Disinterested Quotes

• Our culture places a very high premium on self-expression, but is relatively disinterested in producing "selves" that are worth expressing.

  Matthew Kelly

  Self, Expression, Culture

  Matthew Kelly (2003). “Rediscovering Catholicism: Journeying Toward Our Spiritual North Star”, p.18, Our Sunday Visitor Publishing

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Useless knowledge can be made directly contributory to a force of sound and disinterested public opinion.

  Albert J. Nock

  Useless, Sound, Public Opinion

  16 Copy quote

• An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery

  Joseph Pulitzer

  Courage, Government, Able

  Joseph Pulitzer, Michael Edgar Pulitzer (1989). “Pulitzer Publishing Company: Newspapers and Broadcasting in the Public Interest”

  29 Copy quote

  Show source

• Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness.

  Hans Urs von Balthasar

  Farewell, Sadness, Leaving

  Hans Urs von Balthasar (1982). “Glory of the Lord VOL 1: Seeing The Form”, p.18, A&C Black

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Trusting in Christ, we may boldly join in the combat, and enlist ourselves among that disinterested band, who fight not for human ambition, or human praise, but for the honour of our Saviour, and the salvation of men.

  John Strachan

  Ambition, Fighting, Men

  7 Copy quote

• To write is to become disinterested. There is a certain renunciation in art.

  Albert Camus

  Art, Writing, Disinterest

  Albert Camus (1963). “Carnets: 1935-1942”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors, that they are ready to repeat their lesson as often as we please.

  Louis Nizer

  Reading, Book, Hands

  9 Copy quote

• On the other hand, the pleasure caused by laughter, even on the stage, is not an unadulterated enjoyment; it is not a pleasure that is exclusively esthetic or altogether disinterested. It always implies a secret or unconscious intent, if not of each one of us, at all events of society as a whole. In laughter we always find an unavowed intention to humiliate, and consequently to correct our neighbour, if not in his will, at least in his deed.

  Henri Bergson

  Laughter, Hands, Secret

  Henri Bergson (2013). “Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic”, p.67, Courier Corporation

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Great passions may give us a quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, the various forms of enthusiastic activity, disinterested or otherwise, which comes naturally to many of us.

  Walter Pater

  Passion, Giving, Sorrow

  Walter Pater (2013). “The Renaissance”, p.125, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

  Oliver Goldsmith

  Love, Friendship, Real

  'The Good-Natured Man' (1768) act 1

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up.

  George H. Mead

  Self, Disinterest, Not Interested

  12 Copy quote

• The Dalai Lama said that he thinks mother's love is the best symbol for love and compassion, because it is totally disinterested.

  Richard Gere

  Mother, Love Is, Thinking

  17 Copy quote

• Defectors often cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Causes, Disbelievers, Difficulty

  11 Copy quote

• I was a disinterested student.

  David Fincher

  Students

  "David Fincher: The Complex Mind of 'Social Network's' Anti-Social Director" by Stephen Galloway, www.hollywoodreporter.com. February 2, 2011.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are two ways to be cool: One is to be disinterested and make it seem like you must be doing something much more interesting than everybody else if you are this disinterested. The other is to be extremely interested. You are not trying to please anyone, but you are really invested are really focused.

  Maggie Gyllenhaal

  Two, Interesting, Trying

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love never asks what benefit it will derive from love. Love from its very nature is a disinterested thing. It loves for the creature's sake it loves, and for nothing else.

  Charles Spurgeon

  Valentines Day, Benefits, Sake

  4 Copy quote

• There is no pure, disinterested, theory-free observation.

  Karl Popper

  Theory, Observation, Pure

  Karl Popper, M.A. Notturno (2014). “The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality”, p.8, Routledge

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• Generosity is, by definition, disinterested.

  Piero Ferrucci

  Generosity, Definitions

  Piero Ferrucci (2007). “The Power of Kindness: The Unexpected Benefits of Leading a Compassionate Life--Tenth Anniversary Edition”, p.179, Penguin

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Concerned Photographer produces images in which genuine human feeling predominates over commercial cynicism or disinterested formalism.

  Cornell Capa

  Photography, Feelings, Photographer

  13 Copy quote

• In the scientific world I find just that disinterested devotion to great ends that I hope will spread at last through the entire range of human activity.

  H. G. Wells

  Knowledge, World, Lasts

  4 Copy quote

• ... I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.

  Elaine Dundy

  Banquets, Spectators

  Elaine Dundy (2010). “The Dud Avocado”, p.37, New York Review of Books

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Christianity exhorted man to set himself up against Nature, but did so in the name of his spiritual and disinterested attributes. Pragmatism exhorts him to do so in the name of his practical attributes. Formerly man was divine because he had been able to acquire the concept of justice, the idea of law, the sense of God; today he is divine because he has been able to create equipment which makes him the master of matter.

  Julien Benda

  Spiritual, Men, Law

  Julien Benda, Roger Kimball (2017). “The Treason of the Intellectuals”, p.57, Routledge

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today there are no more irreconcilable enmities, because there are no more disinterested emotions: that's a good thing born from a bad thing.

  Joseph Joubert

  Enmity, Today, Emotion

  4 Copy quote

• The person giving the advice returns the confidence placed in him with a disinterested eagerness... and he is usually guided only by his own interest or reputation.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Giving, Advice, Return

  5 Copy quote

• Love is nourished only by sacrifices, and the more a soul refuses natural satisfactions, the stronger and more disinterested becomes her tenderness.

  Therese of Lisieux

  God, Sacrifice, Love Is

  Marc Foley, OCD, St. Therese of Lisieux (2013). “Story of a Soul The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux Study Edition”, ICS Publications

  15 Copy quote

  Show source