"Covetous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... ardour the Fronde, though without the slightest conviction, be it understood, and in the sole hope of easily obtaining from it what he could not snatch from royalty. He had enlisted with him in the Fronde his brother Turenne, of whom he disposed absolutely, and who was equally ambitious, and equally covetous of the grandeur of their family, but after his own fashion, and the mould of his frigid, reflective, and profoundly dissembling character. At the peace of Ruel, in 1649, the Duke de Bouillon had demanded "his re-establishment in Sedan, or if the Queen preferred to reimburse him ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... a time when it was customary to call Germans "deep" by way of distinction; but now that the most successful type of new Germanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses "smartness" in all that has depth, it is almost opportune and patriotic to doubt whether we did not formerly deceive ourselves with that commendation: in short, whether German depth is not at bottom something different and worse—and something from ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... a moment at the history of the seizure of Malta. For generations the value of this citadel had been known. All the strong nations of Europe had looked with covetous eyes upon it. But it was a difficult thing to find any pretext for its capture. It was held by the Knights of St. John, the decrepit remnant of an order whose heroism had many times been the shield of Christendom ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... They crowded round, with bent knees and enkindled hearts, to receive his blessing, to hear his voice, to see the light of his face. My blessings on them and on him!—But the notablest was a certain necessitous or covetous Duke of Burgundy, in straitened circumstances we shall hope,—who reflected that in all likelihood this English Archbishop, going towards Rome to appeal, must have taken store of cash with him to bribe the Cardinals. Wherefore he of Burgundy, for his part, decided to lie in wait and rob him. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... columns; you will see that their claws are longer, their morality more crooked than ours, while they have not our good points. What a head a man must have if he has to found a business in times when the shareholder is as covetous and keen as the inventor! What a great magnetizer must he be that can create a Claparon and hit upon expedients never tried before! Do you know the moral of it all? Our age is no better than we are; we live in an era of greed; no one troubles himself about the intrinsic value of ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... No captains were more prosperous than the mariners of Antwerp. In 1568 there were 500 marble mansions in this city on the Meuse. Belgium became a casket filled with jewels. Then it was that Spain turned covetous eyes northward. Sated with his pleasures, broken by indulgence and passion, the Emperor Charles the Fifth resigned his gold and throne to his son, King Philip. Finding his coffers depleted, Philip sent ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... allow myself a pair of shoes with two heels; for I had lost one, and the shoes were so decayed that they were not worth mending. You see by this that those who are the most generous of their own, can be the most covetous for others. I hope you will be so good to me as to use your interest with her (for what ever she says, you seem to have some) to indulge me with the extravagance suitable to ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... the Provost, cunning and quick; "fodder should be cheap"—and he shot the covetous glimmer of a bargain-making ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... women well; knew how rare are the good ones; knew the prize he had won, and valued it—yes, he was sure he always valued it as it deserved. What was the use? Had she not far better have been like the others—petulant, wilful, capricious, covetous of admiration, careless of affection, weak-headed, shallow-hearted, and desirous only of that which could not possibly be her own? Such were most of the women amongst whom he had been thrown in his youth; but O, how unlike ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... to be untrue, so I calmly said that I would remain seated where I was until food was sold to me, and at the same time produced one or two silver coins, the display of which to the covetous eyes of the Tibetans was always the means of hastening the transaction of business. In small handfuls, after each of which the Tibetans swore that they had not another atom to sell, I managed, with somewhat of a ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... crucible caught fire from a wisp that thrust up into it from the brazier, flared up of a sudden and lighted every corner of the old cellar. It revealed the craning neck and slack jaw of Gregory, the covetous glittering eyes and incredulous smile of Prince John, the scared faces of the huddling peasants. Then there was a crash that shook the earth. Battlements rocked, pavements cracked, blocks of stone leaped into the air like a fountain of masonry. When fire encounters ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... the covetous man prays for the conservation of his vain and superfluous riches; the ambitious for victory and the good conduct of his fortune; the thief calls Him to his assistance, to deliver him from the dangers and difficulties ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... infinite Mind, and evil to be only the suppositional opposite, without reality, without life, without power—unless you give it these things in your own consciousness. You don't have to take thought for your life. You don't have to be covetous, or envious, or fearful, or anxious. You couldn't do anything if you were. These things don't help you. Jesus said that of himself he could do nothing. But—as soon as he recognized God as the infinite principle of ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Germany's covetous attitude toward the colonial possessions of other nations led to several serious international disagreements in the years before the Great War. More than once it almost brought her into conflict with the government of the United States. An agreement ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... mistaken. The King of Prussia, who is so covetous of that which belongs to others, will gladly share ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... twenty-dollar coin rolled free, shone with its virgin newness and lay on the table-top, gleaming its lure into the covetous old eyes. Another followed it and another. King regretted that there were not more, that the parcel contained banknotes for the most part. He ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... speaking against a covetous man, thus. There is no such pinch peney on live as this good fellowe is. He will not lose the paring of his nailes. His haire is never rounded for sparing of money, one paire of shone serveth him a twelve month, he is shod with nailes like a Horse. He hath bene knowne by his coate this ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... on my mind! They are all gone: I must follow. Well, and what then? Let me shift about to another subject. The best I can think of is a sound sleep; so good-night.' In fact, like Sir Fretful Plagiary in the Critic, Bozzy was so covetous of popularity that he would rather be abused than be not mentioned at all. Little augury, too, of success at the bar could his father find in the following portrait of his son: 'the author of the Ode to Tragedy is a most excellent man; he is of an ancient ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... become serious. Mr. Chesley is immensely wealthy, and having no near relatives desires to adopt some pretty, well-bred, affectionate-natured girl, who can take care of and cheer his old age; and to whom he can bequeath his name and fortune. His covetous eye has fallen upon my ward, and he seriously contemplates making some grave proposals to your mother, relative to transferring you to Washington, and thence to San Francisco. As Mr. Chesley's heiress, your future will be very brilliant, and I presume that in a voluntary choice of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... pounds for life: I hear Mr. Villiers is most likely to succeed to that board. You know all the Stanhopes are a family aux bon-mots: I must tell you one of this John. He was sitting by an old Mr. Curzon, a nasty wretch, and very covetous: his nose wanted blowing, and continued to want it: at last Mr. Stanhope, with the greatest good-breeding, said, "Indeed, Sir, if you don't wipe your nose, you will ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... I," said the other, taking the words out of her mouth, "the wife of Capitan Tinong is so