Quotes About Selfish

The dictionary describes a selfish person as one who is 'concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking pleasure or well-being without regard for others.' May we add, a selfish person is often one who refers to 'I,' 'me,' and 'mine' rather than to 'we,' 'ours,' 'yours,' or 'theirs.' This person is anxious to be in the limelight, to be on center stage in life's little dramas. He or she may be a poor listener, or a conversation monopolizer. Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought himself to be selfish.

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.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

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.

Is this what you have in mind,' I asked the Dalai Lama, 'when you say in teachings that the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the world are the most selfish beings of all, that by cultivating altruism they actually achieve ultimate happiness for themselves?' Yes. That's wise selfish,' he replied. 'Helping others not means we do this at our own expense. Not like this. Buddhas and bodhisattvas, these people very wise. All their lives they only want one thing: to achieve ultimate happiness. How to do this? By cultivating compassion, by cultivating altruism.

Politics these days is a disgusting game of mud-slinging, filled with selfish people with selfish aims. I'm very glad I've retired away from the hustle and bustle of Whitehall.

I 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.

Sometimes the coaches tell me to be selfish, but my game won't let me be selfish.

Actors - we're selfish, but we can't think about the work in that kind of selfish manner. I think that you have to step away from yourself, if you're going to do it. Otherwise don't do it; otherwise why do it?

There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.

I don't want to be remembered for my tennis accomplishments. That's no contribution to society. [Tennis] was purely selfish; that was for me.

Those who joined us for selfish personal reasons, for a career or other motives will be the ones to leave.

Selfishness is the key quality that all successful people share. To be the best at what you do in any field, and to accomplish the goals you set for yourself, you have to be somewhat selfish.

It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

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.

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. Frankly, this side of eternity we will never unravel the good from the bad, the pure from the impure. God is big enough to receive us with all our mixture.

The darker side of the City tried to emphasize the selfish parts of me by encouraging my sense of entitlement and my desire for personal space. But God seemed to whisper that the alternative existed: to let Him grow humility and concern for others in a way I had never experienced, to live out His peace amid whirling chaos.

Man is known to be a selfish, as well as a social being.

The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself.

You’re selfish and you’re cold, and I’m tired of getting frostbite when I touch you. (Acheron)

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

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.

Marriage is just an elaborate game that allows two selfish people to periodically feel that they're not.

I'm an egotist, but I'm not selfish. There's a difference. I'm a neurotic, I guess. I can't stop thinking about myself. It isn't that I think myself so important. I simply can't think about anything else, that's all.

Every selfish man, strangely enough, becomes a self slayer

Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them.

My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.

Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.

So 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.

When I do have time to work on music, I'm kind of selfish, and would rather work on my own stuff than someone else's.

Pleasure for others is the only pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish! - I'm greedy for the happiness of those I love - and if they can't or won't be happy I'm perfectly miserable.

Not that I say,"Oh,I'm not going to associate with certain people.," but I have my world,and I only want to be around people who I feel stimulated by. I have to be honest I do have a new quest: I want to meet more vegetarians,people who are more like minded. There's something real neat about that feeling. It makes you feel so settled to know there's somebody else sitting right there,being so passionate about what I'm passionate about. I don't want to be around selfish people. I try to keep myself surrounded by deep people who will move me.

one trouble with all the churches is that they have too many incurable saints in them, men and women who pray too much and do too little, who cannot forget their own selfish salvation enough to look after other people's without feeling their own spiritual pulse all the time they are doing it. Of late I've sometimes suspected that it is nearly as debilitating to stay in the church all the time as it would be to stay in a hospital all the time.

Strikers are egotists, selfish. We have to be.

Given 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.

Where do you get the right to decide our lives? I'll tell you where. From that little hog's gut that hangs between your legs. Well, let me tell you something... you will need more than that. I don't know where you will get it or who will give it to you, but mark my words, you will need more than that.... You are a sad, pitiful, stupid, selfish, hateful man. I hope your little hog's gut stands you in good stead, and you take good care of it, because you don't have anything else.

I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven.

If you're not ready to consider marriage or you're not truly interested in marrying a specific person, it's selfish and potentially harmful to encourage that person to need you or ask him or her to gratify you emotionally or physically.

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.

Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour.

Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves

It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church-going, hollow-hearted prosperity.

I do feel like the world is a better and happier place now that my son is here. That's so cliche, but it's true. I just have a new perspective; I'm more driven. Also, the thing that stands out to me is that I'm not as selfish. Before you have a child, you're doing everything for yourself. But now it's about what's best for him, and I'm enjoying that shift.

I don't want to eke out my life like a resource in short supply. The only selfish life is a timid one. To hold back, to withdraw, to keep the best in reserve, both overvalues the self, and undervalues what the self is.

In the early nineteenth century, the doctrine of self-sufficiency came to apply to families as well as individuals.... The familybecame a special protected place, the repository of tender, pure, and generous feelings (embodied by the mother) and a bulwark and bastion against the raw, competitive, aggressive, and selfish world of commerce (embodied by the father).... In performing this protective task, the good family was to be as self-sufficient as the good man.

As you get older you try to do things that please you more. You get a little more selfish. You start thinking I want to do things where I enjoy myself.

Many men who do creditable things refuse to let it be known. This is a mistake. While we all admire modesty, nevertheless there is a great national need to do everything possible to bring home to the rank and file of the people that all employers and all wealthy men are not grinding, mercenary, selfish skinflints, but that many of them take delight in doing helpful things for others ... Shortcomings of employers are constantly paraded. Why not let the public become acquainted with the better side which most present-day employers possess?

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?