Selfish Quotes - Page 31

• I suspect that much of our praying to be used is selfish, and underneath it is the sneaking desire to make our mark and be recognized.

  Vance Havner

  Christian, Desire, Praying

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• My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

  Mike Leigh

  Resilience, Acting, Narcissistic

  "Mike Leigh: 'Creativity is a life-blood for people'". Interview with Miranda Sawyer, www.theguardian.com. April 9, 2011.

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• I've run out of mates that haven't had a baby now. It does make me think of my parents having a family so young and the fact that I've been able to avoid it for so long. It does make me a feel a little bit selfish.

  Nick Moran

  Running, Baby, Thinking

  "Nick Moran: My family values" by Nick McGrath, www.theguardian.com. February 8, 2013.

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• One reason that a truth and reconciliation process is needed for group selection is to return to the simplicity of the original problem and Darwin’s solution. As Ed Wilson and I put it in our recent review article titled “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology“: Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.

  David Sloan Wilson

  Simplicity, Foundation, Groups

  "Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection II: The Original Problem" by David Sloan Wilson, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 1, 2009.

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• I have a pet peeve about bands that don't play their hits. I think it's kind of selfish.

  Art Alexakis

  Thinking, Play, Pet

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• Most Americans are aware of the brutality and injustice used to maintain the excesses of their selfish consumer society and empire. Yet I suspect...they do not care. They don’t want to see what is done in their name. They do not want to look at the rows of flag-draped coffins, the horribly maimed bodies and faces of veterans, or the human suffering in the blighted and deserted former manufacturing centers. It is too upsetting. Government and corporate censorship is therefore welcomed and appreciated.

  Curtis White

  Government, Names, Upset

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• It takes a lot of selfish time to make music.

  Gwen Stefani

  "It's Good To Be Gwen Stefani". Cosmopolitain Interview, www.cosmopolitan.com. June 09, 2004.

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• The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted.

  Gretchen Rubin

  Discipline, Generosity, Energy

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• Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural.

  George Bernard Shaw

  Children, Knowing, Mind

  George Bernard Shaw (2004). “A Treatise on Parents and Children”, p.31, 1st World Publishing

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• Capitalism justified itself and was adopted as an economic principle on the express ground that it provides selfish motives for doing good, and that human beings will do nothing except for selfish motives

  George Bernard Shaw

  Principles, Justified, Economic

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• Every noble action is selfish. Some selfish actions are nobler than others. But they are all selfish. And as such there can be no action purely noble anyway. Even the nobility in God's great philosophical intentions is bounded by his vanity.

  Kedar Joshi

  Philosophical, Vanity, Noble

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• The selfish man cuts away the sand from under his own feet, he digs his own grave; and every time, from the beginning of the world until now, God Almighty pushes him into the grave and covers him up.

  Charles Henry Fowler

  Cutting, Men, Feet

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 537), 1895.

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• If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without a remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Friendship, True Friend, Lovers

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (1866). “Little Foxes: Or, The Insignificant Little Habits which Mar Domestic Happiness”, p.55

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• Self esteem is not the same as being self centered, self absorbed or selfish. Self esteem is also not complacency or overconfidence, both of which and set us up for failure. Self esteem is a strong motivator to work hard. Self esteem is related to mental health and happiness.

  Glenn R. Schiraldi

  Strong, Self Esteem, Hard Work

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• The greatest moments in life are not concerned with selfish achievements, but rather with the things we do for others

  Walt Disney

  Achievement, Moments, Concerned

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• Meditation without selfless giving is not enough. You may go into very high states of consciousness but the rough edges will still be there - there may be lots of selfish motives lurking within the self - that you don't see.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Yoga, Rough Edges

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• I step naked into the shower of truth - whole-hearted, bloody-minded, utterly selfish, no longer even pretending to enjoy or understand anything.

  Selima Hill

  Truth, Naked, Steps

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• We are all selfish, scared and stupid.

  Kieran Flanagan

  Stupid, Scared

  "Selfish, Scared and Stupid". Book by Kieran Flanagan, Dan Gregory, 2014.

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• Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy?

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Running, Memories, Eye

  William Makepeace Thackeray (2008). “The Virginians: A Tale of the Last Century: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.353, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Wise, Spring, Opportunity

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address at San Diego Exposition in San Diego, California, October 2, 1935.

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• As individuals die every moment, how insensitive and fabricated a love it is to set aside a day from selfish routine in prideful, patriotic commemoration of tragedy. Just as God is provoked by those who tithe simply because they feel that they must tithe, I am provoked by those who commemorate simply because they feel that they must commemorate.

  Criss Jami

  Patriotic, Tragedy, Routine

  Criss Jami (2015). “Killosophy”, p.106, Criss Jami

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• To forgive the incessant provocations of daily life - to keep on forgiving the bossy mother-in-law, the bullying husband, the nagging wife, the selfish daughter, the deceitful son - how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, “Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it is to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves. There is no hint of exceptions and God means what he says.

  C. S. Lewis

  Daughter, Mother, Bullying

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• Where all are selfish, the sage is no better than the fool, and only rather more dangerous.

  James Anthony Froude

  Sage, Fool, Dangerous

  James Anthony Froude (2004). “Short Studies on Great Subjects”, p.443, The Minerva Group, Inc.

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• People who think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic, among them influential political leaders and businessmen as well as go-getters and hustlers of smaller caliber, tend to take it for granted that human nature is selfish and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest may survive. According to this philosophy, the basic law by which man must live, in spite of his surface veneer of civilization, is the law of the jungle. The "fittest" are those who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior cunning, and superior ruthlessness.

  S. I. Hayakawa

  Philosophy, Struggle, Thinking

  "Language in Thought and Action". Book by S. I. Hayakawa (p. 8), 1949.

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• If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish.

  Gretchen Rubin

  Giving, Asks, Ifs

  Gretchen Rubin (2015). “Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life”, p.203, Broadway Books

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