Selfish Quotes - Page 25

• The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people.

  Charles Trevelyan

  Real, Character, People

  "Writing the Frontier: Anthony Trollope between Britain and Ireland". Book by John McCourt, March 19, 2015.

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• People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation... I've seen it in punk clubs, and I've seen it in the world.

  Gerard Way

  Race, People, World

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• My passion for gardening may strike some as selfish, or merely an act of resignation in the face of overwhelming problems that beset the world. It is neither. I have found that each garden is just what Voltaire proposed in Candide: a microcosm of a just and beautiful society.

  Andrew Weil

  Beautiful, Passion, Garden

  "One Simple Resolution: Gardening" by Dr. Andrew Weil, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 27, 2012.

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• Love exercised while duty is neglected will make children headstrong, willful, perverse, selfish, and disobedient. If stern duty is left to stand alone without love to soften and win, it will have a similar result. Duty and love must be blended in order that children may be properly disciplined.

  Ellen G. White

  Children, Winning, Order

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• Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

  E. O. Wilson

  Winning, Groups, Intense

  "Altruistic groups, selfish people win". Interview with Zinta Lundborg, www.postandcourier.com. May 5, 2012.

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• The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies.

  Frances Wright

  Stupid, Heart, Men

  Frances Wright (1850). “Fanny Wright Unmasked by Her Own Pen: Explanatory Notes, Respecting the Nature and Objects of the Institution of Nashoba, and of the Principles Upon Which It Is Founded”, p.5

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• My hunch is that people often affiliate with causes online for selfish and narcissistic purposes. Sometimes, it may be as simple as trying to impress their online friends, and once you have fashioned that identity, there is very little reason to actually do anything else.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Simple, People, Trying

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• From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.

  Jane Austen

  Men, Feelings, Arrogance

  Jane Austen (1819). “Pride and Prejudice: A Novel”, p.133

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• Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It's a gift to the world and every being in it. Don't cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you've got.

  Steven Pressfield

  Art, Creativity, Bad Ass

  Steven Pressfield (2002). “The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles”, p.165, Black Irish Entertainment LLC

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• My mother said I broke her heart...but it was my integrity that was important. Is that so selfish? It sells for so little, but it's all we have left in this place. It is the very last inch of us...but within that inch we are free.

  Alan Moore

  Mother, Integrity, Heart

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• It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart.

  Saul Bellow

  Heart, People, Giving

  Saul Bellow (2001). “Collected stories”, Penguin Group USA

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• Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.

  George Eliot

  Sacrifice, Judgment, Tested

  George Eliot (2004). “Silas Marner (Sparklesoup Classics)”, p.110, Sparklesoup LLC

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• How narrow we selfish conceited creatures are in our sympathies! How blind to the rights of all the rest of creation!

  John Muir

  Conceited, Rights, Blind

  John Muir (2010). “The Wilderness Journeys”, Canongate Books

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• Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Habit, Unselfish, Customs

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• I am speaking now of the highest duty we owe our friends, the noblest, the most sacred - that of keeping their own nobleness, goodness, pure and incorrupt. If we let our friend become cold and selfish and exacting without remonstrance, we are no true lover, no true friend.

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Love, Inspirational, Friendship

  "Little Foxes". Book by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Chapter 3, 1865.

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• Remember that the best and greatest among mankind are those who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is more or less a selfish man. The devoted fail.

  Thomas Hardy

  Successful, Men, Remember

  Thomas Hardy (2016). “Jude the Obscure: Works of Hardy”, p.324, 谷月社

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• This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Nice, Reading, Long

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• The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.

  Marcus Garvey

  Integrity, Common, Eternity

  Marcus Garvey (2015). “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey”, p.6, Ravenio Books

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• the scientist's religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages.

  Albert Einstein

  Religious, Reflection, Thinking

  Albert Einstein (2016). “The Albert Einstein Collection: Essays in Humanism, The Theory of Relativity, and The World As I See It”, p.182, Open Road Media

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• I have little left in myself -- I must have you. The world may laugh -- may call me absurd, selfish -- but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.

  Charlotte Bronte

  Laughing, Soul, Doe

  Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte (2009). “The Bronte Sisters: Three Novels: Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; and Agnes Grey (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.354, Penguin

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• Among the real heroines in the world who will come into the Church are women who are more concerned with being righteous than with being selfish. These real heroines have true humility, which places a higher value on integrity than on visibility. Remember, it is as wrong to do things just to be seen of women as it is to do things to be seen of men. Great women and men are always more anxious to serve than to have dominion.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Integrity, Real, Humility

  Maren M. Mouritsen, Spencer W. Kimball, Bringham Young University (1980). “Blueprints for living: perspectives for Latter-day Saint women”

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• Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you." -Rhett Butler

  Margaret Mitchell

  Yankees, Helping, Determined

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• It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Death, Dream, Moving

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• Tell me about this Wizard Howl of yours." "He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." "Indeed? Strange that you should speak so proudly such a list of vices, most loving of ladies." "What do you mean, vices? I was just describing Howl. He comes from another world entirely, you know, called Wales, and I refuse to believe he's dead!

  Diana Wynne Jones

  Believe, Mean, Vices

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• Beloved, we are always in the wrong, Handling so clumsily our stupid lives, Suffering too little or too long, Too careful even in our selfish loves: The decorative manias we obey Die in grimaces round us every day, Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice Which utters an absurd command - Rejoice.

  W. H. Auden

  Stupid, Voice, Long

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