Selfishness Quotes

All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying. Therefore love for love's sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.

If we adopt a self-centered approach to life, by which we attempt to use others for our own self interest, we might be able to gain temporary benefits, but in the long run we will not succeed in achieving even our personal happiness, and hope for the next life is out of the question.

Your first realization when you become an important person is that all day and all night, whatever the circumstances, people want to hear you talk about yourself.

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity - Posterity has done nothing for us

Notwithstanding his very liberal laudation of himself, however, the Major was selfish. It may be doubted whether there ever was a more entirely selfish person at heart; or at stomach is perhaps a better expression, seeing that he was more decidedly endowed with that latter organ than with the former.

If you want to be wisely selfish, care for others

We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards thecorn for high prices, is the preventative of famine; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be.

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

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

When I was young, I was very selfish, now not any more.

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

If one wants to be an ox one can easily turn one's back on hum suffering and look after one's own skin.

We love everything on our own account; we even follow our own taste and inclination when we prefer our friends to ourselves; and yet it is this preference alone that constitutes true and perfect friendship.

Always remember honey. A good motto is: Take all you can get and give as little as possible.

And I refused to make any sacrifices; for nothing on earth seemed more valuable than my peace of mind, my pleasure and my acclaim.

Men pay most attention to what is their own: they care less for what is common; or, at any rate, they care for it only to the extent to which each is individually concerned.

The symbol of the race ought to be a human being carrying an ax, for every human being has one concealed about him somewhere, and is always seeking the opportunity to grind it.

Thus I progressed on the surface of life, in the realm of words as it were, never in reality. All those books barely read, those friends barely loved, those cities barely visited, those women barely possessed! I went through the gestures out of boredom or absent-mindedness. Then came human beings; they wanted to cling, but there was nothing to cling to, and that was unfortunate--for them. As for me, I forgot. I never remembered anything but myself.

People exaggerate the value of things they haven't got everybody worships truth and unselfishness because they have no experience with them

There has been something crude and heartless and unfeeling in our haste to suceed and be great. Our thought has been 'Let every man look out for himself, let every generation look out for itself,' while we reared giant machinery which made it impossible that any but those who stood at the levers of control should have a chance to look out for themselves.

We can't be useful to ourselves unless we're useful to others .... Anyone concerned only by his own well-being will suffer eventually. Anyone concerned with the well-being of others takes care of himself without even thinking about it. Even if we decide to remain selfish. let us be intelligently selfish - let us help others.

It is because they have no Oyarsa,' said one of the pupils. It is because everyone of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself,' said Augray.

It’s in our interest to take care of others. Self-centrednes s is opposed to basic human nature. In our own interest as human beings we need to pay attention to our inner values. Sometimes people think compassion is only of help to others, while we get no benefit. This is a mistake. When you concern yourself with others, you naturally develop a sense of self-confidence . To help others takes courage and inner strength.

Short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things.

The more we think of others, the happier we are. The more we think of ourselves, the more suffering we feel.

One never knows how much a family may grow; and when a hive is too full, and it is necessary to form a new swarm, each one thinks of carrying away his own honey.

Selfishness is blind.

I never made a decision in my life that wasn't one hundred per cent selfish.

The worst class of sum worked in the every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are always in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of others, and never in Addition as to their own.

The flesh, or human nature, is generally lazy and self-centered.

He who acts with a constant view to his own advantage will be much murmured against.

Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.

A man's interest in the world is only an overflow from his interest in himself.

Love based upon indulgence of animal passion, is at best a selfish affair, and likely to snap under the slightest strain.

I do not find myself making any use of the word sacrifice.

All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.

Human beings have neither kindness, nor faith, nor charity beyond what serves to increase the pleasure of the moment.

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.

The planet is fine. The people are f****d. Because everyone is trying to save the planet. The planet doesn’t need that. The planet will take care of itself. People are selfish. And that's what they're doing is trying to save the planet for themselves to have a nicer place to live.

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

That's where you can find things and modulate your performance and give the other actors something fresh to respond to. We've probably all worked with actors who when it's suddenly your close up, they get sleepy. I don't like that. It's selfish acting, and I won't tolerate it.

By avarice and selfishness, and a groveling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber.

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes, Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel, Making a famine where abundance lies, Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Men hate the individual whom they call avaricious only because there is nothing to be gained by him.

The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.

If we develop concern for other people's welfare, share other people'ssuffering, and help them, ultimately we will benefit. If we think onlyof ourselves and forget about others, ultimately we will lose. The morewe care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense ofwell-being becomes.

What have future generations ever done for us?

One of the marks of a certain type of bad man is that he cannot give up a thing himself without wanting everyone else to give it up.

As you get older you try to do things that please you more. You get a little more selfish. You start thinking I want to do things where I enjoy myself.

I like best the wine drunk at the cost of others.

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 doesn't consist in a love to yourself, but in a big degree of such love.

People who are wrapped up in themselves make small packages.

We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American Eagle in order to feather their own nests.

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.

He that drinks his Cyder alone, let him catch his Horse alone.

The simple recognition that everyone else wants to be happy and not to suffer, just as I do, serves as a constant reminder against selfishness and partiality. It reminds us there is little to be gained from being kind and generous while hoping to win something in return. Actions motivated by a desire to earn a good name for ourselves are still selfish, even if they appear to be acts of kindness.

There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in.

Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural.