Love And Selflessness Quotes & Sayings

Redemption becomes possible when we strive to find selflessness, conscience, and a capacity to love within ourselves where before there was none. — Jim Ford

Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice. — Criss Jami

Be sure to forsake, to turn away from, any teaching in the world that will demand of you a "proof of goodness" by the renouncing of earthly joys, pleasures, happiness, possessions! Forget about the creed that tells you, that what you make in this life accounts for nothing in the next one. Life on this Earth is a gift and we do not accept good gifts only to throw them away later on! Make in this life laughter, joy, pleasure, attain good things and give to others good things, too. But never let your aim be to selflessness, for at the end of the day, our responsibilities are to our own selves and to those few whom we love and who truly love us. And holiness? Holiness is happiness, holiness is joy. — C. JoyBell C.

When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person. — Ayn Rand

In a pocket of his knapsack he'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and then poured his own cup with hot water and sat blowing at the rim.
You promised not to do that, the boy said.
What?
You know what, Papa.
He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy's cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back.
I have to watch you all the time, the boy said. — Cormac McCarthy

I have learned more about love, selflessness and human understanding from the people I have met in this great adventure in the world of AIDS than I ever did in the cutthroat, competitive world in which I spent my life. — Anthony Perkins

Without commitment and real selflessness, real love shall always be like a sea without fish; a forest without the sweet harmonious chorus of the birds and a stomach without food — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Ponnammal set the example for the others by quietly doing what they did not care to do. Her spirit created a new climate in the place, and the time came when there was not one nurse who would refuse to do whatever needed to be done. — Elisabeth Elliot

Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel. — Colleen Hoover

Love is unconditional selflessness — Jeremy Griffith

Love actually is a great act of the will. It's when I say, "I desire your good, not for my sake but for yours". To love is to break out of the black hole of the ego and say, "My life is about you". — Bishop Robert Barron

The only honorable, desirable kind of fear that shouldn't be feared is the fear of harm on a loved one. It's the kind of fear that leads to self-sacrifice and the kind of fear where you would truly jump in front of a bus to save another. — Criss Jami

When you have love and respect, it opens the door for selflessness and a willingness to look pass what is wrong and to focus on how to create a plan, to make things right. — Tasha Hoggatt

Camus and Henry waved to me from that muddy truck. They both wanted me to get over myself.
So, this was me, getting over myself. And it was about time. — Laura Anderson Kurk

These are some of the characteristics of the state of mind which the creation and appreciation of haiku demand: Selflessness, Loneliness, Grateful Acceptance, Wordlessness, Non-intellectuality, Contradictoriness, Humor, Freedom, Non-morality, Simplicity, Materiality, Love, and Courage. — R.H. Blyth

When indeed it is in God we live, and move, and have our being. We cannot draw a breath without his help. — Jonathan Edwards

HERE'S THE THING about motherhood. It exhausts you and thrills you. It kicks you in the butt, and the very next second makes you feel like a superstar. Most of all, it teaches you to be selfless. Let me rephrase that. It doesn't really teach you this. It creates a new selflessness within you, which grabs hold of your heart when you first take your child into your arms. In that profound moment of extraordinary love and discovery, your own needs and desires become secondary. Nothing is as important as the well-being of your beautiful child. You would sacrifice anything for her. Even your own life. You would do it in a heartbeat. God wouldn't need to ask twice. — Julianne MacLean

Have you ever thought that the battle you are in was never a lesson, but a test? Will you choose your comfort, ego and feelings or will you choose to prove your love of Christ by humbling your heart and seeing that the solution was always the one thing hardest for you to do
giving instead of receiving? — Shannon L. Alder

Only God can give us a selfless love for others, as the Holy Spirit changes us from within. This is one reason we must receive Christ, for apart from His Spirit we can never be freed from the chains of selfishness, jealousy, and indifference. Will others see Christ's love in your life today? — Billy Graham

No doubt it is devastating. One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced." "How? By what?" "By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Loving others isn't about us at all. And until that sinks in, we'll never be able to love the way Christ truly loved. — Jarrid Wilson

I knew by the way he looked at her that he held her in a higher regard than he held even himself. No selfishness or insecurity kept him from seeing the full extent of her goodeness, as it so often does with the rest of us. That kind of love may only be possible in Abnegation. I do not know.
My father: Erudite-born, Abnegation-grown. He often found it difficult to live up to the demands of his chosen faction, just as I did. But he tried, and he knew true selflessness when he saw it. — Veronica Roth

When your intentions are honest and pure, when you speak or act from a place of selflessness and love, the feedback and returns are unimaginable and immeasurable. — Nike Campbell-Fatoki

In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says 'I will make her happy,' makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, 'I will make him happy.' There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust, is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his life for the good of those outside his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it. — David Wong

Extravagant love, as in every generation before us, has been ridiculed and scorned. it is seen as wasteful and reckless overspending. But extravagant love, the offering of everything, the emptying of the pockets of our life, is the essence of true Christianity. — Eric Ludy

