Best 557 quotes in «selfishness quotes» category

The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.

Those who blamed aggression formed Amity.’… ‘Those who blamed ignorance became the Erudite.’… ‘Those who blamed duplicity created Candor.’… ‘Those who blamed selfishness made Abnegation.’… ‘And those who blamed cowardice were the Dauntless.

The vital Christian arouses opposition because he is a standing rebuke to the selfishness and sin of those around him.

This idea of selfishness as a virtue, as opposed to generosity: That, to me, is unnatural.

To be selfish is to sacrifice the nobler for the meaner ends, and to be sordidly content.

Those who live to the future must always appear selfish to those who live to the present.

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

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

Twin-sister of Religion, Selfishness.

We can neither change nor overpower God's eternal suffrage against selfishness and meanness.

Undoubtedly there are, in connection with each of these things, cases of fraud, swindling, and other financial crimes; that is to say, the greed and selfishness of men are perpetual.

We can also allow our Soulmate to pass us by,without accepting him or her,or even noticing. Then we will need another incarnation in order to find that Soulmate. And because of our selfishness, we will be condemned to the worst torture humankind ever invented for itself: loneliness.

We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.

We live in a world of transgressions and selfishness, and no pictures that represent us otherwise can be true; though happily for human nature, gleamings of that pure spirit in whose likeness man has been fashioned, are to be seen, relieving its deformities, and mitigating, if not excusing its crimes.

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.

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.

We'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.

What's the matter with the world? Why, there ain't nothing but one word wrong with everyone of us, and that's selfishness.

When we focus on others, our world expands.

While selfishness joins hands with no one of the virtues, benevolence is allied to them all.

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle.

Above all, avoid lying, especially lying to yourself. Keep watching out for your lies, watch for them every hour, every minute. Also avoid disgust, both for others and yourself: whatever strikes you as disgusting within yourself is cleansed by the mere fact that you notice it. Avoid fear, too, although fear is really only a consequence of lies. Never be afraid of your petty selfishness when you try to achieve love and don’t be too alarmed if you act badly on occasion.

Act as if you don't know me, and i will make it seem as though you don't exist.

After our loved one dies: we cry, not because they left; but because they left us.

A good man cares about others. A good man has not only selfish desires. He is not only centered in himself. A bad man has no concern for others. He has only selfish concerns. He is centered in his own world.

Ah, human nature with its passions and hatreds, with its moral hideousness! Ah, men, to whom, compared with their selfish interests, all else matters little! Justice is a good thing - when there is plenty of time and nobody is inconvenienced!

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days when we were unselfish and pure-minded; those foolish days when our simple hearts were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever days when we know that money is the only prize worth striving for, when we believe in nothing else but meanness and lies, when we care for no living creature but ourselves!

A humanitarian seldom makes a good lover. For a lover’s world revolves around their lover, while a humanitarian’s world revolves around the world.

All love may begin by being passionate, especially for younger people. But in the process of living together, they have to learn and practice love, so that selfishness--the tendency to possess--will diminsh, and the elemetns of understanding and gratitude will settle in, little by little, until their love becomes nourishing, protecting, and reassuring," (41).

...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one--we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist.

Altruism and selfishness are also entitled to a rendezvous.

A man is not for you when all he knows is to slam your back on the bed and ram into you like a wild fool. The interested ones are the ones so interested that they become very interested in only interesting things about you.

A man is nothing more than the things he does to get what he wants.

A motto of many politicians, public servants and money bags: Ask not 'What can I do for you?' but 'What can I do you for?

You must pray for yourself constantly. How could it be otherwise? We worship God by believing in Him, trusting Him, and loving Him wholeheartedly - and we can attain to that only through prayer. The sole object of our being here is that we may grow like Him - and we can do that only through prayer. The more we pray for ourselves the more power will our prayers have for any other purpose whatever; so praying for ourselves is the reverse of selfishness - it is truly glorifying God.

...and as a result yet today we are unable to distinguish between sympathy and selfishness.

And isn’t that the root of every despicable action? Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others. The frustrated wretch who professes love for the inferior and clings to those less endowed, in order to establish his own superiority by comparison.

And if redemption was self-serving, coming as it did ribbon-tied to what he wanted most in life? For once, Akiva's shame wouldn't rise to the bait. He wanted what he'd always wanted, and he'd better just say it, his own worries and fears be damned.

Ambition distorts even memory itself. John Quincy Adams

And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn’t really mean it. But that isn’t true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there’s no other way of saving yourself and you’re quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don’t give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.

Are you willing to nourish your heart with love; then your selfishness will starve to death.

And this is how I come face to face with my selfishness, because I don't know if I can enjoy this goldfish without knowing that he loves me, or if not loves me, then at least depends on me, i.e., swims up to my fingers greedily when I fill them with salty-smelling rainbow-colored flakes, and wiggle them over his head. And this is disturbing to realize, that I have such difficulty enjoying anything that doesn't know I exist. Especially when I stop and think how big the world is, the world that is not even Japan or India, the world that is the room next door.

A person who is humble would never be abusive or selfish; so don't abuse yourself or withhold self-love or self-care.

A poetess is not as selfish as you assume. After months of agonising over her marriage of words—the bride— and spaces—the groom, she knows that as soon as she has penned the poem, it’s yours to consume. So, without giving it a think, she blows on the ink and the letters fly away like dandelions on a windy day, landing on hands and lips, on hearts and hips. But more often than not, you can easily spot them trodden and forgotten, becoming sodden and rotten. Yet, she will continue to make what’s others to take because selfishness is not the mark of a poetess.

A prophet is always underestimated, and part of what makes one a prophet is that he doesn't really mind it.

A rich life is lived from a giving heart not a selfish mind.

As long as greed is the root of all evil, there will not be peace. Get rid of selfishness and greed too will disappear.

And when the earth began to rumble and quake, as fear and frantic set in, he ran back inside the house past his wife and children, gathering all the valuables and things he thought of importance, and ran back to his car packing away. After making two trips in and out, he waited in the car for his family to come out, in fear they darted through the darkness and pelting cold rain. When everything calmed down, and the house was intact and safe, he returned putting everything back in its place, had the kids go to bed, told his wife he loves her and turned off the light.

A true generous heart can never revolve majorly with monetary skills nor business acumen nor cunning mind.

At the end of the day we can’t be that selfish to accept the love they think we deserve.