Stop Selfishness Quotes & Sayings

Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens 'till parents stop clenching their fists around precious things and people, let go, & trust God! — Gary Patton

There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish. — Lydia Davis

I guess I've been waiting so long I'm looking for perfection. That makes it tough."
"Waiting for perfect love?"
"No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Like, say I tell you I want to eat strawberry shortcake. And you stop everything you're doing and run out and buy it for me. And you come back out of breath and get down on your knees and hold this strawberry shortcake out to me. And I say I don't want it anymore and throw it out the window. That's what I'm looking for. — Haruki Murakami

We seldom stop to think how many people's lives are entwined with our own. It is a form of selfishness to imagine that every individual can operate on his own or can pull out of the general stream and not be missed. — Ivy Baker Priest

You must learn to meditate and stop your thoughts. You must overcome all egotism and selfishness by serving others. You must cleanse your mind so that enlightenment will find a happy place to reside there. — Frederick Lenz

And this is how I come face to face with my selfishness, because I don't know if I can enjoy this goldfish without knowing that he loves me, or if not loves me, then at least depends on me, i.e., swims up to my fingers greedily when I fill them with salty-smelling rainbow-colored flakes, and wiggle them over his head.

And this is disturbing to realize, that I have such difficulty enjoying anything that doesn't know I exist. Especially when I stop and think how big the world is, the world that is not even Japan or India, the world that is the room next door. — Amy Fusselman

The alternative to this truce-marriage is to determine to see your own selfishness as a fundamental problem and to treat it more seriously than you do your spouse's. Why? Only you have complete access to your own selfishness, and only you have complete responsibility for it. So each spouse should take the Bible seriously, should make a commitment to "give yourself up." You should stop making excuses for selfishness, you should begin to root it out as it's revealed to you, and you should do so regardless of what your spouse is doing. If two spouses each say, "I'm going to treat my self-centeredness as the main problem in the marriage," you have the prospect of a truly great marriage. — Timothy J. Keller

And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself. — George Orwell

It's about time we stop mistaking self-knowledge for self-absorption - and realize that nobody has a monopoly on selfishness. — Meghan Daum

I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of the way it makes things spectacular that aren't, and deals so simplistically with what's truly appalling. I'm tired of the vitriol. I'm tired of anger. I'm tired of the meanness. I'm tired of selfishness. I'm tired of how we're doing nothing to stop it. I'm tired of how we're encourageing it. I'm tired of the violence that's on it's way, that's coming, that hasn't happened yet. I'm tired of liars. I'm tired of sanctified liars. I'm tired of how those liars have let this happen. I'm tired of having to wonder whether they did it out of stupidity or did it on purpose. I'm tired of lying governments. I'm tired of people not caring whether they're being lied to anymore. I'm tired of being made to feel this fearful. — Ali Smith

Committing suicide essentially said to friends and loved ones and the world at large that you were the only thing that mattered, that your problems were hopeless that you deserved to escape from them and to hell with everyone else.
Suicide was nothing more than a way to look in the eye of the people who loved you and say, My pain is paramount and I want it to end. The pain you will feel when I am gone, and the guilt you will experience at not having been able to stop me, do not matter to me. I am willing for you to suffer for the rest of your life so that I can take the easy way out of mine. — Christine Warren

He is mad," said Kemp; "inhuman. He is pure selfishness. He thinks of nothing but his own advantage, his own safety. I have listened to such a story this morning of brutal self-seeking ... . He has wounded men. He will kill them unless we can prevent him. He will create a panic. Nothing can stop him. He is going out now - furious! — H.G.Wells

Still, I've come to believe there are times when a family is so broken it can't be put back together, or mended - times when the repair job isn't worth the price. But that assessment isn't to be made lightly, and cannot be made without calling into question one's own essential goodness. Breaking from your parents is a selfish move, but sometimes selfishness is justified. What I know is this: When I made the decision to stop speaking to my parents, I made the decision to be happy. — Jessica Berger Gross

An obese ego is just about the heaviest thing you'll ever carry. So maybe you should stop feeding it. — Craig D. Lounsbrough