The vices are as much part of a
man as are his virtues, yet some among them seem to stand out with alarming
resolution. A man with no vice is very hard to come by. As the world we live in
is slowly succumbs to temptations of them, the good at heart are crumbling
to a trace minority. A vice is like a disease, it catches you without you
knowing it, it feeds on to your thoughts and grows stronger every second and
finally when it grows powerful enough, it just takes over your life. Finally it
takes you on a very lonely journey to your grave.
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| jamin brenn and his share of the spoils - 1893 |
An intriguing paradox of the 1990s is that it isn't called a decade of greed.
- Paul Samuelson
Greed among them is the most evil
and most widespread. In fact it is so widespread that we have started to think
of greed more as a way of life than as the capital sin it is. Our everyday life is
so stuffed with signs of greed, from the sky scrapers aching to touch the
heaven to the deep oil wells that borrow down to hell. Greed is all around
us, greed is there in everyone around us. In fact most of the problems that
humanity now faces can be drawn straight back to man’s greed. Let it be the
rising problems of global warming or the severe shortage of usable water, it
all ties back to the greed of one man or the other. As men so thoughtlessly
engaged in the pursuit of wealth and power he has endangered everything that
sustained his arrogance and greed and in turn endangered his very existence and
the existence of the planet earth.
There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mahatma Gandhi
One man’s greed not only does
destroy himself but also the whole lot of people near and dear to him, His thoughtless
actions will forge the chains that he will eventually be chained in. In his
frivolous pursuit as he annexes one kingdom after the other to his empire, what
he is doing is scripting his on eventual decline. But still men tend to be
greedy and from this greed stems his other sins, as he forgets who he is and
what his virtues are in his pursuit for the fools gold he end up doing things
that he might otherwise have looked down at
in contempt and disgust.
Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed,
one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.
- Garrison Keillor
Greed has claimed his many
victims from time immemorial and hence greed is the capital sin, All it takes
is a few minutes in ones very busy pursuit to think, think about what is it
that they are really chasing. All it takes is to ask oneself if this mirage you
chase really your dream. All it takes is these few seconds of contemplation and
greed will vanish for ever. When you realize that what you have been chasing
all your life is but fallacies then you realize what that is really important
to you and what is that you really wish for yourself.
Third Fisherman: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.
First Fisherman: Why, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.
- William Shakespeare ( Pericles 2.1.69-70 )