"Greedy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stand or serve to stand high in his esteem. Yet few of them were so utterly false and shameless as the leading Scottish politicians. Hamilton was, in morality and honour, rather above than below his fellows; and even Hamilton was fickle, false and greedy. "I wish to heaven," William was once provoked into exclaiming, "that Scotland were a thousand miles off, and that the Duke of Hamilton were King of it. Then I should be rid ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... said 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
... small, dirty-faced boy of six, with bare feet and tattered attire, who was gazing with a look of greedy desire ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... the well-to-do quarters of our city, and glance, perhaps a little enviously as they pass, toward the cheerful firesides, do not reflect that in almost every one of these apparently happy homes a pitiless tyrant reigns, a misshapen monster without bowels of compassion or thought beyond its own greedy appetites, who sits like Sinbad’s awful burden on the necks of tender women and distracted men. Sometimes this incubus takes the form of a pug, sometimes of a poodle, or simply a bastard cur admitted to the family bosom in a moment of unreflecting ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... and had weapons—was worth despoiling, in fact. This particular child of the desert was not more greedy than others; he was a man in some authority, and rich according to his own ideas and those of his people. But still, one does not like to see articles of value unappropriated, and one might as well have them as any one else. Such sentiments might animate you ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... meals, often with turmeric and pulse or vegetables added to the rice; but that is only for the morning meal; for supper we get only plain rice." "Now, I can tell you the reason of that" said the villager, "there is a greedy bonga in your house who goes stealing food at night and puts some of what he gets into your pots for your morning meal." "That's a fine story" said the servants: "No, it's true" said the villager, and told them how ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... while Enver Pasha was seen yesterday, (Aug. 5,) paying hasty visits to the Russian and British Embassies. While such is the political situation, matters are still worse in the business world of the Turkish capital. It is almost impossible to give an idea of the general upheaval brought about by greedy speculators, who are taking advantage of this anomalous situation, and by the Government itself, requisitioning everything they can lay their hands on, regardless of ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... wondered at that the people of Yunnan are alive to the danger of foreign interference, for they see the British on the west and much more the French on the south, peering with greedy eyes and clutching hands over the border. In the last fifteen years commissions of the one and the other have scoured the province with scarcely so much as "by your leave," investigating the mineral resources and planning out ...
— A Wayfarer in China - Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia • Elizabeth Kendall
... take care of them and feed them for weeks, but sometimes they even let the greedy young cuckoos push their own children out ...
— The Nursery, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1875 • Various
... with a greedy man. Take that which he giveth thee; set it not on one side, thinking that it ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn
... yourself solid with the bunch, for sure, by offerin' 'em a bigger divvy. They've been grumblin' about it for a long time. They're all sore at Haydon an' Deveny for bein' greedy. But you're sure cookin' up a heap of trouble with Haydon ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... them to despair. Finding that, after all the miserable havoc which they had undergone in their persons and in their property; after all the vigorous actions which they had exerted in their own defence; a new band, equally greedy of spoil and slaughter, had disembarked among them; they believed themselves abandoned by Heaven to destruction, and delivered over to those swarms of robbers, which the fertile north thus incessantly poured forth against them. Some left their ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... swing now, and too absorbed in her story to be aware of the little court that had gathered around her. Joe Tracy's eyes followed her every movement with greedy interest, and when she at length imitated the flapping wings of the clucking hen he simply shouted with laughter and clapped his hands vigorously, quite lost to all but his appreciation and sense of ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... sages have written; for thee science has toiled; for thee looms are clanking, ships are sailing, and strong men laboring! Thou art born to a fortune better than one of gold! I am but thy servant, to bring all treasures and lay them at thy feet! Be remorseless, exacting, greedy of our love and our lore! Come, young queen, into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... not believe as Harden believed, for neither was Harden's belief now in the air. Nor was Mr. Broad a criminal in any sense. He was upright, on the whole, in all his transactions, although a little greedy and hard, people thought, when the trustees proposed to remit to Widow Oakfield, on her husband's death, half the rent of a small field belonging to the meeting-house, and contributing a modest sum to Mr. Broad's revenue. He objected. Widow Oakfield was poor; but then she did not belong ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... rise to the serious question of play-going. And, in short, at the early stage of a union to which a man has been led by a young girl's beauty, he can hardly be exacting as to his amusements. Youth is greedy rather than dainty, and possession has a charm in itself. How should he be keen to note coldness, dignity, and reserve in the woman to whom he ascribes the excitement he himself feels, and lends the glow of the fire that burns within him? He must have attained a certain conjugal ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... Greedy hands clutched the glass from her, and the contents were swallowed in great gulps. The man sighed like a tired child. He smiled slightly, showing teeth of ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... ourselves of the opportunity this number affords of upholding the poor author's right, of censuring the greedy spoliation of publishing tribe, who would live, batten, and fatten upon the despoiled labours of those whom their piracy starves—snatching the scanty crust from their needy mouths to pamper their own ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... only toss the roll of music under the sofa as gently as masculine depravity would permit, and conduct my music-greedy friend to the choir-meeting, ostensibly to listen to the chants, though I knew, and he knew, that he had always heretofore objected to hearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... "You are good! You are kind!" and throwing her arms round Miss Kerr's neck she kissed her over and over again; then seizing the pennies she flew to the door, and handing them to the boy said in a subdued voice: "Here, boy, a good lady gave me these pennies for you. I am a greedy little girl and spend all my own money on sweets, but I'll save up and pay Miss Kerr back ...
— Naughty Miss Bunny - A Story for Little Children • Clara Mulholland
... were Independent ministers, who taught the metaphysical dissent of the extreme Calvinistic tradition. The quaint ill-spelled letters of his mother reveal a strong character, a meagre education and rigid beliefs. William was unwholesomely precocious as a boy, pious, studious and greedy for distinction and praise. He was brought up on the Account of the Pious Deaths of Many Godly Children, and would move his school-fellows to tears by his early sermons on the Last Judgment. At seventeen we find him, destined ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... walking, and the making of sounds more or less articulate. Most psychologists recognize even such highly complicated tendencies as man's restlessness in the absence of other people, his tendency to attract their attention when present, to be at once pitying and pugnacious, greedy and sympathetic, to take ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... father helped Bee before her—that, she could not but allow was right, as Bee was a guest—but now it seemed to her that he chose the nicest bits for Bee, with a care he never showed in helping her. Rosy was not the least greedy—she would have been ready and pleased to give away anything, so long as she got the credit of it, and was praised and thanked, but to be treated second-best in the way in which she chose to imagine she was being treated—that, she could not ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... his selfishness with a greedy breakfast, Curdie found doing nothing in the dark rather tiresome work. It was useless attempting to think what he should do next, seeing the circumstances in which he was presently to find himself were altogether unknown to him. So he began to think about ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald
... at his uncle with disapproval when he took a second piece of cake. Under the circumstances he could not help thinking it greedy. ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... came of itself—something which had no connection with himself or his wealth. He remembered the man as he had first met him, garrulous, foolish, but with no obvious vices. He recalled the change which, week by week, had come over him—his greedy eye, his furtive manner, his hints and innuendoes, ending only the day before in a positive demand for money. It was too certain that there was a chain of events there leading direct to the horrible encounter in the laboratory. ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... person who has committed the sin against the Holy Ghost! I can scarcely think of it without my hair standing on end;' and then my father and his friend began talking of the nature of the sin against the Holy Ghost, and I heard them say what it was, as I sat with greedy ears ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... personal desires. This discipline we have to go through to prepare ourselves for our social duties—for sharing the burdens of our fellow-beings. Every endeavour to attain a larger life requires of man "to gain by giving away, and not to be greedy." And thus to expand gradually the consciousness of one's unity with all ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... that he was ambitious, worldly, greedy of power, and a prey to carnal lusts. All these he was. But for very sanity's sake do not let it be said that he was wanting either in energy or in will, for he was energy and ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... haunt the bath-rooms, Old Vibennius, and his heir the wanton; (His the dirtier hands, the greedy father, Yours the filthier heart, his heir ...
— The Poems and Fragments of Catullus • Catullus
... Greedy crows were still cawing about before they flapped homeward. When he drove out to the highway, the sun was going down, and from his seat on the load he could see far and near. Yonder was Dan's wagon, coming in from the north quarter; over there was the ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... The obvious," Beardsley said with a grimace. "But you know, I learned a long time ago that the obvious can be a mighty tricky thing. A dangerous thing. The forceps of the mind are greedy, and inclined to crush a ...
— We're Friends, Now • Henry Hasse
... and his back, running up from shoulder to loins, ended abruptly in the knob-like tail. He looked like the devil of a dogs' hell. And his reputation was as bad as his looks. He never attacked unprovoked; but a challenge was never ignored, and he was greedy of insults. Already he had nigh killed Rob Saunderson's collie, Shep; Jem Burton's Monkey fled incontinently at the sound of his approach; while he had even fought a round with that redoubtable trio, the Vexer, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... complaint ensued. They grew still more dilatory, but the only consequence that arose from it was a decent solicitation to dispatch, without any of those more effectual means being used, which impatient love or greedy avarice suggest. ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... contents. The costly Muraena, the carp, the turbot, and many other varieties, sported at will in the great inclosures prepared for them. The greater part of the Roman emperors were very fond of sea-eels. The greedy Vitellius, growing tired of this dish, would at last, as Suetonius assures us, eat only the soft roe; and numerous vessels ploughed the seas in order to obtain it for him. The family of Licinius took their surname of Muraena from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... of murre eggs; and these rapacious birds follow the egg-gatherers, hover over their heads, and no sooner is a murre's nest uncovered than the bird swoops down, and the egger must be extremely quick, or the gull will snatch the prize from under his nose. So greedy and eager are the gulls that they sometimes even wound the eggers, striking them with their beaks. But if the gull gets an egg, he flies up with it, and, tossing it up, swallows what he can catch, letting the shell and half its contents ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... fantastic in poverty. The pictured bronze legs, the bare heads, the ragged garments so curiously faded, so damp with grease, so darned and spotted and discolored, in short, the painters' ideal of the material of abject poverty was far surpassed by this scene; while the expression on those faces, greedy, anxious, doltish, idiotic, savage, showed the everlasting advantage which nature possesses over art by its comparison with the immortal compositions of those princes of color. There were old women with necks like turkeys, and ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... so sentimental (for otters can be very sentimental when they choose, like a good many people who are both cruel and greedy, and no good to anybody at all) that she sailed solemnly away down the burn, and Tom saw her no ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... well known that many greedy eyes and fingers were directed towards the plump fellow, and considerable interest was manifested in the result of the struggle, "Mrs. Seacole versus Thievery." I think they had some confidence in me, and that I was the favourite; but ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... Cassandra said (our host's name is Burke Johnson), "why yo go for to put all de peas in dat great heap on yo plate? Didn't I tell yo to be careful? Dey won't go 'round." And she looked like a reproving mother to a greedy boy, showing her splendid teeth in a grin. We were so amused. But when the subjects interested her she would pause with a dish in the air and give her opinion in the friendliest way, not the least impertinently, but ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... true, of the silver cave. Their imaginations were fired, and they longed to start off to find those treasures of silver that in that hidden cave somewhere in the foothills of the northern Rockies are still hidden away from man's curious, greedy gaze. Uncertain as are the whereabouts of Captain Kidd's long-sought-for treasures is the locality of ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... it came about that one after another he was hated of them all. For so it was, that, greedy of his commendation, this lady and that would draw him on to speak of that wherein she made it her pleasure to take to herself excellences; but nowise so could any one of them all gain from him other than a true ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... But a greedy raccoon, which had been prowling near in the woods during the night, and had been tantalized to desperation by the smell of the late meal, especially by the odor of flapjacks frying in pork fat, had stolen from cover after the departure ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... your life, there you'll find him. I've watched him often, since Smith first put me up to his tricks, and I have never missed him. There he is making money, and wearing his soul out because he can't make half enough to satisfy his greedy maw. His covetousness is awful. There's nothing that he doesn't speckylate in; there's hardly a man of business in his congregation that he doesn't, either by himself or others, lend money out at usury. I mean such on 'em as he knows are right; for catch him, if he knows it, trusting the rotten ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... Bounded! He assured me with intensified solemnity that he bounded; and the sight of the short and muscular Fyne bounding gravely about the circumscribed passages and staircases of a small, very high class, private hotel, would have been worth any amount of money to a man greedy of memorable impressions. But as I looked at him, the desire of laughter at my very lips, I asked myself: how many men could be found ready to compromise their cherished gravity for the sake of the unimportant child of a ruined financier with an ugly, black cloud already wreathing ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... tough and elastic, up to the moment when it becomes