“The martyr sacrifices herself (himself in a few instances) entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for she (or he) makes the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.”
As quoted in Forever Yours (1990) by Martha Vicinus and Bea Nergaard , p. 275. Letter, c. 1867, to the scholar Benjamin Jowett.
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Florence Nightingale 81
English social reformer and statistician, and the founder o… 1820–1910Related quotes
“We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.”
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Source: quoted in Leonard Gordon, Bengal The Nationalist Movement, p 260, and in Elst, K. (2010). The saffron swastika: The notion of "Hindu fascism". p 959
Source: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), Ch. 9
"The Responsibility of the Poet".
What Are People For? (1990)
Context: Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world.
The Revolutionary Path, by Frank Buchman, publisher: Grosvenor Books, 1975, p.23
Quotes on the war of ideas
22 August 1875.
The Walk With God (1919)
Context: There is no hell like that of a selfish heart, and there is no misfortune so great as that of not being able to make a sacrifice. These two thoughts come to me strongly this morning. It is something to have learned these truths so that we can never again doubt them.