Life Altruism Quotes & Sayings

It is not something we often find out; but most of the specially-gifted have a deep desire to be ordinary. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Love and hate when stretched to their extremes blind reasoning. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

In dealing with others, man is inherently a slave to his preconceptions, to the stereotypes he became familiar with that made life easier for him to comprehend. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Service is the rent we pay for the life we have been given. — Marian Wright Edelman

The narrow-minded find it convenient to create stereotypes, and then try to fit everybody, everything and every situation into those stereotypes. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Help someone, you earn a friend. Help someone too much, you make an enemy. — Erol Ozan

Of all the nonsense that twists the world, the concept of 'altruism' is the worst. People do what they want to do, every time. If it sometimes pains them to make a choice - if the choice turns out to look like a 'noble sacrifice' - you can be sure that it is in no wise nobler than the discomfort caused by greediness ... the unpleasant necessity of having to decide between two things both of which you would like to do when you can't do both. The ordinary bloke suffers that discomfort every day, every time he makes a choice between spending a buck on beer or tucking it away for his kids, between getting up when he's tired or spending the day in his warm bed and losing his job. No matter which he does he always chooses what seems to hurt least or pleasures most. The average chump spends his life harried by these small decisions. — Robert A. Heinlein

Sometimes, our pride compels us to engage in costly wars when a true commitment to a compromising peace would have been the best course to pursue. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

...True classical dropouts in society are those who avoid difficult challenges and cling to the first opportunity that comes their way. They never test their talents. These latent talents will only help to produce the next cycle of dropouts... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Main thought! The individual himself is a fallacy. Everything which happens in us is in itself something else which we do not know. 'The individual' is merely a sum of conscious feelings and judgments and misconceptions, a belief, a piece of the true life system or many pieces thought together and spun together, a 'unity', that doesn't hold together. We are buds on a single tree - what do we know about what can become of us from the interests of the tree! But we have a consciousness as though we would and should be everything, a phantasy of 'I' and all 'not I.' Stop feeling oneself as this phantastic ego! Learn gradually to discard the supposed individual! Discover the fallacies of the ego! Recognize egoism as fallacy! The opposite is not to be understood as altruism! This would be love of other supposed individuals! No! Get beyond 'myself' and 'yourself'! Experience cosmically! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Altruism is written in everlasting and resplendent character on the Cross of Christ, and it was at Calvary that the centre of life was shifted from selfishness to sacrifice. — Jon Weber

We have power as consumers. We can exercise that power all the time by not choosing to invest time, energy or funds to support the production of mass media images that do not reflect life-enhancing values, that undermine a love ethic. — Bell Hooks

Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go round. Without its driving power, nothing worth doing has ever been done. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to career or hobby-all these, and most of the other good things of life, are forms of enthusiasm. — Robert Haven Schauffler

What is the purpose of achieving your dream if the people you had dreamed your achievements for are no longer there to reap the benefits? — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

When somebody you love dies, a phase of life's innocence dies with that person, and a part of you dies as well. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Life is a mighty joke that is not meant to be funny. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The selfish and self-centered have a hard time being kind, even though you and I know that kindness is a source of relief to the soul. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Some people live their memorable years fighting against their basic instincts only to succumb in the end to what was actually good for them. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Do you know that my personal crusade in life (in the philosophical sense) is not merely to fight collectivism, nor to fight altruism? These are only consequences, effects, not causes. I am out after the real cause, the real root of evil on earth the irrational. — Ayn Rand

Though I adore the idea of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Sandman, the Tooth Fairy, and such luminary characters - especially their altruism and devotion - I still don't believe in them. For I know the truth. Only one such miracle worker exists who performs magic in my life, seeing to my wants and needs without fail. That queen is my mother. With unwavering faith I believe in her. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I am deeply in love with the world and its contents. My heartaches when I see any suffering so kindness and altruism is my ultimate way of life. — Debasish Mridha

True heroes and ideas never fall in the final sense of the word. They can only encounter temporary setbacks in their difficult journey to progress and success, — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

One who really prays that this kingdom will come ... [will make the effort to] keep himself in harmony with the order of the kingdom, to subject the flesh to the spirit, selfishness to altruism, and to learn to love the things that God loves. To make the will of God supreme on earth as it is in heaven is to be allied with God in the affairs of life. — James E. Talmage

Altruism eventuates in all realities, else self-destruction consumes it. — Guy Lozier