tired out and tasteless; his coal is a sullen, sulphurous anthracite, which rusts into ashes, rather than burns, in the shallow grate; his flimsy broadcloth is too thin for winter and too thick for summer. The greedy lungs of fifty hot-blooded boys suck the oxygen from the air he breathes in his recitation-room. In short, he undergoes a process of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... made True Blue turn round. The greedy wave was whirling him away, when True Blue grasped him by the arm and drew him once more on board, when he more ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... unjust way of proceeding, these poor industrious little insects are absolutely starved, and their greedy masters deservedly experience the old proverb; that "Too much covetousness ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... raw material was as good as the average; why did you not work it up better? I went to the best schools you gave me. I learned everything I was set to learn. You can nowhere find a teacher who will tell you that I ever evaded a lesson. I was greedy of gain. I spared neither time nor toil. I lost no opportunity, and here I am, just as good as you made me. So, if there is any one to blame, it is you, for not giving me better facilities. The Children's Aid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... Ahnahmeawegahmig, n. a church, meeting-house, or praying-house Ahskekoomon, n. lead Ahskahtowhe, n. a skin or hide Asquach, adv. falsely, vain Ahdesookaun, n. story, fable Ahnwahtin, not boisterous Ahwebah, n. or adj. calm Ahkahkahzha, n. coal Ahyegagah, adv. soon, directly Ahnoodezeh, adv. greedy Ahnowh, prep. though Ahtoon, put it down Ahneenmenik, adv. how much Ahneendeh, adv. where Ahneendehnahkayah, adv. which way Ahnahmahye-ee, prep. under Ahpahgahjeahye-ee, prep. against Ahyahwug, v. there are Ahgahmahye-ee, prep. ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... quench'd the lamp that lit it, and the queen Of all the flowers snapped with thy ragged teeth. Hollow and meagre stares our life beneath The querulous moon, robb'd of its sovereign: Yet the report of her, her deathless mien— Not thine, O churl! Not thine, thou greedy Death! They are with her in Heaven, the which her grace, Like some brave light, gladdens exceedingly And shoots chance beams to this our dwelling-place; So art thou swallowed in her victory. Yet on me, beauty-whelmed in very sooth, On me that ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... did, and no more did I), an epic poem on fresh-water fish? Well, such a one was once written, I have forgotten by whom, but assuredly the heroine of it ought to have been the Altamaha shad—a delicate creature, so superior to the animal you northerners devour with greedy thankfulness when the spring sends back their finny drove to your colder waters, that one would not suppose these were of the same family, instead of being, as they really are, precisely the same fish. Certainly the mud of the Altamaha must have some most peculiar virtues; and, by the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... hope then to offer for him?" Oliveri was smiling, but his eyes held a greedy glint Drew had seen before. Shiloh was apt to produce that reaction ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... delightful visit. It was extraordinary what an effect the house had on one. It was as if one had lived in it always—and always would. So few places gave one the same feeling. They should both look forward— greedy as it seemed—to being allowed some time to come again. She had decided from the first that it was not necessary to go to any extreme of caution or subtlety with her host and Miss Alicia. Her method of paving the way for future visits was perhaps more ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... first being ordered to do so. They dine and sup to the music of violins. His galleon carries about thirty guns and a great deal of ammunition.' This was in marked contrast to the common Spanish practice, even on the Atlantic side. The greedy exploiters of New Spain grudged every ton of armament and every well-trained fighting sailor, both on account of the expense and because this form of protection took up room they wished to fill with merchandise. The result was, of course, that they lost more by capture than they gained by ...
— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood
... development of a higher mode of reality. The animal must be humanized; flesh must be made spirit; physiological activity must be transmuted into intellect and conscience, into reason, justice, and generosity, as the torch is transmuted into life and warmth. The blind, greedy, selfish nature of man must put on beauty and nobleness. This heavenly alchemy is what justifies our presence on the earth: it is our ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the slow struggles of a somnolent brain. These things were suggested in the gradual stirring of the place to a ponderous activity. The heavy movement of weary diggers as they lounged into camp for their dinner had no suggestion of the greedy passion which possessed them. They had no lightness. Whatever the lust for gold that consumed them, all their methods were characterized by a dogged endeavor which took from them every particle of that nervous activity which belongs to ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Dr. Waddell of St Magdalen's on the perils of novel-reading. I think the worthy doctor really refrains from that sin; he is certainly severe on those who are given to it. "That fat man," said Temple, as we strolled away from St. Magdalen's sanctuary, "is too greedy, too gluttonous to listen to any cry but that of his own stomach. His god is his belly. His indifference to the sufferings of others ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... fierce despair as he