#selfishness

...alone in this city, alone on this sea. The days were strewn about him, he was a drunkard of days. He had achieved nothing. He had his life--it was not worth much--not like a life that, though ended, had truly been something. If I had had courage,he thought, if I had had faith. We preserve ourselves as if that were important, and always at the expense of others. We hoard ourselves. We succeed if they fail, we are wise if they are foolish, and we go onward, clutching, until there is no one--we are left with no companion save God. In whom we do not believe. Who we know does not exist. ↗

— James Salter

#faith #loneliness #regret #selfishness #age

Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see. ↗

— Al-Ghazali

#arrogance #cheating #conceit #egoism #gossiping

Let us admit, without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct interests and can, without felony, stipulate for those interests and defend them. The present has its pardonable amount of egotism; momentary life has its claims, and cannot be expected to sacrifice itself incessantly to the future. The generation which is in its turn passing over the earth is not forced to abridge its life for the sake of the generations, its equals after all, whose turn shall come later on. ↗

— Victor Hugo

#sacrifice #selfishness #equality

When you're here, I'm there for you. And when you're there, I'm here for you.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#direction #here #humor #love #noncommittal

We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. ↗

— Booker T. Washington

#ignorance #narrowness #selfishness #life

Why are...poor people more ready to share their goods than rich people? The answer is easy: The poor have little to lose; the rich have more to lose and they are more attached to their possessions. Poverty provides a deeper motivation for understanding your neighbors, welcoming others and attending to those who are suffering. I would go so far as to say that poverty helps you understand what happiness is, what serenity is in life. ↗

— Piero Gheddo

#attention #christianity #compassion #empathy #giving

You have a good heart and you think the good thing is to be guilty and kind but it's not always kind to be gentle and soft, there's a genuine violence softness and kindness visit on people. Sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be. ↗

— Tony Kushner

#selfishness #violence

One of the greatest evils is the foolishness of a good man. For the giving man to withhold helping someone in order to first assure personal fortification is not selfish, but to elude needless self-destruction; martyrdom is only practical when the thought is to die, else a good man faces the consequence of digging a hole from which he cannot escape, and truly helps no one in the long run. ↗

— Mike Norton

#die #dig #digging #escape #evil

When we don’t put the brakes on our self-absorption, we have nothing stopping us from total self-destruction. We become the fruits of our actions. ↗

— Zeena Schreck

#egocentricity #hubris #karma #karmic-effects #self-absorption

You don't make me feel like you used to. That's why I'm leaving That's why people leave each other They come to their senses and get selfish again. ↗

— Henry Rollins

#selfishness