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GRAVEYARDS
GREATNESS --- GREED

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GRAVE(YARDS)

see: "DEATH" for related links

Photograph: The graveyard of Trinity Church in NYC.


A few words upon a tombstone, and the
truth of those not to be depended on.
--Christian Nestell Bovee (1820—1904)
American writer.
_Intuitions and Summaries of Thought_ [1862]

The grave being, I suspect, the sole commonwealth which attains
that dead flat of social equality that life in its every principle so
heartily abhors.
--Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803—1873)
British novelist and politician.
_The Caxtons: A Family Picture_ [1867]

On a gravestone, every life is contained on the little dash
between two dates. That is humbling. It puts our passions
and disappointments in perspective. It reminds us to trust
in a power more abiding than our own.
--Forrest Church (1948—2009)
American theologian and author.
Sermon, "Return of the Native" [10 November 2002]

Belgium has only one real claim to fame. Thanks to all the wars
that have been fought on its soil, there are more dead people
there than anywhere else in the world. So, while there's no
quality of life in Belgium, there is a simply wonderful quality
of death.
--Jeremy Clarkson (b. 1960)
British journalist and broadcaster.
In "Sunday Times" [18 July 1999].

A few days after Fort Sumter, Lee left his house
on the hill and never went back to it. And within
a few more days it was a camp and then a
graveyard. The Secretary of War, to whom Lee
had written a note rejecting the Northern
command, saw to it that no one would want to
live there again. He ordered that soldiers' graves
should be planted close to the house. Later the
place was confiscated by the government and
became a military cemetery. It is now Arlington,
the national military cemetery.
--Alistair Cooke [Alfred Cooke] (1908—2004)
British-born American broadcater and journalist.
_America_ [1973]

... even if he had one foot in the grave.
--according to Desiderius Erasmus, Julian, as cited by Pomponius.

Go to the dull churchyard and see
Those hillocks of mortality.
Where proudest man is only found
By a small swelling in the ground.
--Thomas Flatman (1637—1688)
English poet and miniature painter.
_A Doomsday Thought_ [1659]

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
--Thomas Gray (1716—1771)
English poet.
"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" [pub. 1751]

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal;
love leaves a memory no one can steal.
--from a headstone in Ireland.

^

Charles Lamb (1775—1834)
British essayist, poet, and literary critic.

When Charles Lamb was little more than a
toddler, his sister, Mary, took him for a walk
in the graveyard. The precocious little boy
read the laudatory epitaphs on the tomb-
stones, commemorating the deceased as
'virtuous,' 'charitable,' 'beloved,' and so on.
As they came away, he asked, 'Mary, where
are all the naughty people buried?'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

The consumer's side of the coffin lid is never ostentatious.
--Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909—1966)
Polish writer.
_Unkempt Thoughts_ [1962]

-

The grave itself is but a covered bridge,
Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"The Golden Legend" [1851]


In the village churchyard she lies,
Dust is in her beautiful eyes,
No more she breathes, nor feels, nor stirs;
At her feet and at her head
Lies a slave to attend the dead,
But their dust is white as hers.

Was she a lady of high degree,
So much in love with the vanity
And foolish pomp of this world of ours?
Or was it Christian charity,
And lowliness and humility,
The richest and rarest of all dowers?

Who shall tell us? No one speaks;
No color shoots into those cheeks,
Either of anger or of pride,
At the rude question we have asked;
Nor will the mystery be unmasked
By those who are sleeping at her side.

Hereafter?—And do you think to look
On the terrible pages of that Book
To find her failings, faults, and errors?
Ah, you will then have other cares,
In your own short-comings and despairs,
In your own secret sins and terrors!

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"In the Churchyard at Cambridge" in _Birds of Passage_ [1858].


