Popular quotes about Selfish! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 36
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.
Dalai LamaIf believing in yourself and going after what you want in life and realising your worth is ruthless and selfish, then I'm definitely ruthless and selfish.
Nicole ScherzingerSome might say that looking inside of ourselves for spiritual truths is egocentric and selfish, and that egolessness and selflessness lie in working for others in the world. But until we find our inner truth, our work in the world will always revolve around our 'selves'. As long as we think about the world in terms of 'self' and 'others', our actions will be selfish. Our 'self' follows us wherever we go, so positive results will be limited.
Tarthang TulkuI put all of my energy into building the game and giving women opportunities and, to put everything into it and then to be deemed selfish or not a good team player or outspoken, it's been hard. But at the same time, I'm going to get the critics and I know that.
Hope SoloI think thereโs a really selfish part of me that wishes I had the tools that I had today in the context of a designer practicing in the middle part of the 20th century when creating a single expression of an idea was the norm.
Khoi VinhThe grossest, the cruelest, the most selfish, the most easily pervertible and perverted thing in this world, is government.
Henry Ward BeecherWord it as softly as you please, the spirit of patriotism is the spirit of the dog and wolf. The moment there is a misunderstanding about a boundary line or a hamper of fish or some other squalid matter, see patriotism rise, and hear him split the universe with is war-whoop. The spirit of patriotism being in its nature jealous and selfish, is just in man's line, it comes natural to him - he can live up to all its requirements to the letter; but the spirit of Christianity is not in its entirety possible to him.
Mark TwainWe teach children to save their money. As an attempt to counteract thoughtless and selfish expenditure, that has value. But it is not positive; it does not lead the child into the safe and useful avenues of self-expression or self-expenditure. To teach a child to invest and use is better than to teach him to save.
Henry FordScientific and technological progress themselves are value-neutral. They are just very good at doing what they do. If you want to do selfish, greedy, intolerant and violent things, scientific technology will provide you with by far the most efficient way of doing so. But if you want to do good, to solve the world's problems, to progress in the best value-laden sense, once again, there is no better means to those ends than the scientific way.
Richard DawkinsKindly 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 TaineUnless 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.
Calvin CoolidgeIt 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.
Alan CohenDrop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! Risk your souls! Risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!
Mark TwainAn infinite question is often destroyed by finite answers. To define everything is to annihilate much that gives us laughter and joy... If I try self-consciously to become a person, I will never be one. The most real people, those who are able to forget their selfish selves, who have true compassion, are usually the most distinct individuals
Madeleine L'EngleA selfish person can still love someone else, can't they? Even when they've hurt them and let them down.
Rosamund LuptonI am in love with girls that are bad and naughty and badass, and a little selfish, but I like to watch from a respectful distance!
Dreama WalkerThe passion of love is essentially selfish, while motherhood widens the circle of our feelings.
Honore de BalzacThere are several kinds of love. One is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. This is the ugly and crippling kind. The other is an outpouring of everything good in you โ of kindness and consideration and respect โ not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. The first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didnโt know you had.
John SteinbeckThe nicest people fall in love indiscriminately ... while under the influence of that pre-eminently selfish lunacy they may make the most outrageous demands upon their friends with no other excuse than their painful need.
Margery AllinghamSo often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.
W. E. B. Du BoisI considered becoming a priest very seriously. I wanted to travel the world. By the time I turned 16, I realized I was only in it for selfish reasons. And, more importantly, I didn't want to sacrifice the ladies!
James McAvoyWhen you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.
Mike BirbigliaOur 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 CameronI 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.
Tia MowryThat we are selfish gives us the opportunity to gain the power so that, in time, we might be selfless. To give back what we have learned. To teach what we know, and shorten the journey for those who will come after us.
Margaret ChoThey donโt think โI care,โ โI hurt,โ or โI have feelings.โ It just seems like Iโm always โwrong,โ always โselfish,โ always โself-centeredโ and everything else thatโs negative and destructive.
Beatrice SparksThe idealism of the left is a very selfish idealism. In their war against 'the rich' and big business, they don't care how much collateral damage there is to workers who end up end up unemployed.
Thomas SowellIf your actions are motivated by selfish interests rather than God, you are mortgaging tomorrow's joy.
T. B. JoshuaReligion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath.
Harriet Beecher StoweUnselfishness is God. One may live on a throne, in a golden palace, and be perfectly unselfish; and then he is in God. Another may live in a hut and wear rags, and have nothing in the world; yet, if he is selfish, he is intensely merged in the world.
Swami VivekanandaJesus reminds us that the good life combines the toughness of the serpent and the tenderness of the dove. To have serpent-like qualities devoid of dovelike qualities is to be passionless, mean, and selfish. To have dovelike without serpent-like qualities is to be sentimental, anemic and aimless. We must combine strongly marked antitheses.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The 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 DoyleDreams are selfish, in the sense that they always concern issues and events that were weighing on your mind at the time you had the dream. Dreams will warn you about concerns in your career, in your family life, in your relationship with your spouse, and give insight into problems with your children.
Charles McPheeThis is the true joy of life-the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown to the scrap-heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances.
George Bernard ShawI hate the standard of stupid and selfish driving we have in this country. We are the worst I've come across.
Martin ShawOne of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.
Andy MurrayI have another question: Hillary Clinton, lying to the American people about her selfish, awful judgment in making our secrets vulnerable.Guilty or not guilty?
Chris ChristieLife is given for wisdom, and yet we are not wise; for goodness, and we are not good; for overcoming evil, and evil remains; for patience and sympathy and love, and yet we are fretful and hard and weak and selfish. We are keyed not to attainment, but to the struggle toward it.
Thornton T. MungerMost Americans are aware of the brutality and injustice used to maintain the excesses of their selfish consumer society and empire. Yet I suspect...they do not care. They donโt want to see what is done in their name. They do not want to look at the rows of flag-draped coffins, the horribly maimed bodies and faces of veterans, or the human suffering in the blighted and deserted former manufacturing centers. It is too upsetting. Government and corporate censorship is therefore welcomed and appreciated.
Curtis WhiteMy objection to Christianity is that it is infinitely cruel, infinitely selfish, and, I might add, infinitely absurd.
Robert Green IngersollIn order to be able to give a girlfriend the amount of time she deserves, you would need time, and I just can't give her that. So, rather than being selfish or stupid enough to go into a relationship, it's just been easier to be single.
Ryan KwantenOur practice should be based on the ideal of selflessness. Selflessness is very difficult to understand. If you try to be selfless, that is already a selfish idea. Selflessness will be there when you do not try anything.
Shunryu SuzukiI think of the difficulties which, in various countries, today afflicts the world of work and business; I think of how many, and not just young people, are unemployed, many times due to a purely economic conception of society, which seeks selfish profit, beyond the parameters of social justice.
Pope FrancisBeware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.
Christopher Hitchens