TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY ®  •  TODAYINSCI ®
Celebrating 24 Years on the Web
Find science on or your birthday

Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: “I have no satisfaction in formulas unless I feel their arithmetical magnitude.”
more quiz questions >>
Home > Category Index for Science Quotations > Category Index G > Category: Greed

Greed Quotes (17 quotes)
Greedy Quotes

The Mighty Task is Done

At last the mighty task is done;
Resplendent in the western sun
The Bridge looms mountain high;
Its titan piers grip ocean floor,
Its great steel arms link shore with shore,
Its towers pierce the sky.

On its broad decks in rightful pride,
The world in swift parade shall ride,
Throughout all time to be;
Beneath, fleet ships from every port,
Vast landlocked bay, historic fort,
And dwarfing all the sea.

To north, the Redwood Empires gates;
To south, a happy playground waits,
In Rapturous appeal;
Here nature, free since time began,
Yields to the restless moods of man,
Accepts his bonds of steel.

Launched midst a thousand hopes and fears,
Damned by a thousand hostile sneers,
Yet Neer its course was stayed,
But ask of those who met the foe
Who stood alone when faith was low,
Ask them the price they paid.

Ask of the steel, each strut and wire,
Ask of the searching, purging fire,
That marked their natal hour;
Ask of the mind, the hand, the heart,
Ask of each single, stalwart part,
What gave it force and power.

An Honored cause and nobly fought
And that which they so bravely wrought,
Now glorifies their deed,
No selfish urge shall stain its life,
Nor envy, greed, intrigue, nor strife,
Nor false, ignoble creed.

High overhead its lights shall gleam,
Far, far below lifes restless stream,
Unceasingly shall flow;
For this was spun its lithe fine form,
To fear not war, nor time, nor storm,
For Fate had meant it so.

Written upon completion of the building of the Golden Gate Bridge, May 1937. In Allen Brown, Golden Gate: biography of a Bridge (1965), 229.
Science quotes on:  |  Accept (198)  |  Alone (324)  |  Arm (82)  |  Arms (37)  |  Ask (420)  |  Bay (6)  |  Beneath (68)  |  Bond (46)  |  Bravery (2)  |  Bridge (49)  |  Bridge Engineering (8)  |  Cause (561)  |  Course (413)  |  Creed (28)  |  Deck (3)  |  Deed (34)  |  Engineering (188)  |  Envy (15)  |  Faith (209)  |  Fate (76)  |  Fear (212)  |  Fire (203)  |  Flow (89)  |  Foe (11)  |  Force (497)  |  Form (976)  |  Fort (2)  |  Free (239)  |  Gate (33)  |  Golden Gate Bridge (2)  |  Great (1610)  |  Happy (108)  |  Heart (243)  |  High (370)  |  History (716)  |  Honor (57)  |  Hope (321)  |  Hour (192)  |  Last (425)  |  Launch (21)  |  Life (1870)  |  Light (635)  |  Loom (20)  |  Low (86)  |  Man (2252)  |  Marked (55)  |  Mind (1377)  |  Mountain (202)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Ocean (216)  |  Ocean Floor (6)  |  Parade (3)  |  Playground (6)  |  Poem (104)  |  Power (771)  |  Price (57)  |  Pride (84)  |  Rapture (8)  |  Redwood (8)  |  Ride (23)  |  Sea (326)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Ship (69)  |  Shore (25)  |  Single (365)  |  Sky (174)  |  Sneer (9)  |  South (39)  |  Steel (23)  |  Storm (56)  |  Stream (83)  |  Strut (2)  |  Sun (407)  |  Task (152)  |  Thousand (340)  |  Throughout (98)  |  Time (1911)  |  Tower (45)  |  Vast (188)  |  War (233)  |  Western (45)  |  Wire (36)  |  World (1850)  |  Yield (86)

