Selfish Quotes & Sayings

I'm not selfish at all. — Judy Gold

Pseudo idealism: apparent charitable behaviour that on scrutiny is revealed as selfish, because the giver is engaging in it only so that he or she can feel good about him or herself — Jeremy Griffith

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

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. — Anonymous

It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself. — Tanith Lee

Every woman I have known has actually deepened my spiritual awareness. Even if I have been a selfish man and treated them badly ... There were two women, I won't name them, who had a powerful religious effect on me. The ancient idea of a muse is there. — John Tavener

I played Lucifer once, which is sort of a difficult character to research. I thought to myself, "We all have the potential to be selfish, to be cruel - at least to think evil thoughts, even if we don't ever act out on them. Even if we don't ever think we behave badly, we probably do more than we realize." — Viggo Mortensen

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

Because the one who has the power to choose who lives and who dies should use that power to save the other. To do otherwise would still be selfish. It would still be monstrous. — David Simpson

True devotion is motivated by love alone and devoid of selfish entanglements. — Rick Hocker

It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons. — Anita Brookner

Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you. -Rhett Butler — Margaret Mitchell

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate. — Philibert Joseph Roux

She has always seemed to me the epitome of womankind: coldly suspicious, politely ill-tempered, and narrowly selfish. — John Edward Williams

Life is given for wisdom, and yet we are not wise; for goodness, and we are not good; for overcoming evil, and evil remains; for patience and sympathy and love, and yet we are fretful and hard and weak and selfish. We are keyed not to attainment, but to the struggle toward it. — Thornton T. Munger

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience. — Joshua Bell

This is a speculating and selfish age; and to think 'money will answer all things,' is too much the characteristic of Americans. — Sarah Josepha Hale

It is not scientific doubt, not atheism, not pantheism, not agnosticism, that in our day and in this land is likely to quench the light of the gospel. It is a proud, sensuous, selfish, luxurious, church going, hollow-hearted prosperity.5 — Francis Chan

Being selfish only benefits a few. Considering others benefits all of mankind. — Terraine Francois

I couldn't see much, but it somehow seemed brighter across the wall, as if the sun gave more of it's light to the west. Maybe the people there were more selfish, I thought. Because we needed that sunlight far more than they did. — Jennifer A. Nielsen

We're all selfish. It's an age thing. We go spotty, disobedient and daft. But most of all, we go selfish — Ruth Hamilton

And, because in some hard core of me, in some stubborn trench of selfish refusal, I could not, even at ten years of age, surrender to anything or anyone, I fought that pain. I analysed its offensive, and found its lines of attack. It festered, like the corruption in a wound turned sour, drawing strength from me. I knew enough to know the remedy. Hot iron for infection, cauterize, burn, make it pure. I cut from myself all the weakness of care. The love for my dead, I put aside, secure in a casket, an object of study, a dry exhibit, no longer bleeding, cut loose, set free. The capacity for new love, I burned out. I watered it with acid until the ground lay barren and nothing there would sprout, no flower take root. — Mark Lawrence

Love wasn't selfless, and it wasn't selfish either. Love was equality. It was saying that another person's self was just as important as yours, and expecting them to feel the same way. — Rose Lerner

Our marriage is grounded in the word of God. That's really it. God is the core of our marriage, and the foundation and the blueprint for it is how we live, and being open and honest and communicating, but ultimately doing what pleases God, and not in a selfish manner. — Candace Cameron Bure

DRAMA: Be careful about being baited into the personal battles and confusion of others. If you want to help someone out emotionally, be certain he or she has made a commitment to the sacrifice before you intervene for his or her success. If you don't, you're likely to be drained of all your healthy energy with his or her selfish petty, pitiful pretending and negotiating. Be encouraged but more importantly if you can't make it better, whatever you do don't make it worse, for them and especially yourself — Kerry E. Wagner

