Quotes About Greed

Contemporary Christians have declared war on individual immorality but seem remarkably silent about the evil of systems, especially corporate greed and malfeasance. (p. 176)

The old teachings recognized that Windigo nature is in each of us, so the monster was created in stories, that we might learn why we should recoil from the greedy part of ourselves. This is why Anishnaabe elders like Stewart King remind us to always acknowledge the two faces—the light and the dark side of life—in order to understand ourselves. See the dark, recognize its power, but do not feed it.

Maybe we've all been banished to lonely corners by our obsession with private property. We've accepted banishment even from ourselves when we spend our beautiful, utterly singular lives on making more money, to buy more things that feed but never satisfy. It is the Windigo way that tricks us into believing that belongings will fill our hunger, when it is belonging that we crave.

Who could put a match to money?

Pleasure is the carrot dangled to lead the ass to market or the precipice.

I learned that ruling poor men's hands is nothing. Ruling men's money's a wedge in the world. But after I'd split it open a crack I looked in and saw the trick inside it, the filthy nothing, the fooled and rotten faces of rich and successful men.

All our friends were rich and they worried about having the most, spending the most, trying to figure out how it could make them the best. They trusted no one. You know that silly saying, he who dies with the most toys wins? I think for a lot of people it's actually true.

Evil can do anything, for a price.

Money, power, sex ... and elephants.

Greed is an appetite that looks largely to some imagined or feared future.

a grand explosion of culturally sanctioned greed. Presents, presents, presents.

a grand explosion of culturally sanctioned greed. Presents, presents, presents. They

And he saw Thire, in a helmet with bright crimson flares. He was searching for something. And with him was another presence—one that felt like a vast storm in the Force, full of malice and greed. Troubled, Yoda opened his eyes.

Money has no religion except itself.

the new world, the communo-bourgeois, sermonizing, Tartuffian, automobilistic, alcoholic, gluttonous and cancerous world has only two anxieties: ass and bank account...

Need and desire have no connection,' I said. 'Many people desire things they do not need. Happiness can be measured by what one does not need, but often to see is to want.

What we have most to fear, I believe, are those within our own borders who think less of country than of themselves, who are ambitious for money, for power, for land. Some of these men would subvert anything, anything at all, my dear sir, for their own profit. They would even twist the laws of their own country in their desire to acquire wealth or power.

when one has possessions he is as often possessed by them as possessing them.

Need and desire have no connection," I said. "Many people desire things they do not need. Happiness can be measured by what one does not need, but often to see is to want.

Many people desire things they do not need.

And I can get my own phone, said Leslie, with unlimited text messaging! And I can get my car fixed, I said. Or maybe even a new car. Or a new house that already has a swimming pool, said Leslie. And a hot tub, I said. And a game room, and a pool table, said Leslie. And a giant TV with surround sound, and every kind of video game. And, and, and... That's the trouble with money.

Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants…

It does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants

Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on without it any more than we can without potatoes. Tommy