stingy—she hasn't yet sent us any present and that after we've been in her house. So, when such a grasping and covetous woman lets go of a little present ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... found in the Smaragdine tablet. But surely there were alchemistic masters who did not let themselves be blinded by the word gold and sympathetically carried out still further the language of the Smaragdine tablet. They were the previously mentioned lofty-minded men. The covetous crowd of sloppers, however, adhered to the gold of the Smaragdine tablet and other writings and had no appreciation of anything else. For a long time alchemy meant no more for ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... he goes to the mounting-stand to deny "the regular flyer," and to tender instead, "an animal that we don't give to everybody, William." Enter "William," otherwise Billy Buttons, whom the gentleman covetous of a flyer soon finds to be enough for him to manage, because William, although accustomed to riders awkward through weakness, is not used to the manners of what is called the "three-legged trotter"; ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... not attain to this happy condition without enduring more trouble of body and mind for several years than can well be imagined. Yes, gentleman, adds he, speaking to the company, I can assure you my troubles were so extraordinary, that they were capable of discouraging the most covetous men from undertaking such voyages as I did to acquire riches. Perhaps you have never heard a distinct account of the wonderful adventures and dangers I met with in my seven voyages; and, since I have this opportunity, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... original natives of the soil. Historic justice demands that some one should tell the truth about the Indians, whose chief and almost only fault has been that they occupied lands which the white man wanted. Even now covetous eyes are cast upon the territory reserved for the use ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... James, were as persuaded as his friends of his unbounded ability. They hated him for it. They were covetous of gold and territory. They thought he might justify his boasts, and enrich them as well as himself, if he were let go. Failure, on the other hand, would, they calculated, blast his power to hurt. At all events, in the existing popular mood, it was easier to despatch him at his ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... trade at every turn, that acknowledged necessity of being smart, which we must own is quite as general as the nobler propensity. I believe that both phases of commercial activity may be attributed to the same characteristic. Men in trade in America are not more covetous than tradesmen in England, nor probably are they more generous or philanthropical. But that which they do, they are more anxious to do thoroughly and quickly. They desire that every turn taken shall be a great turn—or at any rate that it shall be as great as possible. They go ahead ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the son of Madame de la Roche-Jugan; then shut himself up in the library until the evening, which he passed at bezique with the General. Meantime he viewed with the eye of a philosopher the strife of the covetous relatives who hovered around their ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... a faltering marriage. In the beginning love announces the awakening of mutual need. Then the feelings flow swift and strong and carry each toward the other. The impulse to possess, to annex, to have possession of the beloved, is a consuming hunger. It is a covetous grasping, a recognition that the other is indispensable. Out of this comes a union, and from then on, the two grow not only together, but also their common fellowship grows, becoming their way ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... words of the Apostle St. Paul, describing what shall come to pass in what he calls "the last days," ever touched any people so closely as they do those of our times and country. "Men," he says, "shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness, traitors, stubborn, puffed up, and lovers of pleasure, ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... Felicia, after a first eager grasping at pretty things, as a child holds out covetous hands for toys and sweets, had shown sudden scruples, an unexpected ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which will in all probability take place before the Arabs will be reconciled to the loss of a territory which has for a long time been of no use to them, but which, under its present masters, bids fair to introduce mines of wealth into an impoverished country. The Pasha of Egypt had long cast a covetous eye upon Aden, and its occupation by the British took place at the precise period requisite to check the ambitious designs of a man thirsting for conquest, and to allay the fears of the Imaum of ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... I. "A great deal of the monastic plate disappeared—clean vanished. It used to be said that a lot of it was hidden away or buried by its owners, but it's much more likely that it was stolen by the covetous and greedy folk of the neighbourhood—the big men, of course. Anyway, while a great deal was certainly sent by the commissioners to the king's treasury in London, a lot more—especially in out-of-the-way places and districts—just disappeared and was never heard of again. Up here in the ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... agreeable one, but it had had this solid advantage, that it had left him right in the middle of a great many clothes. And Mr. Moon, whatever his moral defects, had the one excellent quality of taking about the same size as himself. Archie, casting a covetous eye upon a tweed suit which lay on the bed, was on the point of climbing into the trousers when on the outer door of the studio there ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... The covetous, sharp, eager face, with which she 'asked the question and looked on, as her daughter took out of her bosom the little gift she had so lately received, told almost as much of the history of this parent and child as the child herself ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... that she is unconscious of her blindness, and consequently begs her attendant to go elsewhere, because the house is dark. But you may be sure that this, at which we laugh in her, happens to us all; no one understands that he is avaricious or covetous. The blind seek for a guide; we wander about ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... the one hand those whom he was gladdening with the other. Herein he compares favourably with Joseph, who sold corn to the Egyptians, but on such terms that they lost their personal freedom. Doubtless that holy man was placed in a dilemma between the necessity of satisfying a covetous King on the one hand, and that of rescuing a starving people on the other. Still I must think that the Egyptian, whose life was preserved, groaned over the loss of his liberty; and if I may say so, with all respect to so great a patriarch[903], far nobler is it to sell corn to freemen who remain ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... enterprise. On a sudden, they thought of Mr. Park's tobe, which was given to them by the king of Boossa, and they hoped that in consequence of the splendour of its appearance, and its intrinsic value, it might prove an acceptable present to the covetous prince, and be the means of effecting a perfect reconciliation between them. They therefore immediately despatched Ibrahim with it to Rabba, although their hearts misgave them at the time, that it would, after all, be thought lightly of, as an ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... condition of these last days, Paul instructs us: "This know, also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." Then he groups together nineteen immoral attributes of the social state of these last days: "Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient (to parents especially), unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce despisers, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than God, formal in religion" (2 Timothy iii.). ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... property upon her shoulders; she felt that God had tried her as no other soul had been tried. The property of Bill Sikes had for a long time been coveted by his white neighbors, but even extortionate offers had been refused. But the 10th of November offered a favorable opportunity for the covetous to bulldoze black men who owned valuable real estate into selling it at any price, and Mrs. Sikes was one of that number whose experience had turned their love for the dear old home into hate. She had witnessed the killing of a poor wretch right in front of her door, within a stone's throw ...
