Ambition is a commendable attribute, without which no man succeeds. Only inconsiderate ambition imperils. — Warren G. Harding
Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. — Ambrose Bierce
Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable. — Joseph Joubert
Ambition -- it is the last infirmity of noble minds. — James Barrie
Envious greed must govern to possess and ambition must possess to govern. — Egyptian Proverbs
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
Individual Ambition Serves the Common Good. — Adam Smith
Ambition, old as mankind, the immemorial weakness of the strong. — Vita Sackville-West
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's. — Richard Whately
Selfishness is never so exquisitely selfish as when it is on its knees. ... Self turns what would otherwise be a pure and powerful prayer into a weak and ineffective one. — Aiden Wilson Tozer
Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat. — Steven Erikson
Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens. — William Lilly
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
Selfish Desire Quotes
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
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
If you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community. Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch. — Robert Baden-Powell
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires. — Lao Tzu
Let us make a pledge that, if not all day or all night long, at least for a few moments every day, we will make an effort to experience love, love that is free from selfishness, free from desire, free from expectation, love that is complete freedom. — Gurumayi Chidvilasananda
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, by the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest. — Thomas Sowell
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
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
Compassion brings fulfillment to the heart. Selfish desires simply agitate the heart. — Radhanath Swami
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
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
Never turn down your ambition because someone is uncomfortable with the volume.
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
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
The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.
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
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
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
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
Don't be scared to be ambitious. It's not a humiliation to have a high target and to fail. The real humiliation is to have a target and not to give everything to reach it.
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
Selfish Motives Quotes
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
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing
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
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
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
Many people say that you have to love yourself first before you can love others, but really, if you learn to love others, you will learn to love yourself. — Brianna Wiest
Blind Ambition Quotes
We got to roll with the punches, play all of our hunches, make the best of whatever comes your way. Forget that blind ambition, learn to trust your intuition - plowing straight ahead, come what may. — Jimmy Buffett
I always set my ambitions very high. You want to be the greatest athlete, but I realized that life is not about that. I was a little bit blind. — Joanna Jedrzejczyk
Forget that blind ambition, and learn to trust your intuition. — Jimmy Buffett
It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at higher standard of living than any have ever known. It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete. It is a matter of converting our high technology from weaponry to livingry.
People in America, of course, live in all sorts of fashions, because they are foreigners, or unlucky, or depraved, or without ambition; people live like that, but Americans live in white detached houses with green shutters. Rigidly, blindly, the dream takes precedence. — Margaret Mead
He who blinded by ambition, raises himself to a position whence he cannot mount higher, must thereafter fall with the greatest loss. — Niccolo Machiavelli
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other side — William Shakespeare
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
The command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind, but rather a plea to be generous. Jesus does not tell us to cease to be men... but to renounce the presumptuous ambition to be God. — John Stott
God uses lust to impel men to marry, ambition to office, avarice to earning, and fear to faith. God led me like an old blind goat. — Martin Luther
Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower by reason of our blindness. — Charles Caleb Colton
Fortune is said to be blind, but her favorites never are. Ambition has the eye of the eagle, prudence that of the lynx; the first looks through the air, the last along the ground. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Selfishness And Greed Quotes
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
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
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
My ambition is always to get better and better.