If we want to live perfectly happy lives...we must drive out selfish character tendencies such as pride, ego, vanity, jealousy, lusts, envy and worry. When we learn to live selflessly, putting others before ourselves, committing to what is noble, right and good; treating others with love and compassion...that's when true happiness is experienced. A genuine focus on selflessness cures all and creates an environment for true growth. It's the secret to every great relationship. We gain...when we give up self. Sacrificing one's selfish characteristics through diligent thought, meditation, prayer and action gives life to true love and abounding joy.~Jason Versey — Jason Versey

Perhaps, this is what love has always been, whether it is for a woman of for a cause
the readiness to give and not ask for anything in return, the unquestioning willingness to lose everything, even if that loss is as something as precious as life itself. — F. Sionil Jose

Being a samurai is all about selfless service and if the lord abuses the servant, it is no longer a situation of service; it becomes the situation of a victim. It is never acceptable for a samurai to be a victim. It is never acceptable to allow a lord to abuse you or rob you of your dignity. In such a situation, it is acceptable to walk away. — Alexei Maxim Russell

We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in. — Criss Jami

Charity is the pure love of Christ. Let's bring it down for us lay folk to understand. Selflessness, patience ... a great definition ... Charity: The ability to love the sinner and hate the sin. Note: For Hyrum Smith's other ideas which he regards as pertinent to Success, see Topics: Character, Charity, Goals, Humility, Peace of Mind, Sacrifice, Success-Change-Personal Growth, Success-Change-Constructive Imagination, Wisdom — Hyrum W. Smith

If she could take my strength. He put his hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. If she could have some of my heart's strength. I'd give years of my life, Lord, if she could use them." He looked at her peaceful face, again looking at her beating pulse. Life seemed so fragile to him. She had become, in such a short time, infinitely precious to him. "A daughter of God. Your daughter, Lord. My wife. — Jan Holly

If she loved him the way she said she did, she wanted him whole. Maybe this was what love meant after all: sacrifice and selflessness. It did not mean hearts and flowers and a happy ending, but the knowledge that another's well-being is more important than one's own. — Melissa De La Cruz

There is only one reason people have children: they're programmed to. Whatever reasons they may have for it - selflessness, wanting to pass something on, having so much love to give - I don't believe they choose children any more than naked mole rats decide to start tunneling. Human beings are basically big complicated Rube Goldberg contraptions constructed by genes to copy themselves, and only as an unintended side effect build mosques, make screwball comedies, and launch interplanetary probes. — Meghan Daum

Army was boring, unfeeling, and chicken, and hated it. They found combat to be ugliness, destruction, and death, and hated it. Anything was better than the blood and carnage, the grime and filth, the impossible demands made on the body - anything, that is, except letting down their buddies. They also found in combat the closest brotherhood they ever knew. They found selflessness. They found they could love the other guy in their foxhole more than themselves. They found that in war, men who loved life would give their lives for them. — Stephen E. Ambrose

[Forster] quotes approvingly from this discussion, from The Magic Flute [by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson]
"Lord Buddha was your gospel true?"
"True and False."
"What was true in it?"
"Selflessness and Love."
"What false?"
"Flight from Life. — Zadie Smith

I think that she is everything I have ever loved about our religion distilled down to fit into one person, everything about the faith that is both selfless and responsible. — Ann Patchett

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

Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man's character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another person's virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one's own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries an ideal woman or a slut. — Ayn Rand

God does not want a church filled with white-robed saints. He does not want a church filled with theological authorities or cultured clergyman. He wants a church filled with ordinary men and women who exemplify the extraordinary integrity, temperament, wholeness, compassion, individuality, boldness, righteousness, earnestness, love, forgiveness, selflessness, and faithfulness of Jesus Christ! — Ray Stedman

I'm convinced we have each been endowed with a beautiful heart. We may not always see it. We may not even believe it. But it's a gift that came with birth and, every time we act selflessly, it grows a little. — Steve Goodier

How fair is it to judge a person based on his sexual preferences, or their 'otherness'? As long as a person is not 'harmful' for others or not violating the rights of others, I think we need not be bothered about their personal lives, whom they love or whom they marry. It is a personal choice. I think the most important thing about a person is his or her 'humanity', kindness, selflessness not their 'sex life' (only as long as he or she is not violating the rights of others or causing harm to others).
It is entirely a disgrace on humanity to 'discriminate' a person solely based on their 'otherness'.
I am surprised to see how the society stands against or make fun out of 'gay' people, who are totally harmless, ignoring the 'human' in them, but feel 'OK' with 'rapists', 'sex maniacs', 'prostitution' and 'sexual violence against women and children' occurring in Sri Lanka every day. — Ama H. Vanniarachchy

Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence.... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns. — Ravi Zacharias

To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to contemplate morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things and of every spurious ornament of reward or self-love. How much she then eclipses everything else that appears charming to the affections, every one may readily perceive with the least exertion of his reason, if it be not wholly spoiled for abstraction. — Immanuel Kant