— Hanover; Or The Persecution of the Lowly - A Story of the Wilmington Massacre. • David Bryant Fulton
... Ohio River, along which white men were pushing their way, and settling on land in what is now Kentucky and Tennessee, and looking with covetous eyes on the land between that river and the lakes, but which the Indians claimed had been reserved to them by treaty. The shrewder among the Indian leaders foresaw the time when they would have to fight and overwhelm the intruders or submit to their hunting ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... declares that before the coming of the Lord there will exist a state of religious declension similar to that in the first centuries. "In the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... of many little feet; from the thickets the hogs came; each hurrying with might and main to be foremost, they rushed, grunting, squealing, crowding to the fence, where, standing with upturned faces and small covetous eyes, they awaited the feast of golden grain which the old man hastened to scatter amongst them. Then, leaning upon the fence, he noted each greedy grunter as he wriggled his small tail in keenest enjoyment and cracked ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... old man, who lived off the road, did not like it. 'Twas a Popish custom; and said, "I always fast on Christmas." His family knew they did, and many a day besides; for he was so covetous that he grudged the water which turned his ...
— Two Christmas Celebrations • Theodore Parker
... though they are rare, the aim of which is not to secure the privileges of the propertied classes. But one may confidently assert that in any society where, for every man living in ease, there are ten exhausted by labor, envious, covetous, and often suffering with their families from direct privation, all the privileges of the rich, all their luxuries and superfluities, are obtained and maintained only by ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... not a sufficient supply; because too many of the labouring classes in towns, though they are earning very high wages, are contented to live in a condition unfit for civilized men; and of course, if they are contented so to do, there will be plenty of covetous or careless landlords who will supply the bad article with which they are satisfied; and they will be punished by disease for not ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... of Ireland, however, a fresh stream of English adventurers continued to flow, as aggressive and covetous as their means and prudence permitted; calling so much of the country as they were able to wrench from the Irish "the English Pale", which fluctuated in extent with their fortunes; and, when compelled to pay tribute to Irish chiefs, calling it "black rent", to indicate how they regarded it. Their ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... as a god Hermes, a lusty fellow, a thief, and a covetous, a sorcerer, bowlegged, and an interpreter of speech. It is impossible for such an one ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... covetous owld rip, and him wid a dozen wives at laste, to want our darlin'. What'll I do?—what'll I do? Faix, I'll have ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... enough; if one could implant the contented love of field and wood, wide airs and flying clouds life, love, ease, labour, sorrow—all that is best in our experience—could be tasted here and thus; while the troubles bred by the covetous brain and the scheming mind would find no place here. It is a better lot, after all, to live and feel than to express life and feeling, however subtly and ingeniously, and I for one would throw down in an ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Andreas deduced that every love not dedicated to God was bound to offend Him, and advanced eighteen points against the love of woman, starting with the well-known argument that woman was naturally of a base disposition, covetous, envious, greedy, fickle, garrulous, stubborn, proud, vain, sensual, deceitful, etc. "He who serves love, cannot serve God," he declared, "and God will punish every man who, apart from matrimony, serves Venus. What good could come from acting against the will of God?" Here we are face to face ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... does with a thoroughness that alarms his friend. He borrows money right and left and lavishes it upon beggars. He promises to pay his creditors twice over when his baggage comes. By and by the king—a very covetous man—hears of Ma'aruf's amazing generosity, and desirous himself of getting a share of the baggage, places his treasury at Ma'aruf's disposal, and weds him to his daughter Dunya. Ma'arfu soon empties the treasury, and the Wazir, who dislikes Ma'aruf, suspects the truth. Ma'aruf, ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... deterrent to transgressors only; whereas the royal code aims higher: by it not only is the malefactor punished, but the righteous and just person is rewarded. [8] The result is, that many a man, beholding how the just grow ever wealthier than the unjust, albeit harbouring in his heart some covetous desires, is constant still to virtue. To abstain from unjust dealing ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... and an excess which is known as foolhardiness; so it is in the case of the love of books. As to the mean, we have seen that it is the virtue of the true book-lover, while the defect constitutes the sin of the Robustious Philistine. But the extreme is found in covetousness, and the covetous man who is in the extreme state of book-loving, is the biblioklept, or book-stealer. Now his vice shows itself, not in contemplation (for of contemplation there can be no excess), but in action. For books are procured, as we say, by purchase, or by barter, and these are voluntary exchanges, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... favorable reputation in leading the expedition against Roanoke Island and the North Carolina coast; and, called to reinforce McClellan after the Peninsula disaster, commanded the left wing of the Army of the Potomac at Antietam. He was not covetous of the honor now given him. He had already twice declined it, and only now accepted the command as a duty under the urgent advice of members of his staff. His instincts were better than the judgment of his friends. A few brief weeks sufficed to ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... Goodly to see. But when the king beheld Duryodhana in bliss, and not his own,— Not Draupadi, nor Bhima, nor the rest,— With quick-averted face and angry eyes The monarch spake: 'Keep heaven for such as these If these come here! I do not wish to dwell Where he is, whom I hated rightfully, Being a covetous and witless prince, Whose deed it was that in wild fields of war Brothers and friends by mutual slaughter fell, While our swords smote, sharpened so wrathfully By all those wrongs borne wandering in the woods: But ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Man had a Goose that laid him a golden egg every day. Being of a covetous turn, he thought if he killed his Goose he should come at once to the source of his treasure. So he killed her and cut her open, but great was his dismay to find that her inside was in no way different from ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... It is undeniably true, that many of the evils wherewith this Kirk and Kingdome hath been afflicted in our age, have come to passe because of the negligence of some, and corruptions of others of the Ministry; Whilest some fell asleep, and were carelesse, and others were covetous and ambitious, the evil man brought in Prelacy, and the Ceremonies, & had farre promoted the Service-Book, and the Book of Cannons; and the course of backsliding and revolting was carried on, untill it pleased God to stirre up the spirits of these few, who stood in ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... mottoes were worked into many pieces of embroidery. The following mottoes were copied from an old quilt made in the seventeenth century: "Covet not to wax riche through deceit," "He that has lest witte is most poore," "It is better to want riches than witte," "A covetous man cannot be riche." ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... Idiale," she declared. "I keep no engagement if I do not choose. I will sing no more to this people whom I hate. My friend David, I have suffered enough. Their applause I loathe—their covetous eyes as they watch me move about the stage—oh, I could strike them all dead! They come to me, these young Austrian noblemen, as though I were already one of a conquered race. I keep their diamonds but I destroy their messages. ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... himself, again and again. "What kind of man did this thing? Was the leader a man like Ballard? Even so, he was hired. By whom? By ranchers covetous of the range; that ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... us to another element in heroism: its simplicity. Whatsoever is not simple; whatsoever is affected, boastful, wilful, covetous, tarnishes, even destroys, the heroic character of a deed; because all these faults spring out of self. On the other hand, wherever you find a perfectly simple, frank, unconscious character, there you have the possibility, at least, of heroic ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... mind or body may produce hallucination in a form depending on the character and instincts of the individual. Thus, an ambitious man labouring under monomania will imagine himself to be a king; a covetous man will be plunged in despair, believing himself to be penniless, or exult at the vastness of the treasure which he imagines that ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... was not a time-server nor a covetous man. "Neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness; God ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... of the slaughtered kid, the cruel goad of godless Midianite, driving him on and on through burning sands and 'neath a blazing sun, far from his tearful mother and mourning sire. How cruel the fates to consign to slavery one born to be a king! His master is a hard man and covetous, but her pleadings shall yet purchase sweet liberty for old Jacob's son, that he may fulfill the high dreams of which he has told her—may answer the midnight messages of Israel's God and triumph over those wicked brethren. Perhaps—who ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... extensive and successful scale than in Persia; all classes and conditions of people are exposed to the danger, and it is only by an assumed air of poverty that a certain amount of security is obtained. A miserable-looking house, it was explained by a Persian, does not attract the covetous eye of the passer-by; an unusually beautiful one does. "It is a fatal mistake," he added, "to let anybody's eye rest on one's possessions, whether he be the Shah, a minister, or a beggar. He will want to rest his hands ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... a covetous man. He had a passion for money-making and he had availed himself of all the opportunities which the country afforded. He had about as much property as his friend. He began to think he had been plodding along in a very slow, unsatisfactory ...
— Herbert Carter's Legacy • Horatio Alger
... memoirs. He was one of the secretaries of the Emperor, always near him and much in his confidence. This seemed strange to those who knew both, for Menestheus did not possess those qualities which Aurelian esteemed. He was selfish, covetous, and fawning; his spirit and manner those of a slave to such as were above him—those of a tyrant to such as were below him. His affection for the Emperor, of which he made great display, was only for ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... ladyship's remarks; my whole soul was absorbed in the contemplation of the intoxicating loveliness of the gem. That a Palais Royal deception! Incredible! My fingers twitched, my breath came short and fierce with the lust of possession. She must have seen the covetous glare in my eyes. A look of gratified spiteful complacency overspread her features, as she swept on ahead and descended the stairs before me. I followed her to the drawing-room door. She stopped suddenly, and murmuring something unintelligible ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... There is a subtle fascination for many minds, and among them for minds generous at first, in an access of possessions; the thirst for more sets in, however imperceptibly, and perhaps the Christian, perhaps the Pastor, has become—before he knows it—covetous; caring a good deal for money. Let us take heed ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... waster will nat longe be mayster therof. The one is possessed and doth nat possesse; and the other within a shorte whyle leueth the possession of riches."—Erasmus De Contemptu Mundi, 1533, fol. 17 (Paynel's translation). So also, in the Rule of Reason, 1551, 8vo, Wilson says:—"Is a covetous man poore or not? I may thus reason with my self. Why should a couetous man be called poore, what affinitie is betwixt them twoo? Marie, in this poynct thei bothe agree, that like as the poore man ever lacketh and desireth to ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... his proposals, and Governor West and the Council ordered an Assembly to meet on March 10, 1628. The Assembly thanked the King for prohibiting the importation of Spanish tobacco into the English market, but cried that they would be at the mercy of covetous individuals in England if a monopoly on Virginia tobacco was allowed. They proposed, however, that since the King intended to take all their tobacco, he should agree to take at least 500,000 pounds of ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn
... and phlegm and faeces,—juices that produce painful sensations and are difficult to bear. There in the uterus, they have to dwell in a state of helplessness and are even repeatedly torn and pierced. They that are covetous of meat are seen to be repeatedly cooked in the uterus in such a state of helplessness. Attaining to diverse kinds of birth, they are cooked in the hell called Kumbhipaka. They are assailed and slain, and in this way have to travel repeatedly. There is nothing so dear to one as one's life when ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the household he interested to an uncommon degree,—the child, Prudence, who forthwith began daily to promise her dolls that they should not taste of death till Christ came, and Tom Potwin, the imbecile, who became for some unknown reason covetous of a blessing for himself. He stayed about the Patriarch most of the time, bothering him with appeals for one of his blessings. But Uncle John, though a good man, had been gifted by Heaven with slight imagination, and Tom Potwin would doubtless have had to go without this luxury ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... a time there was a goldsmith who lived in a certain village where the people were as bad and greedy, and covetous, as they could