A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness. People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.
Through the Looking Glass. In Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain (1986), 206.
Science quotes on:  |  Adam And Eve (5)  |  Assumption (96)  |  Century (319)  |  Do (1905)  |  Everything (489)  |  Excuse (27)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gentleness (4)  |  Great (1610)  |  Lesson (58)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Obsolete (15)  |  People (1031)  |  Religion (369)  |  Science And Religion (337)  |  Story (122)  |  Swindle (2)  |  Time (1911)  |  Whale (45)

Be a nuisance where it counts. … Do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics — but never give up.
As quoted in Post Editors, 'Marjory Stoneman Douglas and The Saturday Evening Post', Saturday Evening Post (26 Feb 2018). Cited as “From a 1980 article she wrote”, in 'A Life of Advocacy and Activism', a floridastateparks.org webpage.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Bad (185)  |  Corruption (17)  |  Depressed (3)  |  Disappointment (18)  |  Discourage (14)  |  Effect (414)  |  Failure (176)  |  Give Up (10)  |  Ignorance (254)  |  Inform (50)  |  Join (32)  |  Never (1089)  |  Nuisance (10)  |  Politics (122)  |  Public (100)  |  Stimulate (21)

Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the “the game belongs to the people.” So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The “greatest good for the greatest number” applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.
'Bird Reserves at the Mouth of the Mississippi', A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open (1920), 300-301.
Science quotes on:  |  Alive (97)  |  Beautiful (271)  |  Belong (168)  |  Charm (54)  |  Conservation (187)  |  Country (269)  |  Defender (5)  |  Democratic (12)  |  Extermination (14)  |  Form (976)  |  Game (104)  |  Generation (256)  |  Good (906)  |  Greatest (330)  |  Heritage (22)  |  Insignificant (33)  |  Life (1870)  |  Merely (315)  |  Method (531)  |  Minority (24)  |  Movement (162)  |  Natural (810)  |  Natural Resource (23)  |  Number (710)  |  People (1031)  |  Present (630)  |  Purpose (336)  |  Seek (218)  |  Short (200)  |  Short-Sighted (5)  |  Sight (135)  |  Spirit (278)  |  Thing (1914)  |  Time (1911)  |  Useful (260)  |  Whole (756)  |  Wild (96)  |  Will (2350)  |  Womb (25)

Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.
As quoted, without source, in E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: Economics as If People Mattered (1973), 31.
Science quotes on:  |  Earth (1076)  |  Enough (341)  |  Man (2252)  |  Need (320)  |  Providing (5)  |  Satisfying (5)

Education has, thus, become the chief problem of the world, its one holy cause. The nations that see this will survive, and those that fail to do so will slowly perish. There must be re-education of the will and of the heart as well as of the intellect, and the ideals of service must supplant those of selfishness and greed. ... Never so much as now is education the one and chief hope of the world.
Confessions of a Psychologist (1923). Quoted in Bruce A. Kimball, The True Professional Ideal in America: A History (1996), 198.
Science quotes on:  |  Become (821)  |  Cause (561)  |  Chief (99)  |  Do (1905)  |  Education (423)  |  Fail (191)  |  Heart (243)  |  Holy (35)  |  Hope (321)  |  Ideal (110)  |  Intellect (251)  |  Must (1525)  |  Nation (208)  |  Never (1089)  |  Perish (56)  |  Problem (731)  |  See (1094)  |  Service (110)  |  Survive (87)  |  Will (2350)  |  World (1850)

For of men it may in general be affirmed that they are thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger, greedy of gain, devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them …; but in the hour of need they forsake you.
In The Prince (1882), 111, as translated from the Italian by N.H.Thomson. Another translation gives: “Speaking generally, men are ungrateful, fickle, hypocritical, fearful of danger, and covetous of gain,” in Forbes Book of Quotations: 10,000 Thoughts on the Business of Life (2016).
Science quotes on:  |  Avoid (123)  |  Benefit (123)  |  Confer (11)  |  Covetous (2)  |  Danger (127)  |  Devoted (59)  |  False (105)  |  Fearful (7)  |  Forsake (4)  |  Gain (146)  |  General (521)  |  Hour (192)  |  Need (320)  |  Psychology (166)  |  Studious (5)