faced the foes from whom he could not flee, and from whom he could expect no pity. He had evidently got into some corner, from which the dogs could not easily dislodge him; for they stood yelping and barking, showing their white teeth, with their greedy eyes all ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... progressive people, without periodically returning to the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint." And he remarks elsewhere that "it struck me as rather odd that one of the first questions raised, after our separation from the greedy, struggling, self-seeking world, should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the outside barbarians in their own field of labour. But to tell the truth, I very soon became sensible ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... hole. Six months ago, when I got my seventy-five hundred a year, I thought I was rich. Rich? Why, that woman there has ten years' salary on her hair. All the money I and my whole family ever saw wouldn't pay for the rings on any one of a hundred hands here. It makes me mad and it makes me greedy." ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... time then to draw my sword before the assailants streamed into the room, a dozen ruffians, reeking and tattered, with flushed faces and greedy, staring eyes. Once inside, however, suddenly—so suddenly that an idle spectator might have found the change ludicrous—they came to a stop. Their wild cries ceased, and tumbling over one another with ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... She became a greedy student of romance. The Hewishes had never been great readers, but in the early nineteenth century one of them had felt it becoming to his position as a country gentleman to buy books. The romantic education of ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... argosies on every sea, the employer of thousands of hands, the munificent contributor to public charities, the churchwarden, the member of parliament, and the generous patron of his relatives his self-approbation struggling with the instinctive sense of baseness in the money-hunter, the ignorant and greedy filcher of the labor of others, the seller of his own mind and manhood for luxuries and delicacies that he was too lowlived to enjoy, and for the society of people who made him feel his ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Chancellor Duprat and the queen mother, Louise of Savoie, are entitled to the unenviable distinction of having instigated the sanguinary measures of repression directed against the professors of the Protestant faith, of which we have already met with many fruits. The monarch, greedy of glory, ambitious of association with cultivated minds, and aspiring to the honor of ushering in the new Augustan age, more than once seemed half-inclined to embrace those religious views which commended themselves to his taste ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... others, as Imperial general. He was much concerned, all along, in those abstruse armed-litigations of the Austrian House with its dependencies; and diligently helped the Kaiser,—Friedrich III., rather a weakish, but an eager and greedy Kaiser,—through most of them. That inextricable Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish DONNYBROOK (so we may call it) which Austria had on hand, one of Sigismund's bequests to Austria; distressingly tumultuous Donnybrook, which goes from 1440 to 1471, fighting in a fierce confused manner;—the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... thee." "The Celts are proud," said Alexander to his Macedonians; and he promised them his friendship. On the death of Alexander, the Gauls, as mercenaries, entered, in Europe and Asia, the service of the kings who had been his generals. Ever greedy, fierce, and passionate, they were almost equally dangerous as auxiliaries and as neighbors. Antigonus, King of Macedonia, was to pay the band he had enrolled a gold piece a head. They brought their wives ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... once from Ryabinin's face. A hawklike, greedy, cruel expression was left upon it. With rapid, bony fingers he unbuttoned his coat, revealing a shirt, bronze waistcoat buttons, and a watch chain, and quickly pulled ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... the nation, and ere many months a new insurrection would have made an end. Victory would have been more disastrous than exile. He had done well to abdicate, and were the crisis to recur, he would not act otherwise. He had abandoned power (of which he was accused of being so greedy) as soon as he understood that he could no longer hold it to the advantage of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... there was had all been laid bare to him. There had been no lover,—but if there had, then there would have been a lie told. She had said that there had been none, and he had heard her assertion with those greedy ears which men sometimes have for such telling. It was a comfort to him that there had been none; and when something uncomfortable came in his way he immediately thought that she had deceived him. She ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... are, generally successful with the public. On her own immediate relations and family, who knew her firmness, candor, purity of heart, and self-respect, the foul slander had no effect whatsoever, at least in shaking their confidence in her sense of honor and discretion. With the greedy and brutal public, however, it was otherwise; and the discovery of this fact, which reached them in a thousand ways, it was that filled their hearts with such unparalleled distress, terrible agony, and that expanding spirit of ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... greedy!" exclaimed one matron after reading the notice. "This says that this room is complete ...
