Literary notes about acquisitive (AI summary)
In literature, the term acquisitive is often used to convey an intense, sometimes voracious, drive to accumulate—whether wealth, knowledge, or other tangible assets. Writers employ it to characterize personalities as not merely greedy but as possessing an innate, almost instinctual, urge to acquire, as seen when a character’s physical features or behavioral nuances hint at relentless covetousness [1][2]. At times, this term also serves as a broader commentary on social or cultural ambitions, reflecting the interplay between individual accumulation and collective enterprise, an idea explored when the trait is linked with the founding of institutions or the drive for progress [3][4]. Additionally, its juxtaposition with creative impulses underscores a dual nature in human endeavors, suggesting that acquisition, while sometimes criticized for its selfishness, can also be pivotal to survival and achievement [5][6].
- The older man started forward, his long acquisitive nose eagerly scenting a clue.
— from The Yellow Dove by George Gibbs - Man is expansive, aggressive, acquisitive.
— from Gifts of Genius: A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors - And Aquinas too; no one could be such an acquisitive and reasoning genius, without the love of knowledge in his soul.
— from The Mediaeval Mind (Volume 2 of 2) A History of the Development of Thought and Emotion in the Middle Ages by Henry Osborn Taylor - The acquisitive instinct succeeded in piling up a vast permanent capital which was enjoyed by a large proportion of the human race.
— from The Coming of Coal by Robert W. (Robert Walter) Bruère - [“Not to be covetous, is money; not to be acquisitive, is revenue.”
— from Essays of Michel de Montaigne — Complete by Michel de Montaigne - [Pg 308] with the hunting, the acquisitive, the home-constructing and the tool-constructing instincts, as impulses to self-seeking of the bodily kind.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James