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed. — Mahatma Gandhi
All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. — Dalai Lama
Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles. — Harry S. Truman
The covetous man is good to none and worst to himself. —
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
Political Ambition Quotes
Moscow, breathing fire like a human volcano with its smoldering lava of passion, ambition and politics, its hurly-burly of meetings and entertainment, Moscow is less than twenty miles away. It's always thirsting for something new, the newest events, the latest sensation. — Svetlana Alliluyeva
Anybody who has political ambition has an Achilles heel. — James Callis
We have now an American political party and a European one. Not all Americans who vote for the European party want to become Europeans. But it doesn't matter because that's what they're voting for. They're voting for dependency, for lack of ambition, and for insolvency. — Harvey Mansfield
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite. — Edmund Burke
In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people. — Franklin D. Roosevelt
My political ambition
is not worth the blood of any Nigerian — Goodluck Jonathan
A small minority in Turkey even accuses me of having political ambitions, when in fact I have been struggling with various illnesses for many years. — Fethullah Gulen
... politics are nothing but sand and gravel: it is art and life that feed us until we die. Everything else is ambition, hysteria or hatred. — Louise Bogan
I have never had, nor will I ever have, any [political] ambitions. The only thing on which I have always set my heart is being able to gain God's good pleasure and, therefore, trying to make him known correctly and loved by humanity. — Fethullah Gulen
Above all, as the keynote of all Democratic policy, in passing upon any question, let the controlling aim and ambition be to keep the road open for private enterprise and personal initiative. — John W. Davis
Selfish Love 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
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
I got a dream that's worth more than my reality. — Big Sean
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
People are generally irrational, unreasonable and selfish. They deserve to be loved, anyway. — Mother Teresa
Self-care is never a selfish act - it is only good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. — Parker J. Palmer
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. — Mao Zedong
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
Human Selfishness Quotes
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
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
I want to live in a world where every person gives far more than they take. — Markiplier
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
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
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
If it’s you and me against the world, then so be it. — Jay-Z
The common trait of all evil is nothing other than egoism... Basically all human evil comes from what we call the selfishness. — Rudolf Steiner
Selfish 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
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
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
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
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
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
You can want to be a top dog and, at the same time, be driven to help others. — Angela Duckworth
The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
We cannot free ourselves from pride and selfish ambition; a divine rescue is absolutely necessary. — C. J. Mahaney
Love makes money-grabbing seem contemptible; love makes class prejudice impossible; love makes selfish ambition a thing to be despised; love converts enemies into friends. — William Jennings Bryan
America was built on rugged individualism, and today that has evolved into a culture of narcissism. But God didn't create you to live for you. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to put aside your selfish ambition. — Rick Warren
Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice. — Elihu Root
A good work ethic is not so much a concern for hard work but rather one for responsibility. There have been a great many men and women who have in fact used work or hustle or selfish ambition as an escape from real responsibility, an escape from purpose. In matters such as these, the hard worker is just as dysfunctional as the sloth. — Criss Jami
Individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification. — C. J. Mahaney
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Philippians 2:3 — Bible
His enemies said he [Robert Kennedy] was consumed with selfish ambition, a ruthless opportunist exploiting his brother's legend. But he was too passionate and too vulnerable ever to be the cool and confident operator his brother was. — Jack Newfield
Furthermore, what profit was it to me that I, rascally slave of selfish ambitions that I was, read and understood by myself as many books as I could get concerning the so-called liberal arts?...I had turned my back to the light and my face to the things it illuminated, and so no light played upon my own face, or on the eyes that perceived them. — Saint Augustine
Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams -- Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword. — E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White
It is indolence... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine. — Jane Austen
Since I started making music, it had always been for myself. — Skylar Grey
Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour. — Allen Drury
I believe we are most likely to succeed when ambition is focused on noble and worthy purposes and outcomes rather than on goals set out of selfishness. — John Wooden
Timothy's great value was that he was always willing to go anywhere; and in his hands a message was as safe as if Paul had delivered it himself. Others might be consumed with selfish ambition; but Timothy's one desire was to serve Paul and Jesus Christ. He is the patron saint of all those who are quite content with the second place, so long as they can serve. — William Barclay
People's lives are filled with vice and the trappings of it. Ambition, greed and selfishness all have to do with vice. Sooner or later, you have to see through it or you don't survive. — Bob Dylan
There are points in your life, especially if you have creative ambitions, where selfishness is necessary. — Kris Kristofferson
Too many people want the fruit of Paul's ministry without paying the price that Paul paid. He died. He died to everything. He died daily He was crucified with Christ ... I challenge you to pray this prayer: 'Lord, be ruthless with me in revealing my selfish ambition and my lack of willingness to die to myself.' I guarantee that He will answer your prayer - and quickly. — Floyd McClung
He was a foe without hate; a friend without treachery; a soldier without cruelty; a victor without oppression, and a victim without murmuring. He was a public officer without vices; a private citizen without wrong; a neighbor without reproach; a Christian without hypocrisy, and a man without guile. He was a Caesar, without his ambition; Frederick, without his tyranny; Napoleon, without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward. — Benjamin Harvey Hill
Empty me of the selfishness inside, every vain ambition and the poison of my pride, and any foolish thing my heart holds to, Lord empty me of me so I can be filled with you. — Chris Sligh
Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world. — Wendell Berry
In Conclusion
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