Selfish Quotes - Page 40

• Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.

  Joseph Addison

  Distance, Eye, Views

  Joseph Addison, Richard Steele (1854). “The Spectator”, p.226

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• I no longer believe the conservative message that children are naturally selfish and destructive creatures who need civilizing by hierarchies or painful controls. On the contrary, I believe that hierarchy and painful controls create destructive people. And I no longer believe the liberal message that children are blank slates on which society can write anything. On the contrary, I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.

  Gloria Steinem

  Family, Children, Believe

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• How many men
  Have spent their blood in their dear country's service,
  Yet now pine under want; while selfish slaves,
  That even would cut their throats whom now they fawn on,
  Like deadly locusts, eat the honey up,
  Which those industrious bees so hardly toil'd for.

  Thomas Otway

  Country, Cutting, Men

  Thomas Otway, Roger Boyle Earl of Orrery (1703). “The Orphan, Or, The Unhappy-marriage: A Tragedy, as it is Acted at His Royal Highness the Duke's Theatre”, p.12

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• There is something nobly simple and pure in a taste for the cultivation of forest trees. It argues, I think, a sweet and generous nature to have his strong relish for the beauties of vegetation, and this friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. He who plants a tree looks forward to future ages, and plants for posterity. Nothing could be less selfish than this.

  Washington Irving

  Sweet, Strong, Son

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• Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak--above all, any little child--to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste--never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer--crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.

  Charles Kingsley

  Crush, Children, Silly

  Charles Kingsley (2008). “Daily Thoughts (EasyRead Super Large 18pt Edition)”, p.253, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• Religion! Is what you hear at church religion? Is that which can bend and turn, and descend and ascend, to fit every crooked phase of selfish, worldly society, religion?

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Church, Phases, Fit

  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Howard (earl of Carlisle) (1852). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.124

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• All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent.

  Berthold Auerbach

  Men, Vanity, Lovers

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• 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

  Ambition, Class, Enemy

  William Jennings Bryan (1922). “In His Image: By William Jennings Bryan”

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• Selfish interest is one of the most common obstructions to the advance of truth.

  William Jennings Bryan

  Common, Interest, Obstruction

  William Jennings Bryan (1922). “In His Image: By William Jennings Bryan”

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• The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.

  Edmund Burke

  Success, Men, Individual

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• Baseball, like some other sports, poses as a sacred institution dedicated to the public good, but it is actually a big, selfish business with a ruthlessness that many big businesses would never think of displaying.

  Jackie Robinson

  Sports, Baseball, Thinking

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• Reason tends to check selfish impulses and to grant the satisfaction of legitimate impulses in others.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Satisfaction, Reason, Checks

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.205, Library of America

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• Human beings are endowed by nature with both selfish and unselfish impulses.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Impulse, Humans, Human Beings

  Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). “Reinhold Niebuhr: Major Works on Religion and Politics: (Library of America #263)”, p.202, Library of America

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• Show me an 'easy person,' and I will show you a selfish one. Good-natured he may be; why not? since the disastrous consequences of his 'easiness' are generally shouldered by other people.

  Fanny Fern

  People, Why Not, May

  Fanny Fern (2015). “Ginger-Snaps”, p.114, Sheba Blake Publishing

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• Pleasure for others is the only pleasure possible to me. I assure you I'm quite selfish! - I'm greedy for the happiness of those I love - and if they can't or won't be happy I'm perfectly miserable.

  Marie Corelli

  Miserable, Greedy, Pleasure

  Marie Corelli (2017). “Delphi Complete Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated)”, p.8930, Delphi Classics

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• A lot of times you'll hear horror stories about actors being incredibly selfish and only wanting themselves to shine, but for me, it's not about just one person. It's about the whole team. That's the way I look at acting. That's the way I look at everything I do.

  Mekhi Phifer

  Team, Horror Stories, Shining

  "Mekhi Phifer on Divergent, playing poker with Jeff Garlin, and dying on ER". Interview with Will Harris, www.avclub.com. August 25, 2014.

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• Negativity is the enemy of creativity. For instance if you're filled with depression, you can hardly even get out of bed, let alone feel like creating something. If you are filled with bitter, selfish anger, this occupies the mind and leaves little room for creative ideas.

  David Lynch

  Creativity, Ideas, Creating

  "His Mission to Change the World Through Meditation". Interview with Marianne Schnall, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 9, 2014.

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• Nothing may be more selfish than remorse.

  Margaret Deland

  Regret, May, Remorse

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• Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch.

  Miles Franklin

  Views, Shoes, Percentages

  Miles Franklin (2014). “Some Everyday Folk and Dawn”, p.75, Simon and Schuster

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• This is a speculating and selfish age; and to think 'money will answer all things,' is too much the characteristic of Americans.

  Sarah Josepha Hale

  Money, Thinking, Age

  Sarah Josepha Buell Hale (1835). “Traits of American Life”, p.239

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• The act of willingly subtracting from one's own limited store of the good and the agreeable for the sake of adding to that of others reflects the understanding that individual happiness needs a base broader than the mere satisfaction of selfish passions. From there, it is not such a large step to the realization that respecting the susceptibilities and rights of others is as important as defending one's own susceptibilities and rights if civilized society is to be safeguarded.

  Aung San Suu Kyi

  Passion, Individual Happiness, Rights

  Aung San Suu Kyi, University of Oxford. Refugee Studies Programme (1993). “Towards a true refuge”

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• We know that there are chiselers. At the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction we have found some selfish interest, some private axe to grind.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Criticism, Grind, Cases

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “Fireside chats”, Penguin Group USA

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• True love is not selfish. In time it accustoms itself to anything which secures happiness for its object.

  Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

  Love Is, Objects, True Love Is

  Susan Coolidge, Sarah Chauncey Woolsey (2015). “Clover: 4th volume of the "Katy" series.”, p.132, Mondial

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• A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time. Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Stories, Remember, Decent

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• What makes the existence and the evolution of society possible is precisely the fact that peaceful cooperation under the social division of labor in the long run best serves the selfish concerns of all individuals. The eminence of the market society is that its whole functioning and operation is the consummation of this principle.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Running, Division Of Labor, Long

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