Hold onto your creativity, that idealism that is rooted in some degree of innocence and a firm belief in something finer than the things we already have. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We still need to give our best to life even if we do not understand the purpose of our existence on earth. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We, humans, have come up with so many superficialities that are completely unnecessary for our existence and happiness on earth. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results. — Herman Melville

There are two irreconcilable ideas of God. There's the Unknowable Creative Principle---one believes in That. And there's the Sum of altruism in man---naturally one believes in That...The sublime poem of the Christ life was man's attempt to join those two irreconcilable conceptions of God. And since the Sum of human altruism was as much a part of the Unknowable Creative Principle as anything else in Nature and the Universe, a worse link might have been chosen after all! Funny---how one went through life without seeing it in that sort of way! — John Galsworthy

When faced with difficulties, a humble, understanding, appreciative and selfless person finds it easy to win a friend. On the other hand, a temperamental, egoistic, condensing, self-absorbed, self-conceited and narrow-minded person who lacks the basic sense of humility easily loses friends when in distress. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Avoid people who hurt from an impulse. I mean people who have this tendency to relish their capacity to hurt the good souls of this world, and who after hurting, wake up the next day without a trace of despondent brooding, and then move on with life never thinking that they should show some remorse or try to repent. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Huh! Mankind always comes up with ideas to make up for the follies of the status quo. But what happens if those ideas are inflexible and fail to respond to the changing times. They end up betraying the people who believed in them. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

At what point is normal natural? — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy. — Kahlil Gibran

Writers are the most pathetic souls when it comes to expressing their personal feelings. Their personalities are as complex as the characters they have weaved. And in a curious way, without them really knowing it, writers are the sum total of the characters they created in their heads or in their writings. Yes, My Dear Tania; writers are capable of reflecting their characters, even though most of them are determined to be just like your ordinary guy next door. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

... People who are the spices of this world are the natural souls with instincts and impulses that have not been pruned by evolution and civilization. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Altruism does not mean mere kindness or generosity, but the sacrifice of the best among men to the worst, the sacrifice of virtues to flaws, of ability to incompetence, of progress to stagnation-and the subordinating of all life and of all values to the claims of anyone's suffering. — Ayn Rand

The true leaders of our time, the legends of this world or the movers of the movers are the towering figures that are blessed with beautiful minds, receptive ears and directing voices. They are the ones we should emulate in life. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

...the act of kindness is an unselfish act, it is medicine for your soul... — Travis Culliton

We do things in life to make others happy. We make sacrifices because that feeling - the one I once thought was altruism, but have since learned is just love - it makes us feel good. We give, but it's never selfless. — Ginger Scott

The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest. — Peter Watts

Only a fool would find happiness from an achievement that is detrimental to those he loves. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Remember these, Sons! Truth presented with tenderness enriches the soul of man and enhances humanity in the process. A Franco-Cameroonian relation based on truth and nurtured with tenderness will be to the benefit not only of Kamerun and France, but also of mankind as a whole. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We need the wisdom to accept the fact that this world abounds with issues we cannot solve; and we need to part ways with those people, ideas and things that are a vexation to the soul. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A nationalist will blindly follow his country to his death out of love for it. A patriot will stand up for and even against his country to his death out of love for it. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

...A canonical leader is someone whose exemplary rule might have appeared to be for the alleviation of the pains and miseries of a particular group, but which in reality is for the advancement of humanism... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A yesterday missed can never be found even in a fine tomorrow. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

If a man speculates on what 'society' should do for the poor, he accepts thereby the collectivist premise that men's lives belong to society and that he, as a member of society, has the right to dispose of them ... that psychological confession reveals the enormity of the extent to which altruism erodes men's capacity to grasp the concept of rights or the value of an individual life. — Ayn Rand

I think preconceived ideas or prejudgments are meant to give us an edge whenever we are dealing with others we don't know or haven't made the effort to understand. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Perhaps fate has a way of turning things around and making something good out of the action of someone who failed humanity without meaning to. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A thousand years from now nobody is
going to know that you or I ever lived. The cynic is
right, but lazy. He says 'You live, you die and nothing you do will ever make a difference.' But as long as I live, I'm going to be like Beethoven and shake my fist at fate and try to do something for those who live here now and who knows how far into the future that will go. If I accomplish nothing more than making my arm sore, at least I will be satisfied that I have lived. — Jackson Burnett

