#greed

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

Republicans stand for raw, unbridled evil and greed and ignorance smothered in balloons and ribbons. ↗

— Frank Zappa

#republicans #greed

Yahweh: You've been unhappy because you've desired things that cannot be. Lucifer: That's what desire IS. The need for what we can't have. The need for what's readily available is called greed. ↗

— Mike Carey

#god #lucifer #yahweh #greed

I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy. ↗

— Warren Buffett

#greed #rich #wall-street #greed

What I saw next stopped me dead in my tracks. Books. Not just one or two dozen, but hundreds of them. In crates. In piles on the floor. In bookcases that stretched from floor to ceiling and lined the entire room. I turned around and around in a slow circle, feeling as if I'd just stumbled into Ali Baba's cave. I was breathless, close to tears, and positively dizzy with greed. ↗

— Jennifer Donnelly

#library #readers #greed

We have always known that heedless self interest was bad morals, we now know that it is bad economics. ↗

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

#greed #greed

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

Greed is a fat demon with a small mouth and whatever you feed it is never enough. ↗

— Janwillem van de Wetering

#greed

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#government #greed #national-troubles #problems #problems-in-the-world