There is always someone ready to be lured to ruin by hope of gain.

[ἀλλ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἐλπίδων ἄνδρας τὸ κέρδος πολλάκις διώλεσεν.]

Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright

Antigone, l. 221ff [Creon] (441 BC) [tr. Watling (1947)]
    (Source)

Original Greek. Alternate translations:

• "But backed by hope, lucre has ruined many." [tr. Donaldson (1848)]
• "Yet hope of gain hath lured men to their ruin oftentimes." [tr. Storr (1859)]
• "But hope of gain full oft ere now hath been the ruin of men." [tr. Campbell (1873)]
• "Yet by just the hope of it, money has many times corrupted men." [tr. Jebb (1891)]
• "Yet lucre hath oft ruined men through their hopes." [tr. Jebb (1917)]
• "Yet money talks, and the wisest have sometimes been known to count a few coins too many." [tr. Fitts/Fitzgerald (1939)]
• "But often we have known men to be ruined by the hope of profit." [tr. Wyckoff (1954)]
• "But love of gain has often lured a man to his destruction." [tr. Kitto (1962)]
• "But all too often the mere hope of money has ruined many men." [tr. Fagles (1982)]
• "But hope -- and bribery -- often have led men to destruction." [tr. Woodruff (2001)]
• "But profit with its hopes often destroys men." [tr. Tyrell/Bennett (2002)] https://diotima-doctafemina.org/translations/greek/sophocles-antigone/#post-1273:~:text=But%20profit,with%20its%20hopes%20often%20destroys%20men.
• "Yet there are men who the mere hope of winning has killed them." [tr. Theodoridis (2004)]
• "And yet men have often been destroyed because they hoped to profit in some way." [tr. Johnston (2005)]
• "But often profit has destroyed men through their hopes." [tr. Thomas (2005)]
• "But the profit-motive has destroyed many people in their hope for gain." [tr. @sentantiq (2018)]