#greed

Pah…commoners, traders." Ergus made a disparaging gesture. Traders with money, Ergus. Money they put at the disposition of young Tanahkos," Lmachdan said in a dry tone. "Money that turns into soldiers. Soldiers who are used to extort tribute from us. Tribute that is turned into more soldiers. The warlord has a good thing going, I'll say that for him. ↗

— Andrew Ashling

#greed #nobles #paying-taxes #power #rich-men

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

#money

I can’t do that,” he said, exhaling sharply and staring out the glass into the street. “Why not?” His face softened. “I need his money.” Spencer looked at me and I couldn’t help but stare back. We were all in the same boat, prisoners to GREED. ↗

— Fisher Amelie

#sophie #spencer #vain #money

Now there was great rejoicing at the rumor of Alderic's quest, for all folk knew that he was a cautious man, and they deemed that he would succeed and enrich the world, and they rubbed their hands in the cities at the thought of largesse; and there was joy among all men in Alderic's country, except perchance among the lenders of money, who feared they would soon be paid. And there was rejoicing also because men hoped that when the Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, they would shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains that bound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to the moon, from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged. There was little love for the Gibbelins, though all men envied their hoard. ("The Hoard Of The Gibbelins") ↗

— Lord Dunsany

#fantasy #greed #heroic-fantasy #loans #money-lender

The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. ↗

— Matt Taibbi

#greed #money #power #money

You ever get the feeling the world's filling up with bastards? I do. What I want to know is what happens when all the bastards run out of people to crap on? What happens when all that's left in the world is bastards? . . . The golden rule. Screw unto others before they screw unto you. ↗

— William Hoffman

#human-nature #misanthropy #nature

There is something about wills which brings out the worst side of human nature. People who under ordinary circumstances are perfectly upright and amiable, go as curly as corkscrews and foam at the mouth, whenever they hear the words 'I devise and bequeath. ↗

— Dorothy L. Sayers

#wills #nature

It’s true: greed has had a very bad press. I frankly don’t see anything wrong with greed. I think that the people who are always attacking greed would be more consistent with their position if they refused their next salary increase. I don’t see even the most Left-Wing scholar in this country scornfully burning his salary check. In other words, "greed" simply means that you are trying to relieve the nature given scarcity that man was born with. Greed will continue until the Garden of Eden arrives, when everything is superabundant, and we don’t have to worry about economics at all. We haven’t of course reached that point yet; we haven’t reached the point where everybody is burning his salary increases, or salary checks in general. ↗

— Murray N. Rothbard

#economics #greed #nature

It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense. ↗

— E.A. Bucchianeri

#common-sense #curiosity #deadly-sins #faults #gold

You still could go to some industry or some university or the government and if you could persuade them you had something on the ball—why, then, they might put up the cash after cutting themselves in on just about all of the profits. And, naturally, they'd run the show because it was their money and all you had done was the sweating and the bleeding. ↗

— Clifford D. Simak

#corporate-greed #finance #government-financing #grants #rights