Quotes & Sayings About Altruistic

If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! — Robert A. Heinlein

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. — Gretchen Rubin

Post-adolescent Expert Syndrome
The tendency of young people around the age of eighteen, males especially, to become altruistic experts on everything, a state of mind required by nature to ensure warriors who are willing to die with pleasure on the battlefield. Also the reason why religions recruit kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers almost exclusively from the 18-21 range. Kyle, I never would have guessed that when you were up in your bedroom playing World of Warcraft all through your teens, you were, in fact, becoming an expert on the films of Jean-Luc Godard. — Douglas Coupland

The intelligent altruists, though less altruistic than unintelligent altruists, will be fitter than both unintelligent altruists and selfish individuals. — Herbert Simon

We benefit from doing nothing, from going out to play, from giving from the heart and spending time in nature. Most of all we benefit from having healthy, strong, and loving relationships with other people and from exercising the altruistic parts of ourselves. — Jo Ann Davis

Politics is brutal because it engages the most fundamental human impulses for affection, honor, power, and fame. Great principles and grand visions are ennobling, but at its best politics is an imperfect means to an altruistic end. — Jon Meacham

If you're lucky enough to live without want, it's a natural impulse to be altruistic to others. — Moutasem Algharati

Power distance: the degree to which members of a society expect power to be unequally shared. Uncertainty avoidance: a society's reliance on social norms and procedures to alleviate the unpredictability of future events. Assertiveness: the extent to which a society encourages people to be tough, confrontational, assertive, and competitive rather than modest and tender. Humane orientation: the degree to which a society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair, altruistic, generous, caring, and kind to others. Future orientation: the extent to which a society encourages and rewards future-oriented behaviors such as planning, investing in the future, and delaying gratification. national culture The values and attitudes shared — Stephen P. Robbins

It is certain that there can be no work in political economy on any other than an altruistic basis... If our work is to retain any meaning it can only be informed by this: concern for the future, for those who will come after us. — Max Weber

We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest. — Roger Wicker

This was the unbounded power of eloquence - of words - of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: Exterminate all the brutes! — Joseph Conrad

The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it. — Jo Brand

Dudjom Rinpoche has said, "The point of patience is to train so that our altruistic attitude is immovable and irrepressible in the face of those who hurt us with their ingratitude and so forth. — Lodro Rinzler

Genes are selfish,3 selfish genes create people with various mental modules, and some of these mental modules make us strategically altruistic, not reliably or universally altruistic. — Jonathan Haidt

I wasn't exactly sure that getting someone a job as a porn star was completely altruistic. But maybe I was being judgemental. — Marshall Thornton

I confess that altruistic and cynically selfish talk seem to me about equally unreal. With all humility, I think whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, infinitely more important than the vain attempt to love one's neighbor as one's self. If you want to hit a bird on the wing you must have all your will in focus, you must not be thinking about yourself, and equally, you must not be thinking about your neighbor; you must be living with your eye on that bird. Every achievement is a bird on the wing. — Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Great compassion is the root of altruistic action, the object of amazement to the world;there is no greater source of help and happiness. — Dalai Lama XIV

Selfish genes actually explain altruistic individuals, and to me that's crystal-clear. — Richard Dawkins

Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap. — James Hansen

Tiko has taught me, a sometimes headstrong and often ferociously independent woman, the importance of interdependence, the importance of taking care, and the importance of being cared for. It's a necessary part of being human and being connected to the world around us that we realize and acknowledge our vulnerability and the vulnerability of all creatures, and that we act in accord with that knowledge. It is critical that we allow the empathetic and altruistic part of ourselves to be the guiding force behind the way that we conduct our lives, whether we give to those less fortunate than ourselves, take care of the magnificent creatures that share our world, work tirelessly to preserve native habitat or separate each strand of an unruly mass of hair so gently that we do not wake our loved one as she sleeps. — Joanna Burger

