Selfish Quotes - Page 9

• Yet one more item is needed to complete success, and that is the rendering of service to others in the community. Without this the mere satisfaction of selfish desire does not reach the top notch.

  Robert Baden-Powell

  Success, Community, Desire

  Robert Baden-Powell (2013). “Playing the Game: A Baden-Powell Compendium”, p.14, Pan Macmillan

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• Christianity is a lifestyle - a way of being in the world that is simple, non-violent, shared, and loving. However, we made it into an established "religion" (and all that goes with that) and avoided the lifestyle change itself. One could be warlike, greedy, racist, selfish, and vain in most of Christian history, and still believe that Jesus is one's "personal Lord and Savior" . . . The world has no time for such silliness anymore. The suffering on Earth is too great.

  Richard Rohr

  Christian, Jesus, Believe

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• If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquillity of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus enriched. Within the depths of consciousness a flame kindles. And man sees himself. He discovers his selfishness, his silly pride, his fears, his greeds, his blunders. He develops a sense of moral obligation, intellectual humility. Thus begins a journey of the soul toward the realm of grace.

  Alexis Carrel

  Prayer, Silly, Humility

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• There is no real happiness in having or getting, but only in giving.

  Nathan Eldon Tanner

  Real, Giving, Real Happiness

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• History down through the centuries has proved again and again that there can be but one outcome to a struggle for selfish power against forces fighting to protect and advance human rights. Those genuinely serving humanity always ultimately emerge triumphant. It is under their standards that the [Western] allies choose to throw in their lot for humanity's defense.

  Francis Bowes Sayre, Sr.

  Struggle, Fighting, Rights

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• Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Clever, Kissing, Feet

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.72, Macmillan

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• At first it upset me to realize how many people are, at heart, selfish. Now I take that in stride, but people's loneliness still gets to me.

  Janette Rallison

  Loneliness, Heart, People

  Janette Rallison (2009). “Just One Wish”, p.30, Penguin

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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? Is that religion which is less scrupulous, less generous, less just, less considerate for man, than even my own ungodly, worldly, blinded nature? No! When I look for religion, I must look for something above me, and not something beneath.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Men, Church, Looks

  Harriet Beecher Stowe (2001). “Uncle Tom's Cabin”, p.265, Applewood Books

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• The thing you fail to grasp is that people are not basically good. We are basically selfish. We shove and clamour and cry for adoration, and beat down everyone else to get it. Life is a competition of prattling peacocks enraptured in inane mating rituals. But for all our effacing and self-importance, we are all slaves to what we fear most. You have so very much to learn. Here. Let me teach you.

  Christopher Nolan

  People, Competition, Cry

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• When you're in a relationship with someone who's selfish, what keeps you in it is the fact that when they shine on you, it's this souped-up shine. And you feel like you're in the club. And you don't even know what club it is. You just know you want to stay in it.

  Mike Birbiglia

  Funny, Humor, Shine On

  Mike Birbiglia (2012). “Sleepwalk with Me: And Other Painfully True Stories”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

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• I'm just being selfish..... I'm here on my own free will... I used to always cry and give up... I nearly went the wrong way... But you... You showed me the right way... I was always chasing you... Wanting to overtake you... I just wanted to walk with you... I wanted to be with you... You changed me! Your smile saved me! So I'm not afraid to die protecting you!!! Because I - Love You.

  Masashi Kishimoto

  Giving Up, Love You, Your Smile

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• I had to give him props, but how annoying of him to be a hero when I was trying so hard to dislike him. It was downright selfish.

  James Patterson

  Hero, Giving, Trying

  "Angel: A Maximum Ride Novel". Book by James Patterson, February 14, 2011.

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• Here I am going to say something which may come as a bit of a shock. God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to be lovable. Worthy of love. Able to be loved by Him. We don't start off being all that lovable, if we're honest. What makes people hard to love? Isn't it what is commonly called selfishness? Selfish people are hard to love because so little love comes out of them.

  William Nicholson

  Here I Am, People, May

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• God creates us free, free to be selfish, but He adds a mechanism that will penetrate our selfishness and wake us up to the presence of others in this world, and that mechanism is called suffering.

  William Nicholson

  Suffering, Add, World

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• Sometimes love makes you selfish. Sometimes it makes you stupid. Sometimes it reminds you why you love your gun.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Stupid, Gun, Sometimes

  Laurell K. Hamilton (2011). “Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15”, p.249, Penguin

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• 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

  Happiness, Men, Compassion

  Adam Smith (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Adam Smith (Illustrated)”, p.19, Delphi Classics

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• The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

  John Ruskin

  Struggle, Vanity, Practice

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• Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.

  Steven Pinker

  Dream, Book, Thinking

  "How the Mind Works". Book by Steven Pinker, 1997.

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• I wondered if parents had an easier time with the secrets their children kept than children did with the secrets of their parents. A parent's secrets seemed like some sort of betrayal, where my own just seemed like a fact of life and growing up and away. I was supposed to be independent, but he was supposed to be available. Him having his own life seemed selfish, where me having my own was the right order of things.

  Deb Caletti

  Children, Growing Up, Betrayal

  Deb Caletti (2012). “Stay”, p.198, Simon and Schuster

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• Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Anatomy And Physiology, Astrology, Phrenology

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2015). “Emerson's Essays: Top Essays”, p.102, 谷月社

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• We're connected, as women. It's like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there's trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we're just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don't help each other, who will?

  Sarah Addison Allen

  Women, Insecure, Helping Others

  Sarah Addison Allen (2011). “The Peach Keeper: A Novel”, p.135, Bantam

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• And is it selfish of me to crave victory, or is it brave?

  Veronica Roth

  Brave, Victory, Crave

  Veronica Roth (2013). “Divergent Series (Books 1-3) Plus Free Four, The Transfer and World of Divergent”, p.65, HarperCollins UK

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• And, selfish and scared, I wonder how much more he has to give.

  Neil Gaiman

  Giving, Scared, Wonder

  Neil Gaiman (2008). “M Is for Magic”, HarperCollins

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• He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.

  Josh Lanyon

  Horse, Greedy, Hung

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• I love them, they are so nice and selfish. Dogs are TOO good and unselfish. They make me feel uncomfortable. But cats are gloriously human.

  Lucy Maud Montgomery

  Dog, Nice, Cat

  Lucy Maud Montgomery (2015). “Anne of Green Gables Collection: Anne of Green Gables, Anne of the Island, and More Anne Shirley Books”, p.640, Xist Publishing

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