Best Selfish Motives Quotes & Sayings

Meditation without selfless giving is not enough. You may go into very high states of consciousness but the rough edges will still be there - there may be lots of selfish motives lurking within the self - that you don't see. — Frederick Lenz

Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire ... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

Gods tend to be selfish. Even when they're helpful, they always have their own motives. That's why you have to be careful about trusting them. — Rick Riordan

If the world were full of the self-seeking individuals found in economics textbooks, it would grind to a halt because we would be spending most of our time cheating, trying to catch the cheaters, and punishing the caught. The world works as it does only because people are not the totally self seeking agents that free-market economics believes them to be. We need to design an economic system that, while acknowledging that people are often selfish, exploits other human motives to the full and gets the best out of people. The likelihood is that, if we assume the worst about people, we will get the worst out of them. — Ha-Joon Chang

On the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology. — Arthur Koestler

We will be judged according to the secret motives and the character of our work. If we have done our work for selfish motives or personal gain, even if the results looked noble to our friends and family, God knows our hearts. — Billy Graham

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa — Mother Teresa

Single mothers have as much to teach their children as married mothers and as much love to share
maybe more. Yet their motives are often labeled selfish and single-minded
never mind all the babies brought into the world to snag husbands, "save" faltering marriages or produce heirs. — Anne Cassidy

another day. I have purely selfish motives. I'm a — J.M. Darhower

A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate. — Zora Neale Hurston

Capitalism justified itself and was adopted as an economic principle on the express ground that it provides selfish motives for doing good, and that human beings will do nothing except for selfish motives — George Bernard Shaw

That brought the smile back to the old woman's face. "This one at least is honest," she announced, "but you, ser ... I have known a dozen Westerosi knights and a thousand adventurers of the same ilk, but none so pure as you would paint yourself. Men are beasts, selfish and brutal. However gentle the words, there are always darker motives underneath. I do not trust you, ser. — George R R Martin

Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them. — Robert Breault

You need to put aside your own selfish motives and consider other people for a change. — Joe Schreiber

I think the reason this was so important to Jesus was that He wanted people to know that God is relational - truly relational without any impure or selfish motives. He wanted His Father to be trusted, and therefore He needed men and women who represented this. The psychology of agendas is that they make relationships transactional, which means that people are used for a purpose. People become a means to someone else's end, and this erodes a person's belief that he or she is valued regardless of any production. — Hugh Halter

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. — Mother Teresa