We give to each a tender thought, and pass
Out of graveyards with their tangled grass.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
"Morituri Salutamus" [1875]

-

We should teach our children to think no more of their bodies
when dead than they do of their hair when it is cut off, or of
their old clothes when they have done with them.
--George MacDonald (1824—1905)
Scottish writer and poet.
_Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood_ [1867]

In 1610, an unlikely monument to pi was built in Holland.
A tombstone in the graveyard of Peter's Church in Leiden
was supposedly engraved with the numbers 2-8-8,
representing the 33rd through 35th digits of pi, calculated
by the mathematician who spent his last 14 years expanding
pi to 35 digits.
--Bruce Watson
_Smithsonian Magazine_

There'll be two dates on your tombstone
And all your friends will read 'em
But all that's gonna matter is
That little dash between 'em.
--Kevin Welch (b. 1955)
American singer and songwriter.
"Pushing Up Daisies" in album _Life Down Here On Earth_ [1995].

--

Dad and young son were in a cemetary looking at headstones.
The boy says, "Why do they bury two people in a grave, Daddy?"
The daddy says, "Don't be ridiculous, son. They don't do that."
"But Daddy," replied the boy, "it says right here, here lies so-
and-so, a lawyer and an honest man."

-----

sarcophagus (noun) [sahr-'kah-fκ-gκs]
An above-ground stone or marble coffin, often
decorated with sculpture and inscriptions.



GREATNESS

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see: "HONOR"
see: "POWER"
see: "REPUTATION"
see: "TALENT"
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


It is easy to believe that life is long and one's gifts are vast
— easy at the beginning, that is. But as the limits of life grow
more evident; it becomes clear that great work can be done
rarely, if at all.
--Alfred Adler (1870—1937)
Austrian psychologist.
_New Yorker_ [19 February 1972]

I've often said, the only thing standing between me and greatness is me.
--Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg] (b. 1935)
American actor, screenwriter, and director.
Quoted in Renee Evenson
_Award-Winning Customer Service_, p, 134 [2007].

A really great man is known by three signs: Generosity
in the design, humanity in the execution, and moderation
in success.
--Otto von Bismarck (1815—1898)
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 1862—1890.
He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and
became the first Chancellor 1871—1890 of the German Empire.
Quoted in Charles Edward Bolton
_Travels in Europe and America_, p. 168 [1903].

Mountains appear more lofty the nearer they are
approached; but great men, to retain their altitude,
must only be viewed from a distance.
--Marguerite Blessington (1789—1849)
Irish novelist and poet.
_Desultory Thoughts and Reflections_, p. 43 [1839]

Greatness, after all, in spite of its name, appears to be
not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human
lives. It may be present in lives whose range is very
small.
--Phillips Brooks (1835—1893)
American religious leader.
_Sermons_ [1878]

He who ascends to mountaintops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow;
He who surpasses or subdues mankind,
Must look down on the hate of these below.
--Lord Byron [George Gordon Byron] (1788—1824)
English Romantic poet and satirist.
"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" [1818]

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his
own littleness than disbelief in great men.
--Thomas Carlyle (1795—1881)
Scottish historian and political philosopher.
_On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_, Lecture 1 [1841]

The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible
resolution, who resists the sorest temptations from within
and without, who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully,
who is calmest in storms and most fearless under menace
and frowns, whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God,
is most unfaltering.
--William Ellery Channing (1780—1842)
American Unitarian clergyman and author.
"Self-Culture", address delivered in Boston [September 1838].

Physical courage, which despises all danger, will
make a man brave in one way; and moral courage,
which despises all opinion, will make a man brave
in another. The former would seem most necessary
for the camp, the latter for the council; but to
constitute a great man, both are necessary.
--C.C. Colton (1780—1832)
English clergyman and writer.
_Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words_, CLXV [1820]

Man is only great when he acts from his passions.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Coningsby_, bk. 4, ch. 13 [1844]

The defects of great men are the consolation of dunces.
--Isaac D'Israeli (1766—1848)
English author and the father of Benjamin Disraeli.
_Literary Character of Men of Genius, Drawn from
Their Own Feelings and Confessions_ [1795]

You are not judged by the height you have
risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
--Frederick Douglass [Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey] (c.1818—1895)
American abolitionist, reformer, and writer.
_Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_ [1881]

Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre
minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not
thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and
courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express
the results of his thoughts in clear form.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Letter to Morris Raphael Cohen [19 March 1940].

