#altruism

If we persist in defining ourselves as doomed, human nature as beyond redemption, and social institutions as beyond reform, then we shall create a future that will inexorably proceed in confirming this view. Rescuers refused to see Jews as guilty or beyond hope and themselves as helpless, despite all the evidence that could be marshaled to the contrary. They made a choice that affirmed the value and meaningfulness of each life in the midst of a diabolical social order that repeatedly denied it. Can we do otherwise? ↗

— Samuel P. Oliner

#hope #nature

We need to build websites with celebrity speakers who talk about the ideals of fairness, sharing, democratic cooperation, and altruism in public life. ↗

— Deepak Chopra

#altruism #build #celebrity #cooperation #democratic

Although people sometimes assume that the happy are self-absorbed and complacent, just the opposite is true. In general, happiness doesn't make people want to drink daiquiris on the beach; it makes them want to help rural villagers gain better access to clean water. ↗

— Gretchen Rubin

#happiness #experience

Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism. ↗

— Katherine Fullerton Gerould

#always #blunted #could #edge #fine

Like, in general I think people have very complicated reasons for wanting things, and we often have no idea whether we’re actually motivated by altruism or a desire to hook up or a search for answers or what. I always get annoyed when in books or movies characters want clear things for clear reasons, because my experience of humanness is that I always want messy things for messy reasons. ↗

— John Green

#characters #desire #messy #experience

In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life. ↗

— Jane Addams

#inspirational #justice #oppression #social-justice #inspirational

Perhaps the most legitimately dispiriting thing about reciprocal altruism is that it is a misnomer. Whereas with kin selection the "goal" of our genes is to actually help another organism, with reciprocal altruism the goal is that the organism be left under the impression that we've helped; the impression alone is enough to bring the reciprocation. ↗

— Robert Wright

#evolution #natural-selection #reciprocity #nature

I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one. ↗

— Aneurin Bevan

#altruism #cold #efficient #expire #gush

In 2010, my two Harvard mathematician colleagues and I dismantled kin-selection theory, which was the reigning theory of the origin of altruism at the time. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#colleagues #dismantled #harvard #i #mathematician

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. ↗

— E. O. Wilson

#among #group #individual #members #mix