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.

Mighty is the force of motherhood! It transforms all things by its vital heat; it turns timidity into fierce courage, and dreadless defiance into tremulous submission; it turns thoughtlessness into foresight, and yet stills all anxiety into calm content; it makes selfishness become self-denial, and gives even to hard vanity the glance of admiring love.

So long as selfishness makes government needful at all, it must make every government corrupt, save one in which all men are represented.

By obliging men to turn their attention to other affairs than their own, it rubs off that private selfishness which is the rust of society.

Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.

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.

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.

If none of your role models provide the answer, then it is time to go within and ask yourself, "What would make me happy?" In other words, let your feelings guide you. This doesn't work well if you focus narrowly on your personal needs. I am not talking about selfishness or self-interest. When I ask, What will make you happy?, I mean, What way of loving others feels right for you? Choose a way of loving that makes you happy, and your efforts will be play rather than work.

The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness.

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect on me is to live on the doorstep of hell. Selfishness is doomed to frustration centered as it is upon a lie. To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god.

Selfishness is the biggest form of helplessness as it makes the person blind so much that he fails to search his true self for being always in the lurch.

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

The sun of truth rises in the human being and illuminates his world when he lifts his mind from the darkness of ignorance and selfishness into the light of wisdom and altruism

Thread of Selfishness in Web of Life.—Deuteronomy contains much instruction regarding what the law is to us, and the relation we shall sustain to God as we reverence and obey

Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to the entire world besides.

Along with selfishness, anger is one of the most serious problems facing the world today

The essence of Theosophy is the perfect harmonizing of the divine with the human in man, the adjustment of his god-like qualities and aspirations, and their sway over the terrestrial or animal passions in him. Kindness, absence of every ill feeling or selfishness, charity, goodwill to all beings, and perfect justice to others as to oneself, are its chief features. He who teaches Theosophy preaches the gospel of goodwill; and the converse of this is true also — he who preaches the gospel of goodwill, teaches Theosophy.

There are points in your life, especially if you have creative ambitions, where selfishness is necessary.

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.

One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.

Generosity is the only legitimate selfishness.

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.

I think that in today's world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness.

This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. Our planet teeters on the brink of annihilation; dangerous passions of pride, hatred, and selfishness are enthroned in our lives; and men do reverence before false gods of nationalism and materialism. The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.

Fatherhood: How God blesses you out of your selfishness and floods your soul with love, all while reminding you how little you know.

The gospel of licentiousness, of selfishness, of blaming all the difficulties of life on external factors - these are the things that are killing people today in ways that the slave whips and the overseers couldn't.

Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy - all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values.

Would that our harsh judgments could be restrained, our impatience checked, our selfishness broken down, our passions controlled, our waste of time and life in worthless or unworthy objects corrected, by the thought that there is One in whose hands we are, who cares for us with a parent's love, who will judge us hereafter without the slightest tinge of human' infirmity, the All-Merciful and the All-Just.

To 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.

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.

But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated. Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.

Being sorry is the highest act of selfishness, seeing value only after discarding it.

The squirrel hoards nuts and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

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

Throughout the 1980s, we did hear too much about individual gain and the ethos of selfishness and greed. We did not hear enough about how to be a good member of a community, to define the common good and to repair the social contract. And we also found that while prosperity does not trickle down from the most powerful to the rest of us, all too often indifference and even intolerance do.

Turkey, Japan do great work because they can keep under control their little personal selfishness, egoism, jealousy, etc. when they get down to work.

Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion.

The reason why wicked men and devils hate God is, because they see Him in relation to themselves. Their hearts rise up in rebellion, because they see Him opposed to their selfishness.

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.

He was no martyr. He was no hero But in the last two years, selfishness gave way to selflessness, lies gave way to truth and indulgence gave way to spirituality, and anyone watching that couldn't help but be moved by it.

Tenderness and respect-never selfishness-must be the guiding principles in the intimate relationship between husband and wife

The dramatic threat of ecological breakdown is teaching us the extent to which greed and selfishness are contrary to the order of creation. ...A given culture reveals its understanding of life through the choices it makes in production and consumption... a great deal of educational and cultural work is urgently needed, including the education of consumers in the responsible use of their power of choice.

In a word, most bad attitudes are the result of selfishness.

The Holy Spirit is the immediate source of all holiness. He is entirely sincere, and perfect in love. He is generous. He is pure in heart, free from selfishness, and never swerves from the path of duty. He is deep like a fountain. He sends forth his virtues in due season. He speaks, and men believe him; he acts, and men are gladdened by him. He possesses all heavenly virtues. He is one with Heaven.

Democracy is threatened by the inertia of good people, by the selfishness of most people, and by the evil designs of a few people.

From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society.

The communism of combined wealth and capital, the outgrown of overweening cupidity and selfishness which assiduously undermines the justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil which, exasperated by injustice and discontent, attacks with wide disorder the citadel of misrule.

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.