Egoism Quotes - Page 4

• Egoism is the law of perspective applied to feelings: what is closest appears large and weighty, and as one moves farther away size and weight decrease.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Moving, Law, Perspective

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2010). “The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs”, p.199, Vintage

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• The egoist does not tolerate egoism.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Ego, Doe, Tolerate

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• Egoism... is not eliminated by economic reorganization or by material abundance. When basic needs are satisfied, new 'needs' emerge. In our society, people want no simply clothes, but fashionable clothes; not shelter, but a house to display their wealth and taste.

  Peter Singer

  Clothes, People, House

  Peter Singer (2000). “Marx: A Very Short Introduction”, p.121, OUP Oxford

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• Our egoism gains nothing from acts of love, but the world gains all the more. Esotericism tells us that love is to the world what the Sun is for outer life. No soul could thrive if love departed from the world. Love is the “moral” Sun of the world.

  Rudolf Steiner

  Love Is, World Love, Soul

  Rudolf Steiner (1998). “Love & Its Meaning in the World”, p.215, SteinerBooks

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• My conjecture is that most people will refuse to let go, even when their lives have become boring (at least in comparisons with possible lives lived by new generations). If this happens, there will eventually be no room for new generations. A kind of collective irrationality will lead to a bleak life for the last generation that decides to stay around. Unless we put and end to the human race (through global warming, for example), before this happens, individual egoism will block the path to a better world.

  Torbjorn Tannsjo

  Letting Go, Block, Race

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• That what appears to be egoism so often isn't.

  David Foster Wallace

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• I believe, in spite of all, in truth's victory. I believe in the momentous value, hereafter inviolable, of those few truly fraternal men in all the countries of the world, who, in the oscillation of national egoisms let loose, stand up and stand out, steadfast as the glorious statues of Right and Duty.

  Henri Barbusse

  Country, Believe, Men

  Henri Barbusse (1919). “Light”

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• In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge, but egoism of a different quality.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Revenge, Quality, Different

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• I've lived history. I've made history, and I know I'll have my place in history. That's not egoism.

  John Diefenbaker

  Made, Knows

  John George Diefenbaker (1982). “The Wit & Wisdom of John Diefenbaker”, Hurtig Trade

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• But self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance.

  Stephen Mitchell

  Humility, Self, Arrogance

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• Where the world comes in my way - and it comes in my way everywhere - I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but - my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use.

  Max Stirner

  Cheer, Air, Order

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• Fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air. It brings meekness and inspiration, reduces our egoism, soothes our troubles and shames our wickedness. It is discipline in the equality of men--for all men are equal before fish.

  Herbert Hoover

  Inspiration, Men, Air

  1951 Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

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• Man is born an asocial and antisocial being. The newborn child is a savage. Egoism is his nature. Only the experience of life and the teachings of his parents, his brothers, sisters, playmates, and later of other people FORCE HIM to acknowledge the advantages of social cooperation and accordingly to change his behavior.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Brother, Children, Teaching

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• The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it.

  Max Beerbohm

  Pride, Instinct

  Max Beerbohm (2015). “The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm”, p.66, New York Review of Books

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• Unfortunately for ethical egoism, the claim that we will all be better off if every one of us does what is in his or her own interest is incorrect. This is shown by what are known as "prisoner's dilemma" situations, which are playing an increasingly important role in discussions of ethical theory... At least on the collective level, therefore, egoism is self-defeating - a conclusion well brought out by Parfit in his aforementioned Reasons and Persons.

  Peter Singer

  Self, Important, Doe

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• All action of Sattva, a modification of Prakriti characterised by light and happiness, is for the soul. When Sattva is free from egoism and illuminated with the pure intelligence of Purusha, it is called the self-centred one, because in that state it becomes independent of all relations.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Independent, Light, Self

  Swami Vivekananda (2012). “Raja Yoga (Annotated Edition)”, p.135, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Out of Mahat comes universal egoism.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Ego, Universal

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.862, Manonmani Publishers

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• This intelligence itself is modified into what we call egoism, and this intelligence is the cause of all the powers in the body. It covers the whole ground, sub-consciousness, consciousness, and super-consciousness.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Ego, Body, Causes

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.864, Manonmani Publishers

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• Women have a hard time of it in this world. They are oppressed by man-made laws, man-made social customs, masculine egoism, the delusion of masculine superiority. Their one comfort is the assurance that, even though it may be impossible to prevail against man, it is always possible to enslave and torture a man.

  H. L. Mencken

  Women, Hard Times, Law

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.40, Vintage

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• People interpret things through their owns lens, just the way they do the Bible. You can find justification for just about everything in the Bible. I think man has got a great ego when it comes to his God, whatever that is. It just seems to me that someone who wants to take on God's punishment, it just seems a huge egoism to think that he should appoint himself to take care of God's punishments.

  Bill Paxton

  Bible, Men, Thinking

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• Egoism , which is the moving force of the world, and altruism , which is its morality , these two contradictory instincts , of which one is so plain and the other so mysterious, cannot serve us unless in the incomprehensible alliance of their irreconcilable antagonism.

  Joseph Conrad

  Moving, Two, World

  Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

  Neil Postman

  Truth, Fear, Book

  "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business". Book by Neil Postman, 1985.

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• By consequence I hold that no one ever did, or can do, anything for "society."... Comte invented the term altruism as an antonym for egoism, and it found its way at once into everyone's mouth, although it is utterly devoid of meaning, since it points to nothing that ever existed in mankind; This hybrid or rather this degenerate form of hedonism served powerfully to invest collectivism's principles with a specious moral sanction, and collectivists naturally made the most of it.

  Albert J. Nock

  Principles, Mouths, Way

  "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" by Albert J. Nock, (p. 305), 1943.

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• Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety?

  George Eliot

  Men, Average, Careers

  George Eliot (1883). “The Essays of George Eliot”, p.34, Jazzybee Verlag

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• Violence, passion, indignation, loyalty, integrity, incorruptibility, shameless egoism, generosity, excitability, energy, a hundred horse-power drive - none of it very subtle: Ethel [Smyth] didn't deal in pastel shades, she went for the stronger colors, the blood-red, anything deep and pumping out of the arteries of the heart.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Loyalty, Horse, Integrity

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