Putting Others Needs Before Your Own Quotes & Sayings

I may be wrong in that, but not I think in putting the questions. In our modern democracy the government needs not a unanimous but a general support for war before it orders our forces to fight. — Douglas Hurd

That night, before bed, he goes first to Willem's side of the closet, which he has still not emptied. Here are Willem's shirts on their hangers, and his sweaters on their shelves, and his shoes lined up beneath. He takes down the shirt he needs, a burgundy plaid woven through with threads of yellow, which Willem used to wear around the house in the springtime, and shrugs it on over his head. But instead of putting his arms through its sleeves, he ties the sleeves in front of him, which makes the shirt look like a straitjacket, but which he can pretend - if he concentrates - are Willem's arms in an embrace around him. He climbs into bed. This ritual embarrasses and shames him, but he only does it when he really needs it, and tonight he really needs it. — Hanya Yanagihara

In any area of our lives where we fail to act from integrity or violate our own understanding of what is right or wrong for us, we fall prey to putting the outside world's needs before our own. We then disconnect from the enormity of our power and our ability to create what we want. — Debbie Ford

She was a woman who lived however she wished without care for another, without putting the needs of those around her before her own selfish opinions. We are breeding a nation of such thinkers and individuals--intent on personal expression at all costs--and that will lead to war. I might be more a successful writer if I did not seek to address human truth, but rather spewed out my own limited opinions without care for reader or critic or any kind of propriety. — Erika Robuck

I once taped a show in which a life coach discussed the concept of self-care - putting your own needs ahead of anyone else's - and the audience booed. Women were upset by the mere suggestion that they should put their needs before those of their children. I interrupted to explain: No one was saying you should abandon your children and let them starve, The life coach was suggesting that you nurture yourself so you'll have more nurturing to give to those who most need you. It's the airplane oxygen-mask theory: If you don't put on your mask first, you won't be able to save anyone else. — Oprah Winfrey

Worldly religion is that which replaces Faith with mere wishful thinking. One must not make the common mistake of putting his faith in all the things he thinks God ought to bless him with; he should instead keep his faith planted in God Himself. Present to Him his needs and wants like a child to his Father, but have faith only in His wisdom and goodness like a servant to his King. God must always be one's Everything before He is one's token to everything. — Criss Jami

They never asked, "Were you able to work today?" Maybe they had, twenty or thirty years earlier, but they'd gradually learned not to. There are empty spaces that must be respected - those often long periods when a person can't see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.
When Mari came in, Jonna was on a ladder building shelves in her front hall. Mari knew that when Jonna started putting up shelves she was approaching a period of work. Of course the hall would be far too narrow and cramped, but that was immaterial. The last time, it was shelves in the bedroom and the result had been a series of excellent woodcuts. She glanced into the bathroom as she passed, but Jonna had not yet put printing paper in to soak, not yet. Before Jonna could do her graphic work in peace, she always spent some time printing up sets of earlier, neglected works - a job that had been set aside so she could focus on new ideas. After all, a period of creative grace can be short. — Tove Jansson

The guiding metaphor of classic style is seeing the world. The writer can see something that the reader has not yet noticed, and he orients the reader's gaze so that she can see it for herself. The purpose of writing is presentation, and its motive is disinterested truth. It succeeds when it aligns language with the truth, the proof of success being clarity and simplicity. The truth can be known, and is not the same as the language that reveals it; prose is a window onto the world. The writer knows the truth before putting it into words; he is not using the occasion of writing to sort out what he thinks. Nor does the writer of classic prose have to argue for the truth; he just needs to present it. That is because the reader is competent and can recognize the truth when she sees it, as long as she is given an unobstructed view. The writer and the reader are equals, and the process of directing the reader's gaze takes the form of a conversation. — Steven Pinker

I took a voyage once
it is many years ago, now
to Amsterdam, and the owner, not my good cousin here, but another, took a fancy to go with me; and his wife must needs accompany him, and verily, before that voyage was over, I wished I was dead. I was no longer captain of the ship. My owner was my captain, and his wife was his. We were forever putting into port for fresh bread and meat, milk and eggs, for she could eat none other. If the wind got up but ever so little, we had to run into shelter and anchor until the sea was smooth. The manners of the sailors shocked her. She would scream at night when a rat ran across her, and would lose her appetite if a living creature, of which, as usual, the ship was full, fell from a beam onto her platter. I was tempted, more than once, to run the ship on to a rock and make an end of us all. — G.A. Henty

I've been trying to give as much attention and focus to my life as well as my career. It's hard because the career is money, but putting that before day-to-day needs isn't something that can last indefinitely. I'm excited to begin the next chapter of my life with an amazing woman. — Eric Lange

I do," Olaf says. "Love is putting someone else's needs before yours, like, you know, how Kristoff brought you back here to Hans and left you forever. — Elise Allen

Japanese tea ceremony; a way of honoring oneself by putting another's needs first, the joy that could be found in intimate service ... A conversation we'd had one night on the way home from a movie. I remember that night he'd put toothpaste on my brush before his own, then bowed, I smiled, but I'd understood too that such small gifts were one seed that blossomed in two hearts. — Elizabeth Berg

Love was actions more than words. And not just easy actions like hugs and kisses. It was hard ones, like sticking by someone in bad times, not just in good. It was working for them, even when you were tired. It was putting their needs first, even before your own. It was taking care of them when they were sick. It was forgiving them when they disappointed you. It was protecting them and teaching them. — Gayle Rosengren

There needs but so little to encourage beauty in our soul; so little to awaken the slumbering angels; or perhaps is there no need of awakening --- it is enough that we lull them not to sleep. It requires more effort to fall, perhaps, than to rise. Can we, without putting constraint upon ourselves, confine our thoughts to everyday things at times when the sea stretches before us, and we are face to face with the night? And what soul is there but knows that it is ever confronting the sea, ever in presence of an eternal night? — Maurice Maeterlinck

Every time you feel sad and swallow down your tears, you abandon yourself. If somebody hurts you and you pretend that you are fine, you abandon yourself. Every time you don't eat, or fail to feed yourself, you abandon yourself. If you are tired, but refuse to rest, you abandon yourself. If you drink too much and poison yourself with alcohol, you abandon yourself. If you don't ask for what you need from somebody with whom you are intimate, you abandon yourself. The times when you resent putting somebody else's needs before your own are the times when you are abandoning yourself. If you don't ask for help when you need it, you abandon yourself. — Sally Brampton

Blood was shed that you three might breathe the good air of life, and if that means you have to miss out on a Zibzy game, then so be it. Part of being a man is putting others' needs before your own. — Andrew Peterson