There is nothing selfish about enjoying yourself. In fact, as wise people have long said and psychologists have since discovered, happiness makes people less self-focused and more altruistic. — Roger N. Walsh

In a family or other small group, altruism prevails, but the farther away a person gets from an individual, the less altruistic he or she behaves toward them. — Mary Pilon

Probably the reason Andrew was with her in the first place is that Andrew is a giver. Givers are sneaky. If you don't present them with gaping holes, they will create them just to have something to do. Here's the twist: although the givers get quite a bit of cred for how caring and generous they are, their motives are far from altruistic. The whole time they are giving and giving, you can be sure that they're secretly keeping an account book of services rendered and waiting for just the right moment to hand you the bill. — Meg Howrey

Maybe a life of devotion doesn't need to be robes and chanting; maybe it's just going through life with open eyes and an open mind, looking out for chances to help people and buzz on the altruistic zip it gives, like coins in Mario Land. — Russell Brand

Sometimes Harry thought the deepest split in his personality wasn't anything to do with his dark side; rather it was the divide between the altruistic and forgiving Abstract Reasoning Harry, versus the frustrated and angry Harry In The Moment. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

Voluntary simplicity is at once joyous and altruistic. Joyous because it is not permanently plagued by the hunger for "more"; altruistic because it does not encourage the disproportionate concentration of resources in the hands of a few, resources which - were they to be spread evenly - would significantly improve the lives of those deprived of basic needs. — Matthieu Ricard

Are people innately altruistic?" is the wrong kind of question to ask. People are people, and they respond to incentives. They can nearly always be manipulated--for good or ill--if only you find the right levers. — Steven D. Levitt

We've surpassed ourselves now, we're exploring terrain beyond the limits of merely human understanding. Sometimes its contours, even in conventional space, are just too intricate for our brains to track; other times its very axes extend into dimensions inconceivable to minds built to fuck and fight on some prehistoric grassland. So many things constrain us, from so many directions. The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain-stem imperative of self-interest. Subtle and elegant equations predict the behavior of the quantum world, but none can explain it. After four thousand years we can't even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer. We have such need of intellects greater than our own. But we're not very good at building them. — Peter Watts

No," Natan said. "That would be altruistic. There is no such thing, not even for Mother Teresa." He jabbed his finer at her again, careful to keep it from touching her. "A feeling of goodness, scoring bonus with God, whatever the reason, even the saintly get something for the sacrifice, and you are no saint. You are not doing this out of goodness. You have a motive and it's not noble. — Taylor Stevens

However, while it may be true that the open-air stalls did help get the economy going again to some degree and feed some of the hungry masses (government rationing being so inadequate that a Tokyo District Court judge who refused to eat anything purchased illegally died of malnutrition), the men who ran them were anything but altruistic. — Robert Whiting

Control Master Theory proposes that most psychological problems are the result of our altruistic impulses run amok. — Lewis Engel

We fail to reckon with the reality of human nature. By nature,we are egocentric. Our world revolves around us. None of us is totally altruistic. — Gary Chapman

Why? But I want to know just why it's impossible for an American to be gracefully idle" - his words gathered conviction - "it astonishes me. It - it - I don't understand why people think that every young man ought to go down-town and work ten hours a day for the best twenty years of his life at dull, unimaginative work, certainly not altruistic work. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Nevertheless, an iron rule exists in genetic social evolution. It is that selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, while groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. The victory can never be complete; the balance of selection pressures cannot move to either extreme. If individual selection were to dominate, societies would dissolve. If group selection were to dominate, human groups would come to resemble ant colonies. — Edward O. Wilson

