Desire never ends,
Desire grows with feeding,
like sacrificial flames
lapping up ghee.
Become the sole lord of
the world's paddy-fields, wheat-fields,
precious stones, beasts, women,
still not enough.
Discard desire.
This disease kills. The wicked
cannot give it up, old age
cannot lessen it. True happiness
lies in controlling it'
I have lived in many realms,
I was adored by the gods,
I shone like the gods,
I was powerful like the gods'
for millions of years I made love
to apsaras in the Nandana-gardens,
under clustering, lovely trees
ornamented with flowers
shedding delicate scent upon us'
Then a fearful-faced messenger came
and shouted loudly, thrice:
Lost ! Lost ! Lost !
And I fell from Nandana. [Adi Parva, 85.12-14; 89.17-20] 

As smoke smothers fire,
as dust films glass,
as womb enfolds seed,
so greed destroys judgment. 
Greed is a fierce fire,
it destroys judgment.
It fools the wise.
It hides in the mind,
the intellect and the senses.
It destroys the atman
by working through them.
Therefore, first control the senses. [Gita 3.38-41]

Stafford Beer, founder of Cybernetics, points out  - "The biggest casualty of all under the creed of greed is the social good."  

Besides desire, Yayati warns us against pride and vanity as the destroyers of all merit, all good deeds. 

The wise say: Seven gates,
asceticism, charity, serenity,
self-control, modesty, simplicity,
and kindness, lead to heaven.
Pride cancels all these'
Pride is the road to hell.
Study, control of speech, respect
for ritual, performance of yajna'
these remove fear. Mixed with pride,
these four create fear'
'I gave so much,
I performed many sacrifices,
I am learned,
I keep my vows'
All vanity, all pride.
Fearful.
Give it up, absolutely.   [Adi Parva, 90.22,24.]

Our tragedy, like Yayati's, lies in falling into this pit despite the example of his father Nahusha having suffered similarly:

The man who gives in to lust,
anger, malice and greed 
falls from the human level
to the animal.  [Vana Parva, 181]

Plato in Republic VIII classifies: ... as the democratic man the person who feels he is entitled to indulge whichever desire takes hold of him at a particular moment, now capriciously embracing asceticism, the other moment wallowing in pleasures of the senses, but never satisfied with what is, with being instead of frenetically doing all the time. Such a man is passion- driven, not ruled by his will, and is never at rest. Plato also compares the desires to wild beasts for the more they are satisfied, the more importunate they grow, driving the man to ever more strenuous attempts to achieve an ever-diminishing satisfaction. Finally, one desire tends to overcome others and wholly possess the person who becomes obsessed with it, be it ambition, drugs, wealth, sexual pleasure, power. Such a person loses control of his self and is described by Plato in the ninth chapter as the tyrannical soul, in whom one aspect tyrannizes over the rest of his self.  

Aldous Huxley in Point Counter Point: "That's the enormous stupidity of the young people of this generation 'they never think of life except in terms of 'How shall I have a good time?' Why am I not having a better time? But this is a world where good times' simply cannot be had continuously, and by everybody' And after it's been had for a little, it becomes a bore. Everybody strains after happiness, and the result is that nobody's happy. It's because they're on the wrong road' For it's not by pursuing happiness that you find it; it's by pursuing salvation. And when people were wise, instead of merely clever, they thought of life in terms of salvation and damnation, not of good times and bad times. If you're feeling happy now, Marjorie, that's because you've stopped wishing you were happy and started trying to be better. Happiness is like coke' something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else." 

C.M. Joad: "The kingdom of happiness is not to be taken by storm any more than it is to be purchased by wealth' Set out to seek happiness and it will elude you; throw yourself body and soul into your work; devote yourself to a cause; lift yourself up out of the selfish little pit of vanity and desire which is the self, by giving yourself to something which is greater than the self, and on looking back you will find that you have been happy. Happiness, in short, is not a house that can be built by men's hands; it is a flower that surprises you, a song which you hear as you pass the hedge, rising suddenly and simply into the night and dying down again."

"A wondrous Kama-vriksha grows in the heart
a tree of desire
born of attachment. 
Anger and arrogance its trunk, 
impulse to act its irrigating channel.
Ignorance its root;
negligence nourishes it.
fault-finding its leaves,
past misdeeds its pith.
Grief, worry and delusion its branches,
fear its seed.
Vines of craving clasp it around
creating delusion.
All around this fruit-giving 
mighty tree of desire 
sit greedy men
shackled in iron chains of desire
craving its fruit.
He who snaps these bonds of desire
slices this tree
with the sword of non-attachment.
He transcends grief-giving age and death.
But the fool who climbs this tree
greedy for fruit,
it destroys him; even as poison pills
destroy the sick.
The roots of this tree
reach far and wide.
Only the wise can hew it down
with the yoga-gifted
sword of equanimity.
Who knows how to rein in desires
and knows the study of desire itself binds,
He transcends all sorrow." [Mahabharata, Shanti Parva 254. 1-8]

1
"Mention is made of a cosmic fig-tree
rooted above,
whose leaves are said to be the Vedas;
the knower of this fig-tree
is the knower of the Vedas.
Its branches reach out below and above,
its flowers are the objects of the senses;
below the ground flourish more roots
giving birth to action.
You may not see its real shape,
nor its end, birth and existence.
Slice this fig-tree with non-attachment." [Gita 15.1-3]