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Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.
Steven PinkerSelfish people are, by definition, those whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness. Yet. . . these selfish people are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy.
Bernard RimlandI don't know if it's ever OK for someone to be selfish. Perhaps there's a time and place to be self-centered, but I think selfish never wins the race.
Jessica CapshawJust don't let anything get in the way of what you want to achieve. A lot of people get knocked back by friends, or family, or peer pressure. If you have a talent and want to do something with it, it's down to you. If it's what you really want then go after it and be very selfish... You have to remain committed, you have to stay focused and you have to be selfish.
George SampsonMy life, in some ways, has been a half-measure. I didn't commit myself all the way to my marriage and family, because I would have given up more. And I didn't go all the way with just being completely selfish. I always wonder where my career would be if I was more selfish.
Alec Baldwin...Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.
Kent NerburnThe martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.
Florence NightingaleIt is the ignorant person who seeks his or her own ends at the expense of the greater whole. It is the ignorant person, therefore, who is the selfish person. The truly wise person is never selfish.
Ralph Waldo TrineI think I'm hornier than most dudes. I'm not a selfish lover - but the bottom line is... I guess I am horny. I'm insatiable. I can never get enough.
Rude JudeAs a director, you have a thousand things going on in your head, and of course, that's going to be difficult. That's going to mean that some things get overlooked. And so, for us as performers, being the selfish pricks that we are, we're sitting there being concerned about ourselves all the time and our character's through-line.
Jamie Campbell BowerThe reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.
John Jay ChapmanWe cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others.
Thomas MertonKindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross.
Hippolyte TaineYou instantly become less selfish. You can't be the biggest person in the world anymore-they are. [Motherhood] really grounds you.
Keri RussellI'm just being selfish..... I'm here on my own free will... I used to always cry and give up... I nearly went the wrong way... But you... You showed me the right way... I was always chasing you... Wanting to overtake you... I just wanted to walk with you... I wanted to be with you... You changed me! Your smile saved me! So I'm not afraid to die protecting you!!! Because I - Love You.
Masashi KishimotoThere is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared. It is itself the great venture and can never be safe. Peace is the opposite of security. To demand guarantees is to want to protect oneself. Peace means giving oneself completely to God's commandment. Wanting no security, but in faith and obedience laying the destiny of the nations in the hand of almighty God. Not trying to direct it for selfish purposes. Battles are won not with weapons, but with God. They are won when the way leads to the cross.
Dietrich BonhoefferSo each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.
Ralph Waldo EmersonWhenever I release a record, it's my record. It's not a selfish thought. I may work all year 'round for other people. So, finally, when I come out with my own album, it should be me with the creative help of other musicians.
Eberhard WeberIn Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power.
Pope FrancisIt is imperative that good people, men and women of principle, be involved in the political process; otherwise we abdicate power to those whose designs are almost entirely selfish.
Gordon B. HinckleySelf-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.
Graham GreeneWe've all met a certain type of spiritual person. She's a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She's not a selfish person. But she's always at the center of everything she's doing.
Eugene H. PetersonChristian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction.... In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life - in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character.... It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established.
John Stuart MillGiven the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.
Jessica ValentiOur 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.
Candace CameronWhen I do things with people it's not with the hopes of them coming back because that would be a selfish reason for me to do anything.
Mic GeronimoThe Bible says somewhere that we are desperately selfish. I think we would have discovered that fact without the Bible.
Abraham LincolnThe men who carry their points do not need to inquire of their constituents what they should say, but are themselves the country which they represent: nowhere are its emotions or opinions so instant and so true as in them; nowhere so pure from a selfish infusion.
Ralph Waldo EmersonTo 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.
Chris EvertBusiness demands faith, compels earnestness, requires courage, is honestly selfish, is penalized for mistakes, and is the essence of life.
William FeatherThe number one thing on any team that will keep your players from being selfish is respect for the other players.
Nick SabanSelfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
Erich FrommIf the Irish once find out that there are any circumstances in which they can get free government grants, we shall have a system of mendicancy [begging] such as the world never knewโ. After a million had starved to death he stated โThe great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.
Charles TrevelyanThe good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife, the only selfish action I can recall in our association. I was alone.
Arthur Conan DoyleI'm sure Democrats are hoping that Donald Trump will make a move soon to rescind and repeal Obama's orders. And then Barack Obama will call the media and he'll go on TV and he'll immediately accuse Trump of poisoning the planet, not caring about poisoning the water and all this other stuff. I know how this stuff works, and more of you each and every day who listen here religiously know as well as I what Obama is setting up here. It is to portray Trump as some selfish heathen who only cares about his own profit.
Rush LimbaughAlthough our emotions sometimes behave like spoiled, selfish children, unfortunately we cannot send them to their room or tell them to stop screaming.
Jonathan CarrollOne reason that a truth and reconciliation process is needed for group selection is to return to the simplicity of the original problem and Darwinโs solution. As Ed Wilson and I put it in our recent review article titled โRethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiologyโ: Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.
David Sloan WilsonWhen you do things in a selfish way, let alone a destructive way, then you are bound by that karma. Your state of mind will go down. You will find yourself becoming depressed, nervous, anxious and upset.
Frederick LenzOur state is in crisis. Our people are hurting. Now is the time when we all must resist the traditional, selfish call to protect your own turf at the cost of our state. It is time to leave the corner, join the sacrifice, come to the center of the room and be part of the solution.
Chris ChristieElites are inevitable in politics. That is how politics is going to work. The question is, are your elites responsible, public-spirited? Do they think about the interests of others, not just themselves? And the story of Western politics since the beginning of the century is that as elites become more separated, more selfish, as they leave behind their populations and don't think about them, they become discredited. And the people look for alternatives. But the alternative is worse. Those rules of the game protect us all. And they are more precious than almost any political outcome.
David FrumYou simply cannot give to the world all that you have to give to the world if you do not remain true to your own "selfish" desires. You have a unique set of precious values that can only be fulfilled by pursuing what drives you the most: your passions and dreams. Could Thomas Edison have tended to the downtrodden as Mother Teresa did? Could Albert Einstein have preached salvation as Martin Luther King Jr. did? Could Abraham Lincoln have built cars like Henry Ford? Always, the masses benefit from the individuals who insist on marching to the beat of their own drummer.
Mike DooleyMy objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd.
Robert Green Ingersoll