Unlike men in the same position, women leaders have to continue to walk the fine line between appearing incompetent and nice and competent but cold. Experimental studies find that, unlike men, when they try to negotiate greater compensation they are disliked. When they try out intimidation tactics they are disliked. When they succeed in a male occupation they are disliked. When they fail to perform the altruistic acts that are optional for men, they are disliked. When they do go beyond the call of duty they are not, as men are, liked more for it. When they criticize, they are disparaged . Even when they merely offer an opinion, people look displeased. The perceptive reader will notice a certain pattern emerging. The same behavior that enhances his status simply makes her less popular. It's not hard to see that this makes the goal of getting ahead in the workplace distinctly more challenging for a woman. — Cordelia Fine

In this world, all qualities spring from preferring the wellbeing of others to our own, whereas frustrations, confusion, and pain result from selfish attitudes. By adopting an altruistic outlook and by treating others in the way they deserve, our own happiness is assured as a byproduct. We should realize that self-centeredness is the source of all suffering, and that thinking of others is the source of all happiness. — Dalai Lama XIV

I should also give some space to Amotz Zahavi's idea that altruistic donation might be a 'Potlatch' style of dominance signal: see how superior to you I am, I can afford to make a donation to you! — Richard Dawkins

Los Angeles was the most glamorous, tackiest, most elegant, seediest, most clever, dumbest, most beautiful, ugliest, forward-looking, retro-thinking, altruistic, self-absorbed, deal-savvy, politically ignorant, artistic-minded, criminal-loving, meaning-obsessed, money-grubbing, laid-back, frantic city on the planet. And any two slices of it, as different as Bel Air and Watts, were nevertheless uncannily alike in essence: rich with the same crazy hungers, hopes, and despairs. — Dean Koontz

Even in what seem like "unquantifiable" areas like political change and disaster prevention, we can still think rigorously, in an evidence-based manner, about how good those activities are. We just need to assess the chances of success and how good success would be if it happened. This, of course, is very difficult to do, but we will make better decisions if we at least try to make these assessments rather than simply throwing up our hands and randomly choosing an activity to pursue, or worse, not choosing any altruistic activity at all. — William MacAskill

Humans can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet they're potentially more vicious than any other. They are the only ones who can be persuaded to hate millions of their own kind whom they have never seen and to kill as many as they can lay their hands on in the name of their tribe or their God. — Benjamin Spock

The competition between the two forces can be succinctly expressed as follows: Within groups selfish individuals beat altruistic individuals, but groups of altruists beat groups of selfish individuals. Or, risking oversimplification, individual selection promoted sin, while group selection promoted virtue. — Edward O. Wilson

It was strange the paths the human heart chose to take and the attachments it made along the way. The surest sign of the altruistic nature of the organ is its ability to ignore race, color, creed, and gender and just blindly love with all its might - one of the most irrefutable forces on earth. They — Craig Johnson

But there is something delusional nonetheless in his optimistic certainty that human beings will wish to choose altruistic values without invoking transcendent principles. They may do so; but they may also wish to build death camps, and may very well choose to do that instead. For — David Bentley Hart

Free markets and capitalism are predicated upon the definition of greed as altruistic in economics".

~R. Alan Woods [2012] — R. Alan Woods

These illustrations suggest four general maxims[ ... ].
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.
The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits.
The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.
And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you. — Bertrand Russell

The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic. — Adam McKay

We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others. — Mortimer Adler

If you are not selfish you will not be altruistic, remember. — Osho

Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics. This is why, when pressed, the atheist will often attempt to hide his lack of conviction in his own beliefs behind some poorly formulated utilitarianism, or argue that he acts out of altruistic self-interest. But this is only post-facto rationalization, not reason or rational behavior. — Theodore Beale

'The Portrait of Dorian Grey' beautifully articulates how the altruistic part of ourselves clashes with our essentially narcissistic state. — Walton Goggins

Most political leaders acquire their position by causing large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are actuated by altruistic desires — Bertrand Russell

A wider of more altruistic attitude is very relevant in today's world. If we look at the situation from various angles, such as the complexity and inter-connectedness of the nature of modern existence, then we will gradually notice a change in our outlook, so that when we say 'others' and when we think of others, we will no longer dismiss them as something that is irrelevant to us. We will no longer feel indifferent. — Dalai Lama