I thought to myself then that it didn't matter where I ended up; I'd always be living that summer in that town, wishing that I;d done things differently, tormented by the fact that I hadn't. I'd never go far enough to be able to escape it. Maybe you're happy about that. OR maybe you're not. Maybe you're carrying your own regrets, and you understand how easy it is to let your life get away from you. I wish I could be the hero of this story, but I'm not. I'm just the one to tell it, at least my part in it- the story of Katie Mackey and the people who failed her. It's an old one, this tale of selfish desires and the lament that follows, as ancient as the story of Adam and Eve turned away forever from paradise. — Lee Martin

I thought he'd pick me, I know he has kids, but when it came down to it, I really thought he'd pick me."
Tears rolled down her face and her nose ran. She sniffed.
"I know I'm selfish"
"You're human"
"I wanted him to abandon his children — Anna McPartlin

No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment - just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity?-an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value. — Ayn Rand

The hope that we have in Christ is so gloriously wonderful, why would we ever keep it to ourselves? When we refuse to communicate the Gospel there is nothing more cruel or selfish in all of humanity. Because we do believe that it is the only way-Christ is the only name-by which men and women can be saved. And to withhold that name and that news because it's difficult is on par with any other atrocious thing humanity has ever seen. — Britt Merrick

People are vaccinated with dangerous chemicals during their childhood, indoctrinated with immorality through television while growing up, taught to reject God by their teachers, fed with genetically modified food, and led to suspect others by their relatives and friends, and then you wonder why it's so difficult to find a normal person in this modern world, why nobody assumes responsibility for their words and behavior, and why everyone is so selfishly abusive. The biblical apocalypse has begun and the zombies are everywhere. It's just that we call them stupid and selfish instead. But they do act like there's no life inside of them anymore. There are no more normal human beings around. The survivors of this apocalypse are extremely scarce and must be treasured. — Robin Sacredfire

We've been down the road of your hasty exits too many times, Mrs. Danvers. You married your master, and you married a sadist--of your own free will. You might remember that when you're tempted to walk out in a huff, defy my orders, and behave like a selfish brat. You got that? — Lizbeth Dusseau

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

A PRIME TRUTH - MAN IS SELFISH

(Name of chapter) — William J. Federer

We don't have selfish guys here, which sometimes leads to problems. — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us. — Sarah Dessen

The child's personality is a product of slow gradual growth. His nervous system matures by stages and natural sequences. He sits before he stands; he babbles before he talks; he fabricates before he tells the truth; he draws a circle before he draws a square; he is selfish before he is altruistic; he is dependent on others before he achieves dependence on self. All of his abilities, including his morals, are subject to laws of growth. The task of child care is not to force him into a predetermined pattern but to guide his growth. — Arnold Gesell

Have charity; have patience; have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak
above all, any little child
to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste
never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer
crush what is finest and rouse up what is coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature. — Charles Kingsley

To assume that I and I alone have all the answers is to eventually find myself entirely alone without any answers. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies. — G.K. Chesterton

This game brings out the most selfish parts of many people, but it had the opposite effect on you. Watching you restored my belief that Caraval could be what I believe it used to be---and that my brother could be good once again. — Stephanie Garber

Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests. — Henry Hazlitt

If the people are to be the final tribunal then they must vote for what is right rather than according to their own selfish interests, else we are treading the path of danger. — Henry Latham Doherty

If we're more accepting, more peaceful, less judgmental, less selfish, then the whole world is that much more loving and peaceful, that much less judgmental and selfish. — Joseph Goldstein

Boredom is for the selfish. — Patti Digh

Good" is what helps us or at least does not hinder. "Evil" is whatever harms us or interferes with us, according to our own selfish standards. — Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It is a terrible thing to feel sorry for one's mother or indeed father. And it's an additionally awful thing to feel this and to know the impotence of the adolescent to do anything at all about it. Worse still, perhaps, is the selfish consolation that it isn't really one's job to rear one's parents. — Christopher Hitchens

The best formula for a prayer that gives J.O.Y:
J- 1st, Pray to JESUS
O- 2nd, Pray for OTHERS
Y- 3rd, Pray for YOURSELF
Most people distort the formula by praying selfish prayers for their own personal gains. JYO is not the spelling for joy. In JOY, O comes before Y. It means you pray for OTHERS before YOURSELF. — Israelmore Ayivor

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone. — Tennessee Williams

It is indolence ... Indolence and love of ease; a want of all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen. A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish; read the newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does all the work and the business of his own life is to dine. — Jane Austen

If my love is without sacrifice, it is selfish. Such a love is barter, for there is exchange of love and devotion in return for something. It is conditional love. — Sadhu Vaswani

International war is the sum total of millions of individual wars, raging in the minds of the people, between what is selfish and what is selfless. To the extent that you and I develop selflessness in our own hearts, to that extent we contribute to peace in our family, community, country, and world. — Eknath Easwaran

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

The soul of me is very selfish. I have gone my way after a fashion that made me the center of the plan. And you who are so individual, who are so independent a spirit, whose soul is also a kingdom, have been so loyal, so forgiving, so self-sacrificing in your willingness to live my life. Nothing but love cold have accomplished so wonderful a thing. — Woodrow Wilson

But what Jamie was saying just mixed it all up, selfish and selfless. I wasn't even sure what the words meant anymore. or if it was possible to be one without the other. — Phoebe Kitanidis

But have you never noticed that when one has been trying to do something really good one is much nearer committing some special sin than when one keeps on in the selfish, matter-of-fact prudence of minding one's own business, and that alone? — Geraldine Jewsbury

Confession is for the confessor. It makes you feel good; it ruins the lives of everyone else. It's a selfish thing to do. Don't confess. — Jake Adelstein

He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and ... unsophisticated. And hung like a horse. — Josh Lanyon

People of art should never get married and have children, because it's a selfish experience. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

Inspiration is incompatible with selfish desire. Whoever wants something for himself sets truth aside. Such aims can only degrade work. — Antonin Sertillanges

Business success isn't just a selfish aim. Profits spread beyond those who make them and bring jobs and prosperity. — Margaret Thatcher

Society tried to teach me that children are by nature selfish, out-of-control, and demanding, that their goal is power and that they are always trying to see how much they can get away with, that you can't let children manipulate you or become too dependant, and that disobedience equals disrespect. As a mother, I have come to believe strongly that my child's primary goals are having his needs met, feeling connected to others, and feeling self-worth. His misbehavior is an attempt to get a need met or to feel significance and connection, done in an appropriate way ... my job as a parent is to help my child identify and meet those needs in appropriate ways. - Lisa S. — Hilary Flower

Affection between adults - if they are really adult in mind and not merely grown up children - and creatures so relatively selfish and cruel as children necessarily are without knowing it or meaning it, cannot be called natural. — George Bernard Shaw

We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid. — Christopher Hitchens

I've stabbed a man to death. Had sex with a stranger on camera. My soul was stained black with so many crimes, but I couldn't bear to watch him die. Maybe that made me a coward, worse than Vinny. He had been sadistic. I had been selfish. — Lana Sky

That's because true travel, the kind with no predetermined end, is one of the most selfish endeavors we can possibly undertake-an act in which we focus solely on our own fulfillment, with little regard to those we leave behind. After all, we're the ones venturing out into the big crazy world, filling up journals, growing like weeds. And we have the gall to think they're just sitting at home, soaking in security and stability.
It is only when we reopen these wrapped and ribboned boxes, upon our triumphant return home, that we discover nothing is the way we had left it before. — Stephanie Elizondo Griest

You can be yourself without pursuing yourself. Have you ever seen a dog chase his own tail? He just runs in circles. — Criss Jami

Off we skip like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are, but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that we shall be rewarded instead of smacked. — J.M. Barrie

But if I decide to decide there's a different, less selfish, less lonely point to my life, won't the reason for this decision be my desire to be less lonely, meaning to suffer less overall pain? Can the decision to be less selfish ever be anything other than a selfish decision? — David Foster Wallace

