"Venality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most consummate of sharpers. Given your money, they have resolved the problem of getting it with the least expense to themselves. On all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and the fly that this gentry lies snugly in wait for is you. This is what twenty or thirty years of venality has done for a population once simple and honest, whose contact was grateful indeed to men worn by city life. Home-made bread has disappeared, butter comes from the dealer, they know to an art how to skim milk and adulterate wine; they have ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... their simple and upright minds; while old Mark, of still more decided and exaggerated ideas of spiritual perfection, distinctly groaned aloud The stranger took a sensible pleasure in this testimony of their abhorrence of so gross and so unworthy a venality, though he saw no occasion to heighten its effect by further speech. When his host stood erect, and, in a voice that was accustomed to obedience, he called on his family to join, in behalf of the reckless ruler of the land of their fathers, in a petition to him who alone could soften the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... inferiority of our conditions and the futility of our hopes as a people, with the effect of bewildering the cruder arrogance of Stoller, who could have got on with Triscoe's contempt for the worthlessness of our working-classes, but did not know what to do with his scorn of the vulgarity and venality of their employers. He accused some of Stoller's most honored and envied capitalists of being the source of our worst corruptions, and guiltier than the voting-cattle whom they bought ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of the 'painful imbecility of Lincoln,' of the 'venality and corruption' which ran riot in the government, and expressed the belief that no better condition of things was possible 'until Jeff Davis ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... to the misery of the people, whom his duan, or deputy, oppressed in a cruel manner; indeed the system of the Mahratta government is so uniformly oppressive that it appears extraordinary to hear of a mild and equitable administration; venality and corruption guide the helm of State and pervade the departments; if the sovereign requires money the men in office and governors of provinces must supply it; the arbitrary monarch seldom inquires ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... enjoyments; to over-rate his own merits and importance, and of course to magnify his claims on others, and in return to under-rate their's on him; a disposition to undervalue the advantages, and over-state the disadvantages, of his condition in life. Thence spring rapacity and venality, and sensuality. Thence imperious nobles, and factious leaders; and an unruly commonalty, bearing with difficulty the inconveniences of a lower station, and imputing to the nature or administration of their government the evils which necessarily flow from the very constitution of our species, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... gives herself to numerous men. To be sound, however, a definition must be applicable to both sexes alike and we should certainly hesitate to describe a man who had sexual intercourse with many women as a prostitute. The idea of venality, the intention to sell the favors of the body, is essential to the conception of prostitution. Thus Guyot defines a prostitute as "any person for whom sexual relationships are subordinated to gain."[123] It is not, however, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... you so much, is at an end! there is no heir to such luck as his. The whole people of England can never agree a second time upon the same person for the residence of infallibility; and though so many have found their interest in making Mr. Pelham the fermier-general for their Venality, yet almost all have found too, that it lowered their prices to have but one purchaser. He could not have died at a more critical time: all the elections were settled, all bargains made, and much money advanced: and by the way, though there never was so little ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... general fond of directness and uniqueness. It was, technically, illegal; but, even so, it was remarked that the saloons which Mrs. Nation wrecked, were themselves in brazen defiance of the laws of the state of Kansas—unenforced on account of the fear or venality ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... the chief cause of the war, through the attempt of the mother country, subsequently, to obtain revenue from the Colonies; but a study of the times gives conclusive evidence that a large portion of the indebtedness was caused by mismanagement and the venality and corruption ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... the diplomatic relations of the Porte with the Christian powers opened a new political career to the Greeks at Constantinople, and gave rise to the formation of a class of officials in the Othoman service called "phanariots," whose venality and illegal exactions made the name a by-word for the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... of the press. At the inception of the league it has been supposed that such was the venality and corruption of the city newspapers that it would be necessary to buy one of them. But the word "clean government" had been no sooner uttered than it turned out that every one of the papers in the city was in favour of it: in fact had been ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... gambling tables, he wheedled secrets from the prostitutes of princes; he stood by and egged on human dog-fights; he took part in church-rows about doctrines; he had inside glimpses of the venality of Austrian kept-press-writers, "the scum of the earth," he calls them, "who sell opinions as the petty merchant sells butter and eggs." Bismarck seemed to be the only man in Europe who really was able to grasp the ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... same time—or, rather, became through its public reception—a pamphlet in comedy which announces the future; it ridicules the established order with a sprightly insolence; it pleads for social equality; it exposes the iniquity of aristocratic privilege, the venality of justice, the greed of courtiers, the chicanery of politicians. Figaro, since he appeared in "The Barber of Seville," has grown somewhat of a moralist and a pedant; he must play the part of censor of society, he must represent the spirit of independent criticism, he must maintain the ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... forth a book, not by divine compulsion, but because Brodrick wanted a book and she wanted to please Brodrick. Such a desire was the mother of monstrous and unshapen things. In Tanqueray's eyes it was hardly less impure than the commercial taint. Its uncleanness lacked the element of venality; that was all that could be said. She had done violence to her genius. She had constrained ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... months several imperial commissioners have visited the frontier towns on the Lithuanian border, from which the Jews are to be banished, in order that the value of the real estate may be estimated. But how is the valuation calculated? Even one who is acquainted with the venality and unscrupulousness of Russian officers cannot form a correct idea of how this business is conducted. If a man has no connection with those in authority, or cannot obtain powerful intercession, or is unable ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... Roman Catholics, whom he would not admit to his presence, and against whom he enforced the utmost rigour of the penal code. He had himself conformed to the Church of England. Swift accused him, as Lord-lieutenant, of shameless depravity of manners, of injustice, greed, and gross venality. This Lord Wharton died in 1715, and was succeeded by his son Philip, whom George I., in 1718, made Duke of Wharton for his fathers vigorous support of the Hanoverian succession. His character was much worse than that of his father, the energetic politician and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of the edict of Nantes—have alike overlooked these important truths, so essential to a right understanding of the history of modern society. They saw that the arrogance and cruelty of the Roman clergy had produced innumerable evils in later times; that their venality in regard to indulgences and abuse of absolution had brought religion itself into discredit; that the absurd and incredible tenets which they still attempted to force on mankind, had gone far to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... the King, the venality of the Princes, the arrogance of the hierarchy, the insubordination of the nobles, the licentiousness of the Court, the despotism of the Government; all the errors and all the vices of their rulers, were jealously noted and bitterly ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe |
