Selfishness Quotes - Page 18

• Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.

  David Sloan Wilson

  Selfish, Groups, Beats

  David Sloan Wilson (2015). “Does Altruism Exist?: Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others”, p.71, Yale University Press

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• I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Education, School, Thinking

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Women & a Vindication of the Rights of Men”, p.170, Cosimo, Inc.

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• All things are sold: the very light of heaven is venal; earth's unsparing gifts of love, the smallest and most despicable things that lurk in the abysses of the deep, all objects of our life, even life itself, and the poor pittance which the laws allow of liberty, the fellowship of man, those duties which his heart of human love should urge him to perform instinctively, are bought and sold as in a public mart of not disguising selfishness, that sets on each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Love, Money, Heart

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1853). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete in One Volume”, p.27

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• The secret of success is to realize that the crisis on our planet is much larger than just deciding what to do with your own life, and if the system under which we live the structure of western civilization begins to collapse because of our selfishness and greed, then it will make no difference whether you have $1 million dollars when the crash comes or just $1.00. The only work that will ultimately bring any good to any of us is the work of contributing to the healing of the world.

  Marianne Williamson

  Success, Healing, Differences

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• Along with selfishness, anger is one of the most serious problems facing the world today

  Dalai Lama

  World, Today, Serious

  His Holiness the Dalai Lama (2011). “How to Be Compassionate: A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier World”, p.3, Simon and Schuster

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• PERSONAL IMPORTANCE or taking things personally, is an expression of SELFISHNESS because we make the assumption that everything is about ME!! NOTHING PEOPLE DO IS BECAUSE OF YOU!! IT'S BECAUSE OF THEMSELVES!!

  Miguel

  Expression, People, Four Agreements

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• Take the selfishness out of anger and you're left with determination.

  Bernie Glassman

  Determination, Left

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• Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.

  Walter Wink

  Biblical, Fighting, Simple

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• Selfishness draws men into a spiritual vacuum where, absorbed in self service, they shut out all others.

  William R. Bradford

  Spiritual, Men, Self

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• Selfishness, if but reasonably tempered with wisdom, is not such an evil trait.

  Giovanni Ruffini

  Evil, Traits, Ifs

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• Through the practice of devotion to God, I was coming to learn that preserving loving relations in this world required much forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude, and humility. An essential virtue of humility is to accept others for what they are, despite differences. I contemplated again how the tendency to judge others is often a symptom of insecurity, immaturity, or selfishness, and I yearned to rise above it. Everyone is a child of God. God loves all of His children. If I wish to love God, I must learn to love those whom He loves.

  Radhanath Swami

  Gratitude, Children, Humility

  Radhanath Swami (2016). “The Journey Home”, p.324, Simon and Schuster

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• Lessen selfishness and restrain desires.

  Laozi

  Taoism, Desire

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• From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society.

  David Hume

  Men, Order, Firsts

  David Hume (2006). “An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals”, p.48, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Slavery is founded on the selfishness of man's nature - opposition to it on his love of justice. These principles are in eternal antagonism; and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Love, Men, Justice

  Address on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, delivered 16 October 1854, Peoria, Illinois

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• I think that there’s too much sugar in the world and not enough salt. Kids want to be challenged. Humans want to aspire to something. You don’t win in life and you don’t win in athletics with softness or selfishness.

  Buzz Williams

  Kids, Winning, Thinking

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• Not perhaps until later life, until the follies, passions, and selfishness of youth have died out, do we . . . recognize the the inestimable blessing, the responsibility awful as sweet, of possessing or of being a friend.

  Dinah Maria Murlock Craik

  Sweet, Real, Passion

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• I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later.
  There is not much hurry.
  If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,
  with compassion, with less selfishness,
  then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.

  Dalai Lama

  Buddhist, Good Life, Honesty

  "Dzogchen: Heart Essence of the Great Perfection" by Dalai Lama, Snow Lion Publications, 2004.

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• Love is the selfishness of two persons.

  Antoine de la Sale

  Love, Two, Persons

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• The age of selfishness and greed is over. The age of kindness and generosity is underway.

  Laurence Overmire

  Kindness, Future, Generosity

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• Democracy is threatened by the inertia of good people, by the selfishness of most people, and by the evil designs of a few people.

  Stanley King

  Evil, People, Design

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• Altruism is written in everlasting and resplendent character on the Cross of Christ, and it was at Calvary that the centre of life was shifted from selfishness to sacrifice.

  Jon Weber

  Friday, Character, Sacrifice

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• Selfishness is never so exquisitely selfish as when it is on its knees. ... Self turns what would otherwise be a pure and powerful prayer into a weak and ineffective one.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Prayer, Powerful, Selfish

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• We are too much haunted by ourselves, projecting the central shadow of self on everything around us. And then comes the Gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. Redemption is this, to forget self in God.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Self, Shadow, Redemption

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• Man must get his thoughts, words and actions out of this vast moral jungle. We are not predators. We are, hopefully, more than instinctive killers and selfish brutes. Why take such a dim view of our potentials and capabilities?

  H. Jay Dinshah

  Selfish, Men, Law

  "Out of the Jungle" (1967); as quoted in "Compassion, the Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration of Veganism" by Victoria Moran, Wellingborough: Thorsons, (p. 31), 1985.

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• Selfishness and separatation have led me to believe that the world is not my problem. I am the world.

  Edward Kowalczyk

  Life, Believe, World

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