Source: The Enchantress of Florence
“All selfishness is the great curse of the human race”
Speech at Hawarden (28 May 1890), quoted in The Times (29 May 1890), p. 12.
1890s
Context: All selfishness is the great curse of the human race, and when we have a real sympathy with other people less happy than ourselves that is a good sign of something like a beginning of deliverance from selfishness.
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William Ewart Gladstone 121
British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United… 1809–1898Related quotes
Abraham Lincoln
(1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Fragmentary manuscript of a speech on free labor (17 September 1859?) http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln3/1:141?rgn=div1;view=fulltext; The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (1953), vol. 3, p. 463
1850s
Context: We know, Southern men declare that their slaves are better off than hired laborers amongst us. How little they know, whereof they speak! There is no permanent class of hired laborers amongst us. Twentyfive years ago, I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yesterday, labors on his own account to-day; and will hire others to labor for him to-morrow. Advancement — improvement in condition — is the order of things in a society of equals. As Labor is the common burthen of our race, so the effort of some to shift their share of the burthen on to the shoulders of others, is the great, durable, curse of the race. Originally a curse for transgression upon the whole race, when, as by slavery, it is concentrated on a part only, it becomes the double-refined curse of God upon his creatures.
“For their abuse of [the Black African] race, the whites will be cursed, unless they repent.”
Brigham Young
(1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader
Journal of Discourses, Vol.10, 1863, p. 110
1860s
Benjamin Disraeli
(1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 29.
“For crude classifications and false generalisations are the curse of all organised human life.”
Source: A Modern Utopia (1905), Ch. 10, sect. 1
“In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.”
The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, Monday, 13th January —, p. 528
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Context: Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes.
What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts.
What precipitates acts? Belief.
Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boer-haaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?
Why? Because of this: — one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
Is this the doom written within our nature?
If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.
“Inscribe all human effort with one word,
Artistry's haunting curse, the Incomplete!”
Book XI, line 1560.
The Ring and the Book (1868-69)
Frank Buchman
(1878–1961) Evangelical theologist
The Revolutionary Path, by Frank Buchman, publisher: Grosvenor Books, 1975, p.23
Quotes on the war of ideas
David Trimble
(1944–2022) Northern Irish politician
Human Rights' Other Face : http://www.rediff.com/news/2004/mar/10rajiv.htm: 10 March 2004 , Rediff.com. . Quoted in S. Balakrishna, Seventy years of secularism. 2018.