“The speculators deadly enemies are: Ignorance, greed, fear and hope. All the statute books in the world and all the rules of all the Exchanges on earth cannot eliminate these from the human animal.”
Source: Reminiscences of a Stock Operator (1923), Chapter XXIII, p. 278
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Edwin Lefèvre 28
American journalist 1871–1943Related quotes
“And let the fear and dread of you be upon all of the animals of the earth.”
Clearly, fear and dread were prescribed for the animals, but evidently it was forbidden among humans. By nature a human is superior to a brute animal, but not other humans.
Source: The Book of Pastoral Rule, p.62
“Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.”
The John Clifford Lecture at Coventry (14 July 1930), published in This Torch of Freedom (1935), p. 46.
1930
Context: There is a saying as old as the Greeks that it is more important to form good habits than to frame good laws. There is an undercurrent of suspicion that this is true and that, like patriotism, legislation is not enough. The hopes held out when laws are framed are not always realised when laws are passed... What happens to all the laws placed on the statute book? If half the hopes of their promoters had been realised, would not the millennium have arrived ere this?
Rome, or Reason? A Reply to Cardinal Manning. Part I. The North American Review (1888)
Context: I have no Protestant prejudices against Catholicism, and have no Catholic prejudices against Protestantism. I regard all religions either without prejudice or with the same prejudice. They were all, according to my belief, devised by men, and all have for a foundation ignorance of this world and fear of the next. All the Gods have been made by men. They are all equally powerful and equally useless.
Source: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
