Best 557 quotes in «selfishness quotes» category

The best weapon for selfishness is selfishness for the cause of others.

The best way to detect the destructive element in someone is to watch closely their behavioural pattern when given authority over poverty.

The creation of man is evidence for the love of God, the preservation of man is evidence for the patience of God, and Christ is evidence for the forgiveness of God. It is when we are wrapped up in our own little peeves that we begin to displace His benevolence with malevolence.

The desire to help others is not necessarily incompatible with the desire to help oneself.

The desire to experience new kinds of community led a number of thoughtful and idealistic people to reject the patterns of vocation, family life and religion with which they had grown up. Their attempt to establish new patterns of social bonding in uncontaminated rural retreats can be seen as a secular monasticism, but they often discovered that to abolish the boundaries of authority, family and property created a whole series of problems which they did not have the spiritual and personal resources to solve. At their best, such groups have opened up new horizons of discipleship, but they have often learned some hard lessons about the intractable sinfulness and selfishness of partly-redeemed human nature.

The end life circle… hold in itself selfishness.

The first sentiment of man was that of his existence, his first care that of preserving it.

There is no such thing as selflessness. There are only fair and unfair selfishness.

The generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price. That is the problem.

The goal of marriage is not happiness, it is holiness...There is no mechanism whereby God can sanctify a person more than having them live in close proximity to another imperfect person. ...Our fundamental problem is that we are selfish. Marriage is the means whereby God eradicates our selfishness because it is not about "me" anymore, i t is about "we.

...the human animal is a selfish beast...

Their arrogance protected them against any liking for their fellow-man, against the slightest interest in the strangers sitting all about them, amidst whom M. de Stermaria adopted the manner one has in the buffet-car of a train, grim, hurried, stand-offish, brusque, fastidious and spiteful, surrounded by other passengers whom one has never seen before, whom one will never see again and towards whom the only conceivable way of behaving is to make sure that they keep away from one's cold chicken and stay out of one's chosen corner-seat.

The most prevalent form of slavery is being a slave of your own insecurities Or exploiting another's vulnerabilities. Lust, greed and anger are the pitfalls of the short sighted. Long term business is not possible through lust, greed, anger or guile; it is done based on 'sustainable' relationships; And that is possible when happiness is your goal and each individual you transact with, is a 'strong adult Individual'. We need to invest in ourselves to make us one and in others to help them become the same. It IS in my Selfish interest to have strong, adult individuals around!

The only thing I hate about good people is that they like making their being good people bad people’s problem.

The problem is hedonism. The problem is the preening vanity and selfishness of 'coming out,' of parading private inclinations, of a kind that repel normal people, as if those inclinations were, all by themselves, marks of authenticity and virtue, of suffering and oppression.

There are some for whom the good of mankind is their primary concern, and others who basically put their own considerations before everyone else. I was among the latter.

The hardest thing of all, is just standing in front of a mirror and not recognizing the reflection.

The individualism of current economic theory is manifest in the purely self-interested behavior it generally assumes. It has no real place for fairness, malevolence, and benevolence, nor for the preservation of human life or any other moral concern.

The instructive admonitions, “give an account of thy stewardship,“—“occupy till I come;” are forgotten. Thus the generous and wakeful spirit of Christian Benevolence, seeking and finding every where occasions for its exercise, is exploded, and a system of decent selfishness is avowedly established in its stead; a system scarcely more to be abjured for its impiety, than to be abhorred for its cold insensibility to the opportunities of diffusing happiness.

The lovelorn, the cry-for-helpers, all mawkish tragedians who give suicide a bad name are the idiots who rush it, like amateur conductors. .A true suicide is a paced, disciplined certainty. People pontificate, 'Suicide is selfishness.' Career churchmen like Pater go a step further and call it a cowardly assault on the living. Oafs argue this specious line for varying reasons: to evade fingers of blame, to impress one’s audience with one’s mental fiber, to vent anger, or just because one lacks the necessary suffering to sympathize. Cowardice is nothing to do with it—suicide takes considerable courage. Japanese have the right idea. No, what’s selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching. The only selfishness lies in ruining strangers’ days by forcing ’em to witness a grotesqueness.

The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe.

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness... & ... Liberalism is, I think, resurgent. One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternative. –

The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life – the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.

The only sin is selfishness.

The pleasure or the benefit that the object of our deed derives from it is every now and then greater or even more important than the one we derive from the deed.

The practice of that which is ethically best—what we call goodness or virtue—involves a course of conduct which, in all respects, is opposed to that which leads to success in the cosmic struggle for existence. In place of ruthless self-assertion it demands self-restraint; in place of thrusting aside, or treading down, all competitors, it requires that the individual shall not merely respect, but shall help his fellows... It repudiates the gladiatorial theory of existence... Laws and moral precepts are directed to the end of curbing the cosmic process.

