Always hungry and always thirsty is the victim of avarice. He knows no satiation. He is devoid of the sense of proportion. The more he acquires, the more he requires. The more he gets, the more he covets. He does not want what he has not. He is out to increase his own by usurping as much as he can of others. He craves for anything and everything, somebody’s, anybody’s, everybody’s. He habitually covets something of another. He has more than he can use. Abundant and overflowing surplus and superfluous, out of all proportion to his needs are his possessions. But his hoarding instinct lets him not stop or halt. Ever on the move is he for more and more than more.

Like barren sandy soil, he sucks and absorbs, but never yields. There is joy in giving but the man of avarice never gives. His hand always takes, never gives. That happiness is not his. None is so miserable as he. He hoards everything and parts with nothing. He cannot use, cannot enjoy and cannot derive happiness from his hoarded wealth. Avarice does not seek wealth as a means to happiness, but as an end in itself. The avaricious man heaps up wealth not to use, not to enjoy, not to give, but just to keep it. He has undying lust for accumulation.

Covetousness leads its victim to lie and cheat. With avarice as the most unruly passion in his breast, man grabs and grasps, loots and usurps his neighbor’s property. He breathes gold, dreams gold and lives for gold. He feeds his eyes on the ever-growing pile of gold. His one and only food is gold. Age weakens passions and vices. Invincible is avarice. Irreclaimable is the victim of avarice. He dies in the midst of his hoarded wealth and leaves it behind him.

Avarice has been the ruling passion of kings and virile races. They have always regarded their weak neighbor’s possessions as theirs and the whole world as theirs. War-like nations make the world bankrupt, leaving ruin on mankind, and turn civilization into a nightmare. May mankind emerge wiser from the purging fire of the colossal war. May the lust of avarice in the hearts of individuals and nations perish. May the poison of avarice never be inoculated in my veins and may I ever live in contentment, Ahura Mazda!