...We find our greatest peace when we embrace something that gives meaning to our lives. Often, it is love for somebody or something we can give up our lives for, or somebody or something that we are sure will never betray us. That love could be for a partner, for our offspring, for a country or for a belief... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Welfare was not to be gauged in purely financial terms, or merely by reference to physical comfort. Welfare, happiness, well-being must embrace the philosophical concept of the good life. She listed some relevant ingredients, goals towards which a child might grow. Economic and moral freedom, virtue, compassion and altruism, satisfying work through engagement with demanding tasks, a flourishing network of personal relationships, earning the esteem of others, pursuing larger meanings to one's existence, and having at the center of one's life one or a small number of significant relations defined above all by love. — Ian McEwan

The scrupulous survivors in life are the best counterweight to unscrupulous survivors. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Male writers who never find the stabilizing force of an understanding woman in their lives usually end up as the jaded figures of their days, the types who give much artistic expression to the world, but who are lonely in their overcrowded worlds of love. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

...Never opt for war, no matter how simple it may seem, especially when you know that peace is achievable, even if achieving that peace entails going through a complicated and protracted process, — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Human ties are the greatest distorters of reality because they tend to conceal man's worst selfish instincts. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Modern Darwinism makes it abundantly clear that many less ruthless traits, some not always admired by robber barons and Fuhrers - altruism, general intelligence, compassion - may be the key to survival. — Carl Sagan

In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life. — Jane Addams

It is easier for an ambitious friend to become an enemy than for an enemy to become a friend. It is even easier to make friends than you can find people to trust as friends. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, "When a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children." She exclaimed, "You are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars]." But Rabbi Hiyya replied, "There is a wheel which revolves in this world." - Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b — Joseph Telushkin

There are people who bring joy to our lives, but who fail to make us happy. They are the people for the moment. Never rely on their love because it is not sustainable. Their love is alike a comet that illuminates the sky, but then fades away because it lacks the sustainable energy of the sun. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The psychological attitudes which are indispensable in the American market place are disastrous to family life. Family life ... requires yieldingness, generosity, sympathy, altruism, tenderness-all the qualities, in fact, which lead straight to bankruptcy ... the American family is tragically out of gear with the profit structure which has mushroomed up around it. — Margaret Halsey

If being a saint is complete devotion to a cause, bravery and altruism, then I think Mrs Sendlerowa fulfils all the conditions.I think about her the way you think about someone you owe your life to. — Irena Sendler

In the midst of a culture that is rationally organized for a vocational workaday life, there is hardly any room for the cultivation of acosmic brotherliness, unless it is among strata who are economically carefree. Under the technical and social conditions of rational culture, an imitation of the life of Buddha, Jesus, or Francis seems condemned to failure for purely external reasons. — Max Weber

Never give up the freeness of your soul. Live your duty to mankind, nurture creatures of this world as a true mother of the earth, but never shut your imagination off from those desires that distinguish you from the ordinary. Never allow yourself to be sapped of that extraordinary energy that is the necessary ingredient for creating something new and progressive. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We need to build websites with celebrity speakers who talk about the ideals of fairness, sharing, democratic cooperation, and altruism in public life. — Deepak Chopra

To live for others was to live fully; to live only for yourself, a cold kind of death. — Joe Hill

Effective altruism is an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of our ability to reason. I have described it as an emerging movement, and that term suggests that it will continue to develop and spread. If it does, then once there is a critical mass of effective altruists, it will no longer seem odd for anyone to regard bringing about "the most good I can do" as an important life goal. If effective altruism does become mainstream, I would expect it to spread more rapidly, for then it will be apparent that it is easy to do a great deal of good and feel better about your life as a result. — Peter Singer

Writers understand the world better, but they lack the strength to change it. Perhaps that is so because they understand their limitations more than others. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Isn't reality based on the prevailing culture, the trend that people want to identify with? — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

We always emerge from the death of a loved one like a phoenix arising from its funeral pyre. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government, — Peter Singer

In the end, the only thing that really matters is how we treated all living things. — Ka Chinery

Kindness is a source of relief to the soul of the giver, creating a sense of fortitude that is incomprehensible to those who do not know what kindness is all about. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

