Greed Quotes

“You [demagogues] are like the fishers for eels; in still waters they catch nothing, but if they thoroughly stir up the slime, their fishing is good; in the same way it's only in troublous times that you line your pockets.”
― Aristophanes, The Knights

“A system is corrupt when it is strictly profit-driven, not driven to serve the best interests of its people.”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“And the so-called 'political process' is a fraud: Our elected officials, like our bureaucratic functionaries, like even our judges, are largely the indentured servants of the commercial interests.”
― Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“He knows how to market himself well. Nowadays, that's all that seems to count. He's rebellious in a way that appeals to people with vain, shallow taste. So of course he manipulates his audiences with the blessing of his recording company and the financial investors behind his brand.”
― Jess C. Scott, Sven

“Money. The ultimate motivation. The ultimate way of keeping score.”
― Michael Connelly, Chasing the Dime

“This was 1990 the year that communism died in Europe and it seemed strange to me that in all the words that were written about the fall of the iron curtain, nobody anywhere lamented that it was the end of a noble experiment. I know that communism never worked and I would have disliked living under it myself but none the less it seems that there was a kind of sadness in the thought that the only economic system that appeared to work was one based on self interest and greed.”
― Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

“Until a few months ago we had a code of honor, and even the worst ruffians behaved with decency. You could leave your gold in a tent with no guard and no one would touch it, but now all that has changed. The law of the jungle rules, the only ideology is greed. Don't let yourself be parted from your weapons, and always travel in pairs or groups, because this is a land of thieves.”
― Isabel Allende, Daughter of Fortune

“In the immediate nearness of the gold, all else had been forgotten [...], and I could not doubt that he hoped to seize upon the treasure, find and board the Hispanola under cover of night, cut every honest throat about that island, and sail away as he had at first intended, laden with crimes and riches.”
― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

“The children are innocent until proven guilty. For their sake, not ours, we must soldier on, muddling our way toward frugality, simplicity, liberty, community, until some kind of sane and rational balance is achieved between our ability to love and our cockeyed ambition to conquer and dominate everything in sight. No wonder the galaxies recede from us in every direction, fleeing at velocities that approach the speed of light. They are frightened. We humans are the Terror of the Universe.”
― Edward Abbey, Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast

“He shook his head in exasperation. “Are you sure you’re not a Succubus? You seem really obsessed with the sin of lust.”

“It’s a good sin. I like gluttony an awful lot, too. Sloth has its moments, but I just don’t understand acedia at all. I mean, what the f**k is that anyway? Oh, and greed is good, to quote Gordon Gekko. Anger, envy and pride,” I ticked them off on my fingers. “I don’t often have much use for them. It’s a shortcoming that I’m hoping to correct in the next millennium or two. I’m not very old; I can’t be expected to have mastered them all yet.”

“I think you’ve worked too hard on some of those,” he said dryly. “Maybe you should switch over to virtues instead. Give yourself a much needed break.”

Virtues? Yeah, right.

“Virtues are too difficult,” I told him, shaking my head. “Look how old you are and you’ve hardly made a dent in them. I’ll admit, you seem to have zeal nailed, as well as faith and temperance. Self control? I’ve got my doubts based on your recent actions. I’m not seeing the kindness, love or generosity, either. That humility thing seems to be pretty far beyond your reach, too. Really, really far. I’m sorry to tell you this, but from what I can see, the sin of pride is a major component of your character. Dude, you’re f**king old. You should have these things pretty well ticked off your shopping list by now. I’m seriously disappointed. Seriously.”
― Debra Dunbar, A Demon Bound

“Our incredible bewilderment (wilderness separation) blinds us from seeing that our many personal and global problems primarily result from our assault of and separation from the natural creation process within and around us. Our estrangement from nature leaves us wanting,and when we want there is never enough. Our insatiable wanting is called greed. It is a major source of our destructive dependencies and violence.”
― Michael J. Cohen, Reconnecting With Nature: Finding Wellness Through Restoring Your Bond With the Earth

“The God I believe in isn't short on cash, mister.”
― Bono

“Many obese people spend a significant amount of their energy on suppressing the urge to tell some of the people who are staring at them that they do not eat as much and as frequently as they seem to.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Lust for possession and greed has ravaged the soul of humanity like a great cancer, metastasizing throughout society in the form of a nouveau post-human, consumer hedonism.”
― Bryant McGill, Voice of Reason

“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and turns into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer

“Marty, my mother used to say "Never get greedy with God." I think what she meant was "Don't dare ask for more if you already have what you need." ”
― James Patterson, The Christmas Wedding

“Some false representations contravene the law; some do not. The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business, and, besides, could not be done. The line between honesty and dishonesty is a narrow, shifting one and usually lets those get by that are the most subtle and already have more than they can use.”
― Clarence Darrow, The Story of My Life

“Nonetheless, many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe capitalism. As they see it, this ghastly mode of society’s economic organization has brought about nothing but mischief and misery. Men were once happy and prosperous in the good old days preceding the Industrial Revolution. Now under capitalism the immense majority are starving paupers ruthlessly exploited by rugged individualists. For these scoundrels nothing counts but their moneyed interests. They do not produce good and really useful things, but only what will yield the highest profits. They poison bodies with alcoholic beverages and tobacco, and souls and minds with tabloids, lascivious books and silly moving pictures. The “ideological superstructure” of capitalism is a literature of decay and degradation, the burlesque show and the art of striptease, the Hollywood pictures and the detective stories.”
― Ludwig Von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality

“I constantly pack my pockets full of worthless trinkets, and in such misguided gorging I leave my heart empty and my soul emaciated because I have forgotten everything but trinkets.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“I was simultaneously elated and depressed, a common enough state of mind these days when people are offered a great deal of money to do something repugnant.”
― James Hamilton-Paterson, Cooking with Fernet Branca

“The Strip was still lit by a million neon lights, though the crowds on the sidewalk had greatly decreased by this hour. Still, Bosch was awed by the spectacle of light. In every imaginable color and configuration, it was a megawatt funnel of enticement to greed that burned twenty-four hours a day. Bosch felt the same attraction that all the other grinders felt tug at them. Las Vegas was like one of the hookers on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Even happily married men at least glanced their way, if only for a second, just to get an idea what was out there, maybe give them something to think about. Las Vegas was like that. There was a visceral attraction here. The bold promise of money and sex. But the first was a broken promise, a mirage, and the second was fraught with danger, expense, physical and mental risk. It was where the real gambling took place in this town.”
― Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

“Greed is eternal.”
― The Ferrengi Rules of Acquisition 10

“Greed is a little bit more than enough.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“The risks in antiques fraud are relative. Other criminals risk the absolute. You've never heard of a fraudster involved in a shoot-out, of the "Come and get me, copper!" sort. Or of some con artist needing helicopter gunships to bring him. No, we subtle-mongers do it with the smile, the promise, the hint. And we have one great ally: greed. And make no mistake. Greed is everywhere, like weather.”
― Jonathan Gash, The Great California Game

“Was there any more repellent sight, Harriet wondered, than a silly, self-centred, greedy woman clad in the skin of a beast so much more splendid than herself?”
― Olivia Manning, The Spoilt City

“The main obstacle to further progress on the resource curse is China, and to a lesser extent India.”
― George Soros, The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror

“We might like to think of ourselves as autonomous beings who get to decide who we are going to be, but we are likely much more malleable than we think. We are often defined by the structure that keeps us captive. In some ways our desires are so socially constructed that they can't rightfully be called our own.”
― Debbie Blue, Consider the Birds: A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible

“We were too greedy, grasping for immortality too soon. Perhaps if we had only been patient, content to wait, we would all have forever in the end.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin

“... so afraid are they that their eyes will be deceived by a fake. Yet, why should a counterfeit give any less pleasure to your sight when your eyes can't tell the difference from the genuine article? Heaven knows they should carry the same worth for you as they would for a blind man.”
― Thomas More, Utopia

“And we remember that there must be a balance. No birth without death. No life without tears. What is taken from the world must be given back, and from him who takes and does not give back, who would tip the balance of the river, from him all will be taken. No one should live forever, but should give his blood to the river when the time comes so that tomorrow another may live. And so it goes.”
― Jessica Khoury, Origin