Quotes & Sayings About Selfish Motives

Meditation without selfless giving is not enough. You may go into very high states of consciousness but the rough edges will still be there - there may be lots of selfish motives lurking within the self - that you don't see. — Frederick Lenz

People don't like to think of themselves as sinful. They don't want to believe that they are selfish, evil people who would act much worse if unrestrained by society ... Because they believe they act from pure motives, many people live by their own moral code and can always justify their behavior. When that strategy fails they can always think of someone worse than themselves. — Douglas Beaumont

Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire ... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives. — Bernard Of Clairvaux

Since all motives at bottom are selfish and ignoble, we may judge acts and qualities only be their effects. — H.P. Lovecraft

Those who joined us for selfish personal reasons, for a career or other motives will be the ones to leave. — Janos Kadar

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. — George Orwell

War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives. — Immanuel Kant

Gods tend to be selfish. Even when they're helpful, they always have their own motives. That's why you have to be careful about trusting them. — Rick Riordan

Whatever I may do to serve you will be prompted solely from selfish motives, since it gives me more pleasure to serve you than not. — Edgar Rice Burroughs

The first steps toward stewardship are awareness, appreciation, and the
selfish desire to have the things around for our kids to see. Presumably the
unselfish motives will follow as we wise up. — Barbara Kingsolver

If the world were full of the self-seeking individuals found in economics textbooks, it would grind to a halt because we would be spending most of our time cheating, trying to catch the cheaters, and punishing the caught. The world works as it does only because people are not the totally self seeking agents that free-market economics believes them to be. We need to design an economic system that, while acknowledging that people are often selfish, exploits other human motives to the full and gets the best out of people. The likelihood is that, if we assume the worst about people, we will get the worst out of them. — Ha-Joon Chang

On the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology. — Arthur Koestler

Single mothers have as much to teach their children as married mothers and as much love to share
maybe more. Yet their motives are often labeled selfish and single-minded
never mind all the babies brought into the world to snag husbands, "save" faltering marriages or produce heirs. — Anne Cassidy

But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate. — Zora Neale Hurston

If efforts to do social work are couched in selfish motives, then they will die a premature death. Why would my efforts get politicised? I have values I inherited from my father. He helped many. Anyone, even a postman knocking on our door would get a glass of water and some sweets. — Sachin Tendulkar

The trouble with selfish motives is that they harden into principles, and you end up sending your kids to war for them. — Robert Breault

Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you. — Christopher Hitchens

A wise Government seeks to provide the opportunity through which the best of individual achievement can be obtained, while at the same time it seeks to remove such obstruction, such unfairness as springs from selfish human motives. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

another day. I have purely selfish motives. I'm a — J.M. Darhower

True repentance relinquishes self-centeredness and selfish motives. True repentance leads us to want to be Spirit-led and to live solely for the glory of God, no matter the consequences. — Susan Brackley

Capitalism justified itself and was adopted as an economic principle on the express ground that it provides selfish motives for doing good, and that human beings will do nothing except for selfish motives — George Bernard Shaw

The truth of the matter is, we all come to prayer with a tangled mass of motives - altruistic and selfish, merciful and hateful, loving and bitter. — Richard J. Foster

We are all very good at rationalizing our actions so that they are in line with our selfish motives. — Dan Ariely

As an artist, my talents are not mine alone to just keep. My creations have to touch lives, spread love and let my skills be used only in good things but should be selfless not through selfish motives. In this manner, I am giving the gift back to my Master Creator. - Elizabeth's Quotes — Elizabeth E. Castillo

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa — Mother Teresa

If we don't have a clear sense of our identity and purpose, we are much more vulnerable to Lucifer. He of course knows this and accordingly attempts to blur our vision. He lies. He shades and obliterates truth. He makes evil look good and good look unenlightened and unsophisticated. Make no mistake about it: Lucifer will do anything to derail, disappoint, dishearten, discourage, and deceive us - and particularly those who have made and are seeking to keep sacred covenants. His motives are entirely self-centered, selfish, destructive, and evil. — Sheri L. Dew

How is power of speech (vacchanbud) attained? It is when, not a single word is uttered to make fun of others; when not a single word is uttered for wrong selfish motives, material self-gain; when speech has not been misused; when speech has not been used to gain recognition or importance from others - that is when one's power of speech is attained. — Dada Bhagwan

We will be judged according to the secret motives and the character of our work. If we have done our work for selfish motives or personal gain, even if the results looked noble to our friends and family, God knows our hearts. — Billy Graham

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. — Mother Teresa

When one man has been under very remarkable obligations to another, with whom he subsequently quarrels, a common sense of decency, as it were, makes of the former a much severer enemy than a mere stranger would be. To account for your own hard-heartedness and ingratitude in such a case, you are bound to prove the other party's crime. It is not that you are selfish, brutal, and angry at the failure of a speculation
no, no
it is that your partner has led you into it by the basest treachery and with the most sinister motives. From a mere sense of consistency, a persecutor is bound to show that the fallen man is a villain
otherwise he, the persecutor, is a wretch himself. — William Makepeace Thackeray

The market system makes self interest into something thoroughly virtuous.' This is the extraordinary feature of markets: just as they can turn many individually irrational individuals into a collectively rational outcome, so they can turn many individually selfish motives into a collectively kind result. — Matt Ridley

That brought the smile back to the old woman's face. "This one at least is honest," she announced, "but you, ser ... I have known a dozen Westerosi knights and a thousand adventurers of the same ilk, but none so pure as you would paint yourself. Men are beasts, selfish and brutal. However gentle the words, there are always darker motives underneath. I do not trust you, ser. — George R R Martin

Motives for greed and selfishness are often attributed to toil and source of riches. — Michael Bassey Johnson

Men are beasts, selfish and brutal. However gentle the words, there are always darker motives underneath. — George R R Martin

Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them. — Robert Breault

You need to put aside your own selfish motives and consider other people for a change. — Joe Schreiber

Many people think that the theory of the selfish gene says that "animals try to spread their genes." That misstates the facts and it misstates the theory. Animals, including most people, know nothing about genetics and care even less. People love their children not because they want to spread their genes (consciously or unconsciously) but because they can't help it. That love makes them try to keep their children warm, fed, and safe. What is selfish is not the real motives of the person but the metaphorical motives of the genes that built the person. Genes "try" to spread themselves by wiring animals' brains so the animals love their kin and try to keep warm, fed, and safe. — Steven Pinker

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity. — Charles Dudley Warner

The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideals. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. — Clarence Darrow

The crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to the flag, a leader, a religeous faith or political conviction. — Arthur Koestler

I think the reason this was so important to Jesus was that He wanted people to know that God is relational - truly relational without any impure or selfish motives. He wanted His Father to be trusted, and therefore He needed men and women who represented this. The psychology of agendas is that they make relationships transactional, which means that people are used for a purpose. People become a means to someone else's end, and this erodes a person's belief that he or she is valued regardless of any production. — Hugh Halter

You see, my dear, when people are angry with us, it is because they think we have done something to hurt them. Often, as it turns out, they have misjudged us or our motives. Thus, anger becomes a selfish emotion. — Carolynn Carey