-

Nothing is more simple than greatness;
indeed, to be simple is to be great.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
"Literary Ethics" Speech at Dartmouth College [24 July 1838].


It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it
is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man
is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect
sweetness the independence of solitude.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Essays: First Series_ [1841] "Self-Reliance"


A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul
has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his
shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and
to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though
it contradict every thing you said to-day. - 'Ah, so you shall be sure to
be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?
Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther,
and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise
spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Essays: First Series_ [1841] "Self-Reliance"

-

It is a grand mistake to think of being
great without goodness; and I pronounce
it is certain that there was never yet a
truly great man that was not at the same
time truly virtuous.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
"The Busy-Body Papers" in the _American Weekly Mercury_ [18 February 1729].

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not
cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the
greatness which does not bow before children.
--Kahlil Gibran (1883—1931)
Lebanese poet.
Quoted in _The Wisdom of Gibran: Aphorisms and Maxims_ [Bantam Books, 1973].

A man does not attain the status of Galileo merely
because he is persecuted; he must also be right.
--Stephen Jay Gould (1941—2002)
American palaeontologist.
_Ever Since Darwin_ [1977]

There are no great men, only great challenges that
ordinary men are forced by circumstances to meet.
--William F. ("Bull") Halsey (1882—1959)
American naval commander who led campaigns in the Pacific during WWII.
In Thomas A. Bailey _Presidential Greatness: The Image and
the Man from George Washington to the Present_ [1966].

The greatest truths are the simplest: and so are the greatest men.
--Augustus William Hare (1792—1834)
English biographer and compiler of travel books.
_Guesses at Truth_ [1827] (Co-written with brother Julius)

The world's great men have not commonly been
great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858]

COMTE DE VERGENNES: You replace Mr. [Benjamin]
Franklin [as minister to France]?
JEFFERSON: I succeed him; no one could replace him.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
(In 1785.)

The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can
embrace equally great things and small. I would have
a man great in great things, and elegant in little things.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 217 [15th ed. 1894].

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_A Psalm of Life_ [1838] "Voices of the Night"

The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
To count as naught in World, or Church, or State,
But inwardly in secret to be great.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.
"Jeffries Wyman" [1874]

If any man seeks for greatness, let him
forget greatness and ask for truth, and
he will find both.
--Horace Mann (1796—1859)
American educator.
_Journal_ [29 October 1838]

The great man is he who does not lose his child's heart.
--Mencius (c. 372 BC — c. 289 BC)
Chinese philosopher.
_Works_, bk. IV, pt. II, ch. XII

By a certain fate, great acts, and great eloquence have most
commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honoring each
other in the same ages.
--John Milton (1608—1674)
English poet.
_The History of England_, bk II [1670]

We will find in the lives of men who have done anything,
of those whom we call great men, that it is this spirit of
adventure, the call of the unknown, that has lured and
urged them along on their course ... All of us are explorers
in life, whatever trail we follow ... It is the explorers with
the true spirit of adventure we now need if humanity
shall really overcome the present difficulties ... Ah, youth.
What a glorious word! Unknown realms ahead of you,
hidden behind the mists of the morning. As you move
on, new islands appear, mountain summits shoot up
through the peering mists, one behind another, waiting
for you to climb; dense new forests unfold for you to
explore, free boundless plains for you to traverse.
--Fridtjof Nansen (1861—1930)
Norwegian polar explorer.
Speech on being installed as Rector of the University of Aberdeen [November 1926].

To vilify a great man is the readiest way
in which a little man can himself attain
greatness.
--Edgar Allan Poe (1809—1849)
American poet and short-story writer.
Quoted in John H. Ingram
_The Works of Edgar Allan Poe_ [3rd ed., 1883], vol. III "Marginalia".

