#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

Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects. ↗

— William Wilberforce

#sin #nature

Up to the present man has hardly cultivated sympathy at all. He has merely sympathy with pain, and sympathy with pain is not the highest form of sympathy. All sympathy is fine, but sympathy with suffering is the least fine mode. It is tainted with egotism. It is apt to become morbid. There is in it a certain element of terror for our own safety. We become afraid that we ourselves might be as the leper or as the blind, and that no man would have care of us. It is curiously limiting, too. One should sympathise with the entirety of life, not with life's sores and maladies merely, but with life's joy and beauty and energy and health and freedom. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#sympathy #beauty

Don’t try to hog loneliness and keep it all to yourself. Share it with a special someone.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#alone #bizarre #funny #hog #humor

People like us, we think differently, don't we? We are different. We do all the things that others do. But when it comes down to it, we don't need anyone else. We're happy doing what we do and having obligation interferes with that. And sometimes I think we don't even need ourselves. What's most important is to find out whether we're right or not. ↗

— Simon Morden

#obligation #reflection #righteousness #self-discovery #self-esteem

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

— Richard Bach

#encouragement #inspiration #life #morality #selfishness

It all depends on what people you're talking about helping. That's the wonderful think about just about every religion on the planet - they're all so incredibly selfish. ↗

— Derek Landy

#cynicism #helping-others #perspective #religion #selfishness

Bravery is not an act of intelligence; it is just selfishness and stupidity. ↗

— M.F. Moonzajer

#intelligence #selfishness #stupidity #intelligence

[G]iving yourself some loving attention is not selfish. It is sensible. If you feel loved and cherished--even if it is only by yourself--then you will have more love to give to others, too. (83) ↗

— Penelope Quest

#giving #love #self-loving #selfishness #life