Quotes & Sayings About Self Sacrifice For Love

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

And what is justice? The princess thought of that proud word 'justice'. All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and simple law - the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to do with justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and love, and that she did. — Leo Tolstoy

Her beauty is not just - or even primarily - physical. In her face, I see her wisdom, her compassion, her courage, her eternal glory. This other beauty, this spiritual beauty - which is the deepest truth of her - sustains me in times of fear and despair, as other truths might sustain a priest enduring martyrdom at the hands of a tyrant. I see nothing blasphemous in equating her grace with the mercy of God, for the one is a reflection of the other. The selfless love that we give to others to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them, is all the proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest; we carry within us a divine spark, and if we chose to recognize it, our lives have dignity, meaning, hope. In her it is spark is bright, a light that heals rather than wounds me. — Dean Koontz

I have been astonished that men could die martyrs
for their religion
I have shuddered at it,
I shudder no more.
I could be martyred for my religion.
Love is my religion
and I could die for that.
I could die for you.
My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet. — John Keats

Every man has his price. This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Your love should be so far reaching, earnest, biblical, Christ-centered, pure, and self-sacrificing that the world may hate you for it. — Kevin DeYoung

When a job is undertaken from necessity, or from a grim sense of disagreeable duty, the worker is self-consciously aware of the toils and pains he undergoes ... But when the job is a labor of love, the sacrifices will present themselves to the worker
strange as it may seem
in the guise of enjoyment. Moralists, looking on at this, will always judge that the former kind of sacrifice is more admirable than the later, because the moralist, whatever he may pretend, has far more respect for pride than for love ... I do not mean that there is no nobility in doing unpleasant things from a sense of duty, but only that there is more nobility in doing them gladly out of sheer love of the job. — Dorothy L. Sayers

It's odd how a person always arouses admiration for his moral qualities among the relatives of another with whom he has sexual relations. Physical love, so unjustifiably decried, makes everyone show, down to the least detail, all he has of goodness and self-sacrifice, so that he shines even in the eyes of those nearest to him. — Marcel Proust

The ultimate altruism is nothing but the sacrifice of one's self for the benefit of others. Love yourself but never forget to be altruistic to others in need. — Debasish Mridha

All true love and all sacrifice are
in their essence Nature's contradiction of the primary egoism and
its separative error; it is her attempt to turn from a necessary first
fragmentation towards a recovered oneness. All unity between
creatures is in its essence a self-finding, a fusion with that from
which we have separated, a discovery of one's self in others.
But it is only a divine love and unity that can possess in the light what the human forms of these things seek for in
the darkness. — Sri Aurobindo

Above all else, he was afire with heavenly love, unassumingly patient, devoted to unceasing prayer, and kindly to all who came to him for comfort. He regarded as equivalent to prayer the labour of helping the weaker brethren with advice, remembering that he who said, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God', also said, 'Love thy neighbour'. His self-discipline and fasting were exceptional, and through the grace of contrition he was always intent on the things of heaven. Lastly, whenever he offered the sacrifice of the Saving Victim of God, he offered his prayers to God not in a loud voice but with tears welling up from the depths of his heart. — Bede

If pain sometimes shatters the creature's false self sufficiency, yet in supreme Trial or Sacrifice' it teaches him the self-sufficiency which really ought to be his - the 'strength which, if Heaven gave it may be called his own': for then, in the absence of all merely natural motives and supports he acts in that strength, and that alone, which God confers upon him through his subjected will. Human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is wholly God's, and this is one of the many senses in which he that loses his soul shall find it. In all other acts our will is fed through nature, that is, through created things other than the self - through the desires which our physical organism and our heredity supply to us. When we act from ourselves alone, that is, from God in ourselves - we are collaborators in, or live instruments of creation: and that is why such an act undoes with 'backward mutters of deserving power' the uncreative spell which Adam laid upon his species. — C.S. Lewis

The selfless love that we give to others, to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them, is all the proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest. We carry within us a divine spark, and if we chose to recognize it, our lives have dignity, meaning, hope. — Dean Koontz

It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior. — Jane Goodall

Talking about religion becomes irrelevant when your partner is being raped or your child is dying from a disease you can cure. The old phrase applies that if we are to prove ourselves good then we must not do nothing. We must not let illness prosper when we can cure it. We must not allow abuse when we can stop it and we must not give in to a disease that may be mind numbing and leads to violence.
This is an advocacy not of reason alone but faith in each other, hope for our future, and love in accomplishing these goals without sacrificing self, but rather growing self and calling ourselves to self-giving, not self-sacrifice. — Leviak B. Kelly

