#selfish

I address myself to the Communists, to those Communists who were prompted to join the Party by the progressive ideas of mankind and socialism, and not by selfish personal interests - let us represent our pure and just ideas by pure and just means. ↗

— Janos Kadar

#communists #i #ideas #interests #join

I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself. ↗

— Irvine Welsh

#any #being #concept #did #i

Walter had never liked cats. They'd seemed to him the sociopaths of the pet world, a species domesticated as an evil necessary for the control of rodents and subsequently fetishized the way unhappy countries fetishize their militaries, saluting the uniforms of killers as cat owners stroke their animals' lovely fur and forgive their claws and fangs. He'd never seen anything in a cat's face but simpering incuriosity and self-interest; you only had to tease one with a mouse-toy to see where it's true heart lay...cats were all about using people ↗

— Jonathan Franzen

#animals #cats #cats-being-needed #dogs #dogs-and-cats

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. ↗

— Francis Wright

#been #blunted #carried #competition #edge

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

#among #beat #between #competing #contests

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness. ↗

— Woodrow Wilson

#caution #confidential #selfishness

It is an occult law moreover, that no man can rise superior to his individual failings without lifting, be it ever so little, the whole body of which he is an integral part. In the same way no one can sin, nor suffer the effects of sin, alone. In reality, there is no such thing as 'separateness' and the nearest approach to that selfish state which the laws of life permit is in the intent or motive. ↗

— Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

#selfishness #sin #theosophy #virtue #life

If the entire world sought to make itself worthy of happiness rather than make itself happy, then the entire world would be happy. ↗

— Criss Jami

#happiness #happy #inconsiderate #peace #problem

Going to war was the only unselfish thing I have ever done for humanity. ↗

— David Niven

#ever #going #humanity #i #only

I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it. ↗

— Jack Kevorkian

#come #else #fighting #free #help