David Starr Jordan Quotes

There is something about prosperity that brings out the worst in some people.

People who are hard, grasping and always ready to take advantage of their neighbors become very rich.

Though we take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewel left; you cannot bereave him of his covetousness.

Some people's measure of success is how much they can grab hold of and hold on to.

Mr. Greed, why do you have to own everything that you see?

Greed is the assumption that it is all for my consumption.

....I understood why those who had lived through war or economic disasters, and who had built for themselves a good life and a high standard of living, were rightly proud to be able to provide for their children those things which they themselves had not had. And why their children, inevitably, took those things for granted. It meant that new values and new expectations had crept into our societies along with new standards of living. Hence the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle of so many young people in the Western world, especially in the United States.

For white men, to live is to own, or to try to own more, or to die trying to own more. Their appetites are astonishing! They own wardrobes, slaves, carriages, houses, warehouses, and ships. They own ports, cities, plantations, valleys, mountains, chains of islands. They own this world, its jungles, its skies, and its seas. Yet they complain that Dejima is a prison. They complain they are not free.

I'm not technically rich, but I do have a lot of s**t that I don't need, that I refuse to share with others.

I think that money is the root of all evil. I've seen it happen.

There is a number among us, young and old, of all sorts almost among us, that swarm up and down towns, and woods, and fields, whose care and work hitherto hath been like bees, only to get honey to their own hive.

Money is evil.

Where does it stop? You get offered money for your wedding, then for your kids, new houses, holidays... We earn enough from football and sponsorships, why do you need any more?

Avarice, the spur of industry.

Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism.

As human beings, we're very materialistic and have all this stuff - furs and cars and diamonds and money.

No one likes to have less than they had before. That's the nature of the human animal.

This has resulted in more and more people becoming inner-directed and having as their only goal, getting as much as they can get out of the system and putting as little into it as possible.

From the first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization.

Avarice is the vice of declining years.

You're never rich enough if you can be richer.

The possession of wealth leads almost inevitably to its abuse. It is the chief, if not the only, cause of evils which desolate this world below. The thirst for gold is responsible for the most regrettable lapses into sin.

True generosity is too frequently eaten up by prosperity and riches.

The seven blunders that human society commits and cause all the violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principles.

There is always greed. There is nothing wrong with greed.