Love is a verb. Love is something you do: the sacrifices you make, the giving of self. If you want to study love, study those who sacrifice for others. Love - the feeling - is a fruit of love the verb ... — Stephen Covey

If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem. — Ayn Rand

Frequently, and not only in the popular usage, sadomasochism is confounded with
love. Masochistic phenomena, especially, are looked upon as expressions of love.
An attitude of complete self-denial for the sake of another person and the
surrender of one's own rights and claims to another person have been praised as
examples of "great love". It seems that there is no better proof for "love" than
sacrifice and the readiness to give oneself up for the sake of the beloved person.
Actually, in these cases, "love" is essentially a masochistic yearning and rooted in the symbiotic need of the person involved. — Erich Fromm

The completion of the process of love is the arrival at a state of simple, pure self-possession, for man and woman. Only that. Which isn't exciting enough for us sensationalists. We prefer abysses and maudlin self-abandon and self-sacrifice, the degeneration into a sort of slime and merge.
Perhaps, truly, the process of love is never accomplished. But it moves in great stages, and at the end of each stage a true goal, where the soul possesses itself in simple and generous singleness. Without this, love is a disease. — D.H. Lawrence

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

Evie," she asked, "how do you know if you love someone?"
Evie considered the question as they passed a low circular boundary hedge containing an explosion of multi-colored primulas. "I'm sure this is when I'm s-supposed to say something wise and helpful," she said with a self-deprecating shrug. "But my situation was different from yours. St. Vincent and I didn't expect to fall in love. It caught us both unaware."
"Yes, but how did you know?"
"It was the moment I realized he was willing to die for me. I don't think anyone, including St. Vincent, believed he was capable of self-sacrifice. It taught me that you can assume you know a person quite well - but that person can s-surprise you. Everything seemed to change from one moment to the next - suddenly he became the most important thing in the world to me. No, not important ... necessary. — Lisa Kleypas

Romantic love, in pornography as in life, is the mythic celebration of female negation. For a woman, love is defined as her willingness to submit to her own annihilation. The proof of love is that she is willing to be destroyed by the one whom she loves, for his sake. For the woman, love is always self-sacrifice, the sacrifice of identity, will, and bodily integrity, in order to fulfill and redeem the masculinity of her lover. — Andrea Dworkin

I will not learn it until I realize that "God is love," and to claim and receive it as an indwelling power for self-sacrifice. I will not love until I begin to see that my glory, my blessedness, is to be like God and like Christ, in giving up everything in myself for my fellow-men. — Andrew Murray

Be flexible. Be compassionate. Rules can never cure insecurity. Integrity matters. Never try to script what your relationships will look like. Love is abundant. Compatibility matters. You cannot sacrifice your happiness for that of another. Own your own shit. Admit when you fuck up. Forgive when others fuck up. Don't try to find people to stuff into the empty spaces in your life; instead, make spaces for the people in your life. If you need a relationship to complete you, get a dog. It is almost impossible to be loving or compassionate when all you feel is fear of loss. Trust that your partners want to be with you, and that if given the freedom to do anything they please, they will choose to cherish and support you. Most relationship problems can be avoided by good partner selection. Nobody can give you security or self-esteem; you have to build that yourself. — Franklin Veaux

In the end, it's extra effort that separates a winner from second place. But winning takes a lot more that that, too. It starts with complete command of the fundamentals. Then it takes desire, determination, discipline, and self-sacrifice. And finally, it takes a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don't win, how can you lose? — Jesse Owens

For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice. — John Burroughs

It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman she is beautiful, you offer her great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem ... What's love, darling, if it's not self-sacrifice? — Ayn Rand

I have made this discovery: that it takes more love and self-sacrifice for the father to give up the son than it does for the son to — D.L. Moody

Women are culturally conditioned to care for others, but not ourselves. We believe that having needs, feelings, ambitions, or thoughts of our own is not good. In this self-abnegation, we enact a culturally prescribed role that perpetuates sexist social structures. The needs and thoughts of men matter, but not ours. Christian theology presents Jesus as the model of self-sacrificing love and persuades us to believe that sexism is divinely sanctioned. We are tied to the virtue of self-sacrifice, often by hidden social threats of punishment. We keep silent about rape, we deny when we are being abused, and we allow our lives to be consumed by the trivial and by our preoccupation with others. We never claim our lives as our own. We live as though we were not present in our bodies. — Rebecca Ann Parker

Don't sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there's nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you. — Karl Lagerfeld

[A]s though mindful of the wife of Lot, who looked back from behind him, thou deliveredst me first to the sacred garments and monastic profession before thou gavest thyself to God. And for that in this one thing thou shouldst have had little trust in me I vehemently grieved and was ashamed. For I (God [knows]) would without hesitation precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist. — Heloise D'Argenteuil

In a world without God, who's to say whose values are right and whose are wrong? There can be no objective right and wrong, only our culturally and personally relative, subjective judgments. Think of what that means! It means it's impossible to condemn war, oppression, or crime as evil. Nor can you praise generosity, self-sacrifice, and love as good. To kill someone or to love someone is morally equivalent. For in a universe without God, good and evil do not exist - there is only the bare, valueless fact of existence, and there is no one to say you are right and I am wrong. — William Lane Craig

Love is the key to the mystery. Love by its very nature is not selfish, but generous. It seeks not its own, but the good of others. The measure of love is not the pleasure it gives-that is the way the world judges it-but the joy and peace it can purchase for others. — Fulton J. Sheen

Because we haven't been taught to appreciate and love ourselves in this way, we don't feel like we deserve self-care and pleasure. Instead, we cling to our To Do lists and sacrifice our health and well-being for the sake of others. Then, when we feel deprived of our basic human need for relaxation and enjoyment, we turn to food as our sole source of pleasure. When we then try to deprive ourselves of food through dieting, we deny the last bit of pleasure we have in our lives. And that strategy never works! — Jessica Ortner

Now, we have inscribed a new memory alongside those others. It's a memory of tragedy and shock, of loss and mourning. But not only of loss and mourning. It's also a memory of bravery and self-sacrifice, and the love that lays down its life for a friend-even a friend whose name it never knew. — George W. Bush

A marriage with Christ at the center of it pulls you right out of yourself. It teaches each partner, the husband and the wife, to forget about self for a while in care and sacrifice for the other. We come to ourselves by losing ourselves. — J. Budziszewski

Self-sacrifice is a passion so overwhelming that beside it even lust and hunger are trifling. It whirls its victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality. The object doesn't matter; it may be worthwhile or it may be worthless. No wine is so intoxicating, no love so shattering, no vice so compelling. When he sacrifices himself man for a moment is greater than God, for how can God, infinite and omnipotent, sacrifice himself? At best he can only sacrifice his only begotten son. — W. Somerset Maugham

If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. I was talking to Liz and she said maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, that maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay. — Gayle Forman

I brought you here to tell you this: sometimes what we are searching for does not exist. We may sacrifice for it, even bleed for it, but it was never meant to be ours. — Esther Dalseno

That hierarchical inequality, the need for self surrender, the willing sacrifice of self to others, hold sway in the realm beyond Nature. It is indeed only love that makes the difference: all those very same principles which are evil in the world of selfishness and necessity are good in the world of love and understanding. — C.S. Lewis

It is properly said that the Devil can "quote Scripture to his purpose." The Bible is full of so many stories of contradictory moral purpose that every generation can find scriptural justification for nearly any action it proposes - from incest, slavery, and mass murder to the most refined love, courage, and self-sacrifice. And this moral multiple personality disorder is hardly restricted to Judaism and Christianity. You can find it deep within Islam, the Hindu tradition, indeed nearly all the world's religions. Perhaps then it is not so much scientists as people who are morally ambiguous. It — Carl Sagan

But love isn't just about feeling good. It's about doing what you don't want to do, over and over again, if it needs to be done, for the sake of someone else. Love is really about self-sacrifice. — Meg Meeker

Authentic Christianity and the world are by definition at odds. For most Americans, Christianity has been watered down and rendered innocuous, like so much fast food. It has become easy, upbeat, convenient, and compatible. It does not require self-sacrifice, discipline, humility, and otherworldly outlook, a zeal for souls, a fear as well as love of God. There is little guilt and no punishment, and the payoff in heaven is virtually certain. — Thomas Reeves

It may not seem much when compared to your mortal's gallantry. But for me - self-seeking, arrogant prig that i am - that is the sincerest form of sacrifice. Letting you go. — A.G. Howard

Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others. Again, this has not to do with practical advantage but with realising the idea of love, the meaning of which is in sacrifice: the very antithesis of pragmatism. I simply cannot believe that an artist can ever work only for the sake of 'self-expression.' Self-expression if meaningless unless it meets with a response. For the sake of creating a spiritual bond with others it can only be an agonising process, one that involves no practical gain: ultimately it is an act of sacrifice. But surely it cannot be worth the effort merely for the sake of hearing one's own echo? — Andrei Tarkovsky

I resent you - " Robespierre said. His words were lost. "The People," he shouted, "are everywhere good, and if they obstruct the Revolution - even, for example, at Toulon - we must blame their leaders."
"What are you going on about this for?" Danton asked him.
Fabre launched himself from the wall. "He is trying to enunciate a doctrine," he shrieked. "He thinks the time has come for a bloody sermon."
"If only," Robespierre yelled, "there were more vertu."
"More what?"
"Vertu. Love of one's country. Self-sacrifice. Civic spirit."
"One appreciates your sense of humor, of course." Danton jerked his thumb in the direction of the noise. "The only vertu those bastards understand is the kind I demonstrate every night to my wife. — Hilary Mantel

Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving — Paul David Tripp

Miron said, "Strange that men who wrote with what seemed deep Christian faith should turn traitor so easily!" Perhaps the answer was that in their writings Daianu and Ghinda praised Christ for the gifts He gives us - peace, love, salvation. A real disciple does not seek gifts but Christ Himself, and so is ready for self-sacrifice to the end. They were not followers of Jesus, but customers; when the Communists opened a shop next door with goods at lower prices, they took their business there. — Richard Wurmbrand

Ah! What pleasure it must be to a woman to suffer for the one she loves! — Honore De Balzac

When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve. — Ernest Hemingway,

God exhibits a natural benevolence toward all his creatures, and it is called "love" in this restricted sense. The purpose is to preserve them for his use, including the display of his wrath when he punishes them for their sins. But to the chosen ones, God's love also means self-sacrifice (in redeeming them through Christ) and self-disclosure (in providing them theological knowledge). — Vincent Cheung

- in the end she felt pity for me, for the lost man. And when a girl's heart is moved to pity, that is, of course, most dangerous for her. She's sure to want to "save" him then, to bring him to reason, to resurrect him, to call him to nobler aims, to regenerate him into a new life and new activity. Well, everyone knows what can be dreamt up in that vein. I saw at once that the bird was flying into my net on its own. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Love is always ready to deny itself, to give, sacrifice, just in the measure of its sincerity and intensity. Perfect love is perfect self-forgetfulness. Hence where there is love in a home, unselfishness is the law. Each forgets self and lives for others.

But where there is selfishness it mars joy. One selfish soul will destroy the sweetness of life in any home. It is like an ugly bush in the midst of a garden of flowers. It was selfishness that destroyed the first home and blighted all the loveliness of Paradise; and it has been blighting lovely things in earth's home ever since. We need to guard against this spirit. — J.R. Miller

It takes practice to stand with others facing pain of death, and it helps if you don't have to do it all alone. We should practice on the small stuff so that we will be better able to stand together for what we believe and for what we love, who may someday need our support. — Megan McKenna

Next comes the temptation to destroy ourselves for love of the other. The only value is love of the other. Self-sacrifice is an absolute value in itself. And the desire of the other is also absolute in itself. No matter what the lover desires, we will give up our life or even our soul to please him. This is the asceticism of Eros, which makes it a point of honor to follow the beloved even into hell. For what greater sacrifice could man offer on the altar of love than the sacrifice of his own immortal soul? Heroism in this sacrifice is measured precisely by madness: it is all the greater when it is offered for a more trivial motive. — Thomas Merton

Love is a many-sided sacrifice; it means thoughtfulness for others; it means putting their good before self-gratification. Love is impulse, no doubt, but true love is impulse wisely directed. — Hugh Reginald Haweis

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

Self-denial is often the sacrifice of one sort of self-love for another. — Charles Caleb Colton

A girl who sacrifices self-respect for social popularity debases true womanhood. A spotless character, founded upon the ability to say "no" in the presence of those who mock and jeer, wins the respect and love of men and women whose opinion is most worthwhile.. — David O. McKay

Jesus came to show us that the gospel explains success in terms of giving, not taking; self-sacrifice, not self-protection; going to the back, not getting to the front. The gospel shows that we win by losing, we triumph through defeat, we achieve power through service, and we become rich by giving ourselves away.
In fact, in gospel-centered living we follow Jesus in laying down our lives for those who hate us and hurt us. We spend our lives serving instead of being served, and seeking last place, not first. Gospel-centered people are those who love giving up their place for others, not guarding their place from others
because their value and worth is found in Christ, not their position. — Tullian Tchividjian

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