Self Interest Quotes - Page 5

• The essential challenge is to transform the isolation and self-interest within our communities into connectedness and caring for the whole.

  Peter Block

  Caring, Self, Community

  Peter Block (2009). “Community: The Structure of Belonging”, p.14, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

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• Economic activity is no longer an adversarial contest between embattled sellers and buyers "In the distributed economy, where collaboration trumps competition, inclusivity replaces exclusivity and transparency and openness to others becomes essential to the new way of conducting business, empathic sensibility has room to breathe and thrive. It is no longer so constrained by hierarchies, boundaries of exclusion, and a concept of human nature that places acquisitiveness, self-interest, and utility at the center of the human experience."

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Self, Competition, Hierarchy

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• Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming.

  John McCain

  Self, Environmental, Serious

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• Ultimately a highly complex sentiment, having its first origin in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, confirmed by instruction and habit, all combined, constitute our moral sense or conscience.

  Charles Darwin

  Religious, Men, Self

  Charles Darwin (2010). “Evolutionary Writings: including the Autobiographies”, p.427, OUP Oxford

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• She had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed though a long servitude, though its own self-hatred, though mockery, though great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

  Thornton Wilder

  Loyalty, Dog, Children

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• The warrior's nobility is like a prostitute's smile, the truth of which is self-interest.

  Georges Bataille

  Warrior, Self, Interest

  Georges Bataille (1989). “Theory of religion”

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• Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people

  Jonathan Franzen

  Country, Using People, Heart

  Jonathan Franzen (2010). “Freedom: A Novel”, p.548, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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• Perhaps if we could popularise through the techniques of branding and consumerism, a different idea, a different narrative, perhaps the world can change. After all it changes constantly and incessantly, it's just the perceptions that we have are governed by people with self-interest and are not inalignment with the health and safety of us as individuals or as a planet.

  Russell Brand

  Self, Ideas, People

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• Beware At war Or at peace, More people die Of unenlightened self-interest Than of any other disease

  Octavia Butler

  War, Self, People

  Octavia E. Butler (2012). “Parable of the Talents”, p.97, Open Road Media

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• Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint.

  Julian Baggini

  Art, Self, Needs

  "Don't complain less - do it better" by Julian Baggini, www.theguardian.com. July 14, 2010.

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• I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm.

  Alice Walker

  Pain, War, Heart

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• We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Men, Self, Doubt

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• Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one.

  Dean Koontz

  Pain, Rip, Heart

  Dean Koontz (2007). “The Darkest Evening of the Year: A Novel”, p.244, Bantam

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• A just cause should need no interpretation yet flounders when confronted by self- interest and corruption.

  Peter Dunne

  Self, Needs, Causes

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• A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest.

  Jonathan Kozol

  Clever, Self, Guilt

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• There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism.

  Louis-Ferdinand Celine

  Humble, Self, People

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• Our actions in this world, and our ability to rise above the limits of our own self-interest, live on far beyond us and play their humble part in shaping a world of spirituality and peace.

  Kent Nerburn

  Humble, Self, Play

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• Since unhappiness excites interest, many, in order to render themselves interesting, feign unhappiness.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Sad, Order, Interesting

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• I suspect it is for one's self-interest that one looks at one's surroundings and one's self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs.

  Lee Friedlander

  Photography, Self, Looks

  Lee Friedlander (1970). “Self Portrait”

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• Redtail was a brave warrior. His loyalty to ThunderClan could never be doubted. I always relied on his judgment, for it bore witness to the needs of the Clan, and was never swayed by self-interest or pride. He would have made a fine leader.

  Erin Hunter

  Loyalty, Warrior, Pride

  Erin Hunter (2015). “Warriors 6-Book Collection with Bonus Book: Enter the Clans: Books 1-6 Plus Enter the Clans”, p.29, HarperCollins

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• I am not going to make any commitments to the teachers union to do anything until they do something that's other than in their own self-interest. And everything they have done so far is in their self-interests, and that's it.

  Chris Christie

  Teacher, Commitment, Self

  "Gov. Chris Christie on McChrystal's Downfall, Battle With Teachers' Unions". "Your World" with Neil Cavuto, www.foxnews.com. June 23, 2010.

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• Part of diplomacy is to open different definitions of self-interest.

  Hillary Clinton

  Self, Different, Definitions

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• Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over. We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no longer be afraid. It's your turn to be afraid.

  Harrison Ford

  Self, Political, Atrocities

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• Ethics doesn't require us to ignore our self-interests or demand a life of self-sacrifice. It requires that we know the difference between what we want and what we should do

  Michael Josephson

  Sacrifice, Self, Differences

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• The reason for forgiving your enemies is not for their benefit but for your own benefit. Holding grudges against other people doesn’t hurt them; doesn’t even bother them much - in fact, even pleases them if they are still mad at you. It is not in your enlightened self-interest to hold grudges, regardless of whether it bothers the person you hate or not.

  Brad Blanton

  Hurt, Hate, Self

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