Covetousness Quotes

“But, and here comes the rub, all of us feel that we are in complete control of our desire for things. We would never admit to an ungovernable spirit of covetousness. The problem is that we, like the alcoholic, are unable to recognize the disease once we have been engulfed by it. Only by the help of others are we able to detect the inner spirit that places wealth about God. And we must come to fear the idolatrous state of covetousness because the moment things have priority, radical obedience becomes impossible.”
― Richard J. Foster, Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World

“I can admire, but I no longer covet. Books of course are another matter; books are not acquisitions, they are necessities.”
― Penelope Lively, Ammonites And Leaping Fish: A Life In Time

“Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana, The Use and Misuse of Children

“Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood....”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“The algorithms that orchestrate our ads are starting to orchestrate our lives.”
― Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You

“The whole people contracts the habits and tastes of the magistrate.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“People would be happy to see you do better, but not better than them.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“You don't know the true meaning of BEAUTY if you see it everywhere but in your own life.”
― Allene vanOirschot, Daddy's Little Girl: A Father's Prayer

“By covetousness, people will exploit you with deceptive words”
― Sunday Adelaja

“When consent takes the form of seeking to possess the things we wish, this is called desire. When consent takes the form of enjoying the things we wish, this is called joy.”
― Augustine of Hippo, City of God

“But could he endure it, that other men knew her in a way that he, Staines, did not? He did not know.”
― Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries

“Our covetousness for miracles and wonders leads into self-deception”
― Sunday Adelaja

“When you see injustice among the nations, you will find out that the root cause is covetousnes.”
― Sunday Adelaja, Insulted By Ungodliness: Raising a generation of the provoked in every nation

“But the need for justice is like ownership or love. Feeding it only makes it grow.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory

“The enemy that is Envy is trigger-happy; he's pretty much a gunslinger who wields a silenced Demotivator - sent with sabotage, suicide, and suppression, he assassinates in secret, and so hopes to exterminate, to kill what was meant to motivate him - in simpler terms and less expression: he shoots the messenger.”
― Criss Jami

“Nothing is quite so attractive in our possession as it was when coveted”
― Pliny the Younger

“Newspapers provided a common culture of aspiration.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“Fifties advertising was a dogmatic art, to the point of pretending to be a science.”
― Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus

“Desire is insatiable as death, but He who fills all in all can fill it. The capacity of our wishes who can measure? But the immeasurable wealth of God can more than overflow it.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version

“Even envy, wants to even the score.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Our covetousness will put us under unbelievable bondages”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Churches themselves are breeding covetousness.”
― Sunday Adelaja

“Covetousness gives birth to violence, while violence gives birth to oppression.”
― Sunday Adelaja, The Mountain of Ignorance

“When you see injustice among the nations, you will find out that the root cause is covetousness.”
― Sunday Adelaja, The Mountain of Ignorance

“The architect and the father of war are covetousness of the leaders and of different interest groups fueling war.”
― Sunday Adelaja, The Mountain of Ignorance

“The last of us fell
between the concrete fractures
and steel memories of life.
Nature gave the lot
and we took with our eyes closed
until nobody remained.”
― Phen Weston, The Silent Balance: A Collection of Waka Poetry

“The tenth commandment forbids coveting because doing so denies the goodness of God. Jesus speaks against hoarding because doing so denies the goodness of God. Coveting implies a lack in God's present provision and hoarding anticipates a lack in God's good provision in the future. Neither mind-set will translate into generosity. Generosity flourishes only when we do not fear loss.”
― Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Ways God Calls Us to Reflect His Character

“Na na, my lad; ponder well, and a warning take. I cared nae mair for wealth, for its own sake, than others; but saw it was the key to all comforts, and to have my own will of them I in a sense coveted; but it was not the covetousness forbidden in the tenth commandment, for I never grudged no man his living. I only longed for the means by which I might conquest such havings. It was that power I sought to gain, by gaining riches - well knowing that with them I would get the potential: so dinna think I was either daft or doited, for I was no miser, but a man who saw gold ruled the world and only sought to make it a friend.”
― John Galt, Selected Short Stories