“
I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir
“
Percy: “You asked Poseidon for… me?”
Tyson: "For a friend, young cyclopes grow up alone on the streets, learns to make things out of scraps. Learn to survive."
Percy: “But that’s so cruel!”
Tyson: “Makes us appreciate blessings, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus. But I got scared. Monsters chased me so much, clawed me sometimes--"
Percy: “The scars on your back?”
Tyson: “Sphinx on Seventy-second Street. Big Bully. I prayed to Daddy for help. Soon the people at Meriwether found me. Mey you. Biggest blessing ever. Sorry I said Poseidon was mean. He sent me a brother.
”
”
Rick Riordan (The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #2))
“
You’re poisonous, toxic, bad for my health. You’re greedy, sly, way too stealth. You hurt me, use me, mistreat and abuse me. But your apologetic eyes, As you tell your lies, Draw me back in, And I forgive every sin. I take you back, Your love is my crack. I’m clearly a masochist, You’re my personal terrorist. My tormentor, My lover, My bully, My friend.
”
”
Penelope Douglas (Until You (Fall Away, #1.5))
“
We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world—a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. . . . No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.
Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn’t vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today—and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.
Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?
They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us—they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.
And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century)
“
My friends, quite rightly, thought I was insane to have become so quickly obsessed with someone I didn’t know. But they were also used to it – me finding a new love interest had always been like a greedy child opening a toy on Christmas Day. I ripped the packaging open, got frustrated trying to make it work, played with it obsessively until it broke, then chucked the broken pieces of plastic in the back of a cupboard on Boxing Day.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Everything I Know About Love)
“
I'd like to turn on the whole world for just a moment... just for a moment. I'm greedy; I'd like to keep most of it for myself and a few others, a few of my friends... to keep that superlative high, just on the cusp of each day... so that I'd radiate sunshine.
”
”
Jean Stein (Edie: American Girl)
“
THE UNFORGIVEN
Tell me if you've ever had to deal with these kinds of people:
The kind who take and don't give.
The kind to whom you give and give,
And they keep asking.
The kind to whom you give and give and they say you gave nothing.
The kind whom have never offered anything,
But act like they're the ones providing
EVERYTHING.
The kind you give and give,
But take more than you can give.
And when they have already taken everything,
They get mad at you when you say you have
Nothing more to give.
The unforgiving,
The misgiving,
Wastefully living -
And selfishly driven.
The rat that never gives back,
Yet is so quick to attack -
Because they think the word
TAKING
Seriously means
GIVING.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
The Thought of Death. It gives me a melancholy happiness to live in the midst of this confusion of streets, of necessities, of voices: how much enjoyment, impatience and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light here every moment! And yet it will soon be so still for all these shouting, lively, life- loving people! How everyone's shadow, his gloomy travelling companion stands behind him! It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant- ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise-so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching! Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life to us to be more than friends in the sense of that sublime possibility. And so we will believe in our even a hundred times more worthy of their attention.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
If the devil decided to run for President, do you think he/she would put on their horns and wicked grin, or a suit with an angelic smile? If the wicked witch stayed green and ugly, would she have been able to give Snow White a poisoned apple? And if the Big Bad Wolf had not disguised himself as an old granny, would he have been able to lure Little Red Riding Hood into the house to eat her? And if a drug dealer wanted to seduce some school kids to get on his drugs, would he act like a greedy businessman — or a caring friend? Salt and sugar look exactly the same but taste very different. We live in a world of illusions, one filled with Luciferians acting like righteous men, and righteous men condemned as criminals.
”
”
Suzy Kassem (Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem)
“
Our good friend and fellow sportsman George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act into law back in 2005. Essentially, unless we make a terribly defective gun, the law creates a complete shield from liability. God bless Citizens United, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the NRA, tort reform, and needy and greedy politicians.
”
”
Mark M. Bello (Betrayal High (Zachary Blake Legal Thriller, #5))
“
Beware of fair-weather friends.
They come to you when the sky is crystal clear and disappear when the same sky is overcast with dark clouds.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (The Book of Maxims, Poems and Anecdotes)
“
To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. you must change man, not systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can we say of any system tried that it proved other than failure in the end? My dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ad actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk.
”
”
Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche (Scaramouche, #1))
“
Liberty
On my notebooks from school
On my desk and the trees
On the sand, on the snow
I write your name
On every page read
On all the white sheets
Stone blood paper or ash
I write your name
On the golden images
On the soldier’s weapons
On the crowns of kings
I write your name
On the jungle, the desert
The nests and the bushes
On the echo of childhood
I write your name
On the wonder of nights
On the white bread of days
On the seasons engaged
I write your name
On all my blue rags
On the pond mildewed sun
On the lake living moon
I write your name
On the fields, the horizon
The wings of the birds
On the windmill of shadows
I write your name
On the foam of the clouds
On the sweat of the storm
On dark insipid rain
I write your name
On the glittering forms
On the bells of colour
On physical truth
I write your name
On the wakened paths
On the opened ways
On the scattered places
I write your name
On the lamp that gives light
On the lamp that is drowned
On my house reunited
I write your name
On the bisected fruit
Of my mirror and room
On my bed’s empty shell
I write your name
On my dog greedy tender
On his listening ears
On his awkward paws
I write your name
On the sill of my door
On familiar things
On the fire’s sacred stream
I write your name
On all flesh that’s in tune
On the brows of my friends
On each hand that extends
I write your name
On the glass of surprises
On lips that attend
High over the silence
I write your name
On my ravaged refuges
On my fallen lighthouses
On the walls of my boredom
I write your name
On passionless absence
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name
On health that’s regained
On danger that’s past
On hope without memories
I write your name
By the power of the word
I regain my life
I was born to know you
And to name you
LIBERTY
”
”
Paul Éluard
“
Do you remember what happened to Mexico when Cortez and his very fine good friends arrived from Spain? A whole civilization destroyed by greedy, righteous bigots. History will never forgive Cortez.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
“
A person of good character is he who is modest, says little, causes little trouble, speaks the truth, seeks the good, worships much, has few faults, meddles little, desires the good for all, and does good works for all. He is compassionate, dignified, measured, patient, content, grateful, sympathetic, friendly, abstinent, and not greedy. He does not use foul language, nor does he exhibit haste, nor does he harbor hatred in his heart. He is not envious. He is candid, well-spoken, and his friendship and enmity, his anger and his pleasure are for the sake of God Most High and nothing more.
”
”
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (On the Treatment of the Lust of the Stomach and the Sexual Organs (Great Books of the Islamic World))
“
This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used:
Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Othello)
“
This was where Zoya had been seen sneaking off to all those nights—not to a lover, but to this monument to grief. This was where she had shed her tears, away from curious eyes, where no one could see her armor fall. And here, the Grisha might live forever, every friend lost, every soldier gone.
“I know what I did is unforgivable,” she said. Nikolai blinked, confused.
“No doubt you deserve to be punished for your crimes … but for what precisely?”
She cast him a baleful look. “I lost our most valuable prisoner. I’ve allowed our most deadly enemy to regain his powers and … run amok.”
“‘Amok’ seems an overstatement. Wild, perhaps.”
“Don’t pretend to shrug this off. You’ve barely looked at me since I returned.”
Because I am greedy for the sight of you. Because the prospect of facing this war, this loss, without you fills me with fear. Because I find I don’t want to fight for a future if I can’t find a way to make a future with you.
But he was a king and she was his general and he could say none of those things.
”
”
Leigh Bardugo (Rule of Wolves (King of Scars, #2))
“
Most people think they need MORE to succeed; more money, more power, more time, more friends, more fame, more ideas, more prayers, more knowledge. They have never considered that less is actually sufficient.
”
”
Michael Bassey Johnson (Before You Doubt Yourself: Pep Talks and other Crucial Discussions)
“
I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life," said Simone de Beauvoir. "I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish….You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.''
I tend more to frustration than anger, but otherwise I know precisely what de Beauvoir means. I want twenty-four hours more in each day, and nine consecutive lives to live, for I am greedy for life and art as well, with all their occasionally conflicting demands. I want as much time as possible to continue to work hard and learn. I'm greedy for it all.
”
”
Terri Windling
“
It has never been very easy for me to live, though I am always very happy—maybe because I want so much to be happy. I like so much to live and I hate the idea of dying one day. And then I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life, I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, and to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish... You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.
”
”
Simone de Beauvoir (A Transatlantic Love Affair: Letters to Nelson Algren)
“
The Realistic Vision recognizes the need for strict moral education through parents, family, friends, and community because people have a dual nature of being selfish and selfless, competitive and cooperative, greedy and generous, and so we need rules and guidelines and encouragement to do the right thing.
”
”
Michael Shermer (Brain, Belief, and Politics (Cato Unbound Book 92011))
“
I am in too great doubt to rule. To prepare or to let be? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in the midst of peace for bloodspilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru: "At least your enemies were amongst them?" Or to fold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them? Will they say to Eru: "At least I spilled no blood?"
-- Tar-Meneldur in Armenelos, Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife
”
”
J.R.R. Tolkien (Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth)
“
Do you remember what happened to Mexico when Cortez and his very fine good friends arrived from Spain? A whole civilization destroyed by greedy, righteous bigots.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles)
“
Anyway, most of the chapter is Bella telling us how much pain she's in. First she's about to die because delivering Optimus Beyonce nearly killed her. And then she goes on and on about how hot and awful the vampire venom feels as it takes hold of her body.
She's in agony and there's nothing she can do about it. Good! I hope it hurts.
This is what you get, Bella Swan. This is what you get for being a greedy, self-centered jerk. This is what happens to people who let thousands die in Italy. This is what you get for ruining Jacob's life and ignoring your human friends because you'd rather spend time with pretty people. This is what happens to selfish brats that have no regard for their family. This is what you get for being weak and dependent. This is what you get for lying to your father. This is what you get for crying and complaining about your perfect life. This is what you get for spending pages and pages describing freaking magnets! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET!
I only wish the pain lasted longer than a chapter. An entire book of Bella's torture would be nice. And maybe if the book were illustrated…with Octo-Bears…I would finally sympathize with this, the least likable character in the history of novels.
Bella, I do not care one tiny bit that you're in pain.
”
”
Dan Bergstein
“
If I could time-travel, could I be selfless enough to stop Finn from getting AIDS? Even if it meant I would never have him as my friend? I didn't know. I had no idea how greedy my heart really was.
”
”
Carol Rifka Brunt (Tell the Wolves I'm Home)
“
And how are such wars to be waged? The wise prince will begin by assuming the enemy to be infinitely corruptible and infinitely stupid, since stupidity and corruption are the chief characteristics of man. So the prince will make himself friends in the very councils of his enemy, and also amongst the populace, bribing the wealthy by proffering to them the opportunity of still greater wealth, and winning the poor by swelling words. For, contrary to the common opinion, it is the wealthy who are greedy of wealth; while the populace are to be gained by talking to them about liberty, their unknown god. And so much are they enchanted by the words liberty, freedom, and such like, that the wise can go to the poor, rob them of what little they have… and win their hearts and their votes forever, if only they will assure them that the treatment which they have received is called liberty.
”
”
Arthur Machen (The Terror)
“
I sat down in a chair by the bed. The house got altogether still again, and I thought he was asleep. Just ever so quietly I reached over and laid my hand on his shoulder.
He said, 'I love you too, Hannah."
He didn't last long after that. Death had become his friend. They say that people, if they want to, can let themselves slip away when the time comes. I think that is what Nathan did. He was not false or greedy. When the time came to go, he went.
”
”
Wendell Berry (Hannah Coulter)
“
Remember, Little Ones, everything is not important all the time. Only living is important all the time. Not things. Not money. Not more things and more endless money. Spend well the quality of your time. And yes, be greedy with your hours. If only to then give those hours away as the most precious gifts you have to offer to yourself, your family, and your friends. And yes, to my Little Ones.” –From The Legacy Letters–“The Everything and Nothing of Money.
”
”
Carew Papritz (The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift)
“
You’re pretty dramatic for a Sunday.” I grinned. “I’d be bored out of my fucking mind if not for the drama here, my little Voodoo doll.” “Drama I can live without. Gossip, I could be persuaded.” “FUCK IT! GARRICK, YOU GREEDY BASTARD, I’M KEEPING HERRRR!
”
”
Adam A. Fox (A Sinful Symphony: A Dark BDSM Romance)
“
How easy it is, in times of ease, for us to become dependent on our routines, on the established order of our day-to-day existence, to carry us along. We begin to take things for granted, to rely on ourselves and on our own resources, to “settle in” in this world and look to it for our support. We all too easily come to equate being comfortable with a sense of well-being, to seek our comfort solely in the sense of being comfortable. Friends and possessions surround us, one day is followed by the next, good health and happiness for the most part are ours. We don’t have to desire much of the things of this world—to be enamored of riches, for example, or greedy or avaricious—in order to have gained this sense of comfort and of well-being, to trust in them as our support—and to take God for granted. It is the status quo that we rely on, that carries us from day to day, and somehow we begin to lose sight of the fact that under all these things and behind all these things, it is God who supports and sustains us. We go along, taking for granted that tomorrow will be very much like today, comfortable in the world we have created for ourselves, secure in the established order we have learned to live with, however imperfect it may be, and give little thought to God at all.
”
”
Walter J. Ciszek (He Leadeth Me: An Extraordinary Testament of Faith)
“
Random House, in the catbird seat, since it gets to recite last, declares in 1966, “The use of like in place of as is universally condemned by teachers and editors, notwithstanding its wide currency, especially in advertising slogans. Do as I say, not as I do does not admit of like instead of as. In an occasional idiomatic phrase, it is somewhat less offensive when substituted for as if (He raced down the street like crazy), but this example is clearly colloquial and not likely to be found in any but the most informal written contexts.” I find this excellent. It even tells who will hurt you if you make a mistake, and it withholds aid and comfort from those friends of cancer and money, those greedy enemies of the language who teach our children to say after school, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (Welcome to the Monkey House)
“
She did not know that far beyond the green mountains where the lightning frightens, but does not strike, hundreds more of Brother Gabriel's kind were making their way from the sea, emerging from great hollow beasts whose bellies craved only the darkest of flesh, dredging through seaweed until they met the unwelcoming rock of shore, armed with weapons that pulled the very thunder out of the sky. . . Friendly tribe or hostile tribe, these greedy people would not discriminate, could not, in fact, discriminate. To them, her people were all living pieces of ore: fuel for engines of the most ungodly kind but, bafflingly, in the name of a god that they claimed was peaceful.
”
”
Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets)
“
Remember, Little Ones, everything is not important all the time. Only living is important all the time. Not things. Not money. Not more things and more endless money. Spend well the quality of your time. And yes, be greedy with your hours. If only to then give those hours away as the most precious gifts you have to offer to yourself, your family, and your friends.
”
”
Carew Papritz (The Legacy Letters: his Wife, his Children, his Final Gift)
“
CHAPTER ONE
A Boy at the Window FOR A LONG TIME AFTER THAT SUMMER, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel. Fate drove us there, Jane would say. No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation house on Cape Cod, someone else would say, probably Skye. Who knew which was right? But it was true that the beach house they usually rented had been sold at the last minute, and the Penderwicks were suddenly without summer plans. Mr. Penderwick called everywhere, but Cape Cod was booked solid, and his daughters were starting to think they would be spending their whole vacation at home in Cameron, Massachusetts. Not that they didn’t love Cameron, but what is summer without a trip to somewhere special? Then, out of the blue, Mr. Penderwick heard through a friend of a friend about a cottage in the Berkshire Mountains. It had plenty of bedrooms and a big fenced-in pen for a dog—perfect for big, black, clumsy, lovable Hound Penderwick—and it was available to be rented for three weeks in August. Mr. Penderwick snatched it up, sight unseen. He didn’t know what he was getting us into, Batty would say. Rosalind always said, It’s too bad Mommy never saw Arundel—she would have loved the gardens. And Jane would say, There are much better gardens in heaven. And Mommy will never have to bump into Mrs. Tifton in heaven, Skye added to make her sisters laugh. And laugh they would, and the talk would move on to other things, until the next time someone remembered Arundel.
”
”
Jeanne Birdsall (The Penderwicks Collection: The Penderwicks / The Penderwicks on Gardam Street / The Penderwicks at Point Mouette)
“
If I could write an autobiography for fear, it would read like this:
__________
Hi, my name is Fear. F-E-A-R. But you are going to call me a lot of other things as you start to get closer to me. I’m terribly unoriginal. I’m like every has-been out there, but you give me way more credit than I deserve. You should keep doing that. I like it when you make me bigger than I actually am. I’m going to make you feel alone, and I like it when you believe you’re the only one who’s ever felt this way. You think I’m custom-catered to fit you, but I’m really no different than the brand of me your best friend wears. I’m a ballad lurking in the hearts of a billion people, and I will do anything to keep you from realizing that I am just the same song on repeat. You all know all my words.
I’m pretty jealous though. I want you alone with me at night. I’m not afraid to say I’m greedy or that I don’t want to share you. I’m a territorial lover, and I would rather you not have solid and deep conversations at dinner parties or find a community that doesn’t leave your side. I wrote you a story a long time ago, and I don’t want you to figure out that you’ve outgrown the plotline.
I wonder why you don’t get over me sometimes, but then the realization hits me: You come back because you know I want you. You come back because you know the sound of my voice. You come back because you know the way I move and how I shut you down. You’ve stood face-to-face with me so many times and I have told you who you are. The crazy thing is, you’ve believed me.
”
”
Hannah Brencher (Come Matter Here: Your Invitation to Be Here in a Getting There World)
“
Celestial Music”
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she’s unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I’m always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down
across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I’m like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness—
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person—
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We’re walking
on the same road, except it’s winter now;
she’s telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height—
Then I’m afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth—
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It’s this moment we’re both trying to explain, the fact
that we’re at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn’t move.
She’s always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We’re very quiet. It’s peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering—
it’s this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
”
”
Louise Glück (Ararat)
“
New Rule: If you're going to have a rally where hundreds of thousands of people show up, you may as well go ahead and make it about something. With all due respect to my friends Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it seems that if you truly wanted to come down on the side of restoring sanity and reason, you'd side with the sane and the reasonable--and not try to pretend the insanity is equally distributed in both parties. Keith Olbermann is right when he says he's not the equivalent of Glenn Beck. One reports facts; the other one is very close to playing with his poop. And the big mistake of modern media has been this notion of balance for balance's sake, that the left is just as violent and cruel as the right, that unions are just as powerful as corporations, that reverse racism is just as damaging as racism. There's a difference between a mad man and a madman.
Now, getting more than two hundred thousand people to come to a liberal rally is a great achievement that gave me hope, and what I really loved about it was that it was twice the size of the Glenn Beck crowd on the Mall in August--although it weight the same. But the message of the rally as I heard it was that if the media would just top giving voice to the crazies on both sides, then maybe we could restore sanity. It was all nonpartisan, and urged cooperation with the moderates on the other side. Forgetting that Obama tried that, and found our there are no moderates on the other side.
When Jon announced his rally, he said that the national conversation is "dominated" by people on the right who believe Obama's a socialist, and by people on the left who believe 9/11 was an inside job. But I can't name any Democratic leaders who think 9/11 was an inside job. But Republican leaders who think Obama's socialist? All of them. McCain, Boehner, Cantor, Palin...all of them. It's now official Republican dogma, like "Tax cuts pay for themselves" and "Gay men just haven't met the right woman."
As another example of both sides using overheated rhetoric, Jon cited the right equating Obama with Hitler, and the left calling Bush a war criminal. Except thinking Obama is like Hitler is utterly unfounded--but thinking Bush is a war criminal? That's the opinion of Major General Anthony Taguba, who headed the Army's investigation into Abu Ghraib.
Republicans keep staking out a position that is farther and farther right, and then demand Democrats meet them in the middle. Which now is not the middle anymore. That's the reason health-care reform is so watered down--it's Bob Dole's old plan from 1994. Same thing with cap and trade--it was the first President Bush's plan to deal with carbon emissions. Now the Republican plan for climate change is to claim it's a hoax.
But it's not--I know because I've lived in L.A. since '83, and there's been a change in the city: I can see it now. All of us who live out here have had that experience: "Oh, look, there's a mountain there." Governments, led my liberal Democrats, passed laws that changed the air I breathe. For the better. I'm for them, and not the party that is plotting to abolish the EPA. I don't need to pretend both sides have a point here, and I don't care what left or right commentators say about it, I can only what climate scientists say about it.
Two opposing sides don't necessarily have two compelling arguments. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on that mall in the capital, and he didn't say, "Remember, folks, those southern sheriffs with the fire hoses and the German shepherds, they have a point, too." No, he said, "I have a dream. They have a nightmare. This isn't Team Edward and Team Jacob."
Liberals, like the ones on that field, must stand up and be counted, and not pretend we're as mean or greedy or shortsighted or just plain batshit at them. And if that's too polarizing for you, and you still want to reach across the aisle and hold hands and sing with someone on the right, try church.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
Perhaps Bufalino’s closest friend was Philadelphia crime boss Angelo Bruno. Law enforcement referred to Bufalino as “the quiet Don Rosario”; Bruno was known as the “Docile Don” for his similar low-key approach to heading a major crime family. Like Bufalino’s family, the Bruno crime family was not permitted to deal in drugs. Because of his perceived old-fashioned ways Bruno was killed by greedy underlings in 1980. Bruno’s demise would lead to everlasting anarchy in his family. His successor, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, was literally blown up a year after taking over. Testa’s successor, Nicodemus “Little Nicky” Scarfo, is now serving multiple life sentences for murder, having been betrayed by his own underboss and nephew. Little Nicky’s successor, John Stanfa, is serving five consecutive life sentences for murder. Frank Sheeran got a Christmas card every year from John Stanfa in his Leavenworth cell. John Stanfa’s successor, Ralph Natale, is the first boss to turn government informant and testify against his own men. Frank Sheeran calls Philadelphia “the city of rats.” On the other hand, Russell Bufalino lived a long life. He died of old age in a nursing home in 1994 at the age of ninety. He controlled his “family” until the day he died, and unlike Angelo Bruno’s Philadelphia family, not a sign of discord has been reported in the Bufalino family since his death. Frank
”
”
Charles Brandt ("I Heard You Paint Houses", Updated Edition: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa)
“
BROADBENT [stiffly]. Devil is rather a strong expression in that
connexion, Mr Keegan.
KEEGAN. Not from a man who knows that this world is hell. But
since the word offends you, let me soften it, and compare you
simply to an ass. [Larry whitens with anger].
BROADBENT [reddening]. An ass!
KEEGAN [gently]. You may take it without offence from a madman
who calls the ass his brother--and a very honest, useful and
faithful brother too. The ass, sir, is the most efficient of
beasts, matter-of-fact, hardy, friendly when you treat him as a
fellow-creature, stubborn when you abuse him, ridiculous only in
love, which sets him braying, and in politics, which move him to
roll about in the public road and raise a dust about nothing. Can
you deny these qualities and habits in yourself, sir?
BROADBENT [goodhumoredly]. Well, yes, I'm afraid I do, you know.
KEEGAN. Then perhaps you will confess to the ass's one fault.
BROADBENT. Perhaps so: what is it?
KEEGAN. That he wastes all his virtues--his efficiency, as you
call it--in doing the will of his greedy masters instead of doing
the will of Heaven that is in himself. He is efficient in the
service of Mammon, mighty in mischief, skilful in ruin, heroic in
destruction. But he comes to browse here without knowing that the
soil his hoof touches is holy ground. Ireland, sir, for good or
evil, is like no other place under heaven; and no man can touch
its sod or breathe its air without becoming better or worse. It
produces two kinds of men in strange perfection: saints and
traitors. It is called the island of the saints; but indeed in
these later years it might be more fitly called the island of the
traitors; for our harvest of these is the fine flower of the
world's crop of infamy. But the day may come when these islands
shall live by the quality of their men rather than by the
abundance of their minerals; and then we shall see.
LARRY. Mr Keegan: if you are going to be sentimental about
Ireland, I shall bid you good evening. We have had enough of
that, and more than enough of cleverly proving that everybody who
is not an Irishman is an ass. It is neither good sense nor good
manners. It will not stop the syndicate; and it will not interest
young Ireland so much as my friend's gospel of efficiency.
BROADBENT. Ah, yes, yes: efficiency is the thing. I don't in the
least mind your chaff, Mr Keegan; but Larry's right on the main
point. The world belongs to the efficient.
”
”
George Bernard Shaw (John Bull's Other Island)
“
Never pick up a friend by seeing the volume of wealth, power, followers, money or degree rather pick up one who has a great caring heart can sense your needs and can fill it.
Our life span is too tiny, don’t be too greedy for more wealth, money, power rather be grateful for the love you earned and be a pauper of love making your life idyllic and happy.
Today, we need more love-giver, peace-maker, owe soother rather than war-monger politician, bureaucrats, mighty military, lethal weapons, alms-punter cleric and hate-preacher.
We are all one, if we can believe it, no longer we can harm, hate or ignore others anymore.
I'm so much humbled and valued for the love of the people who touched the bottoms end of my heart at a time of delusion and despair for making my life smoothed, flourished and filled with love.
Let's come and love people surrounded by you to uplift them from hell. They badly need your hug for a big leave from woes.
”
”
Lord Robin
“
Choosing any particular lifestyle is disquieting. Decision-making requires giving up something and believing in something. I abhor making choices because I am greedy and insincere. I might create a stronger sense of self if I made conscious choices, by selecting what truly matters in my life, by dedicating my very being to a central precept. I remain unengaged with any stabilizing concepts and my self is in a constant state of changing. I spend time composing a self, only to turn about and destroy my unsatisfactory self, resulting in a continual state of making and revamping my sense of self. Just when family members and friends think they know who I am, I drastically change. People cannot love or even profess affection for a flaky person such as me, a Proteus-like elusive sea creature that is in a constant state of metamorphosis, a person they cannot pin down or pigeonhole as a specific type of person. My staunch refusal to commit to any permanent membrane ensures that I will always remain unknown and therefore unloved and unlovable.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
I’m sorry,” said the kitty.
“I’ve wrecked your broomstick ride.”
“No matter,” said Witch Mildred.
“We’re here. Let’s go inside!”
The clock atop the castle
read twenty after eight,
but the promised buffet table
held only emptied plates!
“No eye or newt? No sautéed slug?
No pickleworm pate?
No casserole of cockroach!
No spiderweb soufflé!
Those greedy gobbling goblins
left zilch for us to eat.”
Said the starving skeleton,
“Why don’t we trick-or-treat?”
They passed a lighted cottage,
from which rose song and laughter.
The mummy boldly rang the bell,
All others traipsing after.
The children squealed and giggled
as they greeted their new guests,
for of all the trick-or-treaters,
these costumes were the best!
The hostess asked the callers
to join them at their party.
“Check out this spread!” the mummy said.
The hostess said, “Eat hearty.”
“Taffy apples! Candy corn!
Purple punch, ice-cold!
My tongue’s not touched such tastiness
since I was six years old!”
In the corner of the kitchen
Witch Mildred found a mop.
“I think this will do nicely
while my broom is in the shop.”
“May I, please?” asked Mildred,
and seated her new friends.
With a loud “Thank you!” away they flew,
in loopy swoops and bends.
That night Witch Mildred dreamed
of cakes and lemonade,
but far more sweet than party treats were the friendships she had made!
”
”
Elizabeth Spurr (Halloween Sky Ride)
“
Long ago, there was a servant who served a bad tempered and impatient master. It did not matter how he tried, he was always blamed and beaten by this master. However, it was the strange truth that the servant was always happy, and his master was always sad and depressed. One day, there was a kind man who could not understand this phenomenon, and finally he decided to ask this servant why he was always happy even though he was treated so badly. The servant replied: “Everyone has one day of life each day; half of the day is spent awake and the other half is spent sleeping. Although in the daytime, I am a servant and my master treats me badly, in the nighttime, I always dream that I am a king and there are thousands of servants serving me luxuriously. Look at my master: In the daytime, he is mad, depressed, greedy, and unhappy. In the nighttime, he has nightmares and cannot even have one night of nice rest. I really feel sorry for my master. Comparing me to him, I am surely happier than he is.” Friends, what do you think about this story? You are the only one responsible for your happiness. If you are not satisfied and always complain about what you have obtained, you will be on the course of forever-unhappiness. It is said in the West: “If you smile, the whole world smiles with you, but if you cry, you cry alone.” What an accurate saying!
”
”
Yang Jwing-Ming (Tai Chi Chuan Classical Yang Style)
“
To whom shall I speak today ?
Brothers are mean,
The friends of today do not love.
To whom shall I speak today?
Hearts are greedy,
Everyone robs his comrade's goods.
To whom shall I speak today ?
Kindness has perished,
Insolence assaults everyone.
To whom shall I speak today ?
One is content with evil,
Goodness is cast to the ground everywhere. To whom shall I speak today?
He who should enrage men by his crimes — He makes everyone laugh at his evildoing. To whom shall I speak today ?
Men plunder,
Everyone robs his comrade.
To whom shall I speak today ?
The criminal is one’s intimate,
The brother with whom one dealt is a foe.
To whom shall I speak today ?
The past is not remembered,
Now one does not help him who helped.
To whom shall I speak today ?
Brothers are mean,
One goes to strangers for affection.
To whom shall I speak today?
Faces are blank,
Everyone turns his face from his brothers.
To whom shall I speak today ?
Hearts are greedy,
No man’s heart can be relied on.
To whom shall I speak today ?
None are righteous,
The land is left to evildoers.
To whom shall I speak today ?
One lacks an intimate,
One resorts to an unknown to complain.
To whom shall I speak today ?
No one is cheerful,
He with whom one walked is no more.
To whom shall I speak today ?
I am burdened with grief
For lack of an intimate.
To whom shall I speak today ?
Wrong roams the earth,
And ends not.
”
”
Miriam Lichtheim (Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms)
“
I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness. I was yet liable to be taken back, and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. This in itself was enough to damp the ardor of my enthusiasm. But the loneliness overcame me. There I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren--children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey. The motto which I adopted when I started from slavery was this--"Trust no man!" I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every colored man cause for distrust. It was a most painful situation; and, to understand it, one must needs experience it, or imagine himself in similar circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land--a land given up to be the hunting-ground for slaveholders--whose inhabitants are legalized kidnappers--where he is every moment subjected to the terrible liability of being seized upon by his fellowmen, as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey!--I say, let him place himself in my situation--without home or friends--without money or credit--wanting shelter, and no one to give it-- wanting bread, and no money to buy it,--and at the same time let him feel that he is pursued by merciless men-hunters, and in total darkness as to what to do, where to go, or where to stay,--perfectly helpless both as to the means of defence and means of escape,--in the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawings of hunger,--in the midst of houses, yet having no home,--among fellow-men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the helpless fish upon which they subsist,--I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation,--the situation in which I was placed, --then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.
”
”
Frederick Douglass (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
“
THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP
Part III
Report your commission without faltering,
Give your advice in your master’s council.
If he is fluent in his speech,
It will not be hard for the envoy to report,
Nor will he be answered, "Who is he to know it ?”
As to the master, his affairs will fail
If he plans to punish him for it.
He should be silent upon (hearing): "I have told.”
If you are a man who leads.
Whose authority reaches wide,
You should do outstanding things,
Remember the day that comes after.
No strife will occur in the midst of honors,
But where the crocodile enters hatred arises.
If you are a man who leads.
Listen calmly to the speech of one who pleads;
Don’t stop him from purging his body
Of that which he planned to tell.
A man in distress wants to pour out his heart
More than that his case be won.
About him who stops a plea
One says: “Why does he reject it ?”
Not all one pleads for can be granted,
But a good hearing soothes the heart.
If you want friendship to endure
In the house you enter
As master, brother, or friend,
In whatever place you enter,
Beware of approaching the women!
Unhappy is the place where it is done.
Unwelcome is he who intrudes on them.
A thousand men are turned away from their good:
A short moment like a dream,
Then death comes for having known them.
Poor advice is “shoot the opponent,”
When one goes to do it the heart rejects it.
He who fails through lust of them,
No affair of his can prosper.
If you want a perfect conduct,
To be free from every evil,
Guard against the vice of greed:
A grievous sickness without cure,
There is no treatment for it.
It embroils fathers, mothers,
And the brothers of the mother,
It parts wife from husband;
It is a compound of all evils,
A bundle of all hateful things.
That man endures whose rule is rightness,
Who walks a straight line;
He will make a will by it,
The greedy has no tomb.
Do not be greedy in the division.
Do not covet more than your share;
Do not be greedy toward your kin.
The mild has a greater claim than the harsh.
Poor is he who shuns his kin,
He is deprived of 'interchange'
Even a little of what is craved
Turns a quarreler into an amiable man.
When you prosper and found your house,
And love your wife with ardor,
Fill her belly, clothe her back,
Ointment soothes her body.
Gladden her heart as long as you live,
She is a fertile held for her lord.
Do not contend with her in court,
Keep her from power, restrain her —
Her eye is her storm when she gazes —
Thus will you make her stay in your house.
Sustain your friends with what you have,
You have it by the grace of god;
Of him who fails to sustain his friends
One says, “a selfish ka".
One plans the morrow but knows not what will be,
The ( right) ka is the ka by which one is sustained.
If praiseworthy deeds are done,
Friends will say, “welcome!”
One does not bring supplies to town,
One brings friends when there is need.
Do not repeat calumny.
Nor should you listen to it,
It is the spouting of the hot-bellied.
Report a thing observed, not heard,
If it is negligible, don’t say anything.
He who is before you recognizes worth.
lf a seizure is ordered and carried out,
Hatred will arise against him who seizes;
Calumny is like a dream against which one covers the face.
If you are a man of worth,
Who sits in his master’s council.
Concentrate on excellence,
Your silence is better than chatter.
Speak when you know you have a solution,
It is the skilled who should speak in council;
Speaking is harder than all other work.
He who understands it makes it serve.
”
”
Miriam Lichtheim (Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms)
“
THIS IS MY ABC BOOK of people God loves. We’ll start with . . . A: God loves Adorable people. God loves those who are Affable and Affectionate. God loves Ambulance drivers, Artists, Accordion players, Astronauts, Airplane pilots, and Acrobats. God loves African Americans, the Amish, Anglicans, and Animal husbandry workers. God loves Animal-rights Activists, Astrologers, Adulterers, Addicts, Atheists, and Abortionists. B: God loves Babies. God loves Bible readers. God loves Baptists and Barbershop quartets . . . Boys and Boy Band members . . . Blondes, Brunettes, and old ladies with Blue hair. He loves the Bedraggled, the Beat up, and the Burnt out . . . the Bullied and the Bullies . . . people who are Brave, Busy, Bossy, Bitter, Boastful, Bored, and Boorish. God loves all the Blue men in the Blue Man Group. C: God loves Crystal meth junkies, D: Drag queens, E: and Elvis impersonators. F: God loves the Faithful and the Faithless, the Fearful and the Fearless. He loves people from Fiji, Finland, and France; people who Fight for Freedom, their Friends, and their right to party; and God loves people who sound like Fat Albert . . . “Hey, hey, hey!” G: God loves Greedy Guatemalan Gynecologists. H: God loves Homosexuals, and people who are Homophobic, and all the Homo sapiens in between. I: God loves IRS auditors. J: God loves late-night talk-show hosts named Jimmy (Fallon or Kimmel), people who eat Jim sausages (Dean or Slim), people who love Jams (hip-hop or strawberry), singers named Justin (Timberlake or Bieber), and people who aren’t ready for this Jelly (Beyoncé’s or grape). K: God loves Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye Kardashian. (Please don’t tell him I said that.) L: God loves people in Laos and people who are feeling Lousy. God loves people who are Ludicrous, and God loves Ludacris. God loves Ladies, and God loves Lady Gaga. M: God loves Ministers, Missionaries, and Meter maids; people who are Malicious, Meticulous, Mischievous, and Mysterious; people who collect Marbles and people who have lost their Marbles . . . and Miley Cyrus. N: God loves Ninjas, Nudists, and Nose pickers, O: Obstetricians, Orthodontists, Optometrists, Ophthalmologists, and Overweight Obituary writers, P: Pimps, Pornographers, and Pedophiles, Q: the Queen of England, the members of the band Queen, and Queen Latifah. R: God loves the people of Rwanda and the Rebels who committed genocide against them. S: God loves Strippers in Stilettos working on the Strip in Sin City; T: it’s not unusual that God loves Tom Jones. U: God loves people from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates; Ukrainians and Uruguayans, the Unemployed and Unemployment inspectors; blind baseball Umpires and shady Used-car salesmen. God loves Ushers, and God loves Usher. V: God loves Vegetarians in Virginia Beach, Vegans in Vietnam, and people who eat lots of Vanilla bean ice cream in Las Vegas. W: The great I AM loves will.i.am. He loves Waitresses who work at Waffle Houses, Weirdos who have gotten lots of Wet Willies, and Weight Watchers who hide Whatchamacallits in their Windbreakers. X: God loves X-ray technicians. Y: God loves You. Z: God loves Zoologists who are preparing for the Zombie apocalypse. God . . . is for the rest of us. And we have the responsibility, the honor, of letting the world know that God is for them, and he’s inviting them into a life-changing relationship with him. So let ’em know.
”
”
Vince Antonucci (God for the Rest of Us: Experience Unbelievable Love, Unlimited Hope, and Uncommon Grace)
“
White Man, to you my voice is like the unheard call in the wilderness. It is there, though you do not hear it. But, this once, take the time to listen to what I have to say.
Your history is highlighted by your wars. Why is it all right for your nations to conquer each other in your attempts at domination? When you sailed to our lands, you came with your advanced weapons. You claimed you were a progressive, civilized people. And today, White Man, you have the ultimate weapons. Warfare which could destroy all men, all creation. And you allow such power to be in the hands of those few who have such little value in true wisdom.
White Man, when you first came, most of our tribes began with peace and trust in dealing with you, strange white intruders. We showed you how to survive in our homelands. We were willing to share with you our vast wealth. Instead of repaying us with gratitude, you, White Man, turned on us, your friends. You turned on us with your advanced weapons and your cunning trickery.
When we, the Indian people, realized your intentions, we rose to do battle, to defend our nations, our homes, our food, our lives. And for our efforts, we are labelled savages, and our battles are called massacres.
And when our primitive weapons could not match those which you had perfected through centuries of wars, we realized that peace could not be won, unless our mass destruction took place. And so we turned to treaties. And this time, we ran into your cunning trickery. And we lost our lands, our freedom, and were confined to reservations. And we are held in contempt.
'As long as the Sun shall rise...' For you, White Man, these are words without meaning.
White Man, there is much in the deep, simple wisdom of our forefathers. We were here for centuries. We kept the land, the waters, the air clean and pure, for our children and our children's children.
Now that you are here, White Man, the rivers bleed with contamination. The winds moan with the heavy weight of pollution in the air. The land vomits up the poisons which have been fed into it. Our Mother Earth is no longer clean and healthy. She is dying.
White Man, in your greedy rush for money and power, you are destroying. Why must you have power over everything? Why can't you live in peace and harmony? Why can't you share the beauty and the wealth which Mother Earth has given us?
You do not stop at confining us to small pieces of rock an muskeg. Where are the animals of the wilderness to go when there is no more wilderness? Why are the birds of the skies falling to their extinction? Is there joy for you when you bring down the mighty trees of our forests? No living things seems sacred to you. In the name of progress, everything is cut down. And progress means only profits.
White Man, you say that we are a people without dignity. But when we are sick, weak, hungry, poor, when there is nothing for us but death, what are we to do? We cannot accept a life which has been imposed on us.
You say that we are drunkards, that we live for drinking. But drinking is a way of dying. Dying without enjoying life. You have given us many diseases. It is true that you have found immunizations for many of these diseases. But this was done more for your own benefit. The worst disease, for which there is no immunity, is the disease of alcoholism. And you condemn us for being its easy victims. And those who do not condemn us weep for us and pity us.
So, we the Indian people, we are still dying. The land we lost is dying, too.
White Man, you have our land now.
Respect it. As we once did.
Take care of it. As we once did.
Love it. As we once did.
White Man, our wisdom is dying. As we are. But take heed, if Indian wisdom dies, you, White Man, will not be far behind.
So weep not for us.
Weep for yourselves.
And for your children.
And for their children.
Because you are taking everything today.
And tomorrow, there will be nothing left for them.
”
”
Beatrice Mosionier (In Search of April Raintree)
“
The city kept reminding me of Russia—the cars of the secret police bristling with aerials; women with splayed haunches licking ice-cream in dusty parks; the same bullying statues, the pie-crust architecture, the same avenues that were not quite straight, giving the illusion of endless space and leading out into nowhere. Tsarist rather than Soviet Russia. Bazarov could be an Argentine character, The Cherry Orchard is an Argentine situation. The Russia of greedy kulaks, corrupt officials, imported groceries and landowners asquint to Europe. I said as much to a friend. ‘Lots of people say that,’ he said. ‘Last year an old White émigrée came to our place in the country. She got terrifically excited and asked to see every room. We went up to the attics and she said: “Ah! I knew it! The smell of my childhood!
”
”
Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia)
“
Greed and sexuality cannot be friends. When one is truly free of sexuality, he becomes greedy. He will care only for wealth; he will become greedy for that. Then, he shall become a snake in next life and will keep protecting it. The person involved in sexuality is not very greedy.
”
”
Dada Bhagwan (Simple & Effective Science for Self Realization)
“
Fluttershy is a natural beauty with gentle, serene ways. Despite her shy and unassuming nature, Fluttershy has a unique gift with animals. Her sweetness and sincerity can charm every animal, from tiny woodland creatures to the most powerful of mythical beasts, making her a valuable asset to her friends in all their adventures. Although she's afraid of heights (very embarrassing for a Pegasus) and shies away at the slightest sound, Fluttershy has no problem confronting grumpy manticores or scolding greedy dragons. While she lacks confidence, she has an inner strength that comes out when others are in trouble. Fluttershy has a lot of fears to overcome, but one day her strength of character and enormous heart will make her a force to be reckoned with.
”
”
Brandon T. Snider (The Elements of Harmony: The Official Guidebook (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic))
“
I’m his means of escape, and all his tests have been to ensure that I was capable of that. “Don’t be sullen,” he reprimands. “I’ve shared with you my secrets. Don’t forget—you’ve used me, too. You wanted to learn. I’ve taught. You wanted a friend. I’ve given. That’s what humans do.” “Use each other.” I understand his meaning. “Self-interest,” he agrees, “whether for power or love. I’m too greedy to teach solely for the joy of watching you grow.
”
”
Adam Burch (Song of Edmon (Fracture World #1))
“
To do what you imply would require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say of any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the past. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the bulk.
”
”
Rafael Sabatini (Scaramouche)
“
“You’re a greedy little whore, and you won’t ever be satisfied by one cock.” His words set me on fire and shook me to my core. He was right. I wanted him to keep calling me a whore, and I wanted him to keep fucking both my holes, but what I really wanted was for him to call one or a few of his friends to come over and run a train on me. I wanted to be stuffed absolutely full of come, and then open my mouth for more.
”
”
Cameron Fox (Passing Emma)
“
I was watching the news when I was about eight, and they were debating whether the wealthy in America contributed enough in taxes. One side argued that the rich, as a class, contributed more than ninety percent of total taxes collected. That about half of the country paid nothing in taxes, or received money in food stamps and welfare. Whereas the top earners, after all was said and done, had about half of their income confiscated by the government. “The counterargument to this was that it wasn’t fair that these high earners made so much. They could afford to give up even more of their income. And that they couldn’t have possibly made their fortunes working hard and taking risks, like Steve Jobs. They could only have done so by cheating and stealing from others, or exploiting them.” Craft paused. “So I asked my father where he came out on the debate.” “And?” “He told me to imagine I had a test in school and I studied for an entire week, night and day. My friend spent the entire week playing video games and having fun at the beach. I ended up getting an A, and my friend got an F. So what if the teacher said, ‘it’s not fair that Bren got an A and his friend got an F. So we’re going to give you both C’s. Still passing, right? So it’s no big deal. Still plenty of cushion away from an F. The A earners shouldn’t be greedy.’ “My father let me think about this and then asked me what I’d do the next time a test came around. How would I prepare for it? It occurred to me that if I knew I really couldn’t earn an A, what was the point of killing myself? I told my father, and he agreed. In fact, he told me that soon the entire class would be getting Cs, and then Ds. And eventually Fs. Socialism at work.
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Quantum Lens)
“
Suicide was greedy; it didn’t just take your friend once—it kept coming back for more, taking and taking, so that your remembrances were always bittersweet.
”
”
Jenny Bayliss (Meet Me Under the Mistletoe)
“
The simple solution was for Manchin to concede. He could just give Sinema her win—and find another way to pay for the bill. But Manchin wasn’t in a yielding mood. “I’m not going to let her define this bill,” he told Steve Ricchetti. To dislodge the pair of obstinate senators, Schumer enlisted Mark Warner, one of their fellow centrists. Warner considered both of them friends and had a history of skillfully steering them in leadership’s favored direction. Warner’s first task was getting Manchin to relent, which meant a late-night visit to his houseboat. A summer storm soaked Warner’s suit, and he lounged around in a borrowed T-shirt and a pair of Manchin’s flip-flops. “Show generosity of spirit,” he urged. He had an ally in Manchin’s wife, Gayle, who had access to emotional weaponry that Warner didn’t. “You can’t be greedy on this,” she told her husband. Having worked through his anger, Manchin could see that he had little choice but to grant Sinema her win.
”
”
Franklin Foer (The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden's White House and the Struggle for America's Future)
“
Our inability to give activates the spirits of hoarding, selfishness and greediness.
”
”
John Arthur (The Law Of Reciprocity (The Laws Of Friendship))
“
Nothing destroys the spirit of greediness faster than the spirit of giving.
”
”
John Arthur (The Law Of Reciprocity (The Laws Of Friendship))
“
And then the truth came to him, and he faced it. After that, he was loitering, putting us off, giving himself a chance to be captured by his death before he could be captured by the doctors and the hospitals and the treatments and the tests and the rest of it. When he consented to go to the doctor he was only consenting for the rest of us to be told what he already knew. He was dying. . .
I understood him. He wanted to die at home. He didn’t want to be going someplace all the time for the sake of a hopeless hope. He wanted to die as himself out of his own life. He didn’t want his death to be the end of a technological process. . . .
He didn’t last long after that. Death had become his friend. They say that people, if they want to, can let themselves slip away when the time comes. I think that is what Nathan did. He was not false or greedy. When the time came to go, he went.
Lyda and Andy Cartlett and I were with him when he died. It was about supper time, still daylight, the sun and the wind in the perfect new maple leaves outside the window. A dove called, somewhere off toward town a screen door slammed, and he was gone.
”
”
Wendell Berry (Hannah Coulter)
“
For a friend,’ Tyson said, twisting his shirt in his hands. ‘Young Cyclopes grow up alone on the streets, learn to make things out of scraps. Learn to survive.’ ‘But that’s so cruel!’ He shook his head earnestly. ‘Makes us appreciate blessings, not be greedy and mean and fat like Polyphemus. But I got scared. Monsters chased me so much, clawed me sometimes –
”
”
Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson: The Complete Series (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1-5))
“
He told me to imagine I had a test in school and I studied for an entire week, night and day. My friend spent the entire week playing video games and having fun at the beach. I ended up getting an A, and my friend got an F. So what if the teacher said, ‘it’s not fair that Bren got an A and his friend got an F. So we’re going to give you both C’s. Still passing, right? So it’s no big deal. Still plenty of cushion away from an F. The A earners shouldn’t be greedy.’ “My father let me think about this and then asked me what I’d do the next time a test came around. How would I prepare for it? It occurred to me that if I knew I really couldn’t earn an A, what was the point of killing myself? I told my father, and he agreed. In fact, he told me that soon the entire class would be getting Cs, and then Ds. And eventually Fs. Socialism at work.
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Quantum Lens)
“
Count Conti smiled. "Not at all boys; I’d love you to visit so we can spend some quality time together. I will collect you in my speedboat tomorrow morning. We will have breakfast at the Lido Excelsior di Venezia. I don't think your friends will be up early to join us after painting the town red. I can have you boys all to myself. I'm a greedy lover." He smiled seductively.
”
”
Young (Initiation (A Harem Boy's Saga Book 1))
“
To ensure the survival of Payoh, we must first understand the reason for its existence in the first place. If you think Payoh exists because of us, the resident birds, you’re wrong. This may surprise you, but this sanctuary is really meant for the migrants from the north who make it their winter feeding ground. And, if you believe that the greedy local authorities give a hoot about our friends from the north, you couldn’t be more mistaken. The truth is that they are pressured by powerful international environmentalists.
”
”
Jim Tan
“
Polly's embarrassment revealed her regret that she should have given in to the age-old temptation of saying something disagreeable even to her oldest and most useful friend. But she had committed herself now. "I relate it," she replied in a bolder tone, "to my apprehension that you are using your perfectly proper wish to do great and noble things with Eric's money to disguise your equally natural desire to keep it out of the greedy hands of his family.
”
”
Louis Auchincloss (Her Infinite Variety: A Novel)
“
BEING GREEDY IS NOT TRUSTING THAT GOD WILL PROVIDE MORE!
PLEASE BELIEVE HIM!
#HOPENATION
”
”
Qwana Reynolds-Frasier (Friend In Your Pocket Conversations Session One)
“
Even the “state” and the “market,” in these warm and discursive societies, are intricately interconnected. Late eighteenth-century economic thought is now so unfamiliar, in part, because of the subsequent transformation in political positions: in the politics of economic reform and also in the depiction of the state. It was the “left,” in the period with which this book is concerned—the friends of enlightenment, the sympathizers of revolution—who were the most severe critics of the economic, political, and religious state. Thomas Paine, praising Smith and criticizing Burke, described “the greedy hand of Government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry,” and called for “lessening the burden of taxes,” in particular through a plan for reducing taxation which would limit civilian government spending to less than 1 percent of national income.
”
”
Emma Rothschild (Economic Sentiments)
“
All of us, every day, inherit problems we didn't create. Motherfuckers get greedy with oil, and everything we buy gets a lot more expensive. Motherfuckers get uppity in another country, and we and our friends and family are expected to leave home to fight and die. Motherfuckers make management mistakes in distant offices, and the house of cards collapses, leaving everyone to scramble to make a living and feed our families. Motherfuckers botch a drilling operation in the ocean and fuck up the environment for the rest of us. Motherfuckers go crazy and shoot up a McDonald's, or a bank, or a school. Motherfuckers do dumb shit, and we have to deal with it.
”
”
Johnny B. Truant (Disobey)
“
But I am saying that you shouldn’t act as if everything is just fine when a friend who claims to be a Christian is promiscuous or crooked, is flip with God or rude to friends, gets drunk or becomes greedy and predatory. You can’t just go along with this, treating it as acceptable behavior. I’m not responsible for what the outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?
”
”
Jamie Snyder (Thou Shall: Freedom to Strip Away the "Nots" and Discover What God Really Wants)
“
He told me to imagine I had a test in school and I studied for an entire week, night and day. My friend spent the entire week playing video games and having fun at the beach. I ended up getting an A, and my friend got an F. So what if the teacher said, ‘it’s not fair that Bren got an A and his friend got an F. So we’re going to give you both C’s. Still passing, right? So it’s no big deal. Still plenty of cushion away from an F. The A earners shouldn’t be greedy.
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Quantum Lens)
“
Fine, I’m a greedy capitalist pig. But you, my friend, are a sports agent. There is not a greedier, sleazier, slimier, more capitalist entity in existence.” Myron nodded. “Suck up to me,” he said. “That’ll work.” “You’re not letting me finish. Yes, you’re a sports agent. But a damn fine one. The best, really. You and the Spanish shiksa do incredible work for your clients. Get the most for them. More than they should get really. By the time you finish with me, I feel violated. Hand to God, you’re that good. You come into my office, you rip off my clothes and have your way with me.” Myron made a face. “Please.” “But I know your secret background with the feds.” Some
”
”
Harlan Coben (One False Move (Myron Bolitar, #5))
“
brother-in-law, he’s crippled. He can’t work either.” “Very little.” “Then how do you live?” Rahab hesitated. She had formed the dough into a solid lump and stood there for a moment. “I have to support them, and I’ve told you what I am.” The words caught Othniel in a strange way. He had known harlots before, but all of them he had known were hard-eyed, greedy women. Any one of the harlots he knew would have turned him and Ardon in for the reward the king was offering for their capture—a reward that was getting larger every day. “I’m a harlot,” she said, making no excuse for it. “That’s why your friend Ardon doesn’t like me.
”
”
Gilbert Morris (Daughter of Deliverance (Lions of Judah Book #6))
“
had a test in school and I studied for an entire week, night and day. My friend spent the entire week playing video games and having fun at the beach. I ended up getting an A, and my friend got an F. So what if the teacher said, ‘it’s not fair that Bren got an A and his friend got an F. So we’re going to give you both C’s. Still passing, right? So it’s no big deal. Still plenty of cushion away from an F. The A earners shouldn’t be greedy.
”
”
Douglas E. Richards (Quantum Lens)
“
But if you’d waited before buying an annuity and suddenly go to that great spaceship in the sky before handing over your cash, then your family or friends or your dog will get your money - rather them than some greedy
”
”
David Craig (GREED UNLIMITED: How Cameron and Clegg protect the elites while squeezing the rest of us)
“
Show me how much of a whore you really are and fuck my dick. Get some more cum in that cunt of yours, greedy girl.
”
”
Kitty King (Shared With His Friends)
“
The Dark Goddess lives at a woman’s core. She guards the self. She is the friend of the soul, whose purpose in your life is to fiercely protect and further the whole process of your learning to live authentically from your core. She never trades in deceit, she never lies, nor does she veil her power. She refuses to uphold any rela-tionship that doesn’t work, and she tears away at anything within us that is greedy or grasping or infantile. She continually urges us to reclaim our own power—the power to set limits and shout ‘no,’ and the power to say, ‘This is what I will do and this is what I won’t do’ when we are faced with any sort of abuse or anyone trying to steal our power or dominate us.
”
”
Leslie Kenton (PASSAGE TO POWER)
“
And by his side rode loathsome Gluttony,
Deformed creature, on a filthie swyne,
His belly was vp-blowne with luxury,
And eke with fatnesse swollen were his eyne,
And like a Crane his necke was long and fyne,
With which he swallowd vp excessiue feast;
For want whereof poore people oft did pyne;
And all the way, most like a brutish beast,
He spued vp his gorge, that all did him deteast.
In greene vine leaues he was right fitly clad;
For other clothes he could not weare for heat,
And on his head an yuie girland had,
From vnder which fast trickled downe the sweat:
Still as he rode, he somewhat still did eat,
And in his hand did beare a bouzing can,
“Of which he supt so oft, that on his seat
His dronken corse he scarse vpholden can,
In shape and life more like a monster, then a man.
Vnfit he was for any worldly thing,
And eke vnhable once to stirre or go,
Not meet to be of counsell to a king,
Whose mind in meat and drinke was drowned so,
That from his friend he seldome knew his fo:
Full of diseases was his carcas blew,
And a dry dropsie through his flesh did flow
And next to him rode lustfull Lechery,
Vpon a bearded Goat, whose rugged haire,
And whally eyes (the signe of gelosy,)
Was like the person selfe, whom he did beare:
Who rough, and blacke, and filthy did appeare,
Vnseemely man to please faire Ladies eye;
Yet he of Ladies oft was loued deare,
When fairer faces were bid standen by:
O who does know the bent of womens fantasy?
In a greene gowne he clothed was full faire,
Which vnderneath did hide his filthinesse,
And in his hand a burning hart he bare,
Full of vaine follies, and new fanglenesse:
For he was false, and fraught with ficklenesse,
And learned had to loue with secret lookes,
And well could daunce, and sing with ruefulnesse,
And fortunes tell, and read in louing bookes,
And thousand other wayes, to bait his fleshly hookes.
And greedy Auarice by him did ride,
Vpon a Camell loaden all with gold;
Two iron coffers hong on either side,
With precious mettall full, as they might hold,
And in his lap an heape of coine he told;
For of his wicked pelfe his God he made,
And vnto hell him selfe for money sold;
Accursed vsurie was all his trade,
And right and wrong ylike in equall ballaunce waide.
