Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects. — William Wilberforce
Personal greed and egoism are things that cause human beings to forget respect for others and to violate rules that have been established for the sake of peace and friendship. — Mas Oyama
Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles. — Harry S. Truman
Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. — Stephen Kendrick
No universal selfishness can bring social good to all. — W. E. B. Du Bois
It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures. — Robert Greene
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's. — Richard Whately
The common trait of all evil is nothing other than egoism... Basically all human evil comes from what we call the selfishness. — Rudolf Steiner
By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary; hence the need of religion and morality to reinforce self-interest. — Bertrand Russell
There are many selfish people who are extremely original, then they take those pure ideas and use them to raise themselves up, that is an insincere move. — Daniel Smith
Man's natural and inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image are the root causes of human evil. — Ernest Becker
A human-being is not a human-being while his tendencies include self-indulgence, covetousness, temper and attacking other people — Al-Ghazali
Short Human Selfishness Quotes
More inhumanity (to man) has been done by man himself than any other of nature's causes. — Samuel von Pufendorf
Humans are driven by a perpetual and restless desire of power. — Thomas Hobbes
Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Human beings who blind themselves to human need make themselves less human. — William Sloane Coffin
Everyone makes a greater effort to hurt other people than to help himself. — Alexis Carrel
The most identifying trait of humanity is our abilty to be inhumane to one another. — Dean Koontz
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure. — Jane Austen
I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.
Selfishness Quotes
Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species as a whole are concepts which simply do not make evolutionary sense. — Richard Dawkins
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. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I'm just the mere shadow of my former selfishness. I crave the silhouette of your kiss. — Elvis Costello
All human unhappiness comes from not facing reality squarely, exactly as it is.
True happiness comes from having a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved by cultivating altruism, love and compassion, and by eliminating anger, selfishness and greed. — Dalai Lama
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. — Mother Teresa
Millennials are often portrayed as apathetic, disinterested, tuned out and selfish. None of those adjectives describe the Millennials I've been privileged to meet and work with. — Chelsea Clinton
Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Any opposition not based on rationalism or science or experience will one day or other, reveal the fraud, selfishness, lies and conspiracies. — Periyar E. V. Ramasamy
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. — Mother Teresa
Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance. — Theodore Roosevelt
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. — Thomas Sowell
Selfish People Quotes
I'm going to be meeting with people today who talk too much - people who are selfish, egotistical, ungrateful. But I won't be surprised or disturbed, for I can't imagine a world without such people. — Marcus Aurelius
If you don't like me, remember it's mind over matter.
I don't mind, and you don't matter. — Dr. Seuss
I got a dream that's worth more than my reality. — Big Sean
If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves. — Gordon B. Hinckley
People are generally irrational, unreasonable and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway. — Mother Teresa
The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and independence, lies in the fact that people close their hearts and become selfish. — Pope John Paul II
It takes nothing away from a human to be kind to an animal.
Most men worry about their own bellies and other people's souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls and other people's bellies. — Yisroel Salanter
It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature. — John Von Neumann
It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people. Hugh Hefner Legacy — Hugh Hefner
All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. — Dalai Lama
Being Selfish Quotes
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes. — Andrew Jackson
Cultivate peace first in the garden of your heart by removing the weeds of lust, hatred, greed, selfishness, and jealousy. Then only you can manifest it externally. Then only, those who come in contact with you, will be benefited by your vibrations of peace and harmony. — Sivananda
It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival. — Richard Buckminster Fuller
Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.
Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see - Egoism, Arrogance, Conceit, Selfishness, Greed, Lust, Intolerance, Anger, Lying, Cheating, Gossiping and Slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then will be ready to fight the enemy you can see. — Al-Ghazali
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. — Woodrow Wilson
Eternal Trinity... mystery deep as the sea, You could give me no greater gift than the gift of Yourself. For You are a fire ever burning and never consumed, which itself consumes all the selfish love that fills my being. — St. Catherine of Siena
The way of the miracle-worker is to see all human behavior as one of two things: either love, or a call for love.
Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money, not for selfish aggrandizement, not for the evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man can be. — William Clark
Every day, for at least fifteen minutes, be selfish, and enjoy some time for you. — Rangan Chatterjee
Go on bravely. Do not expect success in a day or a year. Always hold on to the highest. Be steady. Avoid jealousy and selfishness. Be obedient and eternally faithful to the cause of truth, humanity, and your country, and you will move the world. — Swami Vivekananda
Being stubborn has helped, being selfish is not a bad thing. — Herbie Mann
Selfish World Quotes
The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. — Abraham Lincoln
I want to live in a world where every person gives far more than they take. — Markiplier
Every moral act of love, of mercy, and of sacrifice brings to pass the end of the world where hatred, cruelty, and selfishness reign supreme. — Nikolai Berdyaev
The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul.
Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others. — Fulton J. Sheen
In this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. — George Graham Vest
If it’s you and me against the world, then so be it. — Jay-Z
Laughter is the greatest weapon we have and we, as humans, use it the least.
Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail. — Thomas Hardy
Meditation is not a selfish thing. Even though you're diving in and experiencing the Self, you're not closing yourself off from the world. You're strengthening yourself, so that you can be more effective when you go back into the world. — David Lynch
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight; build it anyway. — Mother Teresa
The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world. — M. Scott Peck
Selfishness And Greed Quotes
The inescapable fact is that when we build a society based on greed, selfishness, and ruthless competition, the fruits we can expect to reap are economic insecurity at home and international discord abroad. — Tommy Douglas
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. — Mahatma Gandhi
The covetous man is good to none and worst to himself. —
When humanity measures wealth by love, truth and wisdom we will all be rich.
I like to think that my arrogance, impetuosity, impatience, selfishness and greed are the qualities that make me the lovable chap I am. — Richard Hammond
As Jesus explained, the right things have to die so the right things can live--we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self. — Sayings
As time goes on we get closer to that American Dream of there being a pie cut up and shared. Usually greed and selfishness prevent that and there is always one bad apple in every barrel. — Rick Danko
One thing that defines humans: if we can imagine it, we can do it.
Greed pulls people in, and fear pushes them out. — Naved Abdali
We are close to God when we are close to people. If we think of God as something in favor of the betterment of human beings, and if we act in a way that brings about that betterment-if we do not cling to riches, selfishness, or greed-then I believe we are getting closer to God. — Daniel Ortega
I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. — Dalai Lama
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. — William Graham Sumner
Selfish Person Quotes
All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are today. — Ralph Ransom
I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven. — Barbra Streisand
Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you. — Karl Lagerfeld
I know that sounds selfish, but you have to look at what it's doing to you personally - are you frustrated because of the way people perceive you, or are you happy enough about the things you've realized about yourself that you can tolerate the way people perceive you? — Shannon Hoon
Scientists have discovered that the small, brave act of cooperating with another person, of choosing trust over cynicism, generosity over selfishness, makes the brain light up with quiet joy. — Natalie Angier
Even at a large corporation, you’re essentially the only person who looks out for your own best interests. — Paul Jarvis
Young women especially have something invested in being nice people, and it's only when you have children that you realize you're not a nice person at all, but generally a selfish bully. — Marjorie Holmes
Coercion is evil precisely because it eliminates an individual as a thinking and valuing person and makes him a bare tool in the achievement of the ends of another. — Friedrich August von Hayek
Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness. — Alveda King
Selfish Quotes
We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. — Booker T. Washington
We are all making a crown for Jesus out of these daily lives of ours, either a crown of golden, divine love, studded with gems of sacrifice and adoration, or a thorny crown, filled with the cruel briars of unbelief, or selfishness, and sin. — Aimee Semple McPherson
Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hatred. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness. — Corrie Ten Boom
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. — Swami Vivekananda
Leadership means firmness, not harshness or bullying; understanding, not weakness; justice, not irresponsible freedom; humaneness, not intolerance; generosity, not selfishness; pride, not egotism. — Omar N. Bradley
Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love. — Sri Yukteswar Giri
She thought of the orchids spreading across the plains below, choking the life out of other plants, out of the soil itself, selfish and unstoppable. Tally Youngblood was a weed. And, unlike the orchids, she wasn't even a pretty one. — Scott Westerfeld
Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask? — Abraham Joshua Heschel
Self-deprecating or arrogant, it's all selfish. Hard as it is, life's better when you spend more time on the rest of the world — Patrick Stump
In this world, whenever there is light, there are also shadows. As long as the concept of winners exist, there must also be losers. The selfish desire of wanting to maintain peace causes wars and hatred is born to protect love. — Masashi Kishimoto
The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places. — Bryant H. McGill
It's not about the fish; it's not about the pollution; it's not about the climate change. It's about us and our greed and our need for growth and our inability to imagine a world that is different from the selfish world we live in today. — Jeremy Jackson
Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got. — Steven Pressfield
Selfishness, not love, is the actuating motive of the gallant. — Madame Roland
There is a big, beautiful world that could be destroyed by selfishness and foolishness. We musicians have it without power to save it. In a small way, every single one of us counts. — Pete Seeger
The world today speaks a great deal about love, and it is sought by many. But the pure love of Christ differs greatly from what the world thinks of love. Charity never seeks selfish gratification. The pure love of Christ seeks only the eternal growth and joy of others. — Ezra Taft Benson
Switzerland is a curst, selfish, swinish country of brutes, placed in the most romantic region of the world. — Lord Byron
Love And Selfishness Quotes
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. — Mao Zedong
People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. — Mother Teresa
I am in love with girls that are bad and naughty and badass, and a little selfish, but I like to watch from a respectful distance! — Dreama Walker
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it. — Stephen Colbert
Sure, I have friends, plenty of friends, and they all come around wantin' to borrow money. I've always been generous with my friends and family, with money, but selfish with the important stuff like love. — Richard Pryor
Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well. — Mary Cholmondeley
