Quotes About Human Greed

#1. 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

#2. Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy.

Frederic Bastiat

#3. The state is concerned with the promotion of outward righteousness arising from the individual being constrained to keep the law. The Gospel alters human nature, whereas the state merely restrains human greed and evil, having no positive power to alter human motivation.

Alister E. McGrath

#4. Human greed
feeds a creed.

Volodymyr Knyr

#5. We already have - thanks to technology, development, skills, the efficiency of our work - enough resources to satisfy all human needs. But we don't have enough resources, and we are unlikely ever to have, to satisfy human greed.

Zygmunt Bauman

#6. There was only greed for living and dread, and out of dread, out of stupid childish dread of the cold, of loneliness, of death, two people fled to one another, kissed, embraced, rubbed cheek to cheek, put leg to leg, cast new human beings into the world. That was how it was.

Hermann Hesse

#7. Yet, there is a sense of some deep sort that runs entirely contrary to human nature; that in putting ourselves first, we must by necessity put others first.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#8. The earth has everything for all human needs, but nothing for his greed.

Mahatma Gandhi

#9. The cycle of optimism and euphoria leading to greed, fear and capitulation, giving way to hope and building back to optimism, drives the expansion and contraction of our financial world in a market cycle of collective human emotion.

Coreen T. Sol

#10. The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment's hesitation to crush beauty and life.

Rabindranath Tagore

#11. I believe in the sun. In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed and forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity.

Joy Harjo

#12. Unless the human race realizes with a passion and reverence beyond thought or words its inter-being with nature, it will destroy in its greed the very environment it is itself sustained by.

Andrew Harvey

#13. The universe appears to me like an immense, inexorable torture-garden ... Passions, greed, hatred, and lies; social institutions, justice, love, glory, heroism, and religion: these are its monstrous flowers and its hideous instruments of eternal human suffering.

Octave Mirbeau

#14. 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

#15. Joy, anger, sadness, pleasure, love, evil, greed. Where is your heart at? This world is like a furnace you temper yourself, and your character. This is the same for everyone.

Da Xia

#16. They have stolen the public lands. They have grasped all to themselves, and by their unprincipled greed brought a crisis of unparalleled distress on forty millions of people, who have natural resources to feed, clothe and shelter the whole human race.

Denis Kearney

#17. Every human being is indeed unhappy as long as he is not free from kashays.

Dada Bhagwan

#18. When the preponderance of human beings choose to act with justice and generosity and kindness, then learning and love and decency prevail. When the preponderance of human beings choose power, greed, and indifference to suffering, the world is filled with war, poverty, and cruelty.

Mary Doria Russell

#19. If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.

Henry A. Wallace

#20. Whoever coined the phrase '"I can work well under pressure" should be put on trial for crimes against Humanity.

Adriano Bulla

#21. She slammed into an invisible wall and flew back once more, landing on her back. She lay sprawled on the ground, trying to shift into her leopard form. But her enhancing Spirit held her firmly in the human body.

A.O. Peart

#22. The truth now.He was disappointed in human beings.He had seen too many betrayals,too many pitiful weaknesses,too much greed for money and fame.The falseness between lovers,husbands and wifes,fathers,sons,mothers,daughters

Mario Puzo

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

E.A. Bucchianeri

#24. The greatest need in the world is the transformation of human nature. We need a new heart that will not have lust and greed and hate in it. We need a heart filled with love and peace and joy, and that is why Jesus came into the world.

Billy Graham

#25. Fear and greed are potent motivators. When both of these forces push in the same direction, virtually no human being can resist.

Andrew Weil

#26. To make your Opinion Count,
you have to do something more
than just making Money.

Vineet Raj Kapoor

#27. God knows greed won't vanish. Neither will hatred or chauvanism. Human nature is a stubborn thing. But it isn't beyond control. Even if our core impulses can;t be banished, they can be tempered and redirected.

Robert Wright

#28. Greed is one of the hardest things for a human to hide: it always comes out in the face as a sort of hunger.

E.J. Weaver

#29. GREED AND COMPETITION ARE NOT THE RESULT OF IMMUTABLE HUMAN TEMPERMENT ... GREED AND FEAR OF SCARCITY ARE IN FACT BEING CREATED AND AMPLIFIED ... THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCE IS THAT WE HAVE TO FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER IN ORDER TO SURVIVE

Bernard Lietaer

#30. The raising of animals for food and all that it entails is the single most destructive force impacting our planet's fragile ecosystems. Our planet simply cannot sustain the greed of billions of human beings who are eating other animals.

Sharon Gannon

#31. The source of peace is within us; so also the source of war. And the real enemy is within us, and not outside. The source of war is not the existence of nuclear weapons or other arms. It is the minds of human beings who decide to push the button and to use those arms out of hatred, anger or greed.

Dalai Lama

#32. Greed is rightly considered a "deadly sin" because it erodes the moral values that encourage us to care for the common good. Greed violates the spirit of connectedness and community that is natural to human survival [...] replacing this awareness with harmful self-centeredness.

Bell Hooks

#33. The boy caught an almost imperceptible movement, the insatiable greed of maggots crawling inside human flesh.

Elif Shafak

#34. The love for material things grows like a fungus in the soul and destroys the loveliness of the human heart utterly.

Caryll Houselander

#35. Once capital becomes an idol and guides people's decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women, it destroys human fraternity, it sets people against one another and it even puts at risk our common home.

Pope Francis

#36. I saw the horrible way that people could treat each other. That may be the saddest thing of all. I saw greed and anger and murder and a total lack of concern for human life. It was a wicked side of the human soul that I saw ... and it saddened me to know that such a dark place existed.

D.J. MacHale

#37. And there can be no end to greed because man, by his very exclusive human nature, is pathologically insatiable.

Mariano Ngan

#38. As long as greed, stupidity and cowardice remain a part of the human condition, there will be a constituency for Democrats.

Jack Kelly

#39. Being a human is a great power. One can obtain everything. However, it is the greed that harasses him.

Dada Bhagwan

#40. Peace and the survival of life on earth as we know it are threatened by human activities which lack a commitment to humanitarian values. Destruction of nature and nature's resources result from ignorance, greed and lack of respect for the earth's living things.

Dalai Lama

#41. Whenever we have excess, giving should be our natural response. It should be the automatic decision, the obvious thing to do in light of Scripture and human need.

Randy Alcorn

#42. Mediation and reconciliation work is about a profound quest for justice and social transformation. But at the same time, they are about service, solidarity, about exploring and rediscovering the human spirit that has been lost or shattered through human conflict, cruelty, ignorance and greed ...

Hizkias Assefa

#43. 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

#44. If the human race would turn from its evil ways and return to God, putting behind its sins of disobedience, idolatry, pride, greed, and belligerence, and all the various aberrations that lead to war, the possibility of peace exists.

Billy Graham

#45. We need to take things personally. We need to stop putting profits above people. We need to stop putting greed above need. We need to stop putting the rule of gold above the golden rule. We need to treat people as people and not as problems.

Sharad Vivek Sagar

#46. Human nature defeats me sometimes, how greed and spite can lurk so divisively around the utmost courage and sacrifice.

Jennifer Ryan

#47. The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.

Edwin Lefevre

#48. Midnight has many children; the offspring of Independence were not all human. Violence, corruption, poverty, generals, chaos, greed and pepperpot ... I had to go into exile to learn that the children of midnight were more varied that I - even I - had dreamed.

Salman Rushdie

#49. You've certainly mellowed out ... you used to be fun, full of life and emotion. Lust, Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, and Pride. Of course, excessive want will destroy anyone, but those same desires are necessary to understand what it means to be human. Why did you rid yourself of them?

Hiromu Arakawa

#50. We have seen that in this country in the last few years, particularly on Wall Street, with the rise of the old human frailty of greed. This occurs when people begin to serve only their own needs to the detriment of everyone else.

Lee R. Raymond

#51. A Woman who let out a Sigh Outside a Mansion, should Never ask her Husband Why He Works Late

Vineet Raj Kapoor

#52. If Jackson had learned one thing over the years it was that nothing, absolutely nothing, was above corruption so long as human beings were involved, because, in truth, most people were not above the lure of the dollar or other material entitlements.

David Baldacci

#53. Capitalism satisfied the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society. Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.

Dinesh D'Souza

#54. For if nature abhors a vacuum, and greed is part of human nature, then greed too abhors a vacuum.

Moises Naim

#55. The only thing in this world more irresistible to human beings than greed is curiosity, and the need to know the answers.

Luke Smitherd

#56. Contrary to popular opinion, we are all a vast brotherhood of human beings whose very survival hinges not on what we keep, but on what we give. And it is in the giving that we not only survive to live another day, but we thrive to celebrate another day.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

#57. My soul is in a reckless way, it's seeking culture untouched by greed, it's seeking places untouched by human spirit, it's seeking places that need love, because my soul is here for love and I feel everywhere I've already been has suffocated every inch of beauty out of me.

Nikki Rowe

#58. Global commerce is driven by a single conviction: the inalienable right to earn profit, regardless of any human cost.

Barbara Kingsolver

#59. Whoever that came up with the idea of people having to have 'a dream' sure knew how to keep these creatures called human beings preoccupied.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

#60. It is strange people should be so greedy when they are alone in the world!

Emily Bronte

#61. Of all the enterprises in which the human heart engages, none lends itself more to abuse and manipulation than the activities of religion. For here, sacrifice and greed can meet in the most trusting and exploiting context.

Ravi Zacharias

#62. Careful, wolf. We don't want the human to realize how much we can eat," she chuckled, talking to him with her mind.

A.O. Peart

#63. There is no more destructive force in human affairs
not greed, not hatred
than the desire to have been right. Non-attachment to possessions is trivial when compared with non-attachment to opinions.

Mark A.R. Kleiman

#64. The only angels we need invoke are those of our better nature: reason, honesty, and love. The only demons we must fear are those that lurk inside every human mind: ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith, which is surely the devil's masterpiece.

Sam Harris

#65. We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance.

Doris "Granny D" Haddock

#66. The great thing about behavioural psychology and economics is that they help us to see that there are actually pretty good reasons why human beings swing from greed to fear, and why we're not really calculating machines or utility-maximisers.

Niall Ferguson

#67. [Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.

Aristophanes

#68. Personal greed and egoism are things that cause human beings to forget respect for others and to violate rules that have been established for the sake of peace and friendship.

Mas Oyama

#69. You have to remove your human sentiment when it comes to greed and the accumulation of wealth.

Richard Armitage

#70. Greed has been with human beings forever. We have a number of things in our species that you would call 'the dark side,' and greed is one of them. If you don't put certain structures in place or restrictions on those parts of our being that come from that dark place, then it gets out of control.

Michael Moore

#71. The human heart is greedy; it will use religion, color, or any other excuse to justify its greed. Blame the human heart.

Bono

#72. Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

Alice Walker

#73. Human dignity can be achieved only in the field of ethics, and ethical achievement is measured by the degree in which our actions are governed by compassion and love, not by greed and aggressiveness.

Arnold J. Toynbee

#74. Then the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up them.

William Shakespeare

#75. When we look into the human heart we see the lust, the greed, the hate, the pride, the anger, and the jealousies that are so destructive. This is at the heart of the human predicament, and the Scriptures call this condition sin.

Ravi Zacharias

#76. The nature of any human being, certainly anyone on Wall Street, is 'the better deal you give the customer, the worse deal it is for you'.

Bernard Madoff

#77. Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Samuel Johnson

#78. People say that the monetary system produces incentive. This may be true in limited areas, but it also produces greed, embezzlement, corruption, pollution, jealousy, anger, crime, war, poverty, tremendous scarcity, and unnecessary human suffering. You have to look at the entire picture.

Jacque Fresco

#79. Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed, overindulgence, and gluttony had to be expunged from human behavior. The solution was in self-control, in minimalism, in sparse living conditions; one simple and a brand-new dictionary filled with words everyone would understand.

Tahereh Mafi

#80. America wasn't perfect, but nothing touched by human hands could be. There was greed, corruption, selfishness, pettiness, hatred. But there were good things too. Freedoms, ideas, choices, hope and the possibility that anyone could be anything, here, if they were willing to strive for it.

Wildbow

#81. All human suffering springs from unbridled desire. Unless one extricates oneself from the clutch of greed, one will not free himself from the fetters of sorrow.

Velupillai Prabhakaran

#82. To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

Charlie Chaplin

#83. If it wasn't for good," my mother says, "we human beings would have been wiped out a long time ago. Either the monsters would have gotten us or we would have killed each other off with greed and jealousy and anger. So we have to believe in good. We have to look for the good in ourselves.

Joseph Bruchac

#84. The wonder of life is in the miracle of life. There is spectacle, there is awe and there is incredulity. The blunder of life is in the greediness of Man from Abel and Cain to the City of Sodom and concurrently to the conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Anthony Pan

#85. When the human being says:
'It is not true ... '
He may mean:
'I don't know about it, so I think it is untrue.'
Or:
'I don't like it.

Idries Shah

#86. The most pitiful human ailment is a birdseed heart.

Wilson Mizner

#87. It is greed that makes us human as it could be for good or bad.

Zaman Ali

#88. 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

#89. Did the dead still want things? Or was death simply a letting go of all that is held so tightly in life - an understanding of the temporal and shallow nature of the human matters of possession, greed, desire, justice?

Lisa Wingate

#90. When the world was young, the gods and goddesses birthed the angels, Joy and Greed, Beauty and Empathy and Sorrow, Fear and Fury, sparks of humanity. To feel emotion, therefore, to be human,
is to be a child of the gods.

Marie Lu

#91. Human beings are very complex creatures. This desire, this greed, this love is very complex.

Yash Chopra