Enlightened Self Interest Quotes & Sayings

The reason for forgiving your enemies is not for their benefit but for your own benefit. Holding grudges against other people doesn't hurt them; doesn't even bother them much - in fact, even pleases them if they are still mad at you. It is not in your enlightened self-interest to hold grudges, regardless of whether it bothers the person you hate or not. — Brad Blanton

This is how social change ultimately happens: enlightened values do not change behavior; the contours of self-interest are altered and new values rush into the vacuum. — William Powers

My commitment to the security and future of Israel is based upon basic morality as well as enlightened self-interest. Our role in supporting Israel honors our own heritage. — Gerald R. Ford

Our identities have no bodies, so, unlike you, we cannot obtain order by physical coercion. We believe that from ethics, enlightened self-interest, and the commonweal, our governance will emerge. — John Perry Barlow

A defense strategy favored by many "spiritual" people is an elaborate form of denial, an assertion that the individual has "gone beyond" the shadow qualities of sexuality, anger, passion, desire, and self-interest. Many religions cater exclusively to this strategy. Priests, ministers, gurus, and "enlightened masters" who adopt a posture of transcendent superiority have great appeal to people with similar defense systems, who are able to escape their personal confrontations by identifying as members of an elite, 'enlightened' group. — Starhawk

Inertia is the most powerful force in business. Things stay just as they are until something - brute force, reason, fear, enlightened self-interest, the survival instinct - effects movement. — Patrick G. Riley

I mean what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest, in any given circumstance. — Aldous Huxley

I embrace the concept of enlightened self-interest - that in doing something for others, people also reap profound benefits for themselves. It might involve a little bit of sacrifice and discipline, but, and this is so crucial to understand, that participation has given me back so, so much more than I have given it. — Simon McKeon

Under a socialist system every nation will be the supreme arbiter of its own destinies, national and international; will be forced into no alliance against its will, but will have its independence guaranteed and its freedom respected by the enlightened self-interest of the socialist democracy of the world. — James Connolly

Whether you believe it a moral imperative or in the rich world's enlightened self-interest, securing the conditions that will lead to a healthy, prosperous future for everyone is a goal I believe we all share. — Bill Gates

Since the gap between the rich countries and the poor can be removed, it will be. If we are shortsighted, inept, incapable either of good-will or enlightened self-interest, then it may be removed to the accompaniment of war and starvation: but removed it will be. The questions are, how, and by whom. — C.P. Snow

Because of anger-pride-deceit-greed, selfishness [self-interest] remains and consequently one has no awareness of who dies or who takes birth. It is simply a wrong belief that has arisen. But after a long time, as one progresses, if he meets a Gnani Purush [the enlightened one], he will acquire the awareness that birth and death is simply a phase. — Dada Bhagwan

Enlightened self-interest" was how Solo himself had described it. — Greg Rucka

Self-interest is hostile to the common good, but enlightened self-interest is not. And this is the best key to the meaning of enlightenment. — Allan Bloom

The tragedy and opportunity of this moment in history are exactly the same: the natural and technical resources needed to pull us back from the brink already exist. The issue is not a lack of resources. It is a lack of will and restraint, of attention to what's truly happening, and of enlightened self-interest[.] — Rick Hanson

I would define morality as enlightened self-interest ... That old Platonic ideal that there are certain pure moral forms just isn't where we are. — Andrew Young

Striving is fine, as long as it's tempered by the realization that, in an entropic universe, the final outcome is out of your control. If you don't waste your energy on variables you cannot influence, you can focus much more effectively on those you can. When you are wisely ambitious, you do everything you can to succeed, but you are not attached to the outcome - so that if you fail, you will be maximally resilient, able to get up, dust yourself off, and get back in the fray. That, to use a loaded term, is enlightened self-interest. — Dan Harris

Charm might be described as enlightened self-interest, a development of one's best self ... In the simplest possible terms, I think genuine charm is an unmotivated interest in others. — Arlene Francis

Liberals and conservatives tend to view the economy in purely materialistic terms. They make growth, security, and prosperity ends in themselves. They exalt enlightened self-interest. They tell us that productive work is the fundamental source of human dignity.

