C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Usury
The synonyme of usury is ruin.
Extra interest signifies extra risk.
Poor rogues, and usurers’ men! bawds between gold and want!
Usury dulls and damps all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring if it were not for this slug.
Many have made witty invectives against usury. They say that it is a pity the devil should have God’s part, which is the tithe; that the usurer is the greatest Sabbath-breaker, because his plough goeth every Sunday.
Usury is the land-shark and devil-fish of commerce.
A money-lender. He serves you in the present tense; he lends you in the conditional mood; keeps you in the subjunctive; and ruins you in the future!
Go not to a covetous old man with any request too soon in the morning, before he hath taken in that day’s prey; for his covetousness is up before him, and he before thee, and he is in ill-humor; but stay till the afternoon, till he be satiated upon some borrower.