— Ethel Morton at Rose House • Mabell S. C. Smith
... young husband had possessed a fine gift of phrase. The mingled savagery and innocence of the people; the vast untrodden woods of chestnut and beech; the slowly advancing civilisation; the new railway line that seemed to the peasants a living and hostile thing, a kind of greedy fire-monster, carrying away their potatoes to market and their sons to the army; the contrasts of the old and new Italy; the joys of summer on the heights, of an unbroken Italian sunshine steeping a fresh and almost northern air: ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... life, Nae doubt but ye 'll think I was wrang o 't, Od! I tauld a bit bodie in Fife A' my tale, and he made a bit sang o 't; I have aye had a voice a' my days, But for singing I ne'er got the knack o 't; Yet I tried whiles, just thinking to please The greedy wi' Tak it, man, tak ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... you think I should be satisfied with that? Well, I am not. I can be finely greedy ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... and went boasting Amongst his fellows—Doris toasting; And as his burgundy he sips, He showed the sugar on his lips. Away the greedy host then gathered, Where they thought dalliance fair was feathered. They fluttered round her, sipped her tea, And lived in quarters fair and free; Nor were they banished, till she found That wasps had stings and ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... asparagus and stewed gooseberries gathered from the garden of Riaumont Chateau. Strawberries, currants, gooseberries and rhubarb were also plentiful in Cite-St. Pierre. Indeed the attractions of the first were too much for one greedy German, who was so much occupied in filling his helmet with this luscious fruit that he walked into one of the outposts of the 6th Battalion. It is doubtful if he was allowed to reap the fruits of his labour, at any rate ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... greedy resolve he passed the ford and advanced to within three leagues of the King's camp, and he caused his own camp to be strengthened by large trenches, and commanded all his artillery to take post in front, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... incalculable damage. I do not mean this in a party way; the present ministry are not all I could wish them, for (Canning excepted) I doubt there is among them too much self-seeking.... But their political principles are sound English principles, and, compared to the greedy and inefficient horde which preceded them, they are angels of light and purity. It is obvious, however, that they want defenders, both in and ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... in the situation; that's often the case when you see greedy people wasting effort and ingenuity. Perhaps you heard my visitors expressing their anxiety about my health, though I've a suspicion that they felt more like wishing the car had made an end ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... this famed Count of Poictesme means less to me,—why, I seem to see only the strivings of an ape reft of his tail, and grown rusty at climbing, who has reeled blunderingly from mystery to mystery, with pathetic makeshifts, not understanding anything, greedy in all desires, and always honeycombed with poltroonery. So in a secret place his youth was put away in exchange for a prize that was hardly worth the having; and the fine geas which his mother laid upon him was exchanged for the common geas ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... goes well, according to the official bulletin, but there is not much news on that slip of paper, not enough for men greedy for every scrap of news. Perhaps the next dispatch will contain a longer story. They must come again, these journalists of France, to smoke more cigarettes, to stare at the steel armour, to bridle their impatience with clenched hands. This little scene at the Ministry of War is played four ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... continued Flora, "how greedy I was of credit and affection. It made me jealous of Ethel herself, as long as we were in the same sphere; and when I felt that she was more to papa than I could be, I looked beyond home for praise. I don't think the things I did were ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... of ours, after all, and I wouldn't advise any body who is greedy for excitement to undertake it. It gets very tiresome at the last, and if it hadn't been for the adventures on Lake Tchad and at the Senegal River, I do believe that ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... to the barnetcy pint, this is my advice: brazen it out. Us littery men I take to be like a pack of schoolboys—childish, greedy, envius, holding by our friends, and always ready to fight. What must be a man's conduck among such? He must either take no notis, and pass on myjastick, or else turn round and pummle soundly—one, two, right and left, ding dong over the face and eyes; above all, never acknowledge that he is ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... a characteristic one, of this unique period in our history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized. The men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles, displayed them no less lavishly. Possibly the necessity for carrying plunder in the most portable form made gems the fashion in the army. A man was not ridiculous then, as he ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... if ever he gets into your power as you were in the power of your old landlord. Do you think, because you're poor and ignorant and half-crazy with toiling and moiling morning noon and night, that you'll be any less greedy and oppressive to them that have no land at all than old Nick Lestrange, who was an educated travelled gentleman that would not have been tempted as hard by a hundred pounds as you'd be by five shillings? Nick was too high above Patsy Farrell to be jealous ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... out. Where shall we find a little wife, To be the comfort of his life, To frisk and skip, and furnish means Of making sweet Patapanins? England, alas! can boast no she, Fit only for his cicisbee. Must greedy Fate then have him all?- No; Wootton to our aid we'll call- The immortality's the same, Built on a shadow, or a name. He shall have one by Wootton's means, The other Wootton for ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... coquetry; thoughtless generosity; the readiest laugh, the readiest tear, and the warmest heart in the world. Transplant her to the Chaussee d'Antin, instil the taste for diamonds, truffles, and Veuve Clicquot, and you poison her whole nature. She becomes false, cruel, greedy, prodigal of your money, parsimonious of her own—a vampire—a ghoul—the hideous thing we call in polite parlance a ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... so very strict with children?—babies under three? Wasn't it ridiculous to expect them not to be naughty or greedy? Why, every child wanted as much sweetstuff as it could tuck in! Quite right too—doctors said it was good for them. But ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... silver in her virgin bosom and dreamed, unstirred by any echoes of civilization. When she woke at last it was to the sound of an anvil chorus—to the ring of the mallet and drill, and the hoarse voices of men greedy only for gold. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... condemned to the country. She loved gayety; she was relegated to dulness. Moreover the Lord of Stoke was strong rather than attractive, imposing rather than seductive, and he had never dreamed of that small coin of flattery which greedy and dissatisfied natures require at all costs when their real longings are unfed. It is their nature to give little; it is their nature and their delight to ask much, and to take all that is within their ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... grain right out of her hand. The girls tried dropping kernels of corn on their shoes and then holding up one foot for the chickens to reach for the grain. And they tossed occasional kernels way to the outside of the feeding group and then giggled to see how quickly the greedy ones whirled around ...
