do know is that her slender legs and her dainty velvet dress do not allow her to make underground searches. When she has found the propitious place, suddenly she ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... with me. It is a part of my life. It was not taken up in an hour, to be as lightly thrown aside. Without it, life would be insupportable; with it, life in any shape of seclusion, privation, banishment, contains all the blessings I covet upon earth. It was not for that, or of that I spoke. Understand me clearly, and put no construction on my words outside their plain and ordinary meaning. All I ask, all that is necessary for me is your society; to hear you speak, to drink in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... case of the individual, the violation of the commandments Thou Shall Not Covet, Thou Shalt Not Steal, and Thou Shalt Not Kill, are usually traceable to the violation of the first great commandment—Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me—that is, to the putting of self before ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... thick; but more deliciously "creepy" than any other place is the keep, I think—even more thrilling than the dungeons. Yet the castle, as it is now, is far from gloomy, I can tell you. Not only are there banqueting-halls and ball-rooms, and drawing-rooms and vast galleries which royalties might covet, but there are quantities of charming bedrooms, gay and bright enough for debutante princesses. My bedroom, where I am writing, is in a turret; quaintly furnished, with tapestry on the wall which might have suggested to Browning his "Childe Roland ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... respects justice and goodness towards our fellow-creatures."—Fuller cor. "Indeed, if there be any such, who have been, or who appear to be of us, as suppose there is not a wise man among us all, nor an honest man, that is able to judge betwixt his brethren; we shall not covet to meddle in their matters."—Barclay cor. "There were some that drew back; there were some that made shipwreck of faith; yea, there were some that brought in damnable heresies."—Id. "The ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... learnt the faith in England. But all the errors grew the faster from the ignorance of the people; and at Rome, where there was plenty of learning, the power the Pope enjoyed had done little good, for it made ambitious men covet the appointment, and they ruled their branch of the Church so as to ensure their own gain, more than for the sake of what was right. The Patriarchs of Constantinople greatly disapproved of this, and made the most of all the differences ...
— The Chosen People - A Compendium Of Sacred And Church History For School-Children • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... said, "I know all that you have in your mind. I admit—I covet her. You can't make me more jealous than I am. She's clean and sweet—it is marvellous how the God of the rest of the world can have made a thing so brave and honest and wonderful. She's better than flowers. But I think I'm going ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... the war against the Athenians would on our own showing be merited by ourselves, and more hateful in us than in those who make no pretensions to honesty; as it is more disgraceful for persons of character to take what they covet by fair-seeming fraud than by open force; the one aggression having for its justification the might which fortune gives, the other being simply a piece of clever roguery. A matter which concerns us thus nearly we naturally look to most jealously; and over and above the oaths that I ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the life of men and women seems to us! Time, which is so precious that even the Creator will not give a second moment until the first is gone, they throw away as though it were water. Opportunities which angels covet they fling away as of no consequence, and die failures, because they have "no chance in life." Life, which seems so precious to us, they spurn as if but a bauble. Scarcely a mortal returns to us who has ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... date of December, 1822, he writes: "If I know myself, there is no situation within the power of government to bestow which I covet or desire, nor is there one which I would not accept, if the discharge of its duties by me was deemed necessary or useful to my country. I have no ambition to gratify, although I have duties ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... year or two. You are young, and I am very much afraid for you. Live honestly and firmly; do not covet what belongs to other people, take ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... are built. Still, the immensely greater number of the Americans necessarily live so simply and cheaply that such a house would be almost as strange to them as to an Altrurian. But while we should regard its furnishings as vulgar and unwholesome, most Americans would admire and covet its rich rugs or carpets, its papered walls, and thickly curtained windows, and all its foolish ornamentation, and most American women would long to have a house like the ordinary high-stoop New York house, that they ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... brother / the treasure did command, So many a lavish bounty / dealt out the hero's hand, Whoso mark did covet, / to him was given such store That all who once were poor men / might joyous live ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... covet not the abode—O do not sigh As many do, repining while they look; Intruders who would tear from Nature's book This precious leaf with ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... many men who systematically affect outward indifference in order to make themselves interesting in the eyes of the other sex, allowing a word, a look, a gesture, to betray at stated intervals that they are not indifferent to the one woman whose love they covet. They give these signs with the utmost skill and with a strange, calculating avarice. Women watch such men jealously from a distance, to see if they can detect the slightest softening of manner towards other ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... were courted thus by several of the Town where they then were: but they took up their head quarters at the House of him with whom they first went ashore. When the Ship appeared in sight again, then they importuned them for some Iron, which is the chief thing that they covet, even above their Ear-rings. We might have bought all their Ear-rings, or other Gold they had, with our Iron-bars, had we been assured of its goodness; and yet when it was touch'd and compar'd with other Gold, we could not discern any difference, tho' it ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... prince, what happened? The fugitive princes formed a league against the country; the others ranged themselves with you. If to-day the title of prince is re-established, we concede to the enemies of our country all they covet; we deprive the patriotic relatives of the king of all they esteem! I see the triumph and the recompence on the side of the conspiring princes; I see the punishment of all sacrifices on the side of the popular princes. It is said ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... only two mental states which are utterly without bowels or conscience. These are cowardice and greed. Is it to a synthesis of these states that this more than mortal enmity may be traced? What do they fear, and what is it they covet? What can they redoubt in a country which is practically crimeless, or covet in a land that is almost as bare as a mutton bone? They have mesmerised themselves, these men, and have imagined into our quiet air brigands and thugs and titans, with ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... just a child's first temptation to get possession of what was not her own,—the same ugly temptation that produces the defaulter, the burglar, and the highway robber, and that made it necessary to declare to every human being the law, "Thou shalt not covet." ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... little dull if one likes, being bounded by mottled, mossy garden-walls—to a villa on a hill-top, where I found various things that touched me with almost too fine a point. Seeing them again, often, for a week, both by sunlight and moonshine, I never quite learned not to covet them; not to feel that not being a part of them was somehow to miss an exquisite chance. What a tranquil, contented life it seemed, with romantic beauty as a part of its daily texture!—the sunny terrace, with its tangled podere ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... O God of heaven, Lest is covet what's not mine; Lest I take what is not given, Guard my heart and ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... and knowledge, which all men covet from the impulse of nature, infinitely surpasses all the riches of the world; in comparison with which, precious stones are vile, silver is clay, and purified gold grains of sand; in the splendor of which, the sun and moon grow dim to the sight; in the admirable sweetness ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey
... time to this most vital question of the age. After a fifty years' acquaintance with the noble men and women of the anti-slavery cause and the sight of the glorious end to their faithful work, I should be a traitor to all I most love, honor and desire to imitate if I did not covet a place among those who are giving their lives to the emancipation of the white slaves ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... assist, even passively, in despoiling any person of his rightful inheritance—he harshly, almost brutally, replied: 'Mind your own business! I will disappoint the folks who are waiting for my property as they deserve to be disappointed. They covet my estates do they! Very well, they shall have them. I will leave them my property, but they shall find it ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... Vainamoinen, "No, your bows I do not covet, For the wretched bows I care not; I myself have plenty of them. All the walls are decked with crossbows, All the pegs are hung with crossbows; 370 In the woods they wander hunting, Nor a hero needs ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous |
