Quotes About Greed

The original sin of Republicans is greed. Everyone understands greed. Everybody wants to get theirs. The original sin of Democrats is pity. Greed is more attractive, and a better motivator, than pity.

The matriarchal society 1300 years ago in Egypt was a peaceful society; that's where you had no war for thousands of years! When they switched to patriarchal society, when the male energy ruled, we became obsessed with the greed. Now we are in this time of intense greed!

Many people and companies only have one goal: money, money, and more money. Greed is ok when you let others profit from it, but greed for oneself is bad, it makes you ill.

Greed, desire, ambition, jealousy, possessiveness, domination - you have to watch everything. And they are all interconnected, remember. If greed disappears, then anger will disappear. If anger disappears, jealousy will disappear. If jealousy disappears, violence will disappear. If violence disappears, possessiveness will disappear. They are all intertwined. In fact, they are spokes of the same wheel, and the hub that supports them all is the ego. So watch the ways of the ego.

Each of us needs to eliminate our anger, fear and greed. The roots of social conflicts and political tensions are in personal anger, fear and greed.

There's a hole in the world like a great black pit and the vermin of the world inhabit it and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit and it goes by the name of London. At the top of the hole sit the privileged few Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo turning beauty to filth and greed... I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders, for the cruelty of men is as wonderous as Peru but there's no place like London!

It's a mystery to me We have a greed with which we have agreed You think you have to want more than you need Until you have it all you won't be free When you want more than you have You think you need And when you think more than you want Your thoughts begin to bleed I think I need to find a bigger place 'Cause when you have more than you think You need more space Society, you're a crazy breed I hope you're not lonely without me Society, crazy and deep I hope you're not lonely without me

I like to think that my arrogance, impetuosity, impatience, selfishness and greed are the qualities that make me the lovable chap I am.

The law has been perverted through the influence of two very different causes-naked greed and misconceived philanthropy.

White folks' greed runs a world in need.

Everything is poisoned, and it's all poisoned from greed. I think our inability to communicate with each other and everything that's happening in the world is all a symptom of our greater inability to deal with nature appropriately.

Suppose hypothetically that one out of every 200 people or so is a jerk. In today's world these jerks will discover that if they enter government or business they can become super rich and powerful jerks. Do we conclude, therefore, that markets (or government) have caused greed? No, the fact is that once we no longer live in tiny tribes of 200, anonymity allows some people, who would have been assholes in a small tribe but who would have been sanctioned there, to go off and become jerks on a much, much larger scale.

It is, then, the strife of all honorable men and women of the twentieth century to see that in the future competition of the races the survival of the fittest shall mean the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true; that we may be able to preserve for future civilization all that is really fine and noble and strong, and not continue to put a premium on greed and imprudence and cruelty.

Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons.

What made traditional economies so radically different and so very fundamentally dangerous to Western economies were the traditional principles of prosperity of Creation versus scarcity of resources, of sharing and distribution versus accumulation and greed, of kinship usage rights versus individual exclusive ownership rights, and of sustainability versus growth.

That is what is so marvelous about Europe; the people long ago learned that space and beauty and quiet refuges in a great city, where children may play and old people sit in the sun, are of far more value to the inhabitants than real estate taxes and contractors' greed.

Nowadays, hoy en día, with our world full of war and violence and lack of love, a world full of greed, a world of domination, grasping power, venal stupidity, real evil, don’t get me started, it’s good to know that a conversation about tacos will always engender a sense of comfort and happiness. If only we could sit down at a big round world table and eat tacos in a spirit of love we might begin to work on world peace!

It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!

However destructive may be the policies of the government and the methods and products of the corporations, the root of the problem is always found to be found in private life. We must learn to see that every problem that concerns us as conservationists always leads straight to the question of how we live. The world is being destroyed, no doubt about it, by the greed of the rich and powerful. It is also being destroyed by popular demand.

Politics may come and go, but Greed goes on forever.

You point out that war is only a symptom of the whole horrid business of human behavior, and cannot be isolated. And that, even if we abolish war, we shall not abolish hate and greed. So might it have been argued about slave emancipation, that slavery was but one aspect of human disgustingness, and that to abolish it would not end the barbarity that causes it. But did the abolitionists therefore waste their breath? And do we waste ours now in protesting against war?

The cancer in me became an awareness of the cancer that is everywhere. The cancer of cruelty, the cancer of carelessness, the cancer of greed.

Occupy Wall Street means making Wall Street and the corporate power elite understand that the people affected by the binge of unregulated greed are not going away, and they are not going to give up.

The only effective answer to organized greed is organized labor.

Even the humblest men have a strange reason behind greed. Every man thinks money solves problems - and every man thinks not just of himself, but his next three generations - there is a probability he will live to see those generations - and he wants to care for them in times of strife.

You can't travel the back roads very long without discovering a multitude of gentle people doing good for others with no expectation of gain or recognition. The everyday kindness of the back roads more than makes up for the acts of greed in the headlines. Some people out there spend their whole lives selflessly.

Nirvana means to extinguish the burning fires of the Three Poisons: greed, anger, and ignorance. This can be accomplished by letting go of dissatisfaction.

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.

The greed for fruit misses the flower.

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.

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!

If as an environmentalist we are against anything... it is against the arrogance of power and the most obcene ways it shows up, which is in greed.

I write because I want more than one life; I insist on a wider selection. It’s greed, plain and simple. When my characters join the circus, I’m joining the circus. Although I’m happily married, I spent a great deal of time mentally living with incompatible husbands.

The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

Greed and selfishness do seem to be central motivators of mankind.

No purpose intervenes between I and You, no greed and no anticipation; and longing itself is changed as it plunges from the dream into appearance. Every means is an obstacle. Only where all means have disintegrated encounters occur.

There will be selfishness and greed and corruption and narrowness and intolerance in the world tomorrow and tomorrow's tomorrow. But pray God we may have the courage and the wisdom and the vision to raise a definite standard that will appeal to the best that is in man, and then strive mightily toward that goal.

Share prices follow the theorem: hope divided by fear minus greed.

The con is a kind of jiu-jitsu that turns the sucker's own greed into its principal weapon. The greedier you are the more likely you are to be conned, and for the greater a sum. Since people regularly dispose of their intelligence in their rush to be swindled, and then turn right around and do it again, humans must want to be duped. Institutionalized wishful thinking - the stock market, religion, advertising - is after all a cornerstone of our system.

Sitting with a deck of cards in your hand all day is an obsession. Visiting print shops and bookstores and libraries is an obsession. And writing about this is an obsession. I think, in general, most collectors are obsessed. I think the only form of a rationalized greed is when you're collecting something you are supposedly serious about.

Greed is at the bottom of most of the wrong-doing with which government has to deal.

Human behavior is subject to the same laws as any other natural phenomenon. Our customs, behaviors, and values are byproducts of our culture. No one is born with greed, prejudice, bigotry, patriotism and hatred; these are all learned behavior patterns. If the environment is unaltered, similar behavior will reoccur.

The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.

Awareness is fire; it burns all that is wrong in you. It burns your ego. It burns your greed, it burns your possessiveness, it burns your jealousy - it burns all that is wrong and negative, and it enhances all that is beautiful, graceful, divine.

What happens in a strike happens not to one person alone.... It is a crisis with meaning and potency for all and prophetic of a future. The elements in crisis are the same, there is a fermentation that is identical. The elements are these: a body of men, women and children, hungry; an organization of feudal employers out to break the back of unionization; and the government Labor Board sent to "negotiate" between this hunger and this greed.

I believe capitalism will eventually be replaced by a communitarian ethic where the rights and care of all beings will be taken into consideration, not just the greed of a corporate few.

To get rid of greed, you should try to do some sort of a collective social work.