— Mary Jane—Her Visit • Clara Ingram Judson
... and drunken power increased a hundredfold. He realized, suddenly, that men had not yet learned to use fruitfully the precious, powerful things given to them, but as yet could only play with them like greedy children—and kill as they played. Already his invention had brought death. And he realized—even on this day of his triumph—that it and its secret must be destroyed, and with them he ...
— A Scientist Rises • Desmond Winter Hall
... sunlight, and get the fragrance and the bloom of it, and show it to Polly, who is making herself useful, as taster and companion, at the foot of the ladder, before dropping it into the basket. But we have other company. The robin, the most knowing and greedy bird out of paradise (I trust he will always be kept out), has discovered that the grape-crop is uncommonly good, and has come back, with his whole tribe and family, larger than it was in pea-time. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... struck it," said the newcomer who had spoken, his greedy eyes peering at the dish. "Do put down that ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... wave-current swallowed The doughty-in-battle. Then a day's-length elapsed ere He was able to see the sea at its bottom. Early she found then who fifty of winters The course of the currents kept in her fury, Grisly and greedy, that the grim one's dominion Some one of men from above was exploring. Forth did she grab them, grappled the warrior With horrible clutches; yet no sooner she injured His body unscathed: the burnie out-guarded, That she proved but powerless ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... under Richelieu; France knew not the way to profit by the elements of courage, disinterestedness, and patriotism offered her by her magistracy; she had the misfortune to be delivered over to noisy factions of princes and great lords, ambitious or envious, greedy of honors and riches, as ready to fight the court as to be on terms with it, and thinking far more of their own personal interests than of the public service. Without any unity of action or aim, and by turns excited ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... The physician knew that in giving all he had but exchanged a year or two of failing power, of the pain and weakness of daily dying, the grief of finding himself a burden again upon unwilling shoulders for—what? For the moment of exultation when into the dark waters of greedy Lea he had flung his poor little body, clothed as it was in the new coat and trousers of which Cicely and he had been so proud; the moment of absolute belief in himself and his strength; the moment more, perhaps, of recognition that he had failed, but in a great cause. ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... subsided to such a state of utter rest that it was only at long intervals that the huge and helpless mass, on which the ark of the expectants lay, was lifted from its dull quietude, to roll heavily, for a moment in the washing waters, and then to settle lower into the greedy and absorbing element. Still the disappearance of the hull was slow, and even tedious, to those who looked forward with such impatience to its total immersion, as to the ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... noticed—the Fighting Nigger, it must be owned, was something of a long-winded boaster, with a proneness to slide off into the fabulous, when blowing his own trumpet for the entertainment of his colored admirers, who bolted whatever monstrosity he might choose to toss into their greedy chops. But let us be just. It was with no direct intention of hoaxing or deceiving his hearers that he played the fabler; it was simply a way he had of holding up a magnifying-glass, so to speak, before their eyes, that he ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... impudence on Irving's part occurred when looking with greedy eyes on the eight-carat diamond Mac wore on his finger, he said: "My God, Mac, I wish I had brought along a paste diamond. You could wear the ring and give me yours in exchange." The ring having been seen ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... succeed each other;—hope has its period in possession;—fear ceases, either by the cause being removed, or by a fatal certainty of some dreaded evil;—ambition dies within us, on a just sense of the folly of pursuing it;—hate is often vanquished by good offices;—even greedy avarice may be glutted; and love is, for the most part, fluctuating, and may be terminated by a thousand accidents.—Revenge alone is implacable and eternal, not to be banished by any other passion whatsoever;—the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... thrift, and consume my substance. Thou dost not know them, because thou art ever with thy lady, and hast her good favour; but I know them well; and the best I can get from them is Lazy Flanderkin, and Greedy Flanderkin, and Flemish, sot—-I thank the saints they cannot say Coward Flanderkin, since ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... caught in the eddies of the water that was rushing down. Thus the guardian gods of that spot smote fear suddenly into the minds of the youths, taking them away from covetousness, and turning them to see to their safety; teaching them to neglect their greedy purpose and be careful of their lives. Now it is certain that this apparent flood was not real but phantasmal; not born in the bowels of the earth (since Nature suffereth not liquid springs to gush forth in a dry place), but produced by some magic agency. All ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... grace and virtue, sense and reason split, With all the rash dexterity of wit. Wits, just like fools, at war about a name, Have full as oft no meaning, or the same. Self-love and reason to one end aspire, Pain their aversion, pleasure their desire; But greedy that its object would devour, This taste the honey, and not wound the flower: 90 Pleasure, or wrong or rightly understood, Our greatest ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... so much to tell each other, and each was greedy of even the smallest detail. Drake wanted to hear of all that had happened to her since the terrible parting on the night of the Maltbys' ball—how long ago it seemed to them as they sat there in the sunshine that flickered ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... long-suffering 'black people,' as the moujiks of White Russia are grimly denominated by their rulers—are dying by thousands, of sheer starvation, without a hand being stretched out by the 'Tchin' to rescue them from the greedy jaws ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... I thank you for your excellent opinion of me; I should warn you that I am accused of being greedy after gain. You will leave some of the feathers from ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... by the Democratic National Campaign Committee in the fall of 1864 is given here. It had the legend, "Running the Machine," printed beneath; the "machine" was Secretary Chase's "Greenback Mill," and the mill was turning out paper money by the million to satisfy the demands of greedy contractors. "Uncle Abe" is pictured as about to tell one of his funny stories, of which the scene "reminds" him; Secretary of War Stanton is receiving a message from the front, describing a great victory, in which one prisoner and one gun were taken; Secretary of State Seward ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... writer, mindful of the tribute paid to her in the Fairie Queen, ordered a monument to be erected in honour of her poet, but this was never done: she died three years later, and some said that a greedy courtier embezzled the money intended for this purpose. Whatever the truth, a literary Countess, Lady Dorset, repaired the omission twenty years afterwards, but by the following century her memorial had crumbled away, and was replaced by a ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... heartily; but perceiving my intention, he took to his heels and vanished. Of all the people I have ever seen, the hostlers, postilions, and other fellows hanging about the post-houses in Italy, are the most greedy, impertinent, and provoking. Happy are those travellers who have phlegm enough to disregard their insolence and importunity: for this is not so disagreeable as their revenge is dangerous. An English gentleman at Florence told me, that one of those fellows, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... work too at the river, when there's rain, As, but for a strong bank,'twould flood the plain. Now have a little patience, you shall see What makes the gulf between yourself and me: I, who once wore gay clothes and well-dressed hair, I, who, though poor, could please a greedy fair, I, who could sit from mid-day o'er Falern, Now like short meals and slumbers by the burn: No shame I deem it to have had my sport; The shame had been in frolics not cut short. There at my farm I fear no evil eye; ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... own fault," said Mr. Swindles; "if he hadn't been so greedy he wouldn't have had to sweat, and we should 'ave been spared a deal ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... his face with greedy attention. She seemed to find there a confirmation of her doubts. Indeed, it was impossible for her to credit his denials after what she had observed in London, and the circumstances which, even before Mary's letter, had ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... my departure, I find within myself only a smile of careless mockery for the swarming crowd of this Lilliputian curtseying people—laborious, industrious, greedy of gain, tainted with a constitutional affectation, hereditary insignificance, and ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... going on in Tacitus' own time. But the culminating point was the century which saw Italy conquered, and Rome sacked, by Visigoth, by Ostrogoth, by Vandal, till nothing was left save fever-haunted ruins. Then the ignorant and greedy child, who had been grasping so long after the fair apples of Sodom, clutched them once and for all, and found them turn to ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... kingdom, ruled over by one Saxon king, the Saxons had been settled in the country more than four hundred and fifty years. Great changes had taken place in its customs during that time. The Saxons were still greedy eaters and great drinkers, and their feasts were often of a noisy and drunken kind; but many new comforts and even elegances had become known, and were fast increasing. Hangings for the walls of rooms, where, in these modern days, we paste up paper, are known to have been sometimes made ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... where another vessel, or a drifting derelict, had bored the flank of the Roland, making a great gash near the engine-room. Since the whole of the breach was not yet under water, they could see the foaming sea streaming into the hold. Frederick thought he could hear its greedy gulping. At the sight, for all the horror about him, he felt a desire to burst into mourning for the brave warrior Roland, and with difficulty restrained an outcry. The fog closed in and hid the fatally wounded ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann |
