#selfish

Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed. ↗

— Rick Allen

#back #before #blessed #give #i

He could not believe that any of them might actually hit somebody. If one did, what a nowhere way to go: killed by accident; slain not as an individual but by sheer statistical probability, by the calculated chance of searching fire, even as he himself might be at any moment. Mathematics! Mathematics! Algebra! Geometry! When 1st and 3d Squads came diving and tumbling back over the tiny crest, Bell was content to throw himself prone, press his cheek to the earth, shut his eyes, and lie there. God, oh, God! Why am I here? Why am I here? After a moment's thought, he decided he better change it to: why are we here. That way, no agency of retribution could exact payment from him for being selfish. ↗

— James Jones

#bell #death #fear #geometry #machine-guns

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

I believe I may assert that they were really in possession of deep and growing happiness. It ended. Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering- and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not in the chief consideration in the other's thoughts. ↗

— Emily Brontë

#love #selfishness #love

California is a queer place in a way, it has turned its back on the world, and looks into the void Pacific. It is absolutely selfish, very empty, but not false, and at least, not full of false effort. ↗

— David Herbert Lawrence

#back #california #effort #empty #false

I want to know what it's like to play in a Super Bowl and win one. My career will be great without it. But, personally, selfishly, I want to know what it feels like. ↗

— Dan Marino

#career #feels #great #i #know

In almost every marriage there is a selfish and an unselfish partner. A pattern is set up and soon becomes inflexible, of one person always making the demands and one person always giving way. ↗

— Iris Murdoch

#always #becomes #demands #every #giving

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

Next to the young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#most #next #old #selfish #suppose

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S. ↗

— James K. Polk

#any #became #before #conception #congress