To practice Zen Buddhism is to train oneself to eliminate hatred, anger and selfishness and to develop loving-kindness towards all. — Thich Thien-An
Every selfish, sinful, or indulgent choice I make today is sowing a seed that will reap a multiplied harvest. And every act of obedience is a seed that will produce a multiplied harvest of blessing in my life and in the lives of those I love. — Nancy Leigh DeMoss
A trustworthy marriage has weathered temptation and anger and jealousy, resentment, self-righteousness and a little bit of selfishness. When you get over and get through that, then maybe you can see the light to love. — Ruby Dee
Everywhere I've been, I've been the best player. I love being a leader, and I love being the best. I just want to get better. It's not about being cocky or selfish or anything like that. It's just how I am. — LeBron James
Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals. — E. O. Wilson
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. — John Amos Comenius
Love is a word that has been hijacked by greeting card companies, cult leaders, sentimentalists, pop singers, false prophets, romcoms, McDonald’s, and a million other unsavory types, who transform the most incredible thing that humans can experience into an inflatable, gaudy imitation of itself that they use for their selfish desires and nefarious marketing campaigns. These b*stards have made the highest and most intense experience accessible to humans almost impossible to talk about without feeling embarrassed. — Duncan Trussell
An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. — Clara Barton
Our minds can go no further. The human imagination is capable of no further expression of beauty than the carved owl of Athene, the archaic, marble serpent, the arrogant selfish head of the Acropolis Apollo. — Hilda Doolittle
I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children. — Katharine Hepburn
Love is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service. — Jack Hyles
If you are fully focused on yourself and hardly think of others, you have been overtaken by the bug of the last days. — Enoch Adeboye
The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of malice, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness from the hearts of humanity. — David O. Mckay
Although humans inherit a biological bias that permits them to feel anger, jealousy, selfishness and envy, and to be rude, aggressive or violent, they inherit an even stronger biological bias for kindness, compassion, cooperation, love and nurture - especially toward those in need. This inbuilt ethical sense is a biological feature of our species. — Jerome Kagan
The root of humanly caused evil is not man's animal nature, not territorial aggression, or innate selfishness, but our need to gain self-esteem, deny our mortality, and achieve a heroic self-image. Our desire for the best is the cause of the worst. — Sam Keen
It is not up to us to particularize, but rather to deduce that the concepts of human rights originated from the divine influence because, as far as we are concerned, we are compelled to recognize our slow individual evolution from fierce selfishness toward a universal love, from the iniquity toward true justice. — Chico Xavier
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. — Timothy M. Dolan
The last emotion to die in humans is pride. — Thomas Phelps
Kindly politeness is the slow fruit of advanced reflection; it is a sort of humanity and kindliness applied to small acts and every day discourse: it bids man soften towards others, and forget himself for the sake of others: it constrains genuine nature, which is selfish and gross. — Hippolyte Taine
Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven. — Richard Dawkins
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 — Albert Einstein
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it. — Adam Smith
I think that there’s too much sugar in the world and not enough salt. Kids want to be challenged. Humans want to aspire to something. You don’t win in life and you don’t win in athletics with softness or selfishness. — Buzz Williams
The greatest productive force is human selfishness. — Robert A. Heinlein
The greatest surprise of human evolution may be that the highest form of selfishness is selflessness. — Robert E. Ornstein
In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. — David Mitchell
It happens to all of us, I concluded that Easter Sunday morning. God simply keeps reaching down into the dirt of humanity and resurrecting us from the graves we dig for ourselves through our violence, our lies, our selfishness, our arrogance, and our addictions. And God keeps loving us back to life over and over. — Nadia Bolz-Weber
The heart of our problem is the selfishness in our heart.
The human spirit soars with hope when lifted by an encouraging word.
The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. — Pierre de Coubertin
The happiest is the man who is not at all selfish. — Swami Vivekananda
A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy. — Frederic Bastiat
At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
To practice properly the Art of Peace, you must: Calm the spirit and return to the source. Cleanse the body and spirit by removing all malice, selfishness, and desire. Be ever grateful for the gifts received from the universe, your family, Mother nature, and your fellow human beings. — Morihei Ueshiba
I wish I could write librettos for the rest of my life. It is the purest of human pleasures, a heavenly hermaphroditism of being both writer and musician. No wonder that selfish beast Wagner kept it all to himself. — Sylvia Townsend Warner
In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, yet even then it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. — Frederick William Robertson
We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Human beings are not intrinsically selfish, which isolates us from others. We are essentially social animals who depend on others to meet our needs. We achieve happiness, prosperity and progress through social interaction. Therefore, having a kind and helpful attitude contributes to our own and others' happiness. — Dalai Lama
What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation, God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears. — Brennan Manning
A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master. "People say you are a genius . Are you?" he asked. "You might say so." said the Master, none too modestly. "And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognize." "Recognize what?" "The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being. — Anthony De Mello
In Conclusion
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