Quotes in the category avarice.
It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense.
Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.
I do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea.
Alderic, Knight of the Order of the City and the Assault, hereditary Guardian of the King's Peace of Mind, a man not unremembered among the makers of myth, pondered so long upon the Gibbelins' hoard that by now he deemed it his. Alas that I should say of so perilous a venture, undertaken at dead of night by a valorous man, that its motive was sheer avarice! Yet upon avarice only the Gibbelins relied to keep their larders full, and once in every hundred years sent spies into the cities of men to see how avarice did, and always the spies returned again to the tower saying that all was well.It may be thought that, as the years went on and men came by fearful ends on that tower's wall, fewer and fewer would come to the Gibbelins' table: but the Gibbelins found otherwise.("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins")
We Lannisters do have a certain pride," said Tyrion Lannister.“Pride?” Catelyn snapped. His mocking tone and easy manner made her angry. “Arrogance, some might call it. Arrogance and avarice and lust for power.”“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?” He grinned.
The writer of this legend then recordsIts ghostly application in these words:The image is the Adversary old,Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;Our lusts and passions are the downward stairThat leads the soul from a diviner air;The archer, Death; the flaming jewel, Life;Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;The knights and ladies all whose flesh and boneBy avarice have been hardened into stone;The clerk, the scholar whom the love of pelfTempts from his books and from his nobler self.The scholar and the world! The endless strife,The discord in the harmonies of life!The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,And all the sweet serenity of books;The market-place, the eager love of gain,Whose aim is vanity, and whose end is pain!
If you push your luck too hard, fortune's muscles might tear.
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.
From the point of view of wealth, there is no difference between need, comfort and pleasure
Two hungry wolves let loose among sheep are not more harmful then a person craving after wealth and status is to his Deen (Religion).
You have to understand that only the very worst end up here: the ones whose anger made them kill, and who felt no sorrow or guilt after the act; those so obsessed with themselves that they turned their backs on the sufferings of others, and left them in pain; those whose greed meant that others starved and died. Such souls belong here, because they would find no peace elsewhere. In this place, they are understood. In this place, their faults have meaning. In this place, they belong.
For avarice begins where poverty ends.
Lack of luxury is not a reason to push others to poverty. ~ Michael A. van Doorn, Odyssey of a Heart, Home of a Soul
The best reason for committing loathsome and detestable acts--and let's face it, I am considered something of an expert in this field--is purely for their own sake. Monetary gain is all very well, but it dilutes the taste of wickedness to a lower level that is obtainable by anyone with an overdeveloped sense of avarice. True and baseless evil is as rare as the purest good--and we all know how rare that is...
Greed is taking more than you need to feed. Avarice is hoarding, and stockpiling stolen, rotten goods.
When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall.
Loan sharking may mean investment and immediate solutions but desperate loan sharks, who are short of cash, abuse your rights and attack other people's home. ~ Odyssey of a Heart, Home of a Soul
Cal opened another cabinet and removed a bottle of anti-inflammatory tablets, placing them on the table in front of her along with the ice pack he snagged from the freezer.She glanced at him, suspicious. “What’s this?” “The drug I offer to all of my victims to make them more compliant. It’s ibuprofen,” he said when she glared at him. “It’ll help with the pain and hopefully keep the swelling down. As will the ice. Do you need help taking your boots off?”“So that it’ll be more difficult for me to run away when you bring out your collection of shrunken human heads?”“Now you’re catching on.
Things joined by profit, when pressed by misfortune and danger, will cast each other aside.
Corruption,' Jordan Belfort believes, 'is endemic to human being. I mean, even men in monasteries - where enticement is hard to come by – even men in those circumstances have sex with other men and abuse children. Look at the Catholic Church! Man is an imperfect animal and he is corruptible, okay? And in finance, the liquid nature of the market makes corruption very easy. On Wall Street, this liquidity is so in your face -' he suddenly grits his teeth - 'that if you have even the slightest predisposition to the dark side, you become corrupted. In addition to which, those attracted to Wall Street have a predisposition to greed.
He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have.
Said will be a little ahead, but done should follow at his heel.
Genuflection before the idol or the dollar destroys the muscles which walk and the will that moves.
Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. (Softly) Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it.
They listen to the music of idiots and amuse themselves with the sordid miseries of their businesses. They are not the things of angels or of any higher outpost that humanity might aspire to. Your loathsome vomitous businessman king is of the lowest order, his advisors crumbling mockeries of education driven by avarice. My love, dress them in the suits of mockery, and in their advanced state of stupidity and senility, burn and destroy them, so their ashes might join the compost which they so much deserve.
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