Avarice Greed Quotes

It is not the want, but rather abundance that creates avarice. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Avarice, greed, concupiscence and so forth are all based on the mathematical truism that the more you get, the more you have. The remark of that it is more blessed to give than to receive is based on the human truth that the more you give away in love, the more you are. It is not just for the sake of other people that tells us to give rather than get, but for our own sakes too. ~ Frederick Buechner

Avarice seems to have so pervaded our vital principles as to battle all hopes of a remedy but for peace and plenty. ~ Edmund Pendleton

Descending the endless stairs for the sixth time, Mr. Lecky thought of all the goods those closed doors hid. Fantastic was the discouragement it caused him. Aware of such variety and great quantity, Mr. Lecky saw the danger of forgetting or never even imagining things which, discovered, he would want. Everlastingly midway between two equal errors, to which could he cleave? To have time for everything, one must make haste. To gain access to everything, one must be patient.

Moreover, hasty, or patient as Job, with what great labor would Mr. Lecky carry up on his back all he got! Making, as he was every moment, the climb back longer, giving, as he did with each step down, consent to toil more and more severe, he could anticipate vaguely and abhor another possibility. Curious and insubstantial as his fearing not to find what he could not think of, was his resentment of a perhaps coming time when he might, in revolt against the inanity of exertion, live meanly and miserably, with no object but somehow to make what was already at hand suffice for him. Against this insidious ill chance there exists no defense, since so often what today is detested will appear tomorrow - though surely still detestable - good and wise. ~ James Gould Cozzens

Avarice is the vice of declining years. ~ George Bancroft

Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough. ~ Janwillem Van De Wetering

Nothing makes us more vulnerable than loneliness except greed. ~ Thomas Harris

Defined simply, narcissism means excessive self-preoccupation; pragmatism means excessive focus on work, achievement, and the practical concerns of life; and restlessness means an excessive greed for experience, an overeating, not in terms of food but in terms of trying to drink in too much of life...And constancy of all three together account for the fact that we are so habitually self-absorbed by heartaches, headaches, and greed for experience that we rarely find the time and space to be in touch with the deeper movements inside of and around us. ~ Ronald Rolheiser

Genuflection before the idol or the dollar destroys the muscles which walk and the will that moves. ~ Victor Hugo

Poverty wants some things, Luxury many things, Avarice all things ~ Benjamin Franklin

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice, I think I must take up with avarice. ~ Lord Byron

Pride, avarice, and envy are in every home. ~ Thornton Wilder

Yet avarice is numbered among the sins, but stupidity omitted. ~ E. B. Farnum

This was the time when the rush for the spoils filled a corner of the forest with the yelping of hounds, the cracking of whips, the flaring of torches. The appetites let loose were satisfied at last, shamelessly, amid the sound of crumbling neighbourhoods and fortunes made in six months. The city had become an orgy of gold and women. ~ Emile Zola

Avarice is as destitute of what it has, as poverty of what it has not. ~ Publilius Syrus

My brother is undoubtedly arrogant," Tyrion Lannister replied. "My father is the soul of avarice, and my sweet sister Cersei lusts for power with every waking breath. I, however, am innocent as a little lamb. Shall I bleat for you? ~ George R R Martin

Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed.


That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore. ~ A.R. Moxon

For the first time as a scrabbling, bickering species we stood united. Every sodding person on the planet looked up today and whispered the same question, whether it be in awe, greed, or terror. What's Out there? Answers were sure to be forthcoming, ready or not. ~ B.P. Gregory

Lack of luxury is not a reason to push others to poverty. ~ Michael A. van Doorn, Odyssey of a Heart, Home of a Soul ~ Angelica Hopes

When he thought about how he had been slighted, condescended to, manipulated and deceived, he became angry. Obedience was a monastic virtue, but outside the cloisters it had its drawbacks, he thought bitterly. The world of power and property demanded that a man be suspicious, demanding, and insistent. ~ Ken Follett

There are a lot of people who are doing wonderful things, quietly, with no motive of greed, or hostility toward other people, or delusions of superiority. ~ Charles Kuralt

What's wrong with people is people. There's no cure for that. ~ Marty Rubin

When people smile at a rich man, they are smiling at his wallet. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Time, my brothers and sisters, seems to be running out; we are not yet tearing one another apart, but we are tearing apart our common home. Today, the scientific community realizes what the poor have long told us: harm, perhaps irreversible harm, is being done to the ecosystem. The earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called "the dung of the devil". An unfettered pursuit of money rules. The service of the common good is left behind. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and, as we clearly see, it even puts at risk our common home. ~ Pope Francis

Artists aren't necessarily business people. And they aren't necessarily aware of all the things that go on in their names. Some just want to make some music, but there is a lot of greed
among artists as well. Whether or not we know it, we are all to blame. I think it's time - starting with the artist - to try to be a little more responsible and aware of what goes on in our
name. ~ Tom Petty

I happen to believe that America is dying of loneliness, that we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives - those fountains of inconvenient feeling - and toward the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market. We're hurtling through time and space and information faster and faster, seeking that network connection. But at the same time we're falling away from our families and our neighbors and ourselves. We ego-surf and update our status and brush up on which celebrities are ruining themselves, and how. But the cure won't stick. ~ Cheryl Strayed

Why do progress and beauty have to be so opposed? ; 75
Also, as in war, the case, like a great bubbling cauldron of life itself, threw up both good and evil. Greed, madness, cruelty and indifference were countered by goodness, devotion, self-sacrifice, and courage. p 178 ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Talya was so taken by the magnificent creature that for a moment he forgot where he was. But then he remembered, and he looked up to see Saba on both knees, his arms spread wide and his face lifted to the sky, weeping softly. How wonderful was Saba! And beyond Saba, Kahil, seated tall on his stallion, staring at him with black eyes, frozen in shock. Lost. How beautiful was this poor man, so wounded to hurt so many! Still not a soul moved. Talya looked past Kahil to the warriors, who seemed not to know what to do, and beyond them to the platform where the queen and the king stood, staring dumbly. Shaquilath has lost her daughter, Talya thought, and his heart broke with hers. The king has great kindness that's been covered up by fear and greed. How or why these things came to Talya, he didn't know, because he wasn't as much knowing them as experiencing them. And ~ Ted Dekker

Blue fire ran along the blade. With the Goddess's commanding pose and a flaming sword in hand, she resembled angel Uriel. ~ A.O. Peart

The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. ~ Keith Ferrazzi

Republicanism is a corrupt ideology that celebrates extreme selfishness and greed. It's all about me me me.

Trump's MAGA minions simply don't care that global warming is real, as long as it doesn't affect them personally. Why should they care if the planet burns after they're dead? ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

Listen in close, Wall Street Conquistadors, you're spreading like vapor up through people's floors, you're moving en masse under the cracks of our doors and grabbing our children to work in your stores, feeding the needy to make them your whores, but you need to remember the grave you're digging is yours. ~ Trevor D. Richardson

I think war is based in greed and there are huge karmic retributions that will follow. I think war is never the answer to solving any problems. The best way to solve problems is to not have enemies. ~ Sheryl Crow

Individuals with greed for power see others as elements to be oppressed. ~ Sunday Adelaja

I think the greedy corporate owners have to be confronted with the fact that they are ignoring their most powerful resource - their workers. ~ John Sweeney

...avarice and stinginess [are] not frugality ~ David McCullough

We forget the nature of true power. The power within is abundance. The power without is greed. ~ Terry Tempest Williams

Our economy is based on spending billions to persuade people that happiness is buying things, and then insisting that the only way to have a viable economy is to make things for people to buy so they'll have jobs and get enough money to buy things. ~ Philip Slater

Capitalism: Nothing so mean could be right. Greed is the ugliest of the capital sins. ~ Edward Abbey

It is surely very narrow policy that supposes money to be the chief good. ~ Samuel Johnson

It takes abstract thinking to see how greed can lead to prosperity, but it takes wishful thinking to claim that violence can lead to charity. ~ Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Throughout most of our history, nothing - not flood, famine, plague, or new weapons - has endangered humanity one-tenth as much as the narcissistic ego, with its self-aggrandizing presumptions and its hell-hound spawn of fear and greed. ~ Tom Robbins

Instead of indulging in jealousy, greed, in relishing themselves, there are men who keep their hearts alert to the stillness in which time rolls on and leaves us behind ... those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel

In 'Tarahumara' land, there was no crime, war or theft. There was no corruption, obesity, drug addiction, greed, wife-beating, child abuse, heart disease, high blood pressure, or carbon emissions. They didn't get diabetes, or depressed, or even old: 50-year-olds outran teenagers. ~ Christopher McDougall

You're not a road comic till you've watched Real Sex and American Greed alone in your hotel room. ~ Iliza Shlesinger

There's nothing worse, than having a scratch you cannot itch. ~ Robert Black

One is called a saiyami [those with inner control] when no intent of transgression remains within him. Even during anger-pride-deceit-greed when there is no violent intent; that is called saiyam. A saiyami will go to moksha. ~ Dada Bhagwan