#selfish

The only gift I have to give, is the ability to receive. If giving is a gift, and it surely is, then my gift to you is to allow you to give to me. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#giving #greed #greedy #humor #receive

If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine. ↗

— P.G. Wodehouse

#selfishness #humor

In the end, even the “yes” to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my “I”, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love. ↗

— Pope Benedict XVI

#selfishness #suffering #love

I respect all the innocent souls because they are kind enough to forgive the selfish people around them. ↗

— Saurabh Sharma

#innocent #inspirational #selfishness #forgiveness

She also keeps talking about the Billie Holiday record she bought for me. And she says she wants to expose me to all these great things. And to tell you the truth, I don't really want to be exposed to all these great things if it means that I'll have to listen to Mary Elizabeth talk about all the great things she exposed me to all the time. It almost feels like of the three things involved: Mary Elizabeth, me, and the great things, only the first one matters to Mary Elizabeth. I don't understand that. I would give someone a record so they could love the record, not so they would always know that I gave it to them. ↗

— Stephen Chbosky

#gifts #histrionic-people #kindness #love #obnoxious-people

She also understood there was a hole in her heart where her son should be, that she was a wicked, selfish woman for wishing him back. ↗

— Shannon Celebi

#mother #motherhood #mothers #mothers-love #selfish

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things, the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ↗

— John Stuart Mill

#pacifism #sacrifice #selfishness #war #men

Though my work may be menial, though my contribution may be small, I can perform it with dignity and offer it with unselfishness. My talents may not be great, but I can use them to bless the lives of others.... The goodness of the world in which we live is the accumulated goodness of many small and seemingly inconsequential acts. ↗

— Gordon B. Hinckley

#service #unselfishness #inspirational

The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder. ↗

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

#greed #materialism #needs #selfishness #vice

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action. ↗

— Daniel Goleman

#empathy #selfishness #social-intelligence #intelligence