Quotes About Selfishness

In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

Selfishness, not love, is the actuating motive of the gallant.

The greatest productive force is human selfishness.

If your prayer is selfish, the answer will be something that will rebuke your selfishness. You may not recognize it as having come at all, but it is sure to be there.

Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every macrocosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals.

The greatest help to spiritual life is meditation. In meditation we divest ourselves of all material conditions and feel our divine nature. We do not depend upon any external help in meditation. The touch of the soul can paint the brightest color even in the dingiest places; it can cast a fragrance over the vilest thing; it can make the wicked divine-and all enmity, all selfishness is effaced.

PERSONAL IMPORTANCE or taking things personally, is an expression of SELFISHNESS because we make the assumption that everything is about ME!! NOTHING PEOPLE DO IS BECAUSE OF YOU!! IT'S BECAUSE OF THEMSELVES!!

For what will it profit men that a more prudent distribution and use of riches make it possible for them to gain even the whole world, if thereby they suffer the loss of their own souls? What will it profit to teach them sound principles in economics, if they permit themselves to be so swept away by selfishness, by unbridled and sordid greed, that hearing the commandments of the Lord, they do all things contrary.

It is also important to guard against mistaking for good-nature what is properly good-humor,--a cheerful flow of spirits and easy temper not readily annoyed, which is compatible with great selfishness.

The greatest surprise of human evolution may be that the highest form of selfishness is selflessness.

You fueled my obession, even encouraged it and your selfishness ruined my life

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.

The myth of hell represents all the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable.

As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live--we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.

Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.

We 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.

The act of love . . . is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.

But thoughtless ingratitude is the armour of the young; without it, how would they ever get through life? The old wish the young well, but they wish them ill also: they would like to eat them up, and absorb their vitality, and remain immortal themselves. Without the protection of surliness and levity, all children would be crushed by the past - the past of others, loaded on their shoulders. Selfishness is their saving grace.

The hope for the twentieth century rests on recognition that war and depression are man-made, and needless. They can be avoided in the future by turning from the nineteenth-century characteristics just mentioned (materialism, selfishness, false values, hypocrisy, and secret vices) and going back to other characteristics that our Western Society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding a increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self discipline.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.

Every divorce is the result of selfishness on the part of one or the other or both parties to a marriage contract. Someone is thinking of self comforts, conveniences, freedoms, luxuries, or ease. Sometimes the ceaseless pin pricking of an unhappy, discontented, and selfish spouse can finally add up to serious physical violence. Sometimes people are goaded to the point where they erringly feel justified in doing the things that are so wrong. Nothing of course justifies sin.

many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves.

Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.

Happiness begins where selfishness ends.

I 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.

According to the first image of international relations, the locus of the important causes of war is found in the nature and behavior of man. Wars result from selfishness, from misdirected aggressive impulses, from stupidity.

It is an act of extreme selfishness for a married couple to refuse to have children when they are able to do so.

What we won when all of our people united just must not now be lost in suspicion, distrust, selfishness, and politics among any of our people. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.

Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life.

Let it never be said by future generations that indifference, cynicism or selfishness made us fail to live up to the ideals of humanism which the Nobel Peace Prize encapsulates. Let the strivings of us all, prove Martin Luther King Jr. to have been correct, when he said that humanity can no longer be tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war.

Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.

There is a need for everyone's brain to be imprinted with more self-enhancing impulses: the impulse to peace over violence, love over fear, compassion over selfishness.

Most human beings know only the language of exploitation. Due to their selfishness, they are unable to consider others.

We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.

People's lives are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don't survive.

Anyone who recognizes this regime [Israel] because of the pressure of the World oppressor, or because of naiveté or selfishness, will be eternally disgraced and will burn in the fury of the Islamic nations.

Long Distance training can be a positive & constructive form of selfishness. After all, once you're at the starting line, you're there by yourself. No one can run a single step for you. No one can jump in & help you. No one but you can make the decisions about what to do to keep going. It's all up to you.

Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere

Selfishness and fear are at the root of (pro-abortion) legislation...We in the Church have a great struggle to defend life...life is a gift not a threat.

We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

In 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.

Human love is mostly selfishness; all the time it thinks only of the little 'i'. That 'i' is the ego.

Yes, forget your weakness, whatever that weakness may be. It is egotism, it is selfishness after. all, for it is a dwelling on self. Forget your weakness; and remember your strength.

Ours has been called a culture of narcissism. The label is apt but can be misleading. It reads colloquially as selfishness and self-absorption. But these images do not capture the anxiety behind our search for mirrors. We are insecure in our understanding of ourselves, and this insecurity breeds a new preoccupation with the question of who we are. We search for ways to see ourselves. The computer is a new mirror, the first psychological machine. Beyond its nature as an analytical engine lies its second nature as an evocative object.

[The seers call him wise] whose every attempt is free, without any desire for gain, without any selfishness.