Covetousness
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 4 anchored passages
covetousness · desire for more · insatiableness · the root of all evils
in the texts
Orations
The vice of desiring more than one's due share, presented as the root of private ruin and civic and imperial catastrophe.
I say, then, that even concerning covetousness all men know that it is neither advantageous nor honourable, but the cause of the greatest evils—yet that no man abstains from it nor is willing that his neighbour should have an equal share with him.
In these lines are contained all the consequences of covetousness—that it is advantageous neither in private nor in common, but on the contrary overturns and destroys the prosperity both of households and of cities;
But covetousness is a very great evil to the man himself, and grieves his neighbours too;
De Patientia
The vice of desiring what belongs to another, named as the root of all evils and linked to impatience over loss.
The spirit of the Lord, through the apostle, has pronounced covetousness the root of all evils.