His life was nigh vnto deaths doore yplast,
And tired-bare cote, and cobled shoes he ware,
Ne scarse good morsell all his life did tast,
But both from backe and belly still did spare,
To fill his bags, and richesse to compare;
Yet chylde ne kinsman liuing had he none
To leaue them to; but thorough daily care
To get, and nightly feare to lose his owne,
He led a wretched life vnto himselfe vnknowne.
And next to him malicious Enuie rode,
Vpon a rauenous wolfe, and still did chaw
Betweene his cankred teeth a venemous tode,
That all the poison ran about his chaw;
But inwardly he chawed his owne maw
At neighbours wealth, that made him euer sad
For death it was, when any good he saw,
And wept, that cause of weeping none he had
But when he heard of harme, he wexed wondrous glad.
And him beside rides fierce reuenging Wrath,
Vpon a Lion, loth for to be led;
And in his hand a burning brond he hath,
The which he brandisheth about his hed;
His eyes did hurle forth sparkles fiery red,
And stared sterne on all, that him beheld,
As ashes pale of hew and seeming ded;
And on his dagger still his hand he held,
Trembling through hasty rage, when choler in him sweld.
”
”
Edmund Spenser (The Faerie Queene)
“
It was ridiculous! He had a dad, he had so many good friends and was able to follow his dream, and help people. Not long ago, he was just grateful to get two hours together when no one was beating him.
When did I get so greedy?
He didn't deserve any of this anyway, and it wasn't like it was real either, if he didn't have the quirk they'd all leave him. And yet here he was wanting more?
”
”
whimsical_girl_357 (The Emerald Prince)
“
It's stupid! I have so much, last year I was just grateful not to wake up in pain! To not have to sleep on concrete! Now I have a bed... I can eat as much as I want... I have a dad!!! And I... I have friends for the first time ever! I'm so lucky, yet seeing you two together fucking- ugh! I'm so horrible and greedy to want more when I already have so much I don't deserve!
”
”
whimsical_girl_357 (The Emerald Prince)
“
Eli was lost, jealous, and greedy. But he once was kind, brave, funny even. He once was a good friend.
”
”
L.J. Andrews (Crown of Blood and Ruin (The Broken Kingdoms, #3))
“
Certainly, prostitution isn’t for every woman. You have to like sex enough, and be willing to make some sacrifices, like not having a husband (unless he is very understanding, or very greedy). Still, these negatives just might not seem that important when the wage is $500 an hour. Indeed, when Allie confided to one longtime friend that she had become a prostitute and described her new life, it was only a few weeks before the friend joined Allie in the business. Allie has never had any trouble with the police, and doesn’t expect to. The truth is that she would be distraught if prostitution were legalized, because her stratospherically high wage stems from the fact that the service she provides cannot be gotten legally.
”
”
Steven D. Levitt (SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance)
“
There is great merit in singularism. If we see what is large as no different from what is small, and what is many as no different from what is few, we may become less greedy. If we see enemies as friends, we may fight less. If we see people in the future not apart from those in the present, we may act more considerately. If we see nonhumans as intimate with humans, we may respect animal rights. If we see nonsentient beings as not different from sentient beings, we become more conscious of the environment. When we transcend distinctions and boundaries, we become more compassionate. This is the realization of all things beyond boundaries. This is wisdom beyond wisdom.
”
”
Kazuaki Tanahashi (The Heart Sutra: A Comprehensive Guide to the Classic of Mahayana Buddhism)
“
Wrong. The children have ruined Christmas for the adults.’ Agatha looked at him, puzzled. ‘How do you explain that?’ ‘They’ve come to expect to get exactly what they want. I know all this from friends of mine with children. Something new comes out in July, say. They clamour for it. No use saying, “Wait till Christmas.” They have to have it right away because it’ll be old hat by Christmas. They don’t want surprises. They want what they demand. So there are no shining faces under the Christmas tree, radiant with surprise and gratitude. Only complaints like, “Why did you buy me this computer game? It’s months old.” Greedy children and disappointed parents, that’s Christmas.
”
”
M.C. Beaton (Agatha Raisin and the Curious Curate (Agatha Raisin, #13))
“
The Magic Drum and Other Favourite Stories Sudha Murty A princess who thinks she was a bird, a coconut that cost a thousand rupees, and a shepherd with a bag of words . . . Kings and misers, princes and paupers, wise men and foolish boys, the funniest and oddest men and women come alive in this sparkling new collection of stories. The clever princess will only marry the man who can ask her a question she cannot answer; the orphan boy outwits his greedy uncles with a bag of ash; and an old couple in distress is saved by a magic drum. Sudha Murty’s grandparents told her some of these stories when she was a child; others she heard from her friends from around the world. These delightful and timeless folktales have been her favourites for years, and she has recounted them many times over to the young people in her life. With this collection, they will be enjoyed by many more readers, of all ages.
”
”
Sudha Murty (The Bird with the Golden Wings: Stories of Wit and Magic)
“
A real socialism will come out of capitalism as a by-product. When too much wealth is created, people will not be so greedy; the greed arises only because the wealth is very scarce. And you can see it very clearly -- you can see it here. The poor person is very greedy, the rich person is not so greedy. The people who are coming from the West are less greedy than the people who are living in India. The Indians TALK about no-greed, greedlessness, but they are the most greedy people in the world. They have to be -- they are so poor, they have to cling.
”
”
Osho (Come, come, yet again come: Spontaneous talks given to disciples and friends of Osho in Gautama the Buddha Auditorium, Poona, India)
“
Happy is he who finds a friend whose heart and mind harmonize with his own; a friend who adheres to him by likeness of tastes, feeling, and knowledge; a friend who is not the prey of ambition or greediness, who prefers the shade of a tree to the pomp of a court! Happy is he who has a friend!
”
”
Xavier de Maistre (A Journey Round My Room)
“
...it's too bad bad you're not like the Suriel, spouting any information I want if I'm clever enough to snare you.'
For a moment, he blinked at me. Then his mouth twisted to the side and that metal eye whizzed and narrowed on me. 'I suppose you won't tell me what you want to know.'
'You have your secrets, and I have mine,' I said carefully. I couldn't tell whether he would try to convince me otherwise if I told him the truth. 'But if you were a Suriel,' I added with deliberate slowness, in case he hadn't caught my meaning, 'how, exactly, would I trap you?'
Lucien set down the knife and picked at his nails. For a moment, I wondered if he would tell me anything at all. Wondered if he would go right to Tamlin and tattle.
But then he said. 'I'd probably have a weakness for groves of young birch trees in the western woods, and freshly slaughtered chickens, and would probably be so greedy that I wouldn't notice the double-loop snare rigged around the grove to pin my legs in place.'
'Hmm,' I didn't dare ask why he had decided to be so accommodating. There was still a good chance he wouldn't mind seeing me dead, but I would risk it. 'I somehow prefer you as a High Fae.'
He smirked, but the amusement was short-lived. 'If I were insane and stupid enough to go after a Suriel, I'd also take a bow and quiver, and maybe a knife just like this one.' He sheathed the knife he'd cleaned and set it down on the edge of the table- an offering. 'And I'd be prepared to run like hell when I freed it- to the nearest running water, which they hate crossing.'
'But you're not insane, so you'll be here, safe and sound?'
'I'll be conveniently hunting on the grounds, and with my superior hearing, I might be feeling generous enough to listen if someone screams from the western woods. But it's a good thing I had no role in telling you to go out today, since Tam would eviscerate anyone who told you how to trap a Suriel; and it's a good thing I had planned to hunt anyway, because if anyone caught me helping you, there would be trouble of a whole other hell awaiting us. I hope your secrets are worth it.' He said it with his usual grin, but there was an edge to it- a warning I didn't miss.
Another riddle- and another bit of information. I said, 'It's a good thing that while you have superior hearing, I possess superior abilities to keep my mouth shut.'
He snorted as I took the knife from the table and turned to procure the bow from my room. 'I think I'm starting to like you- for a murdering human.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1))
“
It shouldn't even be up for discussion, in a perfect world. The rights of women should be sacrosanct. If men bore children, there would be no need for law; the right would simply exist. As a woman, I take great exception to my rights being used as a political platform by greedy and dishonest politicians to gather voters to their side. It reinforces the fact that women--in general--are viewed as lesser beings in our society.
That being said, I appreciate your thoughts on this subject, Tom. As men go, you're exceptional. I hate what most people view as feminism these days. It's become ugly and combative, and the movement has lost its focus. It's become a man vs. woman "blame game", and it has to stop before we can evolve further. To me, feminism is simply equal rights--HUMAN rights. I will always thank a guy for those lovely gestures like holding my door and helping me with my coat. I'm old-fashioned that way. However, I realize that if I want to be respected, I have to give a man something to respect. I treat him and his feelings with equal care. A lot of my "new feminist" friends hate me because I actually THINK that it's okay to be pretty, to shave my legs and under my arms, to have long hair and to smile...and I choose to keep my bra, not burn it.
Like Bukowski said, "I have little time for things for things that have no soul." That sums up our government, our politicians and their shameless manipulation of my rights as a woman. I saw my Grandmother and my Mom destroyed by the way that it was back in the good old days. I'll always be grateful for the strong and quiet femininity that they've passed on to me, and for the passionate blood in my veins manifested as a child born in the era of revolution.
”
”
Lioness DeWinter
“
Moosonee. End of the road. End of the tracks. I can sense
it just beyond the trees, nieces. It’s not so far away through
the heavy snow. That place, it can be a sad, greedy town.
