Quotes about Selfishness

Essayist, Lecturer, Philosopher, Poet

At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone. He lives in it, and masters it by a penny-wisdom; and he that works most in it, is but a half-man, and whilst his arms are strong and his digestion good, his mind is imbruted, and he is a selfish savage.

Man - Mastering - Mindset - Savagery - Selfishness - Strength

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Alan Cohen

Author

It is not selfish or narcissistic to love yourself. It is your first and foremost responsibility.

Narcissism - Selfishness

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Alexandre Dumas

Novelist, playwright

Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

Selfishness

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Richard Dawkins

Producer, Scientist, Ethologist

Any altruistic system is inherently unstable, because it is open to abuse by selfish individuals, ready to exploit it.

Abuse - Exploitation - Individual - Selfishness

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, Lecturer, Philosopher, Poet

Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology.

Selfishness

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Theodore Roosevelt

Former President of the United States

Here is your country. Cherish these natural wonders, cherish the natural resources, cherish the history and romance as a sacred heritage, for your children and your children's children. Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.

Countries - Earth - Environment - Greed - Man - Rich - Selfishness

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Harry S. Truman

33rd U.S. President

The Jews, I find, are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as Displaced Persons as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.

Care - Conditioning - Finance - Finding - Jewish - Labor - Management - Mistreating - Past - Politics - Prosperity - Remembering - Selfishness

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Eric Hoffer

Historian, Writer, Philosopher

The hatred and cruelty which have their source in selfishness are ineffectual things compared with the venom and ruthlessness born of selflessness.

Ruthless - Selfishness - Selflessness

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Ayn Rand

Writer, Philosopher

You have been called selfish for the courage of acting on your own judgement and bearing sole responsibility for your own life. You have been called arrogant for your independent mind. You have been called cruel for your unyielding integrity. You have been calle anti social for the vision that made you venture upon undiscovered roads.

Acting - Arrogance - Independence - Integrity - Making - Mindset - Selfishness - Venture - Vision

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Dalai Lama, XIV

Leader of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism, Exiled Leader of Tibet

All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction.

Ignorance - Life - Pain - People - Pursuit - Satisfaction - Selfishness - Spiritual - Suffering

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essayist, Lecturer, Philosopher, Poet

Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where aour spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology become phrenology and palmistry.

Selfishness - Show

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Dr. Seuss

Author, Cartoonist, Animator

If you don't like me, remember it's mind over matter. I don't mind, and you don't matter.

Mindset - Remembering - Selfishness

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Pope Francis

Head of the Catholic Church, Sovereign of the Vatican City State

Today, this selfish attitude of indifference has taken on global proportions, to the extent that we can speak of a globalization of indifference. It is a problem which we, as Christians, need to confront.

Christianity - Selfishness - Speaking - Taking

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Jane Austen

Writer, Novelist

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

Selfishness

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Christopher Hitchens

Author, Columnist, Essayist, Orator, Journalist, Social Critic

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.

Arrogance - Expert - Motivation - Selfishness - Stupid - Suspicion - Transcendence

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Ray Bradbury

Actor, Writer, Writer

I've always known that the quality of love was the mind, even though the body sometimes refuses this knowledge. The body lives for itself. It lives only to feed and wait for the night. It's essentially nocturnal. But what of the mind which is born of the sun, William, and must spend thousands of hours of a lifetime awake and aware? Can you balance off the body, that pitiful, selfish thing of night against a whole lifetime of sun and intellect? I don't know.

Afternoon - Balance - Knowledge - Mindset - Quality - Refuse - Remembering - Selfishness - Sometimes - Waiting - Whole

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Mary Wollstonecraft

Writer, Writer

Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.

Corruption - Earnest - Human - Imagination - Loss - Misery - Oneself - Selfishness - Soul - Suffering - Thinking

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James Madison

Former President of the United States

Man is known to be a selfish, as well as a social being.

Knowledge - Man - Selfishness - Wellness

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John Adams

Former President of the United States

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty.

Ambition - Effectiveness - Man - Production - Remembering - Selfishness - Vanity

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Abraham Maslow

Psychologist

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.

Anger - Boredom - Creating - Facts - Finding - Giving - Human - Illusion - People - Perfection - Saints - Selfishness

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