But for Christians, (Greg) Forster insists, the materialistic view is a lie. The modern economic man is prone to workaholism, Envy, greed, anxiety, and a host of other ills. The great task for Christians is to become, broadly speaking, innovative entrepreneurs: people who are not only more productive in their work then there would be leaving neighbors, but also more creative, generous, honest, and humane. — Greg Forster

We need to graduate from the ridiculous notion that greed is some kind of elixir for capitalism - it's the downfall of capitalism. Self-interest, maybe, but self-interest run amok does not serve anyone. The core value of conscious capitalism is enlightened self-interest. As Jim Cramer on CNBC says, "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered." — Patricia Aburdene

Never for a moment believe that the great body of the citizens of any State or States can deliberately intend to do wrong. They may, under the influence of temporary excitement or misguided opinions, commit mistakes; they may be misled for a time by the suggestions of self-interest; but in a community so enlightened and patriotic as the people of the United States argument will soon make them sensible of their errors, and when convinced they will be ready to repair them. — Andrew Jackson

How do we give credible hope to the billion poorest people in the world? It requires compassion to get ourselves started, and enlightened self-interest to get serious ... If economic divergence continues, combined with global integration, it will build a nightmare for our children. — Paul Collier

Ashoka supplemented this general moral and political principle by a dialectical argument based on enlightened self-interest: 'For he who does reverence to his own sect while disparaging the sects of others wholly from attachment to his own sect, in reality inflicts, by such conduct, the severest injury on his own sect. — Amartya Sen

The Enlightened one (Gnani Purush) never wastes his time in counting money; focus of the awareness of the self (upayog) is wasted in doing this. One's focused awareness (upayog) is where he has 'interest'! — Dada Bhagwan

Monstrous wars that had killed tens of thousands of innocent people weren't enough to inspire enlightened self-interest. Tiny loans, on the other hand, were. Money has no religion. — Bob Harris

A pagan, a person of profound corruption, may do acts externally conforming to the demands of the law. The internal motivation, however, is that of selfish interest or what the theologians call "enlightened self-interest," a motive that is not in harmony with the Great Commandment. Our external deeds may measure up to the external demands of the law, while at the same time our hearts are far removed from God. — R.C. Sproul

Many felt a profound malaise at the idea that the sources of benevolence should be just enlightened self-interest, or simply feelings of sympathy. This seemed to neglect altogether the human power of self-transcendence, the capacity to go beyond self-related desire altogether
and follow a higher aspiration. This — Charles Taylor

We hope the world will act in the spirit of enlightened self-interest. — Atal Bihari Vajpayee

Self-interest, be it enlightened, works indirectly for the public good. — William H. Prescott

The new world economic order is not an exercise in philanthropy, but in enlightened self-interest for everyone concerned. — Carlos Fuentes

The essence of spirituality does not consist in a specialised or narrow interest in some imagined part of life, but in a certain enlightened attitude to all the various situations which obtain in life. It covers and includes the whole of life. All the material things of this world can be made subservient to the divine game, and when they are thus subordained they become auxiliary to the self-affirmation of the spirit. — Meher Baba

A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function? — Barbara W. Tuchman

Enlightened self-interest from those involved in hydrocarbons should lead to the support of technologies enabling the clean use of hydrocarbons, such as carbon capture and storage, and not to the defence of deniers and cranks. — Nicholas Stern

There is no "good," just passages and pathways to greater depths of pain brought to bear as markets diversify and specialise. In thinking he is winning - be it through miraculous medical advancements, enlightened self-interest which fosters a degree of social stability, or a planet wide agricultural revolution - man is in fact throwing himself into heightened states of artfully dressed turmoil: mayhem which could only thrill a Creator disposed to being thrilled at such sweet turbulences. — John Zande