Covetousness Quotes

• I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

  Ayn Rand

  Brother, Men, Soul

  Ayn Rand (2016). “Anthem”, p.47, Xist Publishing

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• Covetousness is the greatest of monsters, as well as the root of all evil.

  William Penn

  Roots, Evil, Monsters

  William Penn (1839). “Fruits of solitude ... New edition”, p.23

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• There is no such thing as material covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual. ...Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

  Mark Twain

  Spiritual, Greed, Want

  Mark Twain (1973). “What Is Man? and Other Philosophical Writings”, p.202, Univ of California Press

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• If we are to say no to covetousness, we must learn to say yes to contentment. This involves learning to be content with what we have (Hebrews 13:5). Much of our discontentment may be traced to expectations that are essentially selfish and more often than not completely unrealistic.

  Alistair Begg

  Selfish, Expectations, Contentment

  Alistair Begg (2004). “Pathway to Freedom: How God's Law Guides Our Lives”, p.215, Moody Publishers

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• Covetousness is the greatest misfortune. One who does not know what is enough will never have enough.

  Laozi

  Doe, Enough, Knows

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• 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.

  Francis Bacon

  Money, Men, Greed

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• Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Honor, Selfishness, Feeding

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• The curse of covetousness is that it destroys manhood by substituting money for character.

  Lucy Larcom

  Character, Curse, Manhood

  Lucy Larcom (1892). “The Unseen Friend”

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• The covetous person is full of fear; and he or she who lives in fear will ever be a slave.

  Horace

  Slave, Be A Slave, Persons

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• It was with good reason that God commanded through Moses that the vineyard and harvest were not to be gleaned to the last grape or grain; but something to be left for the poor. For covetousness is never to be satisfied; the more it has, the more it wants. Such insatiable ones injure themselves, and transform God's blessings into evil.

  Martin Luther

  Blessing, Evil, Vineyards

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• The covetous person lives as if the world were made altogether for him, and not he for the world.

  Robert South

  World, Made, Persons

  Robert South (1827). “Discourses on Various Subjects and Occasions: Selected from the Complete English Edition. With a Sketch of His Life and Character”, p.413

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• I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.

  Abraham Cowley

  Life, Nature, Strong

  Abraham Cowley, Samuel Johnson (1822). “The Poems of Abraham Cowley”, p.152

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• All the wants which disturb human life, which make us uneasy to ourselves, quarrelsome with others, and unthankful to God, which weary us in vain labors and foolish anxieties, which carry us from project to project, from place to place in a poor pursuit of we don't know what, are the wants which neither God, nor nature, nor reason hath subjected us to, but are solely infused into us by pride, envy, ambition, and covetousness.

  William Law

  Ambition, Pride, Envy

  William Law, P. G. Stanwood (1978). “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life ; The Spirit of Love”, p.153, Paulist Press

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• Covetousness like jealousy, when it has taken root, never leaves a person, but with their life. Cowardice is the dread of what will happen.

  Epictetus

  Taken, Roots, Coward

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• But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.

  Paul the Apostle

  Talking, Giving, Saint

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• Being delivered from bodily sins is not enough; we must also cleanse the inner energy which dwells in our soul. For out of our hearts 'proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness' (Mk. 7:21) and so on ? these are what motivate people.

  Gregory Palamas

  Christian, Heart, People

  Saint Gregory Palamas, Christopher Veniamin, Monastery of St. John the Baptist (Essex, England) (2009). “The homilies”, Mount Thabor Pub

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• Covetousness is both the beginning and the end of the devil's alphabet - the first vice in corrupt nature that moves, and the last which dies.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Moving, Devil, Vices

  Attributed to "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, 1595.

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• Look at them. There are your true philosophers. I think that Mack and the boys know everything that has ever happened in the world and possibly everything that will happen. I think they survive in this particular world better than other people. In a time when people tear themselves to pieces with ambition and nervousness and covetousness, they are relaxed. All of our so-called successful men are sick men, with bad stomachs, and bad souls, but Mack and the boys are healthy and curiously clean. They can do what they want. They can satisfy their appetites without calling them something else.

  John Steinbeck

  Ambition, Successful, Boys

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• The avenues in my neighborhood are Pride, Covetousness and Lust; the cross streets are Anger, Gluttony, Envy and Sloth. I live over on Sloth, and the style on our street is to avoid the other thoroughfares.

  John Chancellor

  Anger, Pride, Envy

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• One be covetous when he has little, much or anything between, for covetousness comes from the heart, not from the circumstances of life.

  Charles Caldwell Ryrie

  Inspirational Life, Heart, Littles

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• Desire of having is the sin of covetousness.

  William Shakespeare

  Desire, Sin

  William Shakespeare (1752). “The Works of Shakespeare”, p.166

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• ... a bad attitude, that the love of money is the root of all evil and the rich are evil and greedy and all that stuff. It’s basically socialism and communism.

  Robert Kiyosaki

  Inspirational, Bible, Money

  "Parents still tell kids to save money. That's really obsolete". Interview with Nastassia Arendse, citizen.co.za. March 8, 2017.

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• A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

  Luke the Evangelist

  Men, Abundance, Material Possessions

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• The soul of man is infinite in what it covets.

  Ben Jonson

  Men, Soul, Infinite

  Ben Jonson (1875). “The works of Ben Jonson, with notes, and a biogr. memoir, by W. Gifford. With intr. and appendices by F. Cunningham”, p.42

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• The covetous man pines in plenty, like Tantalus up to the chin in water, and yet thirsty.

  Thomas Adams

  Men, Water, Greed

  Thomas Adams (2013). “The Sermons of Thomas Adams: The Shakespeare of Puritan Theologians”, p.48, Cambridge University Press

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