When we see social relationships controlled everywhere by the principles which Jesus illustrated in life
trust, love, mercy, and altruism
then we shall know that the kingdom of God is here. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You know what? This isn't about your feelings. A human life, with all its joys and all its pains, adding up over the course of decades, is worth far more than your brain's feelings of comfort or discomfort with a plan. Does computing the expected utility feel too cold-blooded for your taste? Well, that feeling isn't even a feather in the scales, when a life is at stake. Just shut up and multiply. — Eliezer Yudkowsky

When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity. — Wayne W. Dyer

With true love, you can move mountains, make unusual sacrifices, live a life of deprivations and still be happy. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

In your selflessness pursuit of things higher than yourself, you appear selfish or inconsiderate to those who truly love you and who have cared deeply about you from the first day you came into their lives. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

As she made coffee in the kitchen and tried to spoon the frozen ice-cream from its carton without snapping the shaft off the spoon, Elizabeth was struck, not for the first time, by the thought that her life was entirely frivolous.
It was a rush and slither of trivial crises; of uncertain cash-flow, small triumphs, occasional sex and too many cigarettes; of missed deadlines that turned out not to matter; of arguments, new clothes, bursts of altruism and sincere resolutions to address the important things. Of all these and the other experiences that made up her life, the most significant aspect was the one suggested by the words 'turned out not to matter'. Although she was happy enough with what she had become, it was this continued sense of the easy, the inessential nature of what she did, that most irritated her. She thought of Tom Brennan, who had known only life or death, then death in life. In her generation there was no intensity. — Sebastian Faulks

Societies and people that come close to being happy are those that do well in narrowing the disparity between their desires and their needs, especially the material things of life. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others. — Brian Tracy

Writers are the most tormented of all the different categories of artists that are out there in the world. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

For here was the hole in Alma's theory: she could not, for the life of her, understand the evolutionary advantages of altruism and self-sacrifice. If the natural world was indeed the sphere of amoral and constant struggle for survival that it appeared to be, and if outcompeting one's rivals was the key to dominance, adaptation, and endurance - then what was one supposed to make, for instance, of someone like her sister Prudence? Whenever Alma mentioned her sister's name, with respect to her theory of competitive alteration, her uncle groaned. — Elizabeth Gilbert

In today's world, human desires far supersede human needs. Waste, as you can see, is the result of that disparity. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

In the world of today, human desires far supersede human needs. Waste, as you can see, is the result of all of those contradictions. That is how we ended up complicating our world. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

When we tend to be too hard on those we love, we erode the softness of our souls in the process, taking out the humanity within us that is the nucleus of our goodness, even if our actions are for their own sake. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Some honest people think it is better to know the ways of the devil without being evil. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Singers, actors or artists who touch on sorrow are trying to give comfort to aggrieved souls by giving some meaning to their sorrows. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Altruism has always been one of biology's deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all sorts of signals as its individual self, choose to give up its life in aid of someone else? — Lewis Thomas

While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it's final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming the freedom of "the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit. — Pope John Paul II

Fear is a basic human instinct and an indicator of the gravity of a situation. It becomes an asset if it is effectively controlled. It becomes a weakness for a man if he lets it prevail over him. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

He learned...never to show his anger or hatred against a stronger adversary, for fear of being crushed. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

A man can't talk of true happiness if he has never known true love - the trusting, selfless and unconditional love that I took for granted. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Homosexuality is the most beautiful aspect of humanity. For its existence is proof that altruism is natural; it is to demonstrate that the theory of the "survival of the fittest" can only apply to the species as a whole, and that reproduction is insufficient to secure our place in the great jungle of life, which means being nice is a more stable evolutionary strategy than making kids; and if the homosexual is attracted to religion or to art - or, in smaller societies, to shamanism or caring for other people's children - is this not due to his or her search for purpose? If so, then what we call purpose must be something that encompasses all modes of life. What we call love must be greater than child rearing or caring for a mate. — Anthony Marais

...The world gets blessed every now and then with unique souls who though burdened by their invisible crosses, still have the extraordinary strength to forge ahead in life and give others a helping hand at the same time. Despite their tribulations, most of us think they are fine. Even when the weight of their crosses become unbearable, even when they proceed in a breathless manner, we still have a hard time understanding that they are drowning. In fact, we even condemn them for failing to sacrifice more... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

...Bad leaders are known to destroy one, more or even all of the foundations of their people's way of life... — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Don't be afraid of those failures that do not lead to a loss of life or that do not incapacitate people. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The greatest sacrifice a man can make is the image of his soul. — Janvier Chouteu-Chando