Quotes about Selfishness

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.

You can never truly love anyone else until you love yourself.  Until you really love yourself, your love for others is purely selfish.  It is an attempt to fulfill the missing part of you with whatever you enjoy about them.
 
Therefore, I cannot trust others who don't love themselves to truly have my best interests at heart.
 
~Danielle Marie Crume

A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.

Even when he is still,
The selfish man is busy.

Even when he is busy,
The selfless man is still.

There is a circle here that links us to one another: we each want to be happy; the social feeling of love is one of our greatest sources of happiness; and love entails that we be concerned for the happiness of others. We discover that we can be selfish together.

Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant.

He said "What did fame ever do for me? I'm still broke!" I said "What did your fame ever do for anyone else?"

Give up your selfishness, and you shall find peace; like water mingling with water, you shall merge in absorption.

This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances.

… Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed.  Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out.  It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.

 But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated.  Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.

Anybody who's ever mattered, anybody who's ever been happy, anybody who's ever given any gift into the world has been a divinely selfish soul, living for his own best interest. No exceptions.

The problem with humans is that they don't know they have a magical kitchen (wherein, you can have any food you want, from any place in any quantity, without limitation or restriction) in their heart. A long time ago, we closed our hearts and we can no longer feel the love that is in there. At some point, we became afraid, because love isn't fair. Love hurts. Then we become selfish and close our hearts tightly. It isn't safe to love, we believe. Then in a relationship, there is a war for control. What we call love-someone who needs me, who cares about me-isn't love; it is selfishness. How can that work? Then we search for advice on love and sex. Yet, there is nothing to learn about love. Everything is already there, in our genes, in our nature. We don't have to learn anything except what we invent in this world of illusion. We search for love outside ourselves when love is all around us. Love is everywhere, but we don't have the eyes to see. Our emotional body is no longer tuned to love. People are starving for love, not knowing their heart is a magical kitchen. Your heart is a magical kitchen. Open your heart. Open your magical kitchen and refuse to walk around the world begging for love. In your heart is all the love you need. Your heart can create any amount of love, not just for yourself, but for the whole world. When we know that our heart is a magical kitchen, we are always generous and our love is completely unconditional.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no 'brief candle' to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.

There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers...even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.

The Art of Happiness There was never a time when so much official effort was being expended to produce happiness, and probably never a time when so little attention was paid by the individual to creating and personal qualities that make for it. What one misses most today is the evidence of widespread personal determination to develop a character that will, in itself, given any reasonable odds, make for happiness. Our whole emphasis is on the reform of living conditions, of increased wages, of controls on the economic structure-the government approach-and so little on man improving himself. The ingredients of happiness are so simple that they can be counted on one hand. Happiness comes from within, and rests most securely on simple goodness and clear conscience. Religion may not be essential to it, but no one ins known to have gained it without a philosophy resting on ethical principles. Selfishness is its enemy; to make another happy is to be happy one's self. It is quiet, seldom found for long in crowds, most easily won in moments of solitude and reflection. It cannot be bought; indeed, money has very little to do with it. No one is happy unless he is reasonably well satisfied with himself, so that the quest for tranquility must of necessity begin with self-examination. We shall not often be content with what we discover in this scrutiny. There is much to do, and so little done. Upon this searching self-analysis, however, depends the discovery of those qualities that make each man unique, and whose development alone can bring satisfaction. Of all those who have tried, down the ages, to outline a program for happiness, few have succeeded so well as William Henry Channing, chaplain of the House of Representatives in the middle of the last century: "To live content with small means; so seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy . . . to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to the stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common." It will be noted that no government can do this for you; you must do it for yourself.

Business demands faith, compels earnestness, requires courage, is honestly selfish, is penalized for mistakes, and is the essence of life.

Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.

If all the people in this world, in which we live, were as selfish as a few of the people in this world, in which we live, there would be no world in which to live.

Words That Encourage Darkness and The Adversary: Angry, Antagonistic, Appetites, Arrogant, Confused, Contention, Covetous, Critical, Depressed, Domineering, Doubt, Easily Offended, Evasive, Fear, Frustrated, Harshness, Impatience, Ineffective, Irritable, Jealousy, Negative, Pessimistic, Possessive, Resentful, Secretive, Self-C entered, Selfish, Troubled, Uncontrolled, Unhappy, Vindictive,

Take Time Take time to think- It is the source of all power. Take time to read- It is the fountain of wisdom. Take time to play- It is the source of perpetual youth. Take time to be quiet- It is the opportunity to seek God. Take time to be aware- It is the opportunity to help others. Take time to love and be loved- It is God's greatest gift. Take time to laugh- It is the music of the soul. Take time to be friendly- It is the road to happiness. Take time to dream- It is what the future is made of. Take time to pray- It is the greatest power on earth. Take time to give- It is too short a day to be selfish. Take time to work- It is the price of success. There is a time for everything. . . .

Do not be too quick to condemn the man who no longer believes in God: for it is perhaps your own coldness and avarice and mediocrity and materialism and selfishness that have chilled his faith.

Love . . . [is] a lack of personal selfishness.

Life is given for wisdom, and yet we are not wise; for goodness, and we are not good; for overcoming evil, and evil remains; for patience and sympathy and love, and yet we are fretful and hard and weak and selfish. We are keyed not to attainment, but to the struggle toward it.

A free society that allows each individual to seek his or her own selfish ends (without deliberately trying to harm anyone else) will produce a state in which everyone's interest is optimized without any individual knowing in advance what that state might be.

Certainly the greatest values in the world are human values, and the most worthwhile ambitions in people have to do with building human beings. The most important responsibility that God has ever laid upon the shoulders of any human being is that of making the best and the most of his own life. I heard of somebody once who said he was interested in doing the greatest amount of good for the greatest number, and that the greatest number was number one. That was himself. That may sound like a little bit of selfishness, but if that is selfishness, at least it is a very intelligent selfishness. Everyone has a right to be interested in himself, and I am confident that God wants us to be interested in ourselves first; that is, the first soul that anyone should bring to God should be his own soul. We cannot do very much for anyone else until we have first done something for ourselves. That is, it is pretty difficult to give someone else an education unless we have some education ourselves. It is pretty hard to get someone else to think unless we ourselves are thinkers.

There is no structural organization of society which can bring about the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth since all systems can be perverted by the selfishness of man. The Malvern Manifesto: Drawn up by a Conference of the Province of York, January 10, 1941; signed for the Conference by Temple, then Archbishop of York (later Archbishop of Canterbury).

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.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.

Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.