Great souls attract sorrows as mountains do storms.
--Jean Paul Richter (1763—1825)
German novelist.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 217 [15th ed. 1894].

We can't all be heroes because somebody has
to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.
--attributed to Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some
generations much is given. Of others much is expected.
This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with
destiny.
--Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882—1945)
American Democratic statesman and President [1933—1945].
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic Party National
Convention [June 1936].

Great souls suffer in silence.
--Friedrich von Schiller (1759—1805)
German poet, historian, and dramatist.
_Don Carlos_, I. 4. 52 [c. 1783—1787]

Of all the vices drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
Quoted in "Manford's Magazine" Vol XXXIV [1890].

-

But be not afraid of greatness. Some are born
great, some achieve greatness, and some have
greatness thrust upon 'em.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Twelfth Night_, II, v [1601]

& note:

Some are born great, some achieve greatness,
and some hire public relations officers.
--Daniel J. Boorstin (1914—2004)
American historian.
Attributed in Connie Robertson
_Book of Humorous Quotations_, p. 29 [1998].

-

Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [October 1706]

The love of glory can only create a great hero;
the contempt of it creates a great man.
--Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Pιrigord (1754—1838)
French statesman.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou
_Treasury of Thought_ p. 203 [15th ed. 1894].

-

There is no greatness where there is
not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
--Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910)
Russian novelist.
_War and Peace_, pt. 14, ch. 18 [1869]


In historical events great men — so-called — are but labels
serving to give a name to the event, and like labels, they have
the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action
of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free-will, is
in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the
whole course of previous history, and predestined from all
eternity.
--Leo Tolstoy (1828—1910)
Russian novelist.
_War and Peace_, pt. 9, ch. I [1869]

-



Click picture to ZOOM
GREED

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see: "DESIRE'
see: "EXCESS"
see: "MONEY" for other related links


If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master.
The covetous man cannot so properly be said to
possess wealth, as that may be said to possess
him.
--attributed to Lord Bacon by Alexander Anderson in
_Laconics: or Instructive Miscellanies_[1827].
--attributed to Charron by John Timbs in _Laconics:
Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors_ [1829].
(Francis Bacon (1561—1626) English philosopher and essayist.
Pierre Charron (1541—1603) French moralist.)

A frenzy seized my soul ... Piles of gold rose up before me
... castles of marble, thousands of slaves ... myriads of fair
virgins contending with each other for my love — were among
the fancies of my fevered imagination. The Rothschilds,
Girards, and Astors appeared to be but poor people; in short,
I had a very violent attack of gold fever.
--Hubert Howe Bancroft [1849]
in M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_ [2004] pp. 578-9.
Cohan & Major explain:
The Rothschilds were European bankers of legendary wealth.
The American financiers Stephen Girard (1750—1831) and John
Jacob Astor (1763—1848) made their initial fortunes in trade.
On 24 Jan. 1848 gold was found in California, triggering a gold
rush that drew tens of thousands of prospectors into the state.

Greed is all right. Greed is healthy. You can
be greedy and still feel good about yourself.
--Ivan F. Boesky (b. 1937)
American businessman.
Commencement address at University of California, Berkeley [18 May 1986].
(That November Boesky was charged by the SEC with
insider trading and was subsequently sentenced to prison.)

What the object of senile avarice may be I cannot conceive.
For can there be anything more absurd than to seek more
journey money, the less there remains of the journey?
--Marcus Tullius Cicero (106—43 BC)
Roman orator and statesman.
"On Old Age," Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh (tr.) in _ Charles William
Eliot (ed.) _The Harvard Classics_ vol. IX, pt. 2. [1909—1914].

No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time.
As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights
and become discontented with power and possessions that
once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And
even when the external world has granted all it can, there
still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of
the heart.
--Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917—2008)
English science-fiction writer.
_Childhood's End_ [1953], pt. II "The Golden Age," ch. 8

To do all the talking and not be willing to listen is a form of greed.
--attributed to Democritus of Abdera (c. 460 B.C.—c. 370 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

I kept on digging the hole deeper and deeper looking for
the treasure chest until I finally lifted my head, looked up
and realized that I had dug my own grave.
--attributed to Saint Dominic [born Dominic de Guzmαn ] (c. 1170—1221)
Spanish theologian.