There are some people that see the half full cup and get upset about where the other half of the cup went... With an attitude like that, they will never be happy. I see a half full cup and I immediately take half of someone else’s cup and then I have a full cup and I’m happy. With the right attitude, life is really very simple." Peter Pan from 'Leaving Neverland' (Why Little Boys Shouldn't Run Big Corporations)

There is just too much cruelty, selfishness and corruption in the world not to want to crush the poisonous will of those who cause it by writing about it as powerfully as I can.

The selfishness of humanity is rooted in the self-destructive nature of man through sin. Romans 6:23

The sad reality of Mankind: Faith is the currency people trade in, through their ego and selfish ways.

The selfish are seldom secure.

The snowball of selfishness quickly becomes an avalanche.

The standard rebuke to anyone who claims to be happy is either that they're selfish or living in denial.

The terrible poverty of pride is that there is nothing that can be taken in selfishness which will exceed what is received when nothing is expected and everything is offered.

The subsistence mentality of a person is a prison in which his personal joy is detained. If you want to live in joy, you don't live for yourself alone. Live for others too!

THE UNFORGIVEN Tell me if you've ever had to deal with these kinds of people: The kind who take and don't give. The kind to whom you give and give, And they keep asking. The kind to whom you give and give and they say you gave nothing. The kind whom have never offered anything, But act like they're the ones providing EVERYTHING. The kind you give and give, But take more than you can give. And when they have already taken everything, They get mad at you when you say you have Nothing more to give. The unforgiving, The misgiving, Wastefully living - And selfishly driven. The rat that never gives back, Yet is so quick to attack - Because they think the word TAKING Seriously means GIVING.

The tide seldom shifts in favor of a selfish individual.

The true cause of conflict in humanity is simply; decadence and greed. Both are the elements which motivate people to only think of themselves……

The truth is that, when it comes to sex, selfishness is pretty typical with guys." "Great. How infinitely comforting." "I don't mean they're all jerks. I just mean it's more common for them to go about sex focusing on what they want rather than ensuring that you get what you want. Sabrina shook her head and clicked her tongue. "It's a sad fact of the world.

Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence.... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns.

The world is full of selfish people and there is nothing you can do to save it . no matter how well you hide it .selfishness seeps out slowly spreading its awful stench..

Things you Do to live a Happy life, shouldn't ruin others'.

The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places. (p 57)

The worst words in the world are me, my, and mine.

think about yourself because selfishness is everywhere

This is really difficult to accept who i am, i am a liar, coward, selfish and i am done. I am not a inspiration, not a friend , not a teacher, just another face in a crowd. I don't know who i am.

Those are who are selfish are rewarded for being nice. Those who truly care about others feel a smile in return is all the reward they need.

This selfishness is not only part of me. It is the most living part. It is somehow transcending rather than by avoiding that selfishness that I can bring poise and balance into my life.

Thoroughly selfish individuals can be entirely happy. They will be unlikely to find life very meaningful. To such individuals, meaning often seems accidental, coincidental, or tangential … The reason this is so is that selfish people will find life meaningful only when they are not themselves; when they forget their selfish desires and act in a manner more consistent with agape (selfless love). Meaning seems accidental, coincidental or tangential to their lives because, by and large, selflessness is accidental, coincidental and tangential to their lives. There is nothing unpredictable about meaning, only the presence of selflessness in the life of a selfish person.

Those who are willing to work for change, and make changes, too often do so only for the sake of their own liberation, without much thought to the oppression of others—especially other species. Feminists lobby against sex wage discrepancies, gays fight homophobic laws, and the physically challenged demand greater access—each fighting for injustices that affect their lives, and/or the lives of their loved ones. Yet these dedicated activists usually fail to make even a slight change in their consumer choices for the sake of other much more egregiously oppressed and exploited individuals. While it is important to fight for one’s own liberation, it is counterproductive (not to mention selfish and small minded) to fight for one’s own liberation while willfully continuing to oppress others who are yet lower on the rungs of hierarchy. While fighting for liberation, it makes no sense for feminists to trample on gays, for gays to trample on the physically challenged, or for the physically challenged to trample on feminists. It also makes no sense for any of these social justice activists to willfully exploit factory farmed animals. Can we not at least avoid exploiting and dominating others while working for our personal liberation? Those who seek greater justice—whatever their cause—must make choices that diminish the cruel exploitation of others. As a matter of consistency and solidarity, social justice activists must reject dairy products, eggs, and flesh. There is no other industry as cruel and oppressive as factory farming. With regard to numbers affected, extent and length of suffering, and numbers of premature deaths, no other industry can even approach factory farming. Billions of individuals are exploited from genetically engineered birth, through excruciating confinement, to conveyor belt dismemberment. Consequently, there is no industry more appropriate for social justice activists to boycott. Even if we aren’t prepared to take a public stand, or take on another cause, we must at least make a private commitment on behalf of cows, pigs, and hens by leaving animal products on the shelf at the grocery store.