When men and women are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a corrupting motivator. When we equate the gluttonous consumption of the earth's resources with a status approaching sainthood, when we teach our children to emulate people who live unbalanced lives, and when we define huge sections of the population as subservient to an elite minority, we ask for trouble.

"Yes, I can understand greed."
"I call it a desire for security."

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

Our guilt has its uses. It justifies much in the lives of others.

We believe that this frustration can be channeled into action to earn the freedom we have long yearned for.

Among the many other questions raised by the nebulous concept of “greed” is why it is a term applied almost exclusively to those who want to earn more money or to keep what they have already earned — never to those wanting to take other people’s money in taxes or to those wishing to live on the largesse dispensed from such taxation. No amount of taxation is ever described as “greed” on the part of government or the clientele of government.

Greed is all right, by the way. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.

On the surface, it may look like this is our true nature, because it is currently rampant throughout the world. But the reality is that greed is a conditioned habit that is easily mistaken for our true nature. The selfishness of greed is deeply rooted in the mind, but it is a pattern like any other — it can be observed and released. What was once widely understood as human nature — being greedy, fearful, and even hateful — is not our nature at all. These traits are human habits, conditioned behavior that was imprinted onto us by past generations and past experiences.

We should also channel our energy in the production of goods which we have the most competitive advantage over our neighbours.

We’re not making a world without greed, Jacob. We’re making a world where greed is a perversion. Where grabbing everything for yourself instead of sharing is like smearing yourself with shit: gross. Wrong.
Our winning doesn’t mean you don’t get to be greedy. It means people will be ashamed for you, will pity you and want to distance themselves from you. You can be as greedy as you want, but no one will admire you for it.

Success always calls for greater generosity — though most people, lost in the darkness of their own egos, treat it as an occasion for greater greed. Collecting boot is not an end itself, but only a means for building an empire. Riches would be of little use to us now — except as a means of winning new friends.

For what is life but greed in action?

We want the kind of world in which greedy people can do the least harm to their fellow men. That’s the kind of world in which power is widely dispersed and each of us has as many alternatives as possible.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each others' happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world, there's room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.

We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.