GREED • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Greed

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Greed

noun

Excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than one needs or deserves.

Reprehensible acquisitiveness; insatiable desire for wealth (personified as one of the deadly sins). Synonyms: avarice, avaritia, covetousness, rapacity.

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"Greed" Quotes from Famous Books

... selfish speculations, I found the same relief as in debauch and excess. The Phantom was invisible; but these pursuits soon became to me distasteful as the rest. Ever and ever I felt that I was born for something nobler than the greed of gain,—that life may be made equally worthless, and the soul equally degraded by the icy lust of avarice, as by the noisier passions. A higher ambition never ceased to torment me. But, but," continued Glyndon, with a whitening lip ...

— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... exaggeration to describe the flesh of a rich man as the flesh of a human being. But he does rage with genius at the continual eating of men that went on in England, especially after the spoliation of the monasteries in the reign of Henry the Eighth gave full scope to the greed of the strong. He sees that the England which Whig and Tory combined to defend as the perfection of the civilized world in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an England governed by men whose chief claim to govern was founded on the ...

— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... is the 'cultured' class. But most of them seem to me like artistic undertakers officiating at the 'wake' of Life. With their platitudes, their prudery, and their chastity, they make for death. These languid ones desire to have life served up to them in many courses. Greed lies at the bottom of their being, and so they preach content to the masses, though for the workers they have nothing in their shallow souls but contempt. This cultured leisure class has had the time and cunning to perpetrate ...

— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood

... introduce democratic ideals, but to preserve and entrench them by courageous adaptation to new conditions. Educated leadership sets bulwarks against both the passionate impulses of the mob and the sinister designs of those who would subordinate public welfare to private greed. Lord Bacon's splendid utterance still rings true: "The learning of the few is despotism; the learning of the many is liberty. And intelligent and principled liberty is fame, wisdom ...

— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... beatitude of him whose cachinations are latest comes handy to me just now, and I must remind you that "I told you so." True enough, it was history pure and simple that I had in mind while enjoying the large hospitality of your gulf-side home. Gaspard Roussillon's letter then appealed to my greed for materials which would help along the making of my little book "The Story of Louisiana." Later, however, as my frequent calls upon you for both documents and suggestions have informed you, I fell to strumming a different guitar. And now to you I dedicate this historical ...

— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

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