"Mess of pottage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... been developed. Morality is the way of life that intelligence and conscience oppose to instinct and impulse. Not to be guided by their wisdom is to forfeit our birthright, like Esau, for a mere mess of pottage. Some of the main types of difficulty that necessitate their overruling guidance we ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... like number of blind beggars whither they might repair after their long quest in the streets of Paris. St. Louis at his death left them an annual rente of thirty livres parisis that every inmate might have a good mess of pottage daily, and Philip le Bel ordered a fleur-de-lys to be embroidered on their dress that they might be known as the king's poor folk. The buildings, now transferred to the Rue de Charenton, originally covered a ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... can have recourse to the supreme test of arms. It is absurd to think that Italy, after seven months of preparation, when she is in an especially advantageous diplomatic and military position, will be satisfied with the Biblical mess of pottage or less—mere promises. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... scene of riot and debauchery; to see the candidates servilely cringing, meanly suing, and basely bribing the electors, depriving themselves of sense and reason, and selling more than Esau did for a mess of pottage; for, what is birthright, what is inheritance, when put in the scale against that choicest blessing, public liberty! O, Liberty! thou enlivener of life, thou solace of toils, thou patron of virtue, thou encourager of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... fashion, and ultimately find their way into the rubbish heap. The people of all the New England States are poorer when the ignorant whites, foreigners, or negroes of our southern states destroy the robins and other song birds of the North for a mess of pottage. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the time they arrived. He was at the moment engaged in dilating upon the peril through which the country had recently passed, and thanking God that Canada had loyally stood by the Empire and had refused to sell her heritage for a mess of pottage. ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... thoroughly commonplace woman hung round with the money her late husband had bequeathed her, Maryon's very antithesis in all that pertained to the beautiful—this sickened her. It seemed to her as though he were yielding his birthright in exchange for a mess of pottage. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... startling brilliancy, and then—the monotonous grey. They seem too hard for me, at times. The clash between ideas and interests makes our inheritance a grim battlefield, and there are moments of mortification when one may feel tempted to sell it—not for a mess of pottage, but for the promise of a mess of pottage. Tempted, I said. There is always a course left, if you have the courage to face it. It may avail you; I cannot insure you even that. But if I were in your place, I ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... venison, and prepare for the solemn occasion of receiving his parting blessing, which should secure the privileges and pre-eminence of the first-born. The hunter went into the fields, and Rebekah recollected that Jacob had purchased the birthright of his brother for a mess of pottage one day when he came in from the chase faint with hunger and exhaustion. She determined by a stroke of management to secure the patriarchal benediction. She sent him to the flocks after two kids, which were prepared with the savory delicacy his father loved, dressed him up in Esau's apparel, ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... were patriots; the true saviors of a nation that esteemed them not. They have left us a priceless heritage. Is there to be found among us now one who would so dishonor the memory of these sainted dead; one so lost to love of country and loyalty to his race, as to offer to sell our birthright for a mess of pottage? When we were slaves, Garrison labored to make us free; when our manhood was denied, he proclaimed it. Shall we in the day of freedom be less loyal to our country and true to ourselves than were the friends who stood for us in ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... absolutely practical will go down in England. A man of science may earn great distinction, but not bread. He will get invitations to all sorts of dinners and conversaziones, but not enough income to pay his cab fare. A man of science in these times is like an Esau who sells his birthright for a mess of pottage. Again, if one turns to practice, it is still the old story—wait; and only after years of working like a galley-slave and intriguing like a courtier is there any chance of getting a decent livelihood. I am not at all sure ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... complete series of continuing wrongs against India which if India has any sense of honour, she must right at the sacrifice of all the material wealth she possesses. If she does not, she will have bartered her soul for a 'mess of pottage.' ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... eastern country. Abraham evidently thought that the descendants of Isaac might be superior in moral probity to those of his other sons, hence he desired to keep Isaac as exclusive as possible. But Jacob and Esau did not fulfill the Patriarch's expectations. Esau in selling his birthright for a mess of pottage, and Jacob taking advantage of his brother in a weak moment, and overreaching him in a bargain, alike illustrate the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... qualities. They intended to nominate her and proceeded to root energetically for her. This contingent had not been pleased with the patronizing manner which the Sans had displayed towards them at the picnic. They were altogether too independent and honorable to barter their class vote for a mess of pottage. ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... had not sold her birthright for a mess of pottage. I wish I had a home that I had a perfect right to go and live in forevermore. I wish my mother was here ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... possession of a badly cut finger or a loose tooth. The wind bloweth where it listeth; and such thistledown natures are entirely at its mercy. They cannot take deep root, even where they would. For them the near triumphs over the far. Like Esau, they will sell their birthright cheerfully for a mess of pottage; and they are the raw material of half the tragedies ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... have been said as to those who deliberately and knowingly sell their intellectual birthright for a mess of pottage, making a brazen compromise with what they hold despicable, lest they should have to win their bread honourably. Men need to expend no declamatory indignation upon them. They have a hell of their own; words can add no bitterness to it. It ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... manor, in the reign of Henry III. held it by this service, viz. to make the king a mess of pottage at his coronation; and so lately as the reign of Charles II. this service was ordered by the court of claims, and accepted by the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 332, September 20, 1828 • Various
... he said, in speaking of Lawrence and other popular artists who sometimes patronisingly visited him, "They pity me, but 'tis they are the just objects of pity, I possess my visions and peace. They have bartered their birthright for a mess of pottage." The strength of his illumination at times intoxicated him with joy, as he writes to Hayley (October 23, 1804) after a recurrence of vision which had lapsed for some years, "Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... which were then unknown and unprophesied, might result in unbearable evils. Necessary as it might be at the start to give away valuable properties to meet present needs, one generation or its representatives has no conceivable right to sell for a mess of pottage the heritage of all succeeding ones. The fact is, then, that the natural title to all gifts of Nature is vested in the public at large; and while it is in duty bound to observe the contracts which it makes with private parties, it is also not to be thought that the dishonesty or incompetence ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... is all very well,' he said, 'but what are you going to subsist on?' The only answer I could make was, that we should labor faithfully in the school, and that I could promise nothing to my companions, but pain of mind and body, with a mess of pottage. My reply brought tears to his eyes, for though he loved his daughter dearly, he loved religious sacrifices better. He did not give me a decisive answer for a few days, however, preferring to act slowly, and ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon. |