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying
what is, with thoughts of what may be.
--John Dryden (1631—1700)
English poet, critic, and dramatist.
Quoted in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 56 [1908 ed.].

To be content with little is difficult;
to be content with much, impossible.
--Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830—1916)
Austrian writer.
_Aphorisms_ [1893], as quoted in Carol Turkington _The Quotable Woman_ [2000].

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers.
This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly
by the Americans themselves.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist.
Quoted in George Sylvester Viereck _Glimpses Of The Great_ [1930].

Nothing is enough for him to
whom enough is too little.
--Epicurus (341—270 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
Attributed in "The Quarterly Review" [January 1897].

But the music that excels is the sound of oil wells
As they slurp, slurp, slurp into the barrels
I want an old-fashioned house
With an old-fashioned fence
And an old-fashioned millionaire.
--Marve Fisher
American songwriter,
'An Old-Fashioned Girl" [1954 song]

But the eyes of other people are the eyes that ruin us.
If all but myself were blind, I should want neither fine
clothes, fine houses, nor fine furniture.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
In a 1784 letter to Benjamin Vaughan as quoted in
_The Life and Miscellaneous Writings of Benjamin Franklin_ [1839].

What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem
of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under
which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of
a system.
--Milton Friedman (1912—2006)
American laissez-faire economist; winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Economics.
Attributed in Connie Robertson
_The Wordsworth Dictionary of Quotations_ [3rd ed., 1998].
Note: A similar thought is contained in Friedman's
_Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest_ [1983].

He is not poor that hath not much, but he that craves much.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
_Gnomologia_ [1732]

There is enough in this world for everyone's
need, but not enough for everyone's greed.
--attributed to Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule.

Those who give not till they die show that they
would not then if they could keep it any longer.
--Joseph Hall (1574—1656)
English bishop, moral philosopher, and satirist.
Attributed in _The Columbian Star and Christian Index, vol. 1-2 [1829].

The covetous man is ever in want.
--Horace [Quintus Horatius Flaccus] (65—8 BC)
Roman poet.
_Epistles_, book I, epistle ii, l. 56

-

It is observed of gold, by an old epigrammatist,
'that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it,
to be in sorrow.'
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
_The Rambler_ # 131 [18 June 1751]
(English twice-weekly journal 1750-52)


Our desires always increase with our possessions.
The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed
impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
[26 June 1753] issue of _The Adventurer_ (pub. 1752-59).

-

Never in the history of the world have so many people been
so rich; never in the history of the world have so many of
those same people felt themselves so poor.
--Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
American syndicated newspaper columnist and author.
_Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion_ [1988]

Say not you know another entirely, till you
have divided an inheritance with him.
--Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741—1801)
Swiss writer, Protestant pastor, and founder of physiognomics.
_Aphorisms on Man_, no. 157 [1788]

I'll be sick tonight.
(In reply to his mother's warning, 'You'll be
sick tomorrow,' when stuffing himself with
cakes at tea.) [ODTQ]
--Jack Llewelyn-Davies (1894—1959),
in Andrew Birkin _J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys_ [1979].

^

Ferenc Molnαr (1878—1952)
Hungarian dramatist and novelist.

When Molnαr was living in a hotel in Vienna
during the 1920s, a large contingent of his
relatives came to see him in the hope of
sharing some of the fruits of the playwright's
fabulous success. They were prepared for a
hostile reception, but to their surprise Molnαr
greeted them kindly, even insisting that they
all sit for a group portrait to mark the occasion.
The print ready, Molnαr presented it to the
hotel doorman. 'And whenever you see any
of the persons in the picture trying to get
into the hotel, don't let them in.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]

^

It is not want, but rather abundance, that creates avarice.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ (Essays), no. 40 [pub. 1580—1588].

The things which belong to others please us more, and
that which is ours, is more pleasing to others.
--Publilius Syrus (85—43 B.C.)
Latin writer of mimes who was originally a slave.
Quoted in D.E. Macdonnel _A Dictionary of Quotations
in Most Frequent Use_ [7th ed., 1829].


Lately in a wreck of a Californian ship, one of the
passengers fastened by a belt about him with two
hundred pounds of gold in it, with which he was
found afterward at the bottom. Now, as he was
sinking — had he the gold? or had the gold him?
--John Ruskin (1819—1900)
English art and social critic.
"Unto This Last" in _The Cornhill Magazine_ [November 1860].

& note:

I have heard of the stewardess of an American vessel,
who, when the ship was sinking, saw heaps of gold coin
scattered upon the cabin floor by those who had thrown
it there in the confusion of their escape. She gathered
up large quantities of it, wrapped it round her waist,
and leaped into the water. She sank like a millstone,
as though she had studiously prepared herself for
destruction.
--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834—1892)
English nonconformist preacher.
_The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit: Sermons Preached and Revised_ [1877]

-

Not he who has little, but he who wishes for more, is poor.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistulae morales ad Lucilium_ [c. 65 A.D.]


He that visits the sick, in hopes of a legacy, let
him be ever so friendly in all other cases, I
look upon him in this to be no better than a
raven, that watches a weak sheep only to peck
out the eyes of it.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.—65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.
_Epistulae morales ad Lucilium_ [c. 65 A.D.]

-

-

All that glisters is not gold,
Often have you heard that told.
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold.
Gilded tombs do worms infold.
Had you been as wise as bold,
Young in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been enscrolled.
Fare you well. Your suit is cold.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_The Merchant of Venice_, II, vii, [1596]


Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself
Are much condemned to have an itching palm.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Julius Caesar_, IV, iii [1599]

-

Among the many other questions raised by the
nebulous concept of 'greed' is why it is a term
applied almost exclusively to those who want
to earn more money or want to keep what they
have already earned — never to those wanting to
take other people's money in taxes or to those
wishing to live on the largess dispensed from
some taxation.
--Thomas Sowell (b. 1930)
American economist and author.
_The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy_ [1996]

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants, by
lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our
feet when we want shoes.
--Jonathan Swift (1667—1745)
Anglo-Irish poet and satirist.
_Thoughts on Various Subjects_ [1711]

^

A lady sitting next to Anthony Trollope at dinner observed that
he helped himself liberally from every dish that was offered to
him. 'You seem to have a very good appetite, Mr. Trollope,'
she remarked, rather impertinently. 'None at all, madam,' he
replied, 'but, thank God, I am very greedy.'
--_The Folio Book of Humorous Anecdotes_
Introduced by Edward Leeson [2005], "Food, Drink and Entertaining"

^

You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
--attributed to Steven Wright (b. 1955)
American writer and actor.

It is expected that a strict and severe enquiry will immediately
be made into the means by which gentlemen returning from
India have acquired such monstrous and outgrown fortunes. ...
It must end in bringing the plunderers of the East to that
condign punishment which, to the disgrace of the national
character, has so long been withheld from them.
--"The Public Advertiser" fulminates against 'nabobs' [3 December 1774]

$33,000
Average amount added to their pay the American
worker estimates would make them happier in their
current jobs, according to a survey by Gallup.
--blurb in _Las Vegas Business Press_ [28 August 2006]

-----

cupidity [kyoo-PID-uh-tee], noun:
Eager or excessive desire, especially for wealth; greed; avarice.

esurient [ih-SUR-ee-uhnt; -ZUR-], adjective:
Hungry; voracious; greedy.

philistinism (noun)
A desire for wealth and material possessions with
little interest in ethical or spiritual matters.

rapacious (adj.)
Greedy and grasping, especially for money, and sometimes willing
to use unscrupulous means to obtain what is desired.


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