Altruism Quotes - Page 6

• There's a lot of evidence in evolutionary sciences that show that altruism and acting in ways that are empathetic to others are actually beneficial on an evolutionary basis.

  Neill Blomkamp

  Acting, Way, Evidence

  Source: collider.com

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• A current pejorative adjective is narcissistic. Generally, a narcissist is anyone better looking than you are, but lately the adective is often applied to those "liberals" who prefer to improve the lives of others rather than exploit them. Apparently, a concern for others is self-love at its least attractive, while greed is now a sign of the hightest altruism. But then to reverse, periodically, the meanings of words is a very small price to pay for our vast freedom not only to conform but to consume.

  Gore Vidal

  Self, Concern For Others, Greed

  "Screening History (Growing Up With Gore Vidal)". Book by Gore Vidal (p. 24), 1994.

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• Sometime in the last 50,000 years, before 12,000 years ago, a kind of paradise came into existence. A situation in which men and women, parents and children, people and animals, human institutions and the land all were in dynamic balance and not in any primitive sense at all. Language was fully developed, poetry may have been at its climax, dance, magic, poetics, altruism, philosophy. There's no reason to think that these things were not practiced as adroitly as we practice them today and it was under the boundary dissolving influence of psilocybin.

  Terence McKenna

  Children, Philosophy, Men

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• Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go round. Without its driving power, nothing worth doing has ever been done. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to career or hobby-all these, and most of the other good things of life, are forms of enthusiasm.

  Robert Haven Schauffler

  Careers, Hobbies, Friendship Love

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• People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals who might be in a position to reciprocate your altruism.

  Richard Dawkins

  Selfish, People, Might

  Source: newrepublic.com

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• To face the realities of our lives is not a reason for despair-despair is a tool of your enemies. Facing the realities of our lives gives us motivation for action. For you are not powerless... You know why the hard questions must be asked. It is not altruism, it is self-preservation-survival.

  Audre Lorde

  Motivation, Reality, Self

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• Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Love Is, Barbarism

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

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• An altruist is one who would be sincerely sorry to see his neighbor's children devoured by wolves.

  H. L. Mencken

  Children, Sorry, Would Be

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• Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational.

  Ayn Rand

  Real, Philosophical, Fighting

  Ayn Rand (1997). “Letters of Ayn Rand”, p.382, Penguin

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• Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down.

  Collis Potter Huntington

  Funny, Humorous, Cynicism

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• By consequence I hold that no one ever did, or can do, anything for "society."... Comte invented the term altruism as an antonym for egoism, and it found its way at once into everyone's mouth, although it is utterly devoid of meaning, since it points to nothing that ever existed in mankind; This hybrid or rather this degenerate form of hedonism served powerfully to invest collectivism's principles with a specious moral sanction, and collectivists naturally made the most of it.

  Albert J. Nock

  Principles, Mouths, Way

  "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" by Albert J. Nock, (p. 305), 1943.

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• Barring love and war, few enterprises are undertaken with such abandon, or by such diverse individuals, or with so paradoxical a mixture of appetite and altruism, as that group of avocations known as outdoor recreation. It is, by common consent, a good thing for people to get back to nature. But wherein lies the goodness, and what can be done to encourage its pursuit?

  Aldo Leopold

  Lying, War, People

  Aldo Leopold (1989). “A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There”, p.165, Oxford University Press, USA

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• All the others arts are lonely. We paint alone--my picture, my interpretation of the sky. My poem, my novel. But in music--ensemble music, not soloism--we share. No altruism this, for we receive tenfold what we give.

  Catherine Drinker Bowen

  Music, Lonely, Art

  Catherine Drinker Bowen (1939). “Friends and fiddlers”

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• One reason that a truth and reconciliation process is needed for group selection is to return to the simplicity of the original problem and Darwin’s solution. As Ed Wilson and I put it in our recent review article titled “Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology“: Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.

  David Sloan Wilson

  Selfish, Simplicity, Foundation

  "Truth and Reconciliation for Group Selection II: The Original Problem" by David Sloan Wilson, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 1, 2009.

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• The market, if it can be kept honest and competitive, does provide very strong incentives for work effort and productive contributions. In their absence, society would thrash about for alternative incentives-some unreliable, like altruism; some perilous like collective loyalty; some intolerable, like coercion or oppression.

  Arthur Melvin Okun

  Loyalty, Wisdom, Strong

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• Capitalism and altruism are incompatible; they are philosophical opposites; they cannot co-exist in the same man or in the same society.

  Ayn Rand

  Philosophical, Men, Opposites

  Ayn Rand (1963). “For the New Intellectual: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand (50th Anniversary Edition)”, p.45, Penguin

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• the psychological attitudes which are indispensable in the American market place are disastrous to family life. Family life ... requires yieldingness, generosity, sympathy, altruism, tenderness-all the qualities, in fact, which lead straight to bankruptcy. ... the American family is tragically out of gear with the profit structure which has mushroomed up around it.

  Margaret Halsey

  Attitude, Generosity, Quality

  Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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• When you engage in compassion, and you hear a distressing sound, like someone calling for help, there is an activation in an area of the brain called the insular, which has to do with empathy and altruism, that is vastly more activated than in non-meditators.

  Matthieu Ricard

  Compassion, Empathy, Brain

  Source: www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu

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• Which is more subversive-and corrosive-to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism did not exist, it would be necessary to believe in it. Pessimists in power are prone to despotism.

  Frank Prochaska

  Believe, Self, Volunteer

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• ... Don't mistake any of this for altruism...Fear and greed just doesn't work. If you want to be successful, quality and service just works better.

  Larry Ellison

  Mistake, Successful, Greed

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• Egoism , which is the moving force of the world, and altruism , which is its morality , these two contradictory instincts , of which one is so plain and the other so mysterious, cannot serve us unless in the incomprehensible alliance of their irreconcilable antagonism.

  Joseph Conrad

  Moving, Two, World

  Joseph Conrad “Heart of Darkness”, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism - the belief that the individual exists to serve others - is translated into political reality.

  Nathaniel Branden

  Reality, Government, Political

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• Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.

  Arundhati Roy

  War, Reason

  Arundhati Roy (2003). “War Talk”, p.68, South End Press

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• Self-interest, to be sure, is one of the most important, but we have many other motives - honesty, self-respect, altruism, love, sympathy, faith, sense of duty, solidarity, loyalty, public-spiritedness, patriotism, and so on - that are sometimes even more important than self-seeking as the driver of our behaviors.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  Loyalty, Honesty, Self

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• Commerce, trade and exchange make other people more valuable alive than dead, and mean that people try to anticipate what the other guy needs and wants. It engages the mechanisms of reciprocal altruism, as the evolutionary biologists call it, as opposed to raw dominance.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, People, Guy

  "The Importance of Being Businessworthy" by Per L. Saxegaard, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 4, 2015.

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