In the arts of life main invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence and famine. … There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.
Play, Man and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy (1903)
Science quotes on:  |  Art (680)  |  Chemistry (376)  |  Death (406)  |  Famine (18)  |  Heart (243)  |  Industry (159)  |  Life (1870)  |  Machine (271)  |  Machinery (59)  |  Man (2252)  |  Nature (2017)  |  Nothing (1000)  |  Pestilence (14)  |  Plague (42)  |  Sloth (7)  |  Weapon (98)  |  Weapons (57)

My grandfather opened the first chapter of his story, A Smile of the Walrus, with an old nursery rhyme, “Did you ever see a walrus smile all these many years? Why yes I’ve seen a walrus smile, but it was hidden by his tears.” As we open this new chapter in the battle against climate change, I fear that if we do not take action, then the smiles of our children, like the walrus, will be hidden by the tears they shed as they pay the consequences of our inaction, our apathy and our greed.
In 'What do the Arctic, a Thermostat and COP15 Have in Common?', Huffington Post (18 Mar 2010).
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Against (332)  |  Apathy (4)  |  Battle (36)  |  Change (639)  |  Chapter (11)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Climate (102)  |  Climate Change (76)  |  Consequence (220)  |  Do (1905)  |  Fear (212)  |  First (1302)  |  Grandfather (14)  |  Hidden (43)  |  Inaction (4)  |  New (1273)  |  Old (499)  |  Open (277)  |  Pay (45)  |  Rhyme (6)  |  See (1094)  |  Shed (6)  |  Smile (34)  |  Story (122)  |  Tear (48)  |  Walrus (4)  |  Why (491)  |  Will (2350)  |  Year (963)

Only rarely do we see beyond the needs of humanity. … Now that we are over six billion hungry and greedy individuals, all aspiring to a first-world lifestyle, our urban way of life encroaches upon the domain of the living Earth. We are taking so much that it is no longer able to sustain the familiar and comfortable world we have taken for granted. Now it is changing, according to its own internal rules, to a state where we are no longer welcome.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 9. The first sentence is a concept acknowledged to John Gray, Straw Dogs (2002).
Science quotes on:  |  Accord (36)  |  Aspire (15)  |  Beyond (316)  |  Billion (104)  |  Change (639)  |  Comfortable (13)  |  Domain (72)  |  Encroach (2)  |  Environmentalism (9)  |  Familiar (47)  |  Humanity (186)  |  Hungry (5)  |  Individual (420)  |  Internal (69)  |  Lifestyle (2)  |  Living Earth (5)  |  Need (320)  |  Rare (94)  |  Rule (307)  |  State (505)  |  Sustain (52)  |  Urban (12)  |  Way Of Life (15)  |  Welcome (20)  |  World (1850)

Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory. In many instances, such parochialism is founded on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research.
[Naming territorial dominance, greed, and fear of the unknown, as some of the influences on the increasing specialization of science]
Quoted in Anthony L. Peratt, 'Dean of the Plasma Dissidents', Washington Times, supplement: The World and I (May 1988),192.
Science quotes on:  |  Compete (6)  |  Diminish (17)  |  Discipline (85)  |  Enquiry (89)  |  Fear (212)  |  Influence (231)  |  Interdisciplinary (2)  |  Intrusion (3)  |  Limit (294)  |  Limited (102)  |  Money (178)  |  Opportunity (95)  |  Other (2233)  |  Research (753)  |  Resist (15)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Specialization (24)  |  Tend (124)  |  Territory (25)  |  Unknown (195)

The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.
In 'Money', In Our Time (1976), 37.
Science quotes on:  |  20th Century (40)  |  Bring (95)  |  Century (319)  |  Child (333)  |  Children (201)  |  Compare (76)  |  Decade (66)  |  Dove (3)  |  Evil (122)  |  Gentle (9)  |  Hate (68)  |  Adolf Hitler (20)  |  Hundred (240)  |  Kill (100)  |  Large (398)  |  Lenin (2)  |  Less (105)  |  Maim (3)  |  Mankind (356)  |  Million (124)  |  Money (178)  |  Monstrous (7)  |  Nearly (137)  |  Portion (86)  |  Show (353)  |  Stalin_Joseph (5)  |  Suffer (43)  |  Suffering (68)  |  Untold (6)  |  Wolf (11)  |  Woman (160)

The national park idea, the best idea we ever had, was inevitable as soon as Americans learned to confront the wild continent not with fear and cupidity but with delight, wonder, and awe.
In Wallace Stegner and Page Stegner (ed.), 'The Best Idea We Ever Had', Marking the Sparrow’s Fall: The Making of the American West (1998, 1999), 137.
Science quotes on:  |  American (56)  |  Awe (43)  |  Best (467)  |  Confront (18)  |  Continent (79)  |  Delight (111)  |  Fear (212)  |  Idea (881)  |  Inevitable (53)  |  Learn (672)  |  Learned (235)  |  National Park (4)  |  Soon (187)  |  Wild (96)  |  Wonder (251)

The Spaniards plundered Peru for its gold, which the Inca aristocracy had collected as we might collect stamps, with the touch of Midas. Gold for greed, gold for splendor, gold for adornment, gold for reverence, gold for power, sacrificial gold, life-giving gold, gold for tenderness, barbaric gold, voluptuous gold.
Science quotes on:  |  Adornment (4)  |  Aristocracy (7)  |  Collect (19)  |  Gold (101)  |  Life (1870)  |  Life-Giving (2)  |  Mineralogy (24)  |  Peru (3)  |  Plunder (6)  |  Power (771)  |  Reverence (29)  |  Spaniard (3)  |  Splendor (20)  |  Stamp (36)  |  Tenderness (2)  |  Touch (146)  |  Voluptuous (3)

The three most effective incentives to human action may be … classified as creed, greed and dread. … In examining the scientist it is perhaps worth while to examine how far he is moved by these three incentives. I think that, rather peculiarly and rather exceptionally, he is very little moved by dread. … He is in fact essentially a person who has been taught he must be fearless in his dealing with facts.
'Scientist and Citizen', Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (29 Jan 1948), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches (29 Jan 1948), 209-221.
Science quotes on:  |  Action (342)  |  Classification (102)  |  Creed (28)  |  Dread (13)  |  Effective (68)  |  Effectiveness (13)  |  Examine (84)  |  Fact (1257)  |  Facts (553)  |  Fearless (7)  |  Human (1512)  |  Incentive (10)  |  Little (717)  |  Most (1728)  |  Must (1525)  |  Person (366)  |  Scientist (881)  |  Think (1122)  |  Worth (172)

We belong to the family of Gaia and are like a revolting teenager, intelligent and with great potential, but far too greedy and selfish for our own good.
In The Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis & The Fate of Humanity (2006, 2007), 197.
Science quotes on:  |  Belong (168)  |  Family (101)  |  Gaia (15)  |  Good (906)  |  Great (1610)  |  Intelligent (108)  |  Potential (75)  |  Revolt (3)  |  Selfish (12)  |  Teenager (6)

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.
Movie
Love Actually (Prime Minister)
Science quotes on:  |  Actually (27)  |  Airport (3)  |  Arrival (15)  |  Board (13)  |  Call (781)  |  Daughter (30)  |  Dignified (13)  |  Everywhere (98)  |  Far (158)  |  Father (113)  |  Feel (371)  |  Feeling (259)  |  Find (1014)  |  Friend (180)  |  Gate (33)  |  General (521)  |  Girlfriend (2)  |  Gloomy (4)  |  Hate (68)  |  Hatred (21)  |  Hit (20)  |  Husband (13)  |  Know (1538)  |  Live (650)  |  Look (584)  |  Love (328)  |  Message (53)  |  Mother (116)  |  Often (109)  |  Old (499)  |  Opinion (291)  |  Particularly (21)  |  People (1031)  |  Phone (2)  |  Plane (22)  |  Revenge (10)  |  See (1094)  |  Seem (150)  |  Son (25)  |  Start (237)  |  State (505)  |  Think (1122)  |  Tower (45)  |  Twin (16)  |  Whenever (81)  |  Wife (41)  |  World (1850)


Carl Sagan Thumbnail In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
Quotations by:Albert EinsteinIsaac NewtonLord KelvinCharles DarwinSrinivasa RamanujanCarl SaganFlorence NightingaleThomas EdisonAristotleMarie CurieBenjamin FranklinWinston ChurchillGalileo GalileiSigmund FreudRobert BunsenLouis PasteurTheodore RooseveltAbraham LincolnRonald ReaganLeonardo DaVinciMichio KakuKarl PopperJohann GoetheRobert OppenheimerCharles Kettering  ... (more people)

Quotations about:Atomic  BombBiologyChemistryDeforestationEngineeringAnatomyAstronomyBacteriaBiochemistryBotanyConservationDinosaurEnvironmentFractalGeneticsGeologyHistory of ScienceInventionJupiterKnowledgeLoveMathematicsMeasurementMedicineNatural ResourceOrganic ChemistryPhysicsPhysicianQuantum TheoryResearchScience and ArtTeacherTechnologyUniverseVolcanoVirusWind PowerWomen ScientistsX-RaysYouthZoology  ... (more topics)
Sitewide search within all Today In Science History pages:
Visit our Science and Scientist Quotations index for more Science Quotes from archaeologists, biologists, chemists, geologists, inventors and inventions, mathematicians, physicists, pioneers in medicine, science events and technology.

Names index: | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Categories index: | 1 | 2 | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
Thank you for sharing.
- 100 -
Sophie Germain
Gertrude Elion
Ernest Rutherford
James Chadwick
Marcel Proust
William Harvey
Johann Goethe
John Keynes
Carl Gauss
Paul Feyerabend
- 90 -
Antoine Lavoisier
Lise Meitner
Charles Babbage
Ibn Khaldun
Euclid
Ralph Emerson
Robert Bunsen
Frederick Banting
Andre Ampere
Winston Churchill
- 80 -
John Locke
Bronislaw Malinowski
Bible
Thomas Huxley
Alessandro Volta
Erwin Schrodinger
Wilhelm Roentgen
Louis Pasteur
Bertrand Russell
Jean Lamarck
- 70 -
Samuel Morse
John Wheeler
Nicolaus Copernicus
Robert Fulton
Pierre Laplace
Humphry Davy
Thomas Edison
Lord Kelvin
Theodore Roosevelt
Carolus Linnaeus
- 60 -
Francis Galton
Linus Pauling
Immanuel Kant
Martin Fischer
Robert Boyle
Karl Popper
Paul Dirac
Avicenna
James Watson
William Shakespeare
- 50 -
Stephen Hawking
Niels Bohr
Nikola Tesla
Rachel Carson
Max Planck
Henry Adams
Richard Dawkins
Werner Heisenberg
Alfred Wegener
John Dalton
- 40 -
Pierre Fermat
Edward Wilson
Johannes Kepler
Gustave Eiffel
Giordano Bruno
JJ Thomson
Thomas Kuhn
Leonardo DaVinci
Archimedes
David Hume
- 30 -
Andreas Vesalius
Rudolf Virchow
Richard Feynman
James Hutton
Alexander Fleming
Emile Durkheim
Benjamin Franklin
Robert Oppenheimer
Robert Hooke
Charles Kettering
- 20 -
Carl Sagan
James Maxwell
Marie Curie
Rene Descartes
Francis Crick
Hippocrates
Michael Faraday
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Francis Bacon
Galileo Galilei
- 10 -
Aristotle
John Watson
Rosalind Franklin
Michio Kaku
Isaac Asimov
Charles Darwin
Sigmund Freud
Albert Einstein
Florence Nightingale
Isaac Newton


by Ian Ellis
who invites your feedback
Thank you for sharing.
Today in Science History
Sign up for Newsletter
with quiz, quotes and more.