#greed

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it. ↗

— Maya Angelou

#between #fine #fine line #greedy #life

There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murder in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#greed #money #murder #poison #men

If I found money, I’d turn it in—for the reward. Unless the reward money was less than the value of the money I found, and obviously it would be, in which case I’d keep the money. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#greedy #lost #money #reward #value

Gold conjures up a mist about a man, more destructive of all his old senses and lulling to his feelings than the fumes of charcoal. ↗

— Charles Dickens

#greed #money #money

Why is it that so many people think all the answers are in their wallet? ↗

— Stephen King

#money #money

The problem: If you've an antique for sale, then, sad to relate, the world isn't your oyster. It's not that easy. Even if somebody gives you the National Gallery, your options are still very, very limited. Okay, you can sell the Old Masters, set up a trust, buy your favorite brewery. But that's strictly it. You're limited by honesty on one hand and law - that hobble of sanity - on the other. ↗

— Jonathan Gash

#greed #greedy #law #lovejoy #money

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

#economics #greed #vice #art

I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#criminal-justice-system #cycle-of-violence #desperation #greed #homelessness

Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society.... To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#evil #greed #objectivism #greed

The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment. ↗

— Confucius

#consumerism #greed #materialism #profit #greed