Quotes About Selfishness

In a world where God does not exist, any reasonable person must see that the propensity toward selfishness should be the most venerated of all human traits. From this it stands to reason that any man, knowing the total expanse of his existence to be finite, who does not devote every moment of his life to acts of pure selfishness, must be seen as nothing more than a fool.

Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"

Selfishness alone is sufficient to bring apocalypse upon a nation.

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

I don't think the revisionist historians are accurate. I think their agendas are clouded by selfishness and anger and rage.

Gratitude free of compassion is selfishness. It is nothing more than being happy for what has been done to benefit you.

Love . . . [is] a lack of personal selfishness.

To talk about the need for perfection in man is to talk about the need for another species. The essence of man is imperfection. Imperfection and blazing contradictions-between mixed good and evil, altruism and selfishness, cooperativeness and combativeness, optimism and fatalism, affirmation and negation.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Charity does not like arithmetic; selfishness worships it.

Selfishness, when it is punished by the world, is mostly punished because it is connected with egotism.

Covetousness is a sort of mental gluttony, not confined to money, but craving honor, and feeding on selfishness.

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

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

I have freedom. But freedom means total selfishness. It means nobody cares much what you do.

The only care That I shall share Shall be the care of others, And on the road I'll halve the load Of overburdened brothers. I rather guess It's selfishness That drives me to such actions, For in this plan I find I can Forget my own distractions.

Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me.

As a father now, I wouldn't do what my dad did, because it left me feeling emotionally unstable as a kid. But he didn't do the things he did out of selfishness or malice.

The absolute desire of 'having more' encourages the selfishness that destroys communal bonds among the children of God. It does so because the idolatry of riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods that the Creator has made for all, and in the all-possessing minority it produces an exaggerated pleasure in these goods.

As we come to grips with our own selfishness and stupidity, we make friends with the impostor and accept that we are impoverished and broken and realize that, if we were not, we would be God. The art of gentleness toward ourselves leads to being gentle with others -- and is a natural prerequisite for our presence to God in prayer.

Generosity is the only legitimate selfishness.

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it

A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity.

The fun, joy, and humor dry up in a relationship when one of the partners is swimming in gin. To my way of thinking, it is selfishness personified to see life through the bottom of a liquor bottle.

These small things - nutrition, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness - are inconceivably more important than everything one has taken to be important so far.

Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete.

If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt.

We receive mixed messages about taking good care of ourselves. Love thy neighbor as thyself means to love thyself and thy neighbor. Yet, self-love often is confused with selfishness and conceit. We are selfish when we do not love and accept ourselves, and attempt to take from others to fill the emptiness. Conceit indicates low self-worth and an attempt to conceal it. It is difficult to extend to others what you have not been able to give yourself. Take good care of yourself so you can care about the rest of us.

Men err from selfishness; women because they are weak.

The sin which is indulged to the greatest extent, and which separates us from God and produces so many contagious spiritual disorders, is selfishness.

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.

We're all basically made of the same stuff: generosity and selfishness, goodness and greed.

Camera but no selfies, which represent selfishness and egotism. Social media? Again: not really me.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it is his love of justice. These principles are an eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely, as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

Judeo-Christian conservatism overcomes natural selfishness.

Possessive parents rarely live long enough to see the fruits of their selfishness.

Unless we realize our sins enough to call them by name, it is hardly worth while to say anything about them at all. When we pray for forgiveness, let us say, "my temper," or "untruthfulness," or "pride," "my selfishness, my cowardice, indolence, jealousy, revenge, impurity." To recognize our sins, we must look them in the face and call them by their right names, however hard. Honesty in confession calls for definiteness in confession.

Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.

If you are discouraged it is a sign of pride because it shows you trust in your own power. Your self-sufficiency, your selfishness and your intellectual pride will inhibit His coming to live in your heart because God cannot fill what is already full. It is as simple as that.

I have learned, by some experience, that virtue and patriotism, vice and selfishness, are found in all parties, and that they differ less in their motives than in the policies they pursue.

Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice.

Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

In a world often marked by selfishness, a large family is a school of solidarity and sharing; and this attitude is to the benefit of society as a whole.... I always thank the Lord in seeing mothers and fathers of large families, together with their children, committed to the life of the Church and of society.

There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness - her selfishness, in short - is a reproach to the American way of life.

When marriage exposes a person's selfishness and sins it's doing what it is meant to do: bringing our sins and wounds to light so we can recognize them, confess them, and begin the healing process.

Appreciation is not an otherworldly or good treat which we may take or push away as per the minute's impulses, and in either case without material outcomes. Appreciation is the very bread and meat of profound and good wellbeing, separately and all things considered. What was the seed of deterioration that tainted the antiquated's heart world past the purpose of perfect remedy...? What was it however selfishness?