quotations about avarice
Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and Statesmen
For avarice begins where poverty ends.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Lost Illusions
To me avarice seems not so much a vice as a deplorable piece of madness.
THOMAS BROWNE
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
Avarice is as destitute of what it has, as what it has not.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Sententiae
Vile avarice and pride, from Heaven accurst,
In all are ill, but in a church-man worst.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER
Doomsday: The Sixth Hour
Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because nothing can be gained from him.
VOLTAIRE
Philosophical Dictionary
If you would abolish avarice, you must abolish its mother, luxury.
CICERO
De Oratore
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,
I think I must take up with avarice.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
This body of ours shattered by our avarice is like a worn out lute, fastened by arteries resembling the wires, but emitting no pleasing sound.
VALMIKI
The Yoga-vasishtha-maharamayana of Valmiki
Avarice fills its purse at the expense of its belly.
THOMAS CHANDLER HALIBURTON
attributed, Forty Thousand Quotations, Prose and Poetical
The avaricious man is good to no one, but he is worst of all to himself.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Sententiae
Avarice is the father of unsatisfied desires.
YORUBA
attributed, Day's Collacon
Poverty wants much, but avarice everything.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
Sententiae
Avarice is ever poor.
AURELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON
letter to Mr. Holt, October 19, 1778
Tell me, can the hateful chain be broken?
Production and consumption define our hollow lives
Avarice has led us 'cross the ocean
Toward a land that's better, much more bountiful and wide
So when will mankind finally come to realize
His surfeit has become his demise?
BAD RELIGION
"How Much Is Enough?"
Avarice, sphincter of the heart.
MATTHEW GREEN
The Spleen
Expel avarice, the mother of all wickedness, who, always thirsty for more, opens wide her jaws for gold.
CLAUDIAN
De Consulatu Stilichonis
Avarice is only prudence and economy pushed to excess.
HORACE SMITH
The Tin Trumpet
Avarice is like holding a penny so close to my eye that it blocks out the sun, blocks out the light of love and concern for others. If there is any joy in things that cannot be shared, it is fleeting at best. You really can't share stinginess.
WESLEY W. HINTON
"How Much Is Enough?", Preaching Through the Year of Luke