Zarathustra, the first to recognize that the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist though perhaps more detrimental says: "Good men never speak the truth. The Good preach of false shores and false security. You were born and bred in the lies of the good. Through the good everything has become false and twisted down to the very roots". Fortunately the world is not built solely to serve good natured herd animals their little happiness ; to desire everybody to become a "good man", "a herd animal", blue-eyed, benevolent, "a beautiful soul" - or, as Herbert Spencer wished - altruistic, would mean robbing existence of its great character, to castrate mankind and reduce humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom. And this some have tried to do! It is precisely this that men have called morality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Moreover, it is difficult to reconcile Hobbes's distrust for the individual with his confidence in the altruistic nature of the individual or individuals who will oversee and control the Leviathan. Are not the latter also of flesh and blood? Hobbes seems to be saying that man's nature cannot be trusted but the nature of a ruler or a ruling assembly of men can be trusted. How so? — Mark R. Levin

I can think of no other edifice constructed by man as altruistic as a lighthouse. They were built only to serve. — George Bernard Shaw

The great majority of people are calm, resourceful, altruistic or even beyond altruistic, as they risk themselves for others. We improvise the conditions of survival beautifully. — Rebecca Solnit

When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children - just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him. — Charles Duhigg

This points to a nagging and important question about free-market ideologues: Are they 'true believers', driven by ideology and faith that free markets will cure underdevelopment, as is often asserted, or do the ideas and theories frequently serve as an elaborate rationale to allow people to act on unfettered greed while still invoking an altruistic motive? — Naomi Klein

On the surface one might think that if one simply concerns oneself with altruistic intent and future lifetimes, the practical aspects of this life will not be accomplished, and one will be a failure. This simply isn't true. On the contrary, when one really does renounce or let go of this lifetime everything is taken care of by force of the deeper motivation. — Gen Lamrimpa

It's not that bad things never happen. But there's a pattern in which most people are calm, resourceful, altruistic, and they improvise emergency systems that work really well - whether it's getting the babies out of a collapsed hospital or putting together a community kitchen to feed everybody for the next few months. — Rebecca Solnit

Suppose, in their altruistic passion for justice and order, they had determined to reform the world, but had not realized that they were destroying the soul of man? — Arthur C. Clarke

You have a filter, a characteristic way of responding to the world around you. We all do. Your filter tells you which stimuli to notice and which to ignore; which to love and which to hate. It creates your innate motivations - are you competitive, altruistic, or ego driven? It defines how you think - are you disciplined or laissez-faire, practical or strategic? It forges your prevailing attitudes - are you optimistic or cynical, calm or anxious, empathetic or cold? It creates in you all of your distinct patterns of thought, feeling, and behavior. In effect, your filter is the source of your talents. — Marcus Buckingham

He himself didn't see it as exceptionally altruistic, because he had understood one can't be truly happy in isolation or, worse, among unhappy people. The best protection against danger, unhappiness and the sordidness of human existence is to be surrounded by people who love you. — Andrew Ashling

I have also come to understand that although some people are naturally happier than others, their happiness is still vulnerable and incomplete, and that achieving durable happiness as a way of being is a skill. It requires sustained effort in training the mind and developing a set of human qualities, such as inner peace, mindfulness, and altruistic love. — Matthieu Ricard

The blessings of stupas are such that they benefit all beings, regardless of their connection and motivation. If one participates in a stupa's construction and ritual activities, or honors the completed stupa with an altruistic resolve to benefit all beings, then the blessings are such that the Buddha himself could not describe them. — Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

The United States doesn't do what it does in the world for altruistic reasons. Nobody set out to be the world's government. — Michael Mandelbaum

Purely altruistic behavior is pretty much impossible because of the selfish pleasures we derive from it. — Nicholas Kristof

If the Olympic Games ever served a true altruistic purpose, they have long since outlived it. Yeah, the pursuit of athletic excellence, sportsmanship and international goodwill is plenty noble. But the modern Olympics are at best a vehicle for agitprop; at worst, a scandal magnet. — John Ridley

When we are bad, we are worse than any primate that I know. And when we are good, we are actually better and more altruistic than any primate that I know. — Frans De Waal

Julia Bliss Flaherty, as Ivy now realized, was of the same stripe. Pinned down and obliged to justify herself, she would explain her actions in terms of some altruistic plan. And she might even believe it. But it wasn't that at all. She was like Ivy's grandmother. If you paid fealty to her, she would favor you, and your reputation and power would grow among all the others who did likewise. — Neal Stephenson

I had hoped to hear everyone discussing how much they missed my altruistic qualities, my legendary skills as a fighter and as a lover." He leered. "Instead, you're making plans for tomorrow. Interesting how life goes on in spite of itself. — Maria V. Snyder

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives - altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. — Richard J. Foster

While I have very little to say in favor of sex (it's vastly overrated, it's frequently unnecessary, and it's messy), it is greatly to be preferred to the interminable torments of romantic agony through which two people tear one another limb from limb while professing altruistic devotion. — Quentin Crisp

Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism. — Ayn Rand

We are animals, yet are expected to be so much more. Although honor requires us to make altruistic decisions, even acting for the benefit of other people keeps coming back to self-interest, no matter how much one attempts to conceal it. — Brian Herbert

The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it. — Max Beerbohm

Of course the Curies died. They identified ionizing radiation while bathing in it. There were risks involved in being your own guinea pig. But there was a long tradition of scientists doing just that: of paying for the expansion of human knowledge with their lives. I didn't deserve to be categorized with them, because honestly, I wasn't interested in the greater good. I just wanted to make myself better legs. I didn't mind other people benefiting in some long-term indirect way but it wasn't what motivated me. I felt guilty about this for a while. Every time a lab assistant looked at me with starstruck eyes, I felt I should confess: Look, I'm not being heroic. I'm just interested in seeing what I can do. Then it occured to me that maybe they all felt this way. All these great scientists who risked their themselves to bring light to darkness, maybe they weren't especially altruistic either. Maybe they were like me, seeing what they could do. — Max Barry

If I can change the world at least 1% to peace, truth and altruistic lovingkindness through my writing, my life will not have been meaningless and lost to the nothingness of time. — Mark F. Kalita

The child's personality is a product of slow gradual growth. His nervous system matures by stages and natural sequences. He sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks; he fabricates before he tells the truth; he draws a circle before he draws a square; he is selfish before he is altruistic; he is dependent on others before he achieves dependence on self. All of his abilities, including his morals, are subject to laws of growth. The task of child care is not to force him into a predetermined pattern but to guide his growth. — Arnold Gesell

If any feel that as psychiatrists directing a hospital for alcoholics we appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us a while on the firing line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their sleeping moments, and the most cynical will not wonder that we have accepted and encouraged this movement. We feel, after years of experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up among them. — William Duncan Silkworth

One of the things I realized ... is how few success stories there are in websites or products or businesses that exist primarily for an altruistic purpose. — Andrew Mason

It seems counterintuitive, but the more altruistic your attitude, the more benefits you will gain from the relationship," writes LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman. "If you set out to help others," he explains, "you will rapidly reinforce your own reputation and expand your universe of possibilities. — Adam M. Grant

The event of falling in love is of such a nature that we are right to reject as intolerable the idea that it should be transitory. In one high bound it has overleaped the massive of our selfhood; it has made appetite itself altruistic, tossed personal happiness aside as a triviality and planted the interests of another in the centre of our being. Spontaneously and without effort we have fulfilled the law (towards one person) by loving our neighbour as ourselves. It is an image, a foretaste, of what we must become to all if Love Himself rules in us without a rival. It is even (well used) a preparation for that. — C.S. Lewis

