Popular quotes about Selfish! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 97
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 PinkerYou 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.
Joseph Sheridan Le FanuI don't think there's a specific route to take to make a relationship last a long time. And who knows what the future will bring. Please God we are happy forever, but you just don't know what's round the corner. For me the key issue is not to be selfish, on both sides. I think the moment someone becomes selfish they let the other person down.
Louise RedknappTo talk about something like prostitution, the other person then becomes the wild card that will have a response, and it may not be the response you want. Sometimes I think saying it would be selfish to tell them is still being under the illusion that you have all the power. You say it would be selfish to tell them, when in fact you're scared that in telling them, it gives them the power to do what they might want to do because once they know, they become somebody who could be reactive.
Robin WeigertJust 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 SampsonI know that actors and actresses have a great reputation for being very, very selfish, and in some cases, that's very true. But in the theater I find it doesn't help you to be selfish. You sort of have to be selfless in the theater, and the more selfless you are - that doesn't mean don't take care of yourself - but the more you sort of surrender to the work, I find, the better the work is. That's just my experience.
Laura LinneyI think love is often a bit selfish, even before we had consumerism. That's not new. A consumer society gives you the illusion of having massive amounts of choice and saddles you with the freedom of being able to dabble in that choice. And at the same time, you are left with the tyranny of self-doubt and uncertainty about whether you made the right choice.
Esther PerelScientific 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 DawkinsYou should sub a player out when you see a player not going full-speed or playing selfish basketball.
Dean Smith... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.
George EliotWithout love and kindness life is cold, selfish and uninteresting and leads to distaste for everything. With kindness, the difficult becomes easy, the obscure clear; life assumes a charm and it's miseries are softened. If we knew the power of kindness. we should transform the world into a paradise.
Charles WagnerYou instantly become less selfish. You can't be the biggest person in the world anymore-they are. [Motherhood] really grounds you.
Keri RussellWhile we may not be called to martyr our lives, we must martyr our way of life. We must put our selfish ways to death and march to a different beat. Then the world will see Jesus.
Michael TaitSelfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.
David Sloan WilsonYour father always suspected that being pretty-minded is simply the natural state for most people. They want to be vapid and lazy and vainโMaddy glanced at Tallyโand selfish. It only takes a twist to lock in that part of their personalities. He always thought that some people could think their way out of it.
Scott WesterfeldSociotropic voters with biased economic beliefs are more likely to produce severe political failures than are selfish voters with rational expectations.
Bryan CaplanI can't say the connection is one I've made consciously, but quitting drinking allowed me to be less selfish. My wife would definitely say that one of the major benefits of me quitting drinking is that I have more time and focus for other people.
Andy DalyInternational war is the sum total of millions of individual wars, raging in the minds of the people, between what is selfish and what is selfless. To the extent that you and I develop selflessness in our own hearts, to that extent we contribute to peace in our family, community, country, and world.
Eknath EaswaranI've had only one idea in my life - a true idee fixe. To put it as bluntly as possible - the idea of having my own way. 'Control!' expresses it. The control of human behavior. In my early experimental days it was a frenzied, selfish desire to dominate. I remember the rage I used to feel when a prediction went awry. I could have shouted at the subjects of my experiments, 'Behave, damn you! Behave as you ought!
B. F. SkinnerWhenever 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 Weberone 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.
Corra May HarrisPeople 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.
Harper LeeIt is easy to love friends and sweethearts. This is selfish love. Higher love embraces enemies and all ugly, bad people. The highest love doesn't see goodness or badness at all. One should even love warmongers, bad food producers and priests.
Michio KushiOur 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 CameronThere is nothing selfish about enjoying yourself. In fact, as wise people have long said and psychologists have since discovered, happiness makes people less self-focused and more altruistic.
Roger N. WalshThe trouble with selfish motives is that they harden into principles, and you end up sending your kids to war for them.
Robert BreaultMy hero is me. Why? Because I was a poor little kid who was told, `Hey stupid, can`t you speak English?` Now all those people work for me. Despite whatever circumstances I came across, I was always able to rise to the top and there`s only one way to do that - by being selfish, but also by believing in yourself. Belief is self-knowing. Even Yoda out of Star Wars said, `Do or do not. There is no try.
Gene SimmonsYou have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.
Anita BrooknerIf you look at the people in Hollywood who are heavy partiers, they're selfish, self-centered and egotistical.
Danny TrejoThese are uncertain times. We cannot be content to rest on yesterday's laurels. These are times when we must strengthen rather than let down those standards which have stood in such good stead in crises that are past. Baseball cannot be selfish, or irresponsible, or lax. Neither can the men who operate it.
Branch RickeyNo matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.
Julia 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 GeronimoTo see lonely, selfish, empty individuals transformed slowly but surely into warm, loving, wholesome, and happy people is to become aware of why Paul describes Christ as 'unsearchable riches'.
Ray StedmanThe truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.
Jimmy CarterLove isn't one-sided and selfish.It is full and generous and life-altering in the best of ways.Love does not destroy, Gabriel.It creates.
Sarah MacLeanChristians and Jews go after those who have access to raw materials but who prevent access to them. Oil is the best example. The US and its allies are constantly intervening in countries where they don't belong only to defend their prosperity. We aren't fighting because we are greedy and selfish, rather we are fighting for values and morals.
Abdul Sattar Abu RishaThe most DIFFICULT thing for individuals to do when they become part of a team is to sacrifice, it is much EASIER to be selfish.
Pat RileyNothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.
Jean-Paul MaratI 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.
Harriet Beecher StoweThe thing you fail to grasp is that people are not basically good. We are basically selfish. We shove and clamour and cry for adoration, and beat down everyone else to get it. Life is a competition of prattling peacocks enraptured in inane mating rituals. But for all our effacing and self-importance, we are all slaves to what we fear most. You have so very much to learn. Here. Let me teach you.
Christopher NolanThe idea that affable Boris[Johnson] is actually divisive, selfish and unreliable is Mr 's biggest weakness.
James KirkupOne 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 Wilson