possibly be; however, in spite of his surroundings, he was fat and prosperous. He had only one friend whom he liked, and that was a cowherd, who looked after cattle for one of the farmers in the village. Every evening the goldsmith would walk across to the cowherd's house and say: ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... not think. It was as when a man, mortally tired, shrinks from some fierce contest of brain and limb, which yet he knows may some day have to be faced. He put his wife aside, and sank himself in the covetous, ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... weeping souls, you hear the moan Oenone makes, her Paris being gone; And Menelaus, for the woe he had To lose his wife. Hermione is sad, And calls her dear Orestes to her aid. And Laodamia, that hapless maid, Bewails Protesilaus. Argia proved To Polynice more faithful than the loved (But false and covetous) Amphiaraus' wife. The groans and sighs of those who lose their life By this kind lord, in unrelenting flames You hear: I cannot tell you half their names. For they appear not only men that love, The gods themselves do fill this myrtle grove: You see fair Venus caught by Vulcan's ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... covetous spirit incites the desire To have what I haven't, I'm sure; Because when I have what I haven't, I want What I haven't, the ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... Henry James ever hoped to do or Meredith attempted. The art of to-day is the art of deliberate avoidance of the violent, and many critics persist in confusing it with truth. There is nothing precious about selfish, covetous, lustful humanity; therefore, good literature creates a refined humanity of its own, which converses in polished periods and never comes ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... if you would not call me child." "Why should not I call you child?" "Because—because—I don't know;—but I wish you would stand out of my light, Cecilia, for you are trampling upon all my strawberries." "I have not touched one, you covetous little creature!" "Indeed—indeed, Cecilia, I am not covetous. I have not eaten one of them—they are all for your friend Leonora. See how unjust you are." "Unjust! that's a cant word you learned of my friend Leonora, as you call her, but ...
— The Bracelets • Maria Edgeworth
... said I: 'in the Bible and such books, you understand, you read of only the best sorts of people; but there were millions and millions of others—especially about the time of the poison-cloud—on a very much lower level—putrid wretches—covetous, false, murderous, mean, selfish, debased, hideous, diseased, making the earth a very charnel of festering vices ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... ambition, were the dream of their lives. And even those whose tastes inclined mainly towards literature and art were not exempt from the prevailing passion for riches and display. Rich, they were eager to be more rich; well placed in society, they were covetous of higher social distinction. Now at Rome, gay, luxurious, dissipated; anon in Spain, Parthia, Syria, Africa, or wherever duty, interest, or pleasure called them, encountering perils by land and sea with reckless indifference to fatigue and danger, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... his high wisdom and prudence, and not onelie greatlie commended him for the same, but from thenceforth used him more courteously. Yet did King Richard perceive that no excuses would serve, but that he must paie to his covetous host some great summe of monie for his hard entertainment. Therefore he sent the bishop of Salisburie into England to provide for the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... tempted of God'; 'but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust and enticed' (Jas. i. 13, 14). And Satan contributes thereto. He 'blindeth the minds of them which believe not' (2 Cor. iv. 4). But man is delivered up to the Devil by his covetous desire: the pleasure he finds in evil is the bait that hooks him. Plato has said so already, and Cicero repeats it: 'Plato voluptatem dicebat escam malorum.' Grace sets over against it a greater pleasure, as St. Augustine ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... service he had rendered it in its difficulty with an inveterate foe, but declining all proffered promotions, he decided to return to the white settlements on the Missouri, at the mouth of the Kaw, the covetous old chief retaining all his furs, and indeed everything he possessed excepting his rifle, with as many rounds of ammunition as would be necessary to secure him provisions in the shape of game on his route. The veteran trapper had learned from the Indians while with them ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... these children of nature, who were always anxious to become possessors of my belongings, was a small prettily fashioned metal match-box, opening with a spring. Remembering that Kua-ko, among others, had looked at this trifle with covetous eyes—the covetous way in which they all looked at it had given it a fictitious value in my own—I tried to bribe him with the offer of it to accompany me to my favourite haunt. The brave young hunter refused again and again; but on each occasion he offered to perform some other ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... fellow, eagerly drinks in the fulsome flattery, his eyes sparkling with delight at the prospect of the gifts thus promised. For he is as covetous of wealth as he is ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... Plight broken, this high face defaced! Some went and came about the dead; And some in books of solace read; Some to their friends the tidings say; Some went to write, some went to pray; One tarried here, there hurried one; But their heart abode with none. Covetous death bereaved us all, To aggrandize one funeral. The eager fate which carried thee Took the largest part of me: For this losing is true dying; This is lordly man's down-lying, This his slow but sure reclining, Star ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... his way to the dell so well now that he reached there very quickly, and with very little trouble he threw down the cairn and laid bare the urn again. By the light of the lantern he soon forced open the lid, in spite of the trembling of his eager, covetous fingers. The lid off he went to plunge his hand in boldly, when to his unspeakable delight he found the thing full to the brim of gold coins of all sorts and sizes, and from all countries, coins of the ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... Gulf, contained nine hundred and thirty square miles. Its principal city was Thermon, considered impregnable, at which were held splendid games and festivals. The AEtolians were little known in the palmy days of Athens and Sparta, except as a hardy race, but covetous and faithless. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... any help," he began. "My business is also all right. My work with Tarras will be finished in one week. In the first place I made him grow thin. He afterward became so covetous that he wanted to possess everything he saw, and he spent all the money he had in the purchase of immense quantities of goods. When his capital was gone he still continued to buy with borrowed money, and has become involved ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... gave the signal of voluptuousness to the whole kingdom. Here too, he ruled it with principles the most daring; holding men, in general, in great contempt, and conceiving them to be all as insidious, as servile, and as covetous as those by whom he was surrounded. With the superiority of his character, he made a sport of governing this mass of individuals, as if the task was unworthy of his genius. The fact is illustrated by the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... know a better one than this of Naaman and the little maid from Samaria. It is full of human nature; that is, it shows that people acted and felt three thousand years ago just as they do now: they were kind and sympathetic, and proud and grateful and covetous and deceitful, just as people are nowadays. And the story has a fine romantic setting; that is, its incidents take hold of our fancy and charm us;—a little girl stolen in war and carried to a foreign country and put into the house of a great general, who falls very ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... applications for territory. He had intrusted them to a base friend, by whom they were offered to the various Governments for L30,000. The Russian Ambassador is reported to have paid L10,000 to get hold of those concerning his master. His Majesty of Prussia appears to have had a covetous eye on Hanover. He always entertained a paternal regard for that country. The sovereigns in general seem to have compromised themselves deeply in ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... in the garden hidden among the marigolds'— the child looked at the ball of crumpled blossoms in its hands—'ay, among the yellow marigolds, and he heard the Gods talking. He was a covetous man, and of a black heart, and he desired that lakh of rupees for himself. So he went to the mendicant and said, "O brother, how much do the pious give thee daily?" The mendicant said, "I cannot tell. Sometimes a little rice, sometimes ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... tailor, barber, linener, etc. Let your powder, your glass, and your comb be your dearest acquaintance. Take more care for the ornament of your head, than the safety: and wish the commonwealth rather troubled, than a hair about you. That will take her. Then, if she be covetous and craving, do you promise any thing, and perform sparingly; so shall you keep her in appetite still. Seem as you would give, but be like a barren field, that yields little, or unlucky dice to foolish and hoping gamesters. ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson
... Testament there is a throb of joy which, traced back, brings one to the assurance that no man need stay the way he is. Among the gladdest, solemnest words in the records of our race are such passages in the New Testament as this: Fornicators, adulterers, thieves, covetous, drunkards, revelers, extortioners, such were some of you; but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. One cannot find in the New Testament anything stiff and ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... for you but to submit to your Fates, or to give up your house-keeping. But with country cozens, those provincials who are not bone of your bone, and who nevertheless at every visit to town call upon you with an eager look and covetous smile, as if to say, 'Ask us to dinner, we once invited you to tea,' there is but one method to pursue; the cut—the firm, unwavering, direct cut. Do not pretend not to see them, or to look fixedly in another direction, but give them the vacant, absent stare, as ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... for Jim McFann. Because of the Indian strain in his blood a minor undercurrent of prejudice had set in against him, more particularly among the white settlers and the cattlemen who were casting covetous eyes on reservation lands. While McFann was not strictly a ward of the Government, he had land on the reservation. His lot was cast with the Indians, chiefly because he found few white men who would associate with him on account of his Indian blood. Talpers was not loved, but the killing ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... superior, indifferent, and low men, after examining them well in offices they deserve? O monarch, employest thou in thy business persons that are thievish or open to temptation, or hostile, or minors? Persecutest thou thy kingdom by the help of thievish or covetous men, or minors, or women? Are the agriculturists in thy kingdom contented. Are large tanks and lakes constructed all over thy kingdom at proper distances, without agriculture being in thy realm entirely dependent ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... and, on hearing that the result of all the disorders and revolutions had been the elevation of Bibars Bendocdar to the throne of Saladin, he remarked, in homely oriental phrase, 'when the pot boils, the scum rises to the top.' Above all, Musteazem was a miser, and covetous to the last degree; and when it was explained to him by his grand vizier, whom the Templar had already bribed with a purse of gold, that the King of France was liberal in money matters, and was ready to pay handsomely for the ransom of his captive countrymen, the caliph's ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... in the time when he was upon the Bench had the credit, I do not know how well deserved it was, of not being much given to hospitality. He was never covetous, and he was very fond of society and conversation. But I fancy he had some fashions of his own in housekeeping which he thought were not quite up to the ways of modern life. At any rate, he was, so far ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... better able to grapple with him. Mephistopheles is nothing personal; he can, like the Creator himself, be only traced in his works. The Devil lurks beneath the venerable broadcloth of an intolerant and ignorant priest; he uses the seducing smiles of a wicked beauty; he stirs the blood of the covetous and grasping; he strides through the gilded halls of ambitious emperors and ministers, who go with "light hearts" to kill thousands of human beings with newly-invented infernal machines; he works havoc in the brains of the vain. The Devil shuffles the ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... Guelders, and North Brabant, was not more strikingly contrasted than was the character of their population. The Franks, who had been for a while under the Roman sway, showed a compound of the violence of savage life and the corruption of civilized society. They were covetous and treacherous, but made excellent soldiers; and at this epoch, which intervened between the power of imperial Rome and that of Germany, the Frank might be morally considered as a borderer on the frontiers of the Middle Ages. The Saxon (and this name comprehends all the tribes ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the downfall of the Templars was probably the enormous wealth of the order. There had not been wanting indications for some years of covetous eyes and itching hands turned toward the possession of the Knights. Sometimes complaints were made because the rents of their estates were all sent out of the country; sometimes the grievance alleged was that they were exempted ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... have freed himself from a slavish subjection unto those prejudicial opinions which custom and education do with too much tyranny impose.