It is easy to love friends and sweethearts. This is selfish love. Higher love embraces enemies and all ugly, bad people. The highest love doesn't see goodness or badness at all. One should even love warmongers, bad food producers and priests. — Michio Kushi

In the darkness of a thousand
withered souls, it was Er Lang's hand that I
sought, and his voice that I longed to hear. Perhaps
it is selfish of me, but an uncertain future
with him, in all its laughter and quarrels, is better
than being left behind. — Yangsze Choo

... The Lord through His grace appeared to man, gave him the Gospel or eternal plan whereby he might rise above the carnal and selfish things of life and obtain spiritual perfection. But he must rise by his own efforts and he must walk by faith. — David O. McKay

If the well-being of my loved place depends on the well-being of Earth, I have a good reason for supporting the well-being of your loved place. I have selfish as well as cosmopolitan reasons for preserving the home-places of all human beings. Cosmopolitanism becomes thicker and more potent with this realization. — Nel Noddings

Why then should I often be unhappy over what happens here? Shouldn't I always be glad, contented and happy, except when I think about her and her companions in distress? I am selfish and cowardly. Why do I always dream and think of the most terrible things- my fear makes me want to scream out loud sometimes. Because still, in spite of everything, I have not enough faith in God. He has given me so much- which I certainly do not deserve- and I still do so much that is wrong every day. If you think of your fellow creatures, then you only want to cry, you could really cry the whole day long. The only thing to do is to pray that God will perform a miracle and save some of them. And I hope that I am doing that enough! — Anne Frank

Monsters never get the princess in real life, but I'm selfish enough to want to keep you near me for as long as I can. — Alyssa Day

If Pelagius had solved the problem of sin and human responsibility by arguing that humans are perfectly capable of doing whatever they want, Augustine solved it by saying that humans deliberately act against the good ideals that they don't know and are selfish, greedy, lustful, stubborn, and proud. In his words, people are non posse non peccare, "not able not to sin," because even the good things that we do are not out of love for God but for some lesser purpose. — Justin S. Holcomb

: Joy 197 Let us live in joy, never hating those who hate us. Let us live in freedom, without hatred even among those who hate. 198 Let us live in joy, never falling sick like those who are sick. Let us live in freedom, without disease even among those who are ill. 199 Let us live in joy, never attached among those who are selfishly attached. Let us live in freedom even among those who are bound by selfish attachments. 200 Let us live in joy, never hoarding things among those who hoard. Let us — Anonymous

There are no perfect human beings! Persons can be found who are good, very good indeed, in fact, great. There do in fact exist creators, seers, sages, saints, shakers, and movers ... even if they are uncommon and do not come by the dozen. And yet these very same people can at times be boring, irritating, petulant, selfish, angry, or depressed. To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it. — Abraham Maslow

Selfish men make the best lovers. They're prepared to invest in the women's pleasures so that they can collect an even bigger dividend for themselves. — J.G. Ballard

What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a gene that makes organisms sacrifice themselves for other organisms under the influence of selfish genes. — Richard Dawkins

A race car driver must be very selfish. It is a cold truth: even his family must came second to the race. — Garth Stein

Worship is at heart a person offered to God, claiming no rights, making no more selfish demands than a dead man does, but living fully, richly and wholly to God and by His power. — Graham Kendrick

We cannot love ourselves unless we love others, and we cannot love others unless we love ourselves. But a selfish love of ourselves makes us incapable of loving others. — Thomas Merton

Their drift away from others produced a selfish privacy and they had lost the refuge and the consolation of a clan. Baptists, Presbyterians, tribe, army, family, some encircling outside thing was needed. Pride, she thought. Pride alone made them think that they needed only themselves, could shape life that way, like Adam and Eve, like gods from nowhere beholden to nothing except their own creations. She should have warned them, but her devotion cautioned against impertinence. As long as Sir was alive it was easy to veil the truth: that they were not a family-not even a like-minded group. They were orphans, each and all. — Toni Morrison

I talk to groups studying the most advanced spiritual teachings and sometimes these people wonder why nothing is happening in their lives. Their motive is the attainment of inner peace for themselves - which of course is a selfish motive. You will not find it with this motive. The motive, if you are to find inner peace, must be an outgoing motive. Service, of course, service. Giving, not getting. Your motive must be good if your work is to have good effect. The secret of life is being of service. — Peace Pilgrim

I recognize that I have the ability to be selfish, but I also recognize that you can't be happy if you only care about yourself at the expense of other people. — Russell Brand

It's usually the selfish people who are loved the most. They do what you deny yourself, and you love them for it. You give them your heart. — Saul Bellow

Business demands faith, compels earnestness, requires courage, is honestly selfish, is penalized for mistakes, and is the essence of life. — William Feather

Unconditional love. That's what he wants to give her and what he wants from her. People should give without wanting anything in return. All other giving is selfish. But he is being selfish a little, isn't he, by wanting her to love him in return? He hopes that she loves him in return. Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing of rain? — Alan Lightman

The spiritual life is a call to action. But it is a call to ... action without any selfish attachment to the results. — Eknath Easwaran

If you tell people enough times that they are unhappy, incomplete, possibly insane and definitely selfish there is bound to come a grey morning when they wake up with the beginning of a nasty cold and wonder if they are lonely rather than simply "alone." — Sara Maitland

Despite the voices of the culture that would scream otherwise, victory is irreparably tied to the surrender of self. And that explains why so few are truly victorious. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

As much as I want you and want to be with you and part of you, I can't tear myself away from the realness of my responsibilities. If you force me, physically or mentally, to go with you, as I said earlier, I cannot fight that. I don't have the strength, given my feelings for you. In spite of what I said about not taking the road away from you, I'd go because of my own selfish wanting of you. But please don't make me. Don't make me give this up, my responsibilities. I cannot do that and live with the thought of it. If I did leave now, those thoughts would turn me into something other than the woman you have come to love — Robert James Waller

I understood why those who had lived through war or economic disasters, and who had built for themselves a good life and a high standard of living, were rightly proud to be able to provide for their children those things which they themselves had not had. And why their children, inevitably, took those things for granted. It meant that new values and new expectations had crept into our societies along with new standards of living. Hence the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle of so many young people in the Western world, especially in the United States. — Jane Goodall

I think Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people. — Harry Belafonte

I don't know why I feel so tremendously ashamed of myself for leaving them. Why it feels so selfish and horrible to paint. I shouldn't
shouldn't feel that way, should I? I know I shouldn't, but I can't help it."
The rose hung limply from my fingers. "All those years, what I did for them ... And they didn't try to stop you from taking me. — Sarah J. Maas

The image of God I was raised with was this: God is an angry bastard with a killer surveillance system who had to send his little boy (and he only had one) to suffer and die because I was bad. But the good news was that if I believed this story and then tried really hard to be good, when I died I would go to heaven, where I would live in a golden gated community with God and all the other people who believed and did the same things as I did ... this type of thinking portrays God as just as mean and selfish as we are, which feels like it has a lot more to do with our own greed and spite than it has to do with God. — Nadia Bolz-Weber

Selfish action imprisons the world. Act selflessly, without any thought of personal profit. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

Severine was a greedy, selfish person. She wanted everything. Right now, sitting here with Thayer, she wanted to keep this moment forever. Nothing gave her the right to desire it so much. — Calia Read

The truth is, I think we are a self-less society, not a selfish society. Because we're so busy now. — Phil McGraw

Had I been too selfish? I had never known my mother, but I knew my life as it had been without her: the ship, the sea, the myths, the maps . . . and, yes, Kashmir. The pain I felt at the thought of losing him - the same pain that kept me at arm's length - gave me a hint of my father's own struggle. — Heidi Heilig