When tremendous dangers are involved, no one can be blamed for looking to his own interest. — Thucydides
If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest. — Silvio Berlusconi
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. — Adam Smith
There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth. — Chanakya
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
Aligning with other’s self-interest is easier than persuading them to do what you want. — Alex Hormozi
Human society is made up of partialities. Each citizen has an interest and a view of his own, which, if followed out to the extreme, would leave no room for any other citizen. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being selfish to me means that you have to look out for yourself and you don't have to sacrifice. — Herbie Mann
People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves - morning, noon and after dinner. — Dale Carnegie
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's. — Richard Whately
When our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. — Barack Obama
If a man, for private profit, tears at the public news, does so with the impatience of one who thinks he actually owns the news you get, it is against the national interest. — Jimmy Breslin
Shortsighted things that people sometimes do for their individual self-interest don’t tend to work out well in the long run. — Edward O. Thorp
Political Self-interest Quotes
By dismantling the narrow politics of racial identity and selective self-interest, by going beyond 'black' and 'white,' we may construct new values, new institutions and new visions of an America beyond traditional racial categories and racial oppression. — Manning Marable
People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be, until they have learned to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. — Vladimir Lenin
Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself. Self-transformation and the transformation of others have constituted the radical interest of our century, whether in painting, psychiatry, or political action. — Harold Rosenberg
Maturity is learning to walk away from people and situation that threaten your peace of mind, self respect, values, morals and self worth.
Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? — Milton Friedman
If Congress does its job in this regard, the residents of Puerto Rico will be empowered to act in their own self-interest and express their future political status aspirations accordingly. — Dick Thornburgh
The philanthropic tradition is older than democracy, older than Christianity, and older than higher education. It gives form and purpose to personal and social life that cannot be provided by the self-interest of economic enterprise or required by the mandate of political institutions. — Robert L. Payton
We are what we believe we are.
We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds. — Hugo Black
Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech. — James L. Buckley
I guess my point in general is that, if you look closely, who is in politics to self-identify - these are the people who flip easily, from right to left, pro-Muslim to anti-Muslim, etc. - versus who, whether on the right or left, is moved by genuine interest and empathy. — Karan Mahajan
Human Self Interest Quotes
Human beings are emotional amoral egoists, driven above all by emotional self-interest. All of our thoughts, beliefs and motivations are neurochemically mediated, some predetermined for survival, others alterable. — Nayef Al-Rodhan
The cause of violence is not ignorance. It is self-interest. Only reverance can restrain violence - reverance for human life and the environment. — William Sloane Coffin
The selfless love that we give to others, to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them, is all the proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest. We carry within us a divine spark, and if we chose to recognize it, our lives have dignity, meaning, hope. — Dean Koontz
Education must prepare students to be independent, self-reliant human beings. But education, at its best, also must help students go beyond their private interests, gain a more integrative view of knowledge, and relate their learning to the realities of life. — Ernest L. Boyer
The God of the Bible is the God of liberation rather than oppression; a God of justice rather than injustice; a God of freedom and humanity rather than enslavement and subservience; a God of love, righteousness and community rather than hatred, self-interest and exploitation. — Allan Boesak
Sometimes I wonder if there is really goodwill in the world to worry about saving human beings, or whether we are just using that as camouflage for our own interests, the self-centered drive for more profits. — Enele Sopoaga
The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self-service populace, and all our specious comforts --the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria --are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy. — Edward Dahlberg
I am not interested in being a role model, or in fulfilling the expectations of others. I know I am of most use to others and to myself by being this unique self: Nature, I have noticed, is not particularly devoted to copies, and human beings needn't be either. — Alice Walker
Cats are autocrats of naked self-interest. They are both amoral and immoral, consciously breaking rules. Their ''evil'' look at such times is no human projection: the cat may be the only animal who savors the perverse or reflects upon it — Camille Paglia
We suffer much agony because we try to get from people what only God can give us, which is a sense of worth and value. Look to God for what you need, not to people. — Joyce Meyer
Integrity is the value we set on ourselves. It is a fulfillment of the duty we owe ourselves. An honorable man or woman will personally commit to live up to certain self-imposed expectations. They need no outside check or control. They are honorable in their inner core. — James E. Faust
Self-actualizing people are those who have come to a high level of maturation, health and self-fulfillment... the values that self-actualizers appreciate include truth, creativity, beauty, goodness, wholeness, aliveness, uniqueness, justice, simplicity, and self-sufficiency. — Abraham Maslow
Know your value. Confidence breeds success. Act like the person you want to become, and people will start seeing you as that person. — Mark M. Ford
Self-defence, self-confidence, discipline and self control. The values you learn are priceless. — Rickson Gracie
You are bigger than everything you own. You are more precious than everything you possess. You are more important than everything that has come into your life. — Mahatria Ra
Make decisions that your 80-year old self and 10-year-old self approve of. The former cares about the long-term compounding of actions, while the latter reminds you to have some fun along the way. — Sahil Bloom
Real success requires respect for and faithfulness to the highest human values-honesty, integrity, self-discipline, dignity, compassion, humility, courage, personal responsibility, courtesy, and human service. — Michael E. DeBakey
No one is going to value you more than you value yourself. — Naval Ravikant
In any culture, subculture, or family in which belief is valued above thought, and self-surrender is valued above self-expression, and conformity is valued above integrity, those who preserve their self-esteem are likely to be heroic exceptions. — Nathaniel Branden
Selfish Interest Quotes
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
Even at a large corporation, you’re essentially the only person who looks out for your own best interests. — Paul Jarvis
When you are filled with the compassion of Jesus, other people’s interests will be paramount in your heart. — Enoch Adeboye
Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest. — Thomas Sowell
Any practice of business which would dominate the country by its own selfish interest is a destruction of equality of opportunity. Government in business, except in emergency, is also a destruction of equal opportunity and the incarnation of tyranny through bureaucracy. — Herbert Hoover
If your actions are motivated by selfish interests rather than God, you are mortgaging tomorrow's joy. — T. B. Joshua
Selfish interest is one of the most common obstructions to the advance of truth. — William Jennings Bryan
People are so docile right now. It is almost as if good government means when the politicians lie to us for our own good, for the public good, and bad government is when politicians lie for their own selfish interests. — James Bovard
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
Selfish Motives Quotes
Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. — Mother Teresa
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
People are unrealistic, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway. — Mother Teresa
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway. — Mother Teresa
Money doesn't change men, it merely unmasks them. If a man is naturally selfish or arrogant or greedy, the money brings that out, that's all. — Henry Ford
If I had my way, I would not want influence over anyone but my little family. — Enoch Adeboye
The Man who works for others, without any selfish motive, really does good to himself. — Ramakrishna
I write from my life, my experience. I’m selfish that way. — Pink
We want to hire people who are self-learners. — Eric Yuan
The biggest coward is a man who awakens a woman’s love with no intention of loving her. — Edward Barber
Self-serving Quotes
The world is so full of people who are grabbing and self-seeking. So the rare individual who unselfishly tries to serve others has an enormous advantage. He has little competition. — Dale Carnegie
Although a goal must carry great personal meaning, in my experience, the pursuit of that goal is best served when it is also in service to something beyond the self. — Rich Roll
The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people. — Aldrich Ames
Humans are basically habit machines… I think learning how to break habits is actually a very important meta skill and can serve you in life almost better than anything else. — Naval Ravikant
It was self-serving politicians who convinced recent generations of Americans that we could all stand in a circle with our hands in each other’s pockets and somehow get rich. — Paul Harvey
I think learning how to break habits is a very important meta-skill that can serve you better in life than almost anything else. — Naval Ravikant
It would be incredibly presumptuous and self-serving of me to believe that Facebook was the end of history. The only way it could possibly be the end of history is if it becomes some sort of artificial super intelligence that takes over the world. — Sean Parker
Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel. — Eleanor Brown
The well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure. — Ralph Bunche
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
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
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
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
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes. — Andrew Jackson
We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. — Booker T. Washington
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
Selfish Quotes
If you don't like me, remember it's mind over matter.
I don't mind, and you don't matter. — Dr. Seuss
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
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
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
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
I got a dream that's worth more than my reality. — Big Sean
If there is one thing I’ve learned in my years on this planet, it’s that the happiest and most fulfilled people I’ve known are those who devoted themselves to something bigger and more profound than merely their own self interest. — John Glenn
Under a socialist system every nation will be the supreme arbiter of its own destinies, national and international; will be forced into no alliance against its will, but will have its independence guaranteed and its freedom respected by the enlightened self-interest of the socialist democracy of the world. — James Connolly
We had a beautiful dream and that was all. The interest of my son is the only guide I have, and whatever happiness I could achieve by being free of this place I cannot consent to separate my self from him. I could not have any pleasure in the world if I abandoned my children. I do not even have any regrets. — Marie Antoinette
Joining a band of brothers together, a group with one common interest or mission, whether as a company, a team, or a motorcycle club, requires not only a commitment to loyalty but an understanding of self-preservati on as well. — Sonny Barger
Perhaps the greatest barrier to revival on a large scale is the fact that we are to interested in a great display. We want an exhibition; God is looking for a man who will throw himself entirely on God. Whenever self-effort, self-glory, self-seeking or self-promotion enters into the work of revival, then God leaves us to ourselves. — Sadhu Sundar Singh
Though we can't always see it at the time, if we look upon events with some perspective, we see things always happen for our best interests. We are always being guided in a way better than we know ourselves. — Swami Satchidananda
I feel my belief in sacrifice and struggle getting stronger. I despise the kind of existence that clings to the miserly trifles of comfort and self-interest. I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened. — Fidel Castro
People are more interested in what you have to say if they think your thoughts come from a self-determined place, and they’ll begin to tune you out if they suspect you tend to just repeat what you heard from another source. — Tim Urban
I originally started in natural bodybuilding because I was picked on a lot in high school and didn’t get much attention from girls. As I learned to love the process of lifting more and more I started becoming more interested in competing. — Layne Norton
Once the fight-or-flight reaction gets triggered, the blood flows from our brain to our limbs, and our ability to think clearly diminishes. We forget our purpose and often act exactly contrary to our interests. When we react, we give away our power – our power to influence the other person constructively and to change the situation for the better. When we react, we are, in effect, saying no to our interests, no to ourselves. — William Ury
He is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention — Adam Smith
I'm interested in memory because it's a filter through which we see our lives, and because it's foggy and obscure, the opportunities for self-deception are there. In the end, as a writer, I'm more interested in what people tell themselves happened rather than what actually happened. — Kazuo Ishiguro
What sustains this 'win-lose' mindset is a sense of scarcity, the fear that there is just not enough to go around, so we need to look out for ourselves even at the expense of others. — William Ury
How can we know ourselves by ourselves? . . . Soul needs intimate connection, not only to individuate, but simply to live. For this we need relationships of the profoundest kind through which we can realize ourselves, where self-revelation is possible, where interest in and love for soul is paramount. — James Hillman
A priest blesses his own bread first — Greek Proverbs
European democracy was originally imbued with a sense of Christian responsibility and self-discipline, but these spiritual principles have been gradually losing their force. Spiritual independence is being pressured on all sides by the dictatorship of self-satisfied vulgarity, of the latest fads, and of group interests. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The ego must be developed, not for its own sake, but because it is needed by society. If you are only interested in self-realization then you cannot make a good painting. To do this you have to have thought about forming, and about how ideas of forming stem from history. — Joseph Beuys
Self-confidenc e, poise, consciousness of possessing the power to accomplish our desires, with renewed lively interest in life are the natural results of the practice of Contrology [Pilates]. — Joseph Pilates
The very essence of capitalism is under threat as business is now seen as a personal wealth accumulator. We have to bring this world back to sanity and put the greater good ahead of self-interest. We need to fight very hard to create an environment out there that is more long term focussed and move away from short termism. — Paul Polman
Never ask a barber if he thinks you need a haircut. — American Proverbs
We are angry about paying the highest income taxes and property taxes in the nation and getting less and less for it. We are angry about our incompetent, dysfunctional government that pays no attention to the desires of the people. We are angry about the cesspool of corruption and conflicts of interests and self-dealing that is Albany. — Carl Paladino
If you have total freedom to design, you won't get anything interesting. So I give myself restraints in order to kind of push myself through, to create something new. It's the torture that I give myself, the pain and the struggle that I go through. So it's self-given, but that's the only way, I think, to make a strong, good new creation. — Rei Kawakubo
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest. — Napoleon Bonaparte
All that interests me is promoting my brands, never myself. — Bernard Arnault
We must keep on trying to solve problems, one by one, stage by stage, if not on the basis of confidence and cooperation, at least on that of mutual toleration and self-interest. — Lester B. Pearson
It was astonishing that for some considerable distance around the mould growth the staphococcal colonies were undergoing lysis. What had formerly been a well-grown colony was now a faint shadow of its former self...I was sufficiently interested to pursue the subject. — Alexander Fleming
Happiness is attained, not through self-interest, but through unconditional fidelity in endless love of eternal light. — Aaron Cohen
How much of the day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than out of interest? — Naval Ravikant
In Conclusion
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