You fall into your group of friends, and that’s that. Friends
for life, minus the times you are enemies. Not too many
people around here to choose from for friends, or for
enemies. So choose right. In this place, your people will die
for you. Unless they’re mad at you. If you are on the outs
with a friend, all bets are off. You don’t exist.
”
”
Joseph Boyden
“
Another of the characters who must now come into our story is the theologian Johannes Eck, whom Luther considered a friend until the unfortunate months of early 1518. The two had been introduced by the leading Humanist Christopher Scheurl when Scheurl was the rector at Wittenberg, but when Eck read Luther’s theses that January, he promptly let it be known that he desperately wished to debate Luther. In fact, he said he would gladly walk ten miles to do so. Eck then wrote and published a rebuttal of Luther’s theses, titled Obelisks. The typographic term “obelisk”—which referred to the four-sided monolithic stone monuments that taper upward and date back to ancient Egypt—denoted the small daggers that were even then used in the margins of manuscripts, indicating that the text nearby was perhaps of spurious origin. So Eck’s title must have seemed to Luther like the very thing itself, a poniard in the back of a friend. That a friend Luther considered a reasonable and educated man would attack him like this was certainly deeply hurtful. Nor was the attack measured, but vicious. In it Eck hurled boulders of invective Lutherward, calling him simpleminded, impudent, and Bohemian (which is to say, a heretic deserving of death, like the Bohemian Jan Hus) and a despiser of the pope, among other things. To Luther, it was a cruel betrayal. What might have sparked Eck’s emotion is hard to say, but surely part of it had to do with the fact that Luther was accusing the indulgence sellers of being greedy, and thereby somehow undermining the authority of the church itself. Even if there was truth to this, or if there was error to be reported, it seems Eck took greatest offense at Luther’s naked appeal to the anticlericalism so rampant at that time, which served only to make matters worse by undermining the church’s authority. In any case, Luther was wounded and disinclined to reply, but his friends insisted that he must. So he wrote Asterisks. Thus touché. The word “asterisk” is from the Greek for “little star,” and so asterisks were those marks in the margins of manuscripts that were the precise opposite of the pejorative downward-facing daggers.10 Asterisks were put next to text that was considered particularly valuable. So only six decades after the invention of movable type, Luther and Eck treated the world to its first typographic battle, waged with pre-Zapf dingbats.
”
”
Eric Metaxas (Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World)
“
Rich guys are weird and greedy,
”
”
Katrina Kahler (NINA The Friendly Vampire - Part 2: Families, Under Attack, Family Ties - 3 Exciting Stories!: Books for Girls aged 9-12)
“
Anorectics experience extreme weight loss. But you lose more than that. Hair, fingernails, teeth. You lose your friends, family, yourself. You lose your sense of the world. Of what is important beyond the not-eating. And, eventually, you lose it all. Your life. She’s greedy, anorexia is.
”
”
Diana Clarke (Thin Girls)
“
We will always be greedy for more land, more wealth, power, luxury, more freedom, friends, love, sex, more of anything and everything that brings us some sense of fulfillment or pleasure. Philosophers are greedy for more knowledge, missionaries are greedy for more sheep to add to their flock, so despite all of the ‘virtuous’ things they do, greed is still a major motive behind their actions. The world is run by avarice. It’s the foundation beneath every aspect of our existence.
”
”
A.C. Melody (Avarice)
“
John Steinbeck. The Grapes of Wrath, a huge indictment of materialism published in the thirties, is the sleeper success of publishing. In 1959 Steinbeck wrote to his friend Adlai Stevenson, the great icon of liberals, ‘If I wanted to destroy a nation, I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick.
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M.J. Akbar (Have Pen, Will Travel)
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I’d left the apartment Eva shared with her best friend, Cary Taylor, only a couple of hours earlier, wanting to give her time to catch a few hours of sleep before she headed into work. We had been at each other all night, both of us too needy and greedy. But there’d been something else, too. An urgency on Eva’s part that gnawed at me and left me uneasy.
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Sylvia Day (Captivated by You (Crossfire, #4))
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Here is the tragedy of the thug. From all we know of his treatment of his own people, military and civilian, he is the perfect picture of the tyrant. His policy is not steady, but based on urgently felt desires of the moment. He has attacked on all sides. He has opportunistically killed communists. He has attacked Western interests. He has persecuted Kurds and Shiites, he has invaded Iran and Kuwait. It is all according to his momentary hopes and fears. There is no solid thing, no guiding principle other than tyrannical selfishness underlying his state. It is all false and rotten. And now he is surrounded and isolated. He is being used by Russia and China and yet, he is not really supported by them. As for his military prowess, he cannot hope to win any future war. In Zhuge Liang and Liu Ji's commentaries on Sun Tzu, eight kinds of decadence are listed for generals. "First is to be insatiably greedy." Look at Saddam's personal wealth, his many palaces, to see how closely he fits this description. "Second is to be jealous and envious of the wise and able." In Saddam's many purges the wise and able fell, leaving incompetent lackeys to run the army. "Third is to believe slanderers and make friends with the treacherous." His friendship treaty with Moscow and his belief in a Western conspiracy against the Arab world has landed him in a fatal fix. "Fourth is to assess others without assessing oneself." For Saddam, this is a psychological imperative. "Fifth is to be hesitant and indecisive." And what of his decisive recklessness? "Sixth is to be heavily addicted to wine and sex." Consider the behavior of Saddam's eldest son, Uday, who is known for rape as well as drunkenness. "Seventh is to be a malicious liar with a cowardly heart." Here we do not say that Saddam has a cowardly heart, but he lies all the same. "Eighth is to talk wildly, without courtesy." This was Saddam's trademark from the first.
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J.R. Nyquist
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Be not heavy, nor yet light,
Do not tarry, nor yet hurry.
Be not partial, nor listen to desire.
Do not avert your face from one you know,
Be not blind to one you have seen,
Do not rebuff one who beseeches you. Abandon this slackness.
Let your speech be heard.
Act for him who would act for you.
Do not listen to everyone,
Summon a man to his rightful cause!
A sluggard has no yesterday;
(no) one deaf to justice has no friend;
the greedy has no holiday.
When the accuser is a wretch, and the wretch becomes a pleader, his opponent is a killer. Here I have been pleading with you, and you have not listened to it.
I shall go and plead about you to Anubis!
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Miriam Lichtheim (Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms)
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My mother would be proud of how hard I'm working to be the gentleman she always impressed upon me to be. I can still remember one conversation in particular, just before she died, when she said, "Women are a treasure. A gift. What do you do with treasure?"
"Hoard it?" I'd asked, being a snarky fifteen-year-old.
Mom smacked me on the arm, but she was smiling. "No Smaug. You protect it. You guard it. You always remember its value."
I don't know if Zoey got similar talks but for girls. Maybe Mom taught her to value herself or to watch out for greedy dragons trying to hoard woman.
Abby is a treasure, and she grows more valuable in y eyes every moment I'm with her.
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Emma St. Clair (Falling for Your Best Friend's Twin (Love Clichés, #1))
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rise of the Nazis posed other problems for Keynes’ worldview. In his letters to Lydia, Keynes at times used “Jewish” and “circumcised” as synonyms for “greedy.” The economist Robert Solow has even suggested that Keynes’ attacks on “love of money” in “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” reflect a “polite anti-semitism.”20 Solow presses his case too far, but Keynes’ jokes with Lydia do represent more than some unfortunate, outdated terminology. In 1926, he had written a brief sketch of Albert Einstein, one of his intellectual heroes, after meeting him in Berlin. Einstein, according to Keynes, was one of the good Jews—“a sweet imp” who had “not sublimated immortality into compound interest.” Keynes knew many such good Jews in Germany. There was a Berlin banker named Fuerstenberg “who Lydia liked so much” and the “mystical” German economist Kurt Singer and even his “dear” friend Carl Melchior, whom he had met at the Paris Peace Conference. “Yet if I lived there, I felt I might turn anti-Semite. For the poor Prussian is too slow and heavy on his legs for the other kind of Jews, the ones who are not imps but serving devils, with small horns, pitch forks, and oily tails. It is not agreeable to see a civilisation so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and the brains.”21 The sketch was rancid even by the standards of his own time. Keynes may have realized it. The piece was not published until after his death. After the Nazis came to power, Keynes became more considerate with his vocabulary. In August
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Zachary D. Carter (The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes)
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rise of the Nazis posed other problems for Keynes’ worldview. In his letters to Lydia, Keynes at times used “Jewish” and “circumcised” as synonyms for “greedy.” The economist Robert Solow has even suggested that Keynes’ attacks on “love of money” in “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren” reflect a “polite anti-semitism.”20 Solow presses his case too far, but Keynes’ jokes with Lydia do represent more than some unfortunate, outdated terminology. In 1926, he had written a brief sketch of Albert Einstein, one of his intellectual heroes, after meeting him in Berlin. Einstein, according to Keynes, was one of the good Jews—“a sweet imp” who had “not sublimated immortality into compound interest.” Keynes knew many such good Jews in Germany. There was a Berlin banker named Fuerstenberg “who Lydia liked so much” and the “mystical” German economist Kurt Singer and even his “dear” friend Carl Melchior, whom he had met at the Paris Peace Conference. “Yet if I lived there, I felt I might turn anti-Semite. For the poor Prussian is too slow and heavy on his legs for the other kind of Jews, the ones who are not imps but serving devils, with small horns, pitch forks, and oily tails. It is not agreeable to see a civilisation so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and the brains.”21 The sketch was rancid even by the standards of his own time. Keynes may have realized it. The piece was not published until after his death. After the Nazis came to power, Keynes became more considerate
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Zachary D. Carter (The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes)