Selfish Quotes
More Selfish Quotes
If your actions are motivated by selfish interests rather than God, you are mortgaging tomorrow's joy.
t. b. joshua— On the 2007 Nigerian Elections - "Selfless Service" Modern Ghana (May 28 2009)
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— Homily during the Holy Mass at the Capital Mall in Washington, D.C., on 7 October 1979, during the pope's first apostolic journey to the United StatesSource: Libreria Editrice Vaticana
To have known the man was even as great a treat as to read his books. Lewis Carroll was as unlike any other man as his books were unlike any other author's books. It was a relief to meet the pure simple, innocent dreamer of children, after the selfish commercial mind of most authors.
harry furniss— On Lewis Carroll; p.105
'Tis rushing now adown the spout, And gushing out below, Half frantic in its joyousness, And wild in eager flow. The earth is dried and parched with heat, And it hath long'd to be Released from out the selfish cloud, To cool the thirsty tree.
— Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Water.
"I can't love it - what is there to love? It can't love me - or you either; it can't understand a single word you say to it, or feel one spark of gratitude for all your kindness. Wait till it can show some little affection for me, and then I'll see about loving it. At present it is nothing more than a little selfish, senseless sensualist, and if you see anything adorable in it, it's all very well - I only wonder how you can."
anne brontë— Arthur to Helen (Ch. XXVIII : Parental Feelings)
Gentlemen of the Jury: The one, absolute, unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog.
George GGraham Vest— Eulogy on the Dog. Found in Elbert Hubbard's Pig-Pen Pete, p. 178.
If my love is without sacrifice , it is selfish . Such a love is barter , for there is exchange of love and devotion in return for something. It is conditional love.
— Sadhu Vaswani, in How to OVERCOME DEPRESSION and other Heart-to-Heart Talks, p.23
The One Unbounded, Undivided Good,By all His Creatures partly understood.If therefore Sense of its apparent PartsRaise not His Love or Worship in our Hearts,Our selfish Wills or Notions we may feast,And have no more Religion than a Beast.
john byrom— St. 5.
The United States has lost her unique position as a leader in the progress of civilization and has taken up her place simply as one of the grasping and selfish nations of the present day.
— An imperial moment: in previous times of war fever, clear voices have called for a return to U.S. ideals, The Nation, December 23, 2002, No. 22, Vol. 275; Pg. 16
If my love is without sacrifice , it is selfish . Such a love is barter, for there is exchange of love and devotion in return for something. It is conditional love.
— J.P Vaswani, in How to Overcome Depression and other Heart-to-Heart Talks, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, 30 December 2011, p.23
It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.
Anita Brookner— 1981A Start in Life.
"Mamma does all she can,' said she, 'to make me feel myself a burden and incumbrance to the family, and the most ungrateful, selfish, and undutiful daughter that ever was born;"
anne brontë— Esther to Helen (Ch. XLVIII : Further Intelligences)
If we desire to do what will please God, and what will help men, we presently find ourselves taken out of our narrow habits of thought and action; we f1nd new elements of our nature called into activity; we are no longer running along a narrow track of selfish habit.
james freeman clarke— P. 536. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
There is no such thing as a secret among our leaders; communication is very open and honest, and if it's not, then it can become seemingly brutal. You've heard my arguments for love, friends, and authenticity, but there are the deceivers, the manipulators, the control freaks, and the self-appointed teachers in the Body who would love to use our system for their own selfish purposes. We all know the realities of the old sin nature.
ted haggard— Haggard, Ted (May 14, 2002). Dog Training, Fly Fishing, And Sharing Christ In The 21st Century: Empowering Your Church To Build Community Through Shared Interests. Nelson Books. pp. p. 154. ISBN 0785265147.
There is not a more mean, stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is afraid of itself.
william hazlitt— "On Living to One's-Self"
I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: "Our country, right or wrong!" They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: "Our country — when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right."
carl schurz— Speech expanding upon his famous statement in the Senate many years before, at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois (17 October 1899)
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— Section I, Chap. I
If there was more true abiding in Christ, there would be less selfish abiding at home.
james hudson taylor— (Hudson Taylor’s Choice Sayings: A Compilation from His Writings and Addresses. London: China Inland Mission, n.d., 7.)
Politics these days is a disgusting game of mud-slinging, filled with selfish people with selfish aims. I'm very glad I've retired away from the hustle and bustle of Whitehall.
munir butt— Source: Countryside Alliance Magazine interview, 2006.
All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.
lydia maria child— Source: Letter to John Fraser (1868).
Man is naturally more disposed to beneficent than selfish actions. This we learn even from the history of savages. The domestic virtues have something in them so inviting and genial, and the public virtues of the citizen something so grand and inspiring, that even he who is barely uncorrupted, is seldom able to resist their charm.
wilhelm von humboldt— Ch. 8 (The Limits of State Action (1792))
The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.
thomas jefferson— Letter to Larkin Smith (1809).
It seems hopeless, hopeless. Those who eat meat [at public expense] are a mean, selfish lot, and so the country is doomed. Our only hope lies in the grass-roots folk who eat our traditional food.
yoshida shoin— Vol. VI (Yoshida Shoin Zenshu)
It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes. It may even lie on the surface; but we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions especially selfish ones.
aleksandr solzhenitsyn— "Peace and Violence" (1973)
Deep down, everything boils down ("au fond tout se ramène", Fr.) to the following simple question; Do we really want justice and the realization in this world of higher principles, or else do we want to serve selfish, short-sighted (à courte vue", Fr.) interests, which, when all is said and done, are also prejudicial (or detrimental, or harmful) to those very same that pursue them?
african spir— p. 55 (Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937))
Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate conceptions of renunciation. "A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments: 'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!" Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the stream of humanity as a whole.
paramahansa yogananda— Paramahansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi, Ch. 44 - With Mahatma Gandhi At Wardha (1946)
The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain.
— Thomas Jefferson, letter to Larkin Smith (1809).
This gentleman’s stoicism was of that not uncommon kind, which enables a man to bear with exemplary fortitude the afflictions of his friends, but renders him, by way of counterpoise, rather selfish and sensitive in respect of any that happen to befall himself.
— Charles Dickens, in Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841), Ch. 74
People talk of the courage of convictions , but in actual life a man's duty to his family may make a rigid course seem a selfish indulgence of his own righteousness .
— Francis Scott Fitzgerald in: Novels and Stories, 1920-1922, Library of America, 2000, p.431
