Self Interest Quotes - Page 15

• I suspect it is for one’s self-interest that one looks at one’s surroundings and one’s self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs. The camera is not merely a reflecting pool and the photographs are not exactly the mirror, mirror on the wall that speaks with a twisted tongue. Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaws can encompass and what the light will stain.

  Lee Friedlander

  Wall, Silly, Simple

  39 Copy quote

• We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.

  Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon

  Self, Forget, Interest

  Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon (1806). “The Exemplary Life of the Pious Lady Guion”, p.461

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• Happiness is attained, not through self-interest, but through unconditional fidelity in endless love of eternal light.

  Aaron Cohen

  Light, Self, Eternal Happiness

  46 Copy quote

• Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Nature, Self, Voice

  Charles Baudelaire (1992). “Selected Writings on Art and Literature”, Penguin Classics

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage.

  Gerald R. Ford

  Pregnancy, Commitment, Israel

  United States. President (1974-1977 : Ford), Gerald R. Ford, United States. Office of the Federal Register (1975). “Gerald R. Ford: Containing the public messages, speeches, and statements of the President”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Besides justifying the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats, institutionalized religion brings two other important benefits to centralized societies. First, shared ideology or religion helps solve the problem of how unrelated individuals are to live together without killing each other—by providing them with a bond not based on kinship. Second, it gives people a motive, other than genetic self-interest, for sacrificing their lives on behalf of others.

  Jared Diamond

  Sacrifice, Self, Two

  9 Copy quote

• The acceptance of corporatism causes us to deny and undermine the legitimacy of the individual as citizen in a democracy. The result of such a denial is a growing imbalance which leads to our adoration of self-interest and our denial of the public good.

  John Ralston Saul

  Acceptance, Self, Democracy

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the healthy pursuit of self-interest and self-realizatio n turns into self-absorption , other people can lose their intrinsic value in our eyes and become mere means to the fulfillment of our needs and desires.

  P. M. Forni

  Mean, Eye, Self

  19 Copy quote

• We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest.

  Atal Bihari Vajpayee

  Self, World, Bihar

  20 Copy quote

• What makes us want to know the worst? Is it that we tire of preferring to know the best? Does curiosity always hurdle self-interest? Or is it, more simply, that wanting to know the worst is love's favorite perversion.

  Julian Barnes

  Self, Curiosity, Doe

  Julian Barnes (1985). “Flaubert's parrot”, Alfred a Knopf Inc

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Invitation is not only a step in bringing people together, it is also a fundamental way of being in a community. It manifests the willingness to live in a collaborative way. This means that a future can be created without having to force or sell it or barter for it. When we believe that barter or subtle coercion is necessary, we are operating out of a context of scarcity and self-interest, the core currencies of the economist.

  Peter Block

  Believe, Mean, Self

  21 Copy quote

• Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality. He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.

  Nelson Mandela

  Spiritual, Hard Work, Successful

  "The Sacred Warrior" by Nelson Mandela, content.time.com. December 31, 1999.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• If it is written and read with serious attention, a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest.

  Karen Armstrong

  Art, Our World, Self

  16 Copy quote

• We are all members of the same flawed species. Putting our moral vision into practice means imposing our will on others. The human lust for power and esteem, coupled with its vulnerability to self-deception and self-righteousness, makes that an invitation to a calamity, all the worse when the power is directed at a goal as quixotic as eradicating human self-interest.

  Steven Pinker

  Mean, Self, Practice

  24 Copy quote
• 

  The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state.

  Ron Paul

  Country, Mean, Responsibility

  "The Patriotism Smear" by Ron Paul, www.lewrockwell.com. May 24, 2007.

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• If my ruling disposition is self-interest, I perceive that everything that happens to me is always for or against my self-interest; if, on the other hand, my ruling disposition is obedience to God, I perceive Him to be at work for my perfecting in everything that happens to me.

  Oswald Chambers

  Faith, God, Christian

  Oswald Chambers (2015). “Biblical Ethics / The Moral Foundations of Life / The Philosophy of Sin: Ethical Principles for the Christian Life”, p.207, Discovery House

  46 Copy quote

  Show source