#selfishness

It often occurs that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal nor similar; in fact, they are polar opposites. A coward may be so cowardly that he masks his weakness with some false personification of power. He is afraid to love and to be loved because love tends to strip bare all emotional barricades. Without love, strength and independence are prone to losing every bit of their worth; they become nothing more than a fearful, intimidated, empty tent lost somewhere in the desert of self. ↗

— Criss Jami

#barricade #coward #cowardice #desert #ego

Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully. ↗

— Richard Bach

#encouragement #inspiration #life #morality #selfishness

Wars come from egotism and selfishness. Every macrocosmic or world war has its origin in microcosmic wars going on inside millions and millions of individuals. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#selfishness #war #life

The individualism of current economic theory is manifest in the purely self-interested behavior it generally assumes. It has no real place for fairness, malevolence, and benevolence, nor for the preservation of human life or any other moral concern. ↗

— Herman E. Daly

#morality #selfishness #life

Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#human-nature #selfishness #dreams

God comes right out and tells us why he gives us more money than we need. It's not so we can find more ways to spend it. It's not so we can indulge ourselves and spoil our children. It's not so we can insulate ourselves from needing God's provision. It's so we can give and give generously (2 Corinthians 8:14; 9:11) ↗

— Randy Alcorn

#excess #generosity #giving #less #money

A motto of many politicians, public servants and money bags: Ask not 'What can I do for you?' but 'What can I do you for? ↗

— H.M. Forester

#public-service #selfishness #money

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance. ↗

— Graham Greene

#egotism #either #else #evil #happy

It may be a cold, clammy thing to say, but those that treat friendship the same as any other selfishness seem to get the most out of it. ↗

— E. W. Howe

#cold #friendship #get #may #most

The natural state of motherhood is unselfishness. When you become a mother, you are no longer the center of your own universe. You relinquish that position to your children. ↗

— Jessica Lange

#become #center #children #longer #mother