—If the doctrine of witchcraft should be carried up to a height, and the inquisition after it should be intrusted in the hands of ambitious, covetous and malicious men, it would prove of far more fatal consequence unto the lives and safety of mankind, than that ancient, heathenish custom of sacrificing men unto idol gods; insomuch that we stand in need of another Hercules Liberator, who, as the former freed the world from ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... iron and brass, of which they are extremely covetous, these poor creatures brought bear furs, the skins of sea-calves, sea-dogs, sea-wolves, and all the animals generally known as seals. Jean Cornbutte obtained these at a low price, and they were ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... of litle value, scarce worth 5li. A. True, it may not be worth halfe 5li. If then so smale a thing will content them, (the Adventurers) why strive we thus aboute it, and give them occasion to suspecte us to be worldly & covetous? I will not say what I have heard since these complaints came first ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... notorious fact in Charleston, that although the negro, whether he be a black or white one, is held in abject obedience to the white man proper, no matter what his grade may be, yet such is the covetous and condescending character of these groggery keepers, that they become courteous to the negro and submit to an equality of sociability. The negro, taking advantage of this familiarity, will use the most insulting and abusive language to ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... not inherit the kingdom of heaven—"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." "Let no man deceive you with vain words; for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience" (1 Cor ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sprawling in the doorway, sputtering threats to the air without, but with one covetous hand clutching at the shilling which I threw behind me, and entered the church, which we found yet empty, though through the open great door we heard the drum beat loudly and a ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston
... man's battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese, expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire—each is hungry, likewise, to extend her ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... was impossible to take those exceptions which the distance of years and character between a mother and a daughter would have made one apprehensive of from any other daughter. She was our glory when abroad, our delight when at home. Every body was even covetous of her company; and we grudged her to our brothers Harlowe, and to our sister and brother Hervey. No other contention among us, then, but who should be next favoured by her. No chiding ever knew she from us, but the chiding of lovers, when she was for shutting herself up too long together from ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... dislike that man, because he talks of the kingdom of God, the providence of God, and they are busy—at least, just now—in telling men that there is no providence and no God— at least, no living God. The covetous and worldly will dislike that man, for they believe that the world is governed, not by God, but by money. Politicians will dislike that man, because they think that not God, but they, govern the world, by those very politics and knavish tricks, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'I wonder they don't murder you! I would if I was them. If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and—no, I couldn't have sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... the Traveller, 'wherefore did he leave A flock that knew his saintly worth so well?' 'Why,' said the Landlord, 'Sir, it so befell He heard unluckily of our intent To do him a great honour; and you know He was not covetous of fame below, And so by stealth ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... another focal point the interests of the United States ran counter to the covetous desires of European powers. Cuba, the choicest of the provinces of Spain, still remained nominally loyal; but, should the hold of Spain upon this Pearl of the Antilles relax, every maritime power would swoop down upon it. The immediate danger, however, was ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... became a theatre of curiosity, envy, and covetous longings. Men came there by motor, on horses, mules, and on foot to take one delirious look and rush madly about to improve what chances still remained. The fame of it swept like prairie fire, far and wide. The new-made town began at once to spread and encroach ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... condition that the church of God should be in, in the last days. "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come." In the second verse, he tells us the reason why these times should be such hard and dangerous times; "for men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous," &c. The reason is not drawn from the miseries and calamities of the last times, but from the sins and iniquities of the last times. It is sin and iniquity that make times truly perilous. Sin, and sin ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... that men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, unthankful, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, traitors, heady, high-minded: ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... were stricken as with a new and appalling affliction. The burden was all the heavier for that momentary lightening of a treacherous hope. For a time Bayne could not reconcile himself to this new disaster. So overwhelming indeed, so obvious, was its effect that Lillian, ever with her covetous appropriation of every faculty, her grasping claim on every identity in this sacred cause, feared that despair had at last overtaken him, and that he would succumb and give over definitely the search. The idea roused her to a sort of galvanic energy in promoting the project, and she would continually ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... want of a better. My father, Sir Richard, is very rich, and of a most generous nature. My mother died whilst I was yet a boy. I have two brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to his father's; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous, treacherous, vicious, underhanded—a reptile. Such was he from the cradle; such was he ten years past, when I last saw him—a ripe rascal at nineteen, I being twenty then, and Arthur twenty-two. There is none other of us but the Lady Edith, my cousin—she was sixteen then—beautiful, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... measuring out the land put the Imperial territory in the centre. Inside was the Chinese Empire, and outside were the barbarous nations. The barbarians are covetous and greedy of gain. Their hair hangs down over their bodies, and their coats are buttoned on the left side. They have human faces, but the hearts of beasts. They are distinguished from the natives of the Empire both by their manners and their dress. They differ both in their customs and their food, ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... given the mind, and intends it to be developed and cultivated. If, therefore, its training has made it indolent and dissipated, it only proves its education to be spurious. You might, by a parity of reasoning, blindfold the eye that it might not he covetous, or tie up the hand lest it pick a man's pocket, or hobble the feet lest they run into evil ways, as to keep the mind in ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... having thus for succeeded, looked with a covetous eye towards Transylvania. That majestic province, on the eastern borders of