Selflessness People Quotes & Sayings

I don't like happy people," Andrew said. "They're already happy; they don't need to be liked." "Wow, so selfless," Mark said. "You're a saint. I commend your selflessness. Amazing. — Tao Lin

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure. — Arleigh Burke

You may think the actions that mean the most are the ones we get credit for, but I happen to believe they mean more when people aren't aware. — Marilyn Grey

What is needed, however, isn't just that people working together be nice to each other. It is discipline.
Discipline is hard
harder than trustworthiness and skill and perhaps even than selflessness. We are by nature flawed and inconstant creatures. We can't even keep from snacking between meals. We are not built for discipline. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at. — Atul Gawande

The idea that somehow "no self, no problem"- I don't exist because I don't have a self- would be a mistaken understanding. However, the selflessness teaching is not that hard to understand. What it means is a type of self that people feel they have, like a fixed, unchanging identity. Either they know they have it, or for some, they feel they need to seek it, and possibly have an experience where they feel like they found something. That type of fixed, unchanging, essential self, or absolute self doesn't exist. That's what "no self" means. — Robert Thurman

What constitutes a beautiful girl? It is not merely an anatomical or aesthetic quality. Beautiful girls have an inner beauty, an inner light that defeats the darkness. It is a way of walking, smiling, of being. They have a certain smell, sweet as baby breath. They radiate good will, kindness, selflessness. — Chloe Thurlow

You see, it's about empathy. It's not about you. It's about empathy. It's not even about caring or being kind. It's about empathy. Do you think that all people who can empathize with other people (and rocks and trees), are desirous of being kind, at all times? Of course not! Empathy often hurts, and is often difficult. But we experience this difficulty, because we are human beings, because human beings are designed to connect with other living and non-living things! — C. JoyBell C.

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

Perhaps nuns felt like this, she thought, when they passed within convent walls and left the glitter of the world behind. But their renunciation was of the will, while circumstances beyond her control had stripped her of the people who meant everything to her. And yet was it not possible that they had endured the same impoverishment, so that when the glory that was life had become husks they found it good to exchange those dead things for service and whatever vicarious happiness could be salvaged? Maybe selflessness was only selfishness on another level. — Margaret Landon

In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won. — Theodore Roosevelt

When I ask people to contemplate selflessness, the sometimes react as if I've asked them to put their house on the market or give away all their money. If there was a self that existed in the way we think, discovering selflessness would be like putting our house on the market. But in the Buddhist tradition, the discovery of selflessness is called "completely joyful." It's not called "the raw end of the deal," or "I'd rather go back to bed," or "This is scary and depressing." — Sakyong Mipham

If the house is to be demolished tomorrow anyhow, people seem to feel, we may as well burn the furniture today. None of our problems are insoluble ... But it seems clear that to prevail we humans will have to act with a smartness and selflessness that has so far eluded us during our long and tangled history. — Arthur C. Clarke

[Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner belonged to] that small army of brave people who made it their duty, without thought of themselves or hope or expectation of reward, to strive for unpopular causes.
[Chapman Cohen on the death of noted freethinker and peace advocate Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner] — Chapman Cohen

You shouldn't live for yourself alone but you must also learn to live the Christian life — Sunday Adelaja

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 my final years in Green Bay, when I wasn't getting the ball, people would ask me why I never complained.
'Because these guys are my family,' I would say. 'I'm not selfish. It's not about me. It's about these guys, my family, and winning championships together. — Donald Driver

Chris: I don't know why it is, but every time I reach out for something I want, I have to pull back because other people will suffer. — Arthur Miller

Practicing kindness and selflessness, you naturally align your life with the Integral Way. Aligning your life with the Integral Way, you begin to eliminate the illusory boundaries between people and societies, between darkness and light, between life and death. — Brian Browne Walker

I saw [Ronald] Reagan. I've watched Jimmy Carter and his selflessness, getting involved in things like votes in African countries, but also putting his foot right into the whole Israel-Palestine crisis. Sometimes into places where people are going, "Why are you doing that?" . — David Mandel

But Octavia was a nice person with a big, generous heart who felt sorry for outsiders and tried to help them. And people like her never get any thanks for their selflessness. They are not the ones with the hardness to make others wait; they are the ones left waiting, until their souls are broken like old pieces of bread and scattered in the snow for the birds. They can go right ahead and aspire to the stars, but the only chance they'll ever have to fly is in a thousand pieces, melting in the hot guts of something predatory. — J. Ryan Stradal

Many churches of all persuasions are hiring research agencies to poll neighborhoods, asking what kind of church they prefer. Then the local churches design themselves to fit the desires of the people. True faith in God that demands selflessness is being replaced by trendy religion that serves the selfish. — Billy Graham

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

So we know that human nature, and that includes our nature, yours and mine, can very easily turn people into quite efficient torturers and mass-murderers and slave-drivers...To the extent that the statement is true, and there is such an extent, it's just not relevant: human nature also has the capacity to lead to selflessness, and cooperation, and sacrifice, and support, and solidarity, and tremendous courage, and lots of other things too. — Noam Chomsky

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

I am an atheist and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people. — Katharine Hepburn

Our most intense joy comes not from personal feats, but from helping other persons achieve their goals. We become suppler human beings when we find true joy in witnessing other people's successes and unabashedly share in their joyful accomplishments. — Kilroy J. Oldster

Man is an extremely complex creature: he usually acts in an unselfish manner for selfish reasons. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

There's nothing wrong with helping someone without a cost. Especially if there's no end return. — Solange Nicole

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

True life is the understanding and support of other people, of selflessness, of charity, of kindness. — Peter F. Hamilton

After the fire, when I'd tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, they'd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.
'Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did?' I'd asked.
'Do you really need to know?' my father had asked back. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

If your heart, mind, and actions are selfish, they will ultimately divide you, others, or entire [establishments]. When motivation is pure and selfless, it will result in helping bring others together. — A.J. Darkholme

He's paying the price and wondering for what sin and telling himself that he's been too selfish. In what act or thought of his has there ever been a self? What was his aim in life? Greatness
in other people's eyes. Fame, admiration, envy
all that which comes from others. Others dictated his convictions, which he did not hold, but he was satisfied that others believed he held them. Others were his motive power and his prime concern. He didn't want to be great, but to be thought great. He didn't want to build, but to be admired as a builder. He borrowed from others in order to make an impression on others. There's your actual selflessness. — Ayn Rand

Don't just save yourself alone, also bring salvation the people around you — Sunday Adelaja

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

Whether you believe in hell, whether you pray daily, whether you are a Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Mormon ... none of these things correlated with generosity. The only thing that was reliably and powerfully associated with the moral benefits of religion was how enmeshed people were in relationships with their co-religionists. It's the friendships and group activities, carried out within a moral matrix that emphasizes selflessness. That's what brings out the best in people. — Jonathan Haidt

1 month ago the American people stopped to remember the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. We thought first and foremost of the selflessness, patriotism and heroism by our troops, our National Guard and Reserves. — Rosa DeLauro

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. — Stephen Kendrick