Pathological dualism does three things. It makes you dehumanise and demonise your enemies. It leads you to see yourself as a victim. And it allows you to commit altruistic evil, killing in the name of the God of life, hating in the name of the God of love and practising cruelty in the name of the God of compassion. — Jonathan Sacks

People who give money in large amount in politics are basically not altruistic.They have some issue. They have some interest.It may be preserving carried interest. But it's not altruistic. — David Brooks

The Jews emerge into history, not a nation of keen spiritual aspirations and altruistic ethics, but that pagan people, worshipping rocks, sheep and cattle, and spirits of caves and wells, of whom the Old Testament, tending towards its higher ideal, gives fragmentary but convincing evidence. — James T. Shotwell

Anger, resentment, lust for revenge, even success through aggressive competitiveness, are corrosive of this good. To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. It gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them. When uhuru, or freedom and independence, — Desmond Tutu

Evolutionary psychology tells us that men, especially powerful men, feel invincible and entitled to spread their seed, and that women can't resist the scent of masculine power. Women, by contrast, are said to be more altruistic and collaborative, seeking power so that they can share it with others. — Hanna Rosin

Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice. — Edward W. Said

The modern world needs people with a complex identity who are intellectually autonomous and prepared to cope with uncertainty; who are able to tolerate ambiguity and not be driven by fear into a rigid, single-solution approach to problems, who are rational, foresightful and who look for facts; who can draw inferences and can control their behavior in the light of foreseen consequences, who are altruistic and enjoy doing for others, and who understand social forces and trends. — Robert J. Havighurst

Elephants have the largest brains of any mammal on the face of the Earth. They are creative, altruistic and kind. — Ingrid Newkirk

Standing there, peering around his room, Pete realized something that should have dawned on him years ago: Science really did suck. (Russell was right.) There just wasn't any point to it. Sure, in its most altruistic distillation, science saved lives - but when had it ever made those lives worth living? The cold machine called science's sole purpose, and Pete knew it now, was to drain the wonder out of things, to sap the imagination of its juices, to rob possibilities from dreamers. Science explained without ever getting to the crux of the matter, locking us all into a single paradigm of thought: that all we are is randomly accumulated stardust hanging out on a larger clump of randomly accumulated stardust that is spiraling out and away from other chunks of randomly accumulated stardust, on a collision course with an empty infinity. — Jay Nichols

There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth. — Jodi Picoult

The West is anything but altruistic. — Paul Kagame

While profit remains the final goal, entrepreneurs spend the better part of each day figuring out how better to serve the needs of their actual and potential customers. They are operationally, if not intentionally, altruistic. — Dinesh D'Souza

This is a crucial point, because it alerts us to the fact that, no matter how high-minded, idealistic, or altruistic a cause might appear - from ecology to cultural diversity to spirituality to world peace - the simple mouthing of intense support for that cause is not enough to determine why, in fact, that cause is being embraced. — Ken Wilber

My chief aim was to combat the view that there can be no true morality without supernatural sanctions. So I argued at length that the social, or altruistic, impulses are the real source of morality, and that an ethic based on these impulses has far more claim on our allegiance than an ethic based on obedience to the commands of a God who created tapeworms and cancer-cells. — Margaret E. Knight

Be different, be altruistic. Be strange, work for others in response to their harm. Raise eyebrows, be generous without agenda. — Tsem Tulku

Happiness arises as a result of different causes and conditions. If you harm someone out of anger, you may feel some superficial satisfaction, but deep down you know it was wrong. Your confidence will be undermined. However, if you have an altruistic attitude, you'll feel comfortable and confident in the presence of others. — Dalai Lama XIV

Control Master Theory suggests that our psychological problems come about in much the same way: our decision to make ourselves unhappy because one or both of our parents were unhappy is just as altruistic as our friend's decision to run through flames to save his daughter. — Lewis Engel