Hungary, being three times the size of Massachusetts, and containing a population of about two millions, would prove a splendid addition to the Hungarian kingdom. While Matthias was secretly encouraging ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... rights of the idler, violate the natural rights of the producer and the manufacturer? What! if the husbandman forfeited his right to the land as soon as he ceased to occupy it, would he become more covetous? And would the impossibility of demanding increase, of taxing another's labor, be a source of quarrels and law-suits? The economists use singular logic. But we are not yet through. Admit that the proprietor is the legitimate ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... his pick, peering into the cavern with covetous eyes, but with a wildly-leaping heart, he was aware of an odd movement among the shadows which were elusively outlined by the light of ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... as passionately as did the men in the early part of the eighteenth century. Ashton quotes the following from the "Gaming Lady": "She's a profuse lady, tho' of a miserly temper, whose covetous disposition is the very cause of her extravagancy; for the desire of success wheedles her ladyship to play, and the incident charges and disappointments that attend it make her as expensive to her husband as his coach and six horses. When ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... a convention at Leith had given its sanction to a sort of mongrel episcopacy, nominally to secure the tithes more completely to the church, but really to secure the bulk of them by a more regular title to certain covetous noblemen who sought in this way to reimburse themselves for their services in the cause of the Reformation.[240] Chief among these noblemen was the Earl of Morton, then one of the chief supporters of the young prince, ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... was wrong, what she contemplated, utterly wrong, and wild to madness; but the girl was ripe for such temptation and frail with a weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full half of her heart's desire was here, free to her covetous fingers, a queen's trousseau ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... undertakings, with a finger in every pie and a share of every bribe. In 1872 he was actively engaged in journalism, having been appointed Director of the Epoque, a Republican journal which made a great success by publishing the papers found in the Tuileries. Covetous of his son's fortune, he hastened a disease from which Maxime suffered, by encouraging him in vicious courses, and in the end got possession of the whole estate. By a singular irony, Aristide, now returned to his original Republicanism, was in a position to protect ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep, that was used to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at the most, was now from 4s. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was accustomed to be sold for 18d. or 20d., is now 3s. 4d. to 4s.; and ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... and worn, for the three months of unremitting effort had left their mark on him. Wheeler had secured the timber rights in question, and that was one difficulty overcome, but Nasmyth had excellent reasons for believing that the men who had cast covetous eyes upon the valley had by no means abandoned the attempt to get possession of ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... for stockings. An Indian orator used to look at it with covetous eyes. One day he came in, laid two mink skins on the table, took the stockings out of the bag and stepping right along with victory in his eye, bore that ...
— Old Rail Fence Corners - The A. B. C's. of Minnesota History • Various
... happened sometimes that the plague brought out the good in a man, sometimes changed his life from one of covetous indifference or grasping selfishness into a life of earnestness and devout philanthropy, it happened at other times—and I fear it must be confessed more frequently—that coarse natures, hard and cruel ones, were made more brutal and callous by ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... missionaries the glory of leaving their homes without compulsion, real or imaginary, to penetrate an inhospitable wilderness; to undergo fatigues; to encounter dangers, and endure privations of a thousand kinds; enticed by no golden glitter, covetous of no riches, save such as are "laid up in heaven!" They came not as conquerors, but as ministers of peace, demanding only hospitality. They never attacked the savages with sword or fagot; but extending hands not stained by blood, they justified their profession ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... popular ruler. The vices of the lower classes were, in too many instances, found profitable, more or less directly, to those who are termed the upper classes in the settlement; and since both classes became to a fearful degree sensual and covetous, the evil was doubly aggravated by example and contagion. And when we consider, that, at that time, the population of the colony might almost have been divided into those who drank rum, and those who sold it;[110] when we recollect the covetousness of all classes, ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... one, but he exhausted it on the head of the Advocate. He lacked at last words and breath to utter what was like him. He pronounced his former friend "a very dangerous man, altogether hated of the people and the States;"—"a lewd sinner, nursled in revolutions; a most covetous, bribing fellow, caring for nothing but to bear the sway and grow rich;"—"a man who had played many parts, both lewd and audacious;"—"a very knave, a traitor to his country;"—"the most ungrateful wretch alive, a hater of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... often pointed out that in this annexation, the starting-point of our troubles, Great Britain, however mistaken she may have been, had no obvious selfish interest in view. There were no Rand mines in those days, nor was there anything in the country to tempt the most covetous. An empty treasury and two native wars were the reversion which we took over. It was honestly considered that the country was in too distracted a state to govern itself, and had, by its weakness, become a scandal and a danger to its ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... great love and I left her not night nor day and occupied myself with her to the exclusion of my brothers. Wherefore they were jealous of me and envied me my much substance; and they looked upon it with covetous eyes and took counsel together to kill me and to take my goods, saying, "Let us kill our brother, and all will be ours." And Satan made this to seem good in their eyes. So they took me sleeping beside my wife and lifted us both up and threw us into the ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... called up by some wayside thing, he spoke of all his wanderings up and down Hind; till Kim, who had loved him without reason, now loved him for fifty good reasons. So they enjoyed themselves in high felicity, abstaining, as the Rule demands, from evil words, covetous desires; not over-eating, not lying on high beds, nor wearing rich clothes. Their stomachs told them the time, and the people brought them their food, as the saying is. They were lords of the villages of Aminabad, Sahaigunge, Akrola of the Ford, and little Phulesa, where ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling |
