Popular quotes about Selfishness! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 17
Under a socialist mode of production all personal incentives which selfishness provides under capitalism are removed, and a premium is put upon laziness and negligence. Whereas in a capitalist society selfishness incites everyone to the utmost diligence, in a socialist society it makes for inertia and laxity.
Ludwig von MisesOur own selfishness makes us the most arrant cowards; our own selfishness is the great cause of fear and cowardice.
Swami VivekanandaUnlike all other founders of a religious faith, Christ had no selfishness, no desire of dominance; and His system, unlike all other systems of worship, was bloodless, boundlessly beneficent, and--most marvelous of all--went to break all bonds of body and soul, and to cast down every temporal and every spiritual tyranny.
Alfred William HowittThe root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst.
Sam KeenIt happens to all of us, I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over.
Nadia Bolz-WeberWe're into an age of excessive individuals, all right. We're into the age were independence, autonomy, convenience, sometimes selfishness. The new trinity of me, myself and I, seems to dominate. We know that's contrary to the very nature of the human person. The very nature of the human person needs God and needs other people.
Timothy M. Dolan... we performers are monsters. We are a totally different, far-out race of people. I totally and completely admit, with no qualmsat all, my egomania, my selfishness, coupled with a really magnificent voice.
Leontyne PriceI have freedom. But freedom means total selfishness. It means nobody cares much what you do.
Lynn BarberHaving kids is a full-time job. And I don't know any woman who isn't constantly fighting between the exquisite selfishness required to be an artist and this exquisite selflessness that's required to be a parent.
Liz W. GarciaWe have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.
Pope FrancisAt the time of his death, Biko had a wife and three children for which he left a letter that stated in one part: โI've devoted my life to see equality for blacks, and at the same time, I've denied the needs of my family. Please understand that I take these actions, not out of selfishness or arrogance, but to preserve a South Africa worth living in for blacks and whites.
Steven BikoIf we read the Western Canon in order to form our social, political, or personal moral values, I firmly believe we will become monsters of selfishness and exploitation.
Harold BloomA married person does not live in isolation. He or she has made a promise, a pledge, a vow, to another person. Until that vow is fulfilled and the promise is kept, the individual is in debt to his marriage partner. That is what he owes. 'You owe it to yourself' is not a valid excuse for breaking a marriage vow but a creed of selfishness.
R. C. SproulNational progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.
Samuel SmilesOne 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 WilsonBegin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness โ all of them due to the offendersโ ignorance of what is good or evil.
Marcus AureliusHere I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.
William NicholsonIf you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquillity of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fears, his greeds, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace.
Alexis CarrelAnd when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertI will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.
Napoleon HillI'm really interested in the difference between selfishness and generosity. It confuses me to no end because sometimes it all just feels like pure indulgence on my part.
Nate LowmanTo humanity, which sometimes seems to be lost and dominated by the power of evil, selfishness and fear, the risen Lord gives the gift of His love which forgives, reconciles and reopens the soul to hope.
Pope John Paul IIHow sick one gets of being "good," how much I should respect myself if I could burst out and make everyone wretched for twenty-four hours; embody selfishness.
Alice JamesOne thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
George MacDonaldWas it hardness, was it selfishness, that she should ask me to risk my life for her own glorification? Such thoughts may come to middle age; but never to ardent three-and-twenty in the fever of his first love.
Arthur Conan DoyleAnyone who recognizes this regime [Israel] because of the pressure of the World oppressor, or because of naivetรฉ or selfishness, will be eternally disgraced and will burn in the fury of the Islamic nations.
Mahmoud AhmadinejadThe hardest work you and I will ever do is to put off our selfishness. It is heavy lifting!
Neal A. MaxwellThe squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.
Ralph Waldo EmersonTyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.
Franz KafkaAs frost to the bud, and blight to the blossom, even such is self-interest to friendship; for confidence cannot dwell where selfishness is porter at the gate.
Martin Farquhar TupperThough selfishness hath defiled the whole man, yet sensual pleasure is the chief part of its interest, and, therefore, by the senses it commonly works; and these are the doors and windows by which iniquity entereth into the soul.
Richard BaxterIn order to help usher in the golden age we must see the good in people. We must know it is there, no matter how deeply it may be buried. Yes, apathy is there and selfishness is there - but good is there also. It is not through judgment that the good can be reached, but through love and faith.
Peace PilgrimI enjoyed my own nature to the fullest, and we all know there lies happiness, although, to soothe one another mutually, we occasionally pretend to condemn such joys as selfishness.
Albert CamusSome, like Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens's A Christmas Carol, have a hard time loving anyone, even themselves, because of their selfishness. Love seeks to give rather than to get. Charity towards and compassion for others is a way to overcome too much self-love
James E. FaustRegardless, heterosexual marriage is largely in trouble today because people see it as a selfish means of pleasing self, rather than a committed relationship in which the focus is on meeting the needs of the partner, that sense of selfishness and the redefinition of love as to something that is purely sentimental and emotional, has been destructive.
Mike HuckabeeWe are beset by problems and if we look for their source, we find they arise because of our selfishness, because we tend to pursue our own interests at the expense of others. Our various religious traditions exist to help us reduce these problems. They all teach ways to overcome suffering through cultivating love and compassion, tolerance, patience and contentment.
Dalai LamaWe are close to God when we are close to people. If we think of God as something in favor of the betterment of human beings, and if we act in a way that brings about that betterment-if we do not cling to riches, selfishness, or greed-then I believe we are getting closer to God.
Daniel OrtegaBlessed loves! how happy they have made us on the earth; what will they be when they have deepened through ages, with no alloy of envy or suspicion or selfishness or sorrow?
Randolph Sinks FosterAs early as 1776, [John Adams] expressed his doubts about America's capacity for virtue. "I have seen all along my Life, Such Selfishness, and Littleness even in New England, that I sometimes tremble to think that, altho We are engaged in the best Cause that ever employed the Human Heart, yet the Prospect of success is doubtfull not for Want of Power or of Wisdom, but of Virtue."
Gordon S. WoodFaith, courage, and intelligent and uninterrupted awareness - these qualities are to be present whether one is wide awake, half asleep, or in deep slumber. An individual who lives like this performs his daily actions with a mind free from selfishness. This is poise in action. And this poise leads to that serenity which is in the truest sense a healthy mind in a healthy body.
B.K.S. IyengarThere is no such thing as low-cost Christianity. Following Jesus means swimming against the tide, renouncing evil and selfishness
Pope FrancisLove is not selective, desire is selective. In love there are no strangers. When the centre of selfishness is no longer, all desires for pleasure and fear of pain cease; one is no longer interested in being happy; beyond happiness there is pure intensity, inexhaustible energy, the ecstasy of giving from a perennial source.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj