#selfish

Law represents the effort of man to organize society; governments, the efforts of selfishness to overthrow liberty. ↗

— Henry Ward Beecher

#efforts #governments #law #liberty #man

In the book, America had already been weakened by bio terror plagues before waves of selfish violence took down the rest. But the real enemy was the kind of male human being who nurses fantasies of violent glory at the expense of his fellow citizens. ↗

— David Brin

#america #been #before #being #bio

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish. ↗

— Anita Brookner

#begins #decided #decisions #entirely #healthier

Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness when bequeathed by those who, even alive, would part with nothing. ↗

— Charles Caleb Colton

#bequeathed #charities #essence #even #nothing

All sympathy not consistent with acknowledged virtue is but disguised selfishness. ↗

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

#consistent #disguised #selfishness #sympathy #virtue

The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims. ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#begin #devoted #humane #intelligent #just

What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness. ↗

— Bernard Cornwell

#books #happiness #i #i see #life

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires. ↗

— Lao Tzu

#embrace #few #manifest #reduce #selfishness

My mom can't defend herself to the world. She is such an amazing woman, with such an open heart. It's a real hard line, and I crossed it. I took everyone's life story and assumed it would be a great thing to put on screen. I was being selfish and I feel so horrible about it. I feel so guilty. ↗

— Nikki Reed

#amazing #assumed #being #being selfish #crossed

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones. ↗

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

#because #comfortable #course #difficult #easiest