Quotes About Selfish

I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even.

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

[We] administered testosterone to men; instead of sharing money, they become selfish. Interestingly, high testosterone males are also more likely to use their own money to punish others for being selfish.

People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals who might be in a position to reciprocate your altruism.

But I would encourage anyone who has a crush on my character to watch it again and examine how selfish he is.

I've got to do something to make up for all those self-absorbed and selfish years when I just, you know, was taking drugs, sitting in my room, doing bad things, whatever.

I didn’t do anything wrong. All I know is I saw two people struggling to get inside these walls and they couldn’t make it. To ignore that because of some stupid rule seemed selfish, cowardly, and…well, stupid. If you want to throw me in jail for trying to save someone’s life, then go ahead. Next time I promise I’ll point at them and laugh, then go eat some of Frypan’s dinner.

It is not selfish to be happy. It is your highest purpose. Your joy is the greatest contribution you can make to life on the planet. A heart at peace with its owner blesses everyone it touches.

What the horrors of war are, no one can imagine. They are not wounds and blood and fever, spotted and low, or dysentery, chronic and acute, cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality, demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior... jealousies, meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior.

Sociotropic voters with biased economic beliefs are more likely to produce severe political failures than are selfish voters with rational expectations.

When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests and their selfish views.

I've never heard my dad say a bad word about anybody. He always keeps his emotions in check and is a true gentleman. I was taught that losing it was indulgent, a selfish act.

When you think about it, when you're single you are not deprived in any way - if anything, it's a pretty self-indulgent lifestyle. It's selfish: You can make your own decisions and indulge yourself on an impulse.

How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.

By nice women . . . you probably mean selfish women who have no more thought for the underprivileged, overworked women than a pussycat in a sunny window for the starving kitten in the street. Now in that sense I am not a nice woman, for I do care.

You're too damn selfish!

Improvisation has been with me since I was a kid, and, taking a selfish pleasure from that, I just thought, "What the hell. It might as well be something other people enjoy."

Never trust a sentimentalist. They are all alike, pretenders to virtue, at heart selfish frauds and sensualists.

Self-expression is a hard and selfish thing. It eats everything, even the self. At the end you find you haven't even got a self to express.

Selfishness so often is the basis of money problems, which are a very serious and real factor affecting the stability of family life. Selfishness is at the root of adultery, the breaking of solemn and sacred covenants to satisfy selfish lust. Selfishness is the antithesis of love. It is a cankering expression of greed. It destroys self-discipline. It obliterates loyalty. It tears up sacred covenants. It afflicts both men and women.

People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself.

Our marriage is grounded in the word of God. That's really it. God is the core of our marriage, and the foundation and the blueprint for it is how we live, and being open and honest and communicating, but ultimately doing what pleases God, and not in a selfish manner.

I am a convinced and consistent critic of party-parliamentarism. I am for non-partisan elections of true people's representatives who are accountable to their regions and districts; and who in case of unsatisfactory work can be recalled. I do understand and respect the formation of groups on economical, cooperative, territorial, educational, professional and industrial principles, but I see nothing organic in political parties. Politically motivated ties can be unstable and quite often they have selfish ulterior motives.

Pat has been instrumental in what we've done here so far and the most selfish thing for me is that I want to see what we've done placed in the hands of the most competent person, and that's Pat. No one would come close to being able to continue to build on what we've done here so far like he will.

Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you--and you won't let them do anything for fear you'll be hurt. That's selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?

The reason I play music is to touch people - for selfish reasons, as well. It feels good to make someone else feel something, whether it's a kiss, a painting, good idea or it's a song.

Selfish is caring for ourselves at others' expense ... Self-care is taking care of ourselves so that we can be there for others.

Marriage is no way of life for the weak, the selfish, or the insecure.

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.

I've dated athletes before but it's too tough because we have the same job, we deal with the same problems and both do a very selfish sport.

To be a tennis champion, you have to be inflexible. You have to be stubborn. You have to be arrogant. You have to be selfish and self-absorbed. Kind of tunnel vision almost.

Experience is an asset of which no worker can be cheated, no matter how selfish or greedy his immediate employer may be.

I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred - that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.

I change my mind so much, I'm better going on my own. Shopping is a selfish activity anyway.

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

When you're jealous, especially of someone else's art or creations you automatically put up these selfish walls that reinforce your stupid ideas. It's hard to pull those walls down and look at what you're hiding. Look at your own weakness and realize that the jealousy came from knowing that you're intimidated by someone else's work, and that when you compare it to your own, you fall short.

I do think that it is one of the eternal questions about art, though - is all art intrinsically selfish?

Now I had lived long enough and had heard enough from urchins my age and from other slaves, to distrust the person who calls himself merciful, or just, or kindly. Usually these are the most cruel, niggardly and selfish people, and slaves learn to fear the master who prefaces his remarks with tributes to his own virtues.

Once you conquer your selfish self, all your darkness will change to light.

Advertising is the place where the selfish interests of the manufacturer coincide with the interests of society.

People do things with terrible motivations and those motivations are selfish and self-interested and financially driven.

Our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long term survival, is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.

Love is, after all, a selfish thing; and it throws a black shadow on anything between which and the light it stands.

money appears to motivate only our interest in ourselves, making us selfish and self-centered...Money makes people feel self-sufficient, which also means they don't need or care about others; it's each man for himself

Everybody wants to talk about NBA players being selfish and arrogant and individuals. But what you saw today was a team bonding and facing adversity and coming out with a big win.

If I try to make only enough money for my family' immediate needs, it may violate Scripture. ...Even though earning just enough to meet the needs of my family may seem non materialistic, it's actually selfish when I could earn enough to care for others as well.