In the past, I used to think real love was anti-capitalistic.
I believed love, as the modern world understood it, was an endless siege fueled by the impossibility of healthy co-dependence.
One person always gave. One person always took.
Selflessness and selfishness.
I was wrong.
Real love is unto itself. For every person, it's different, and no one can presume to explain its complexity using mere words.
For me, love comes down to the moments of pure, unadulterated happiness in your life. — Renee Ahdieh

Like football and art, like anything that anyone in the world has ever wanted, love was a dream. And just like a dream, there were no assurances behind it. It didn't grow on its own. It didn't blossom without food to feed it. It was the greatest in its subtleties. It was the strongest in its selflessness. And it could be forever with someone who wasn't afraid to never give up on the possibilities it presents. — Mariana Zapata

And friendship, and love." Leia knew that Luke's selflessness in coming for her on the Death Star, and Han's unspoken devotion in saving her on Hoth, had not only kept her alive but also changed the entire course of the galaxy for the better. "Those things matter, too, maybe more than all the rest." Ransolm — Claudia Gray

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

Love is selflessness and self-fullness; it can only be known deeply with an open, vulnerable heart. — Emily Saliers

Love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. — Ronald Reagan

The highest form of love is patriotism and selflessness — Thabiso Monkoe

I learned that leadership is about falling in love with the people and the people falling in love with you. It is about serving the people with selflessness, with sacrifice, and with the need to put the common good ahead of personal interests. — Joyce Banda

If you want to conquer lust for wealth, love selflessness and sparing way of life. — Vladimir Aleksandrovich Antonov

Love isn't in body to body contact nor is it in the emotions oozed through tears and weeps. Real love lies in soul to soul connection that you can feel through spiritual practices. Love is boundless and selflessness often we mistake with greedy contentment. Love is give and sacrifice — Sadashivan Nair

We must work for the good and commit ourselves to postures of global selflessness, even if we can't figure out all the details surrounding the foreign dictators, food shortages, and fair trade. We're called to lean in, to work as hard as we can toward the good, and then trust in God who says, 'The way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.' We're called to be witnesses of how God is at play in the world. — Holly Sprink

Let us be, then, warriors of the heart, and enlist in our inner cause the virtues we have acquired through blood and sweat in the sphere of conflict - courage, patience, selflessness, loyalty, fidelity, self-command, respect for elders, love of our comrades (and of the enemy), perseverance, cheerfulness in adversity and a sense of humor, however terse or dark. — Steven Pressfield

Selflessness is like waiting in a hospital
In a badly-fitting suit on a cold wet morning.
Selfishness is like listening to good jazz
With drinks for further orders and a huge fire. — Philip Larkin

Most of us love a non-self, or something extrinsic and apart from our inner life; but a mother's love during the time she is a flesh-and-blood ciborium is not for a non-self but for one that is her very self, a perfect example of charity and love which hardly perceives a separation. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator. — Fulton J. Sheen

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness. — Steven Pressfield

We live in a world today that lacks loving-kindness and compassion for our fellow man and woman. As Gandhi so eloquently stated, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world." We need to strive to be better, to be the image of selflessness. Love and give to those in need
expecting nothing in return. Give out of sincerity and from the depths of our hearts. Have compassion for every man, woman and child, no matter what ethnicity or background they come from. Love is blind. Love is unconditional. Love has the power to heal and redeem, and that is what Humanity should strive for. — Terry A. O'Neal

Etymologically, "compassion" means to suffer together. "Together," however, is different from "identically." Compassion is not the same as selflessness, and not really the opposite of selfishness. Rather, it provides a basis for helping other people that is materially disinterested but emotionally self-regarding. As Rousseau wrote in Emile, "When the strength of an expansive soul makes me identify myself with my fellow, and I feel that I am, so to speak, in him, it is in order not to suffer that I do not want him to suffer. I am interested in him for love of myself ... " Or, as Jean Bethke Elshtain has said, "Pity is about how deeply I can feel. And in order to feel this way, to experience the rush of my own pious reaction, I need victims the way an addict needs drugs. — William Voegeli

Big love is the kind of love that takes in more than the self. It's love for something bigger than the self. It's love of God, of the universe, of the family, of the pack, of the tribe. It inspires courage and selflessness in those who know it. — Angelo Dirks

If you serve a mission faithfully and well, you will be a better husband, you will be a better father, you will be a better student, a better worker in your chosen vocation. Love is of the essence of this missionary work. Selflessness is of its very nature. Self-discipline is its requirement. Prayer opens its reservoir of power. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Such a man is altogether beyond our reach. He succeeded where we always fail. He had complete self-mastery. He never retaliated. He never grew resentful or irritable. He had such control of himself that, whatever others might think or say or do, he would deny himself and abandon himself to the will of God and the welfare of his fellow human beings. 'I seek not to please myself,' he said, and 'I am not seeking glory for myself.' As Paul wrote, 'For Christ did not please himself.' This utter disregard of self in the service of God and man is what the Bible calls love. There is no self-interest in love. The essence of love is self-sacrifice. Even the worst of us is adorned by an occasional flash of such nobility, but the life of Jesus radiated it with a never-fading incandescent glow. Jesus was sinless because he was selfless. Such selflessness is love. And God is love. — John R.W. Stott