Greed famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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I cannot bear not to know the end of a tale. I will read the most trivial things – once commenced – only out of a feverish greed to be able to swallow the ending – sweet or sour – and to be done with what I need never have embarked on. Are you in my case? Or are you a more discriminating reader? Do you lay aside the unprofitable?
-- A. S. Byatt -
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It’s called stealing or piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn’t immoral - it’s a moral imperative. Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
-- Aaron Swartz -
Only those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
-- Aaron Swartz -
Do not follow vain desires; for verily he who prospers is preserved from lust, greed and anger.
-- Abu Bakr -
People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
-- Aesop -
Ours is an upbeat, a hurried, hasty beat. It keeps pressing us to go farther, to include everything so that we can savor everything, so that we can know everything, so that we will miss nothing. Partly it's greed, but mainly its curiosity. We just want to experience it. And we do.
-- Agnes de Mille -
The party which is out sees nothing but graft and incapacity in the party which is in; and the party which is in sees nothing but greed and animosity in the party which is out.
-- Agnes Repplier -
I certainly understand that we're all trying to make a living, but I'm not thinking about that when I'm making it. And if that's your sole motivation, it's going to reflect that narcissistic greed and you're going to hear it in the music.
-- Aimee Mann -
I contemplated my greed for peace. And I did not seek tranquillity anymore.
-- Ajahn Sumedho -
Unless the church is equipping believers to embrace the values and vision of the kingdom of God and turn away from the materialism, consumerism, greed, and power of the present age, it not only abandons its biblical mandate, it is rendered missionally ineffective.
-- Alan Hirsch -
Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
-- Albert Einstein -
The innocence of those who grind the faces of the poor, but refrain from pinching the bottoms of their neighbour's wives! The innocence of Ford, the innocence of Rockefeller! The nineteenth century was the Age of Innocence--that sort of innocence. With the result that we're now almost ready to say that a man is seldom more innocently employed than when making love.
-- Aldous Huxley -
The main source of our wealth is goodness. The affections and the generous qualities that God admires in a world full of greed.
-- Alfred Armand Montapert -
There are 6 reasons that a person does anything: Love, faith, greed, boredom, fear... revenge.
-- Ally Carter -
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
TARIFF, n. A scale of taxes on imports, designed to protect the domestic producer against the greed of his consumer.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
It's our greed to extract more and more from good that turns it into evil.
-- Amish Tripathi -
Time! Joyless emblem of the greed of millions, robber of the best which earth can give.
-- Amy Lowell -
While neurological studies have tried to identify components responsible for fear and greed, the impact on finance is less clear.
-- Andrew Lo -
Stealing to eat ain’t criminal—stealing to be rich is.
-- Andrew Vachss -
Fear and greed are potent motivators. When both of these forces push in the same direction, virtually no human being can resist.
-- Andrew Weil -
The man who sailed around his soul From East to West, from pole to pole With ego as his drunken captain Greed, the mutineer, had trapped all reason in the hold
-- Andy Partridge -
The business of business should not be about money. It should be about responsibility. It should be about public good, not private greed
-- Anita Roddick -
Fight only in direst need Not for lust or petty greed Honor those that do give birth Respect them well for their full worth
-- Anne McCaffrey -
I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It's greed, plain and simple.
-- Anne Tyler -
The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less.
-- Annie Dillard -
We are moving from a chain of command to a web of connection, from competition to collaboration, from markets to networks and stockholders to stakeholders, and greed to green.
-- Anodea Judith -
There are men who gain from their wealth only the fear of losing it.
-- Antoine Rivarol -
This America has been the country of greed rather than the country of need.
-- Ariel Dorfman -
Greed and globalization aren't just America's fault.
-- Arlo Guthrie -
See, ma'am, frankly speaking this problem can't be solved by us police or military. The problem with these tribals is they don't understand greed. Unless they become greedy there's no hope for us. I have told my boss, remove the force and instead put a TV in every home. Everything will be automatically sorted out.
-- Arundhati Roy -
If parasitism, favoritism, corruption, and greed for the unearned did not exist, a mixed economy would bring them into existence.
-- Ayn Rand -
Capitalism has been called a system of greed—yet it is the system that raised the standard of living of its poorest citizens to heights no collectivist system has ever begun to equal, and no tribal gang can conceive of.
-- Ayn Rand -
The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world.
-- B. C. Forbes -
Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts.
-- B. W. Powe -
Our greed comes from our fear that we will not have enough - whether it is money or love that we grasp. Yoga teaches us to let go of these fears and so to realize the abundance around us and within us.
-- B.K.S. Iyengar -
The Creator wants us to drum. He wants us to corrupt the world with drum, dance and chants. After all, we have already corrupted the world with power and greed....which hasn't gotten us anywhere - now's the time to corrupt the world with drum, dance and chants.
-- Babatunde Olatunji -
To act without rapacity, to use knowledge with wisdom, to respect interdependence, to operate without hubris and greed are not simply moral imperatives. They are an accurate scientific description of the means of survival.
-- Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth -
The reason the Christians have murdered on such a vast scale and killed anyone and everyone in their way is purely and simply greed.
-- Bartolome de las Casas -
I glory, more in the cunning purchase of my wealth than in the glad possession.
-- Ben Jonson -
The beast for me is greed. Whether you read Dante, Swift, or any of these guys, it always boils down to the same thing: the corruption of the soul.
-- Ben Nicholson -
Greed will always leave you dissatisfied because you'll never be able to get everything you desire. Greed never allows you to think you have enough; it always destroys you by making you strive ever harder for more.
-- Benjamin Blech -
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
GREED AND COMPETITION ARE NOT THE RESULT OF IMMUTABLE HUMAN TEMPERMENT…GREED AND FEAR OF SCARCITY ARE IN FACT BEING CREATED AND AMPLIFIED …THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCE IS THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER IN ORDER TO SURVIVE
-- Bernard Lietaer -
The nature of any human being, certainly anyone on Wall Street, is 'the better deal you give the customer, the worse deal it is for you'.
-- Bernard Madoff -
You had a lot of novice investors who got into the market looking for easy money, without any regard to the fundamentals. These stocks were running on fumes.
-- Bernard Madoff -
Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.
-- Bernard of Clairvaux -
I think we need to take on the greed of the billionaire class, a disastrous campaign finance system.
-- Bernie Sanders -
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
-- Bertrand Russell -
The true antidote to greed is contentment. If you have a strong sense of contentment, it doesn't matter whether you obtain the object of your desire or not. Either way, you are still content.
-- Bill Vaughan -
Envy and greed starve on a steady diet of thanksgiving.
-- Billy Graham -
It is not good to be too free. It is not good to have everything one wants.
-- Blaise Pascal -
People's lives are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don't survive.
-- Bob Dylan -
God is in heaven, and we all want what's his. But power and greed and corruptible seed seem to be all that there is.
-- Bob Dylan -
It was the kind of blind, gulping, insensate greed that you associate with some milk-eyed creature in a volcanic fissure at the bottom of the Marianas Trench-an organism with no understanding of the existence, let alone the feelings, of other members of the ecosystem.
-- Boris Johnson -
Deregulation created this epidemic of greed which according to the rules of capitalism was OK. Beyond that there was criminal behaviour. There have been no repercussions and it's hard to make your peace with.
-- Brad Pitt -
Urges ... every man has urges. But the true measure of man is to admit them, to learn to control them. The Shield used to refer to themselves as the most dominant force in our universe. But that ain't the way I remember it. They fell victim to the faults of men. Their lust and greed and valor for glory, it led them right down in the pit, where they belong. Tonight, they'll burn for it. For I am no man. I am reborn. Our bond can never be broken, and our urges can never be satisfied.
-- Bray Wyatt -
Whatever worldly thing we may covet-zealously striving to obtain and then retain-never seems to bring an end to our desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment. . . . Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When "all we've ever wanted" is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough!
-- Brent L. Top -
Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever
-- Bret Easton Ellis -
Obviously you have to make a profit to put out a newspaper. I'm not an idiot. But when the margins are in excess of 25 per cent you're talking about greed.
-- Carl Hiaasen -
The love for material things grows like a fungus in the soul and destroys the loveliness of the human heart utterly.
-- Caryll Houselander -
The essence of good advertising is not to inspire hope, but to create greed.
-- Charles Adams -
In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
-- Charles de Gaulle -
Today, as in the Gilded Age, we live in a world where a morality of personal responsibility rubs shoulders with a culture of greed and of flagrant social irresponsibility. Now as then, business has shed its collective responsibility for employees - just as government has for its citizens.
-- Charles Derber -
"As I think I told you once before," said I, "it is you who have been, in your greed and cunning, against all the world. It may be profitable to you to reflect, in future, that there never were greed and cunning in the world yet, that did not do too much, and overreach themselves. It is as certain as death."
-- Charles Dickens -
It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach.
-- Charles Horton Cooley -
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 -
The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines.
-- Charles Kuralt -
Ambition and thirst for power have a part but greed and greed alone is the reason for a man wanting to swell his ward.
-- Charles Ranlett Flint -
Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
-- Charlie Chaplin -
Perhaps all our troubles - all the violence, obesity, illness, depression, and greed we can't overcome - began when we stopped living as Running People. Deny your nature, and it will erupt in some other, uglier way.
-- Christopher McDougall -
Greed has been severely underestimated and denigrated - unfairly so, in my opinion.
-- Conrad Black -
I saw the horrible way that people could treat each other. That may be the saddest thing of all. I saw greed and anger and murder and a total lack of concern for human life. It was a wicked side of the human soul that I saw... and it saddened me to know that such a dark place existed.
-- D. J. MacHale -
True happiness comes from having a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved by cultivating altruism, love and compassion, and by eliminating anger, selfishness and greed.
-- Dalai Lama -
One path is greed, the second is curiosity. With one, the journey is to a reward; with the other, the journey is the reward.
-- Dale Dauten -
If we do not cling to riches, selfishness or greed-then I believe we are getting closer to God.
-- Daniel Ortega -
Everyone in your culture knows this. Man was born to turn the world into paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidty, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness.
-- Daniel Quinn -
Make Money a CENTRAL priority. Â This has nothing to do with greed and consumption and everything to do with life force and power.
-- Danielle LaPorte -
The notion that a society could be regulated entirely by market forces is a utopian fantasy: an impossible dream generated by imagining what the world would be like if everyone's behavior was utterly consistent with some abstract moral ideal-in this case, economic theories that assume all human action is based on calculating, systematic, (but scrupulously law-abiding), greed.
-- David Graeber -
The Western societies which espouse free market capitalism survive by the pursuit of greed and, in their own way, like Communism, throw into leadership men and women (mostly men) who know how to gain, exert and manipulate power.
-- Davis McCaughey -
We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.
-- Derrick Bell -
He was seized and dragged off to King Philip, and being asked who he was, replied, "A spy upon your insatiable greed .
-- Diogenes -
Share prices follow the theorem: hope divided by fear minus greed.
-- Dominic Lawson -
The actions of my government are not bearable. They devastate our natural resources and deprive our people. The politicians speak piously while practicing greed and divisiveness; they care nothing for the nation. I want to do more than withdraw my support. I want to tar and feather them.
-- Donella Meadows -
The only way to the top is killing and greed. Okay, I'm kidding. But killing helps.
-- Douglas Coupland -
I am aware that there is a world out there that functions without regard to me. There are wars and budgets and bombings and vast dimensions of wealth and greed and ambition and corruption. And yet I don't feel a part of that world, and I wouldn't know how to join if I tried.
-- Douglas Coupland -
It is doubly chimerical to build peace on economic foundations which, in turn, rest on the systematic cultivation of greed and envy, the very forces which drive men into conflict.
-- E. F. Schumacher -
Greed is so destructive. It destroys everything.
-- Eartha Kitt -
It's not competition and greed that makes the world go around, it's cooperating and caring
-- Ed Mayo -
Dramatic and emotional trading experiences tend to be negative. Pride is a great banana peel, as are hope, fear, and greed. My biggest slip-ups occurred shortly after I got emotionally involved with positions.
-- Ed Seykota -
I may say that I think greed about poetry is the only permissible greed - it is, indeed, unavoidable.
-- Edith Sitwell -
Money never can be well managed if sought solely through the greed of money for its own sake. In all meanness there is a defect of intellect as well as of heart. And even the cleverness of avarice is but the cunning of imbecility.
-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton -
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
-- Edwin Way Teale -
I vote far-left. I am frequently angered by corporate greed and think education ought to be free and teachers paid well.
-- Eleanor Catton -
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
-- Erich Fromm
