Quotes about selfishness
page 7

“The difficulty of exercising “social responsibility” illustrates, of course, the great virtue of private competitive enterprise — it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to “exploit” other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes. They can do good—but only at their own expense.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

“A Friedman doctrine‐- The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits” (Sept. 1970)

People, Making love, Exercises

“Humanity is entirely responsible for being at the root of the problems arising from global warming. We need to rethink the way we live on earth in order to preserve life. Global warming is out of control…. Time is not on our side, which is why I am calling on all young millennials to hasten this radical revolution. You are a part of nature and compassion decrees that you take care of it as much as you do yourselves. It is only through mutual support and co-operation that you will be able to contain disasters that are fuelled by economic and social injustice and are fuelled by greed, selfishness, and other negative states of mind…. You are responsible for the wellbeing of billions of humans and all manner of living species sharing the adventure of life on earth. It is up to you to protect natural resources and guard over air, water, oceans, forests, fauna and flora. To do so it is essential that you realize your potential for love and compassion in order to care for the earth. Learn to love it through sharing it rather than striving to possess it and thereby destroying it.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

A Call for Revolution (2017-2018)

Love, Life, Making love, Way

“...what the freedom is that I love, and that to which I think all men intitled. It is not solitary, unconnected, individual, selfish Liberty. As if every Man was to regulate the whole of his Conduct by his own will. The Liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which Liberty is secured by the equality of Restraint; A Constitution of things in which the liberty of no one Man, and no body of Men and no Number of men, can find Means to trespass on the liberty of any Person, or any description of Persons in the Society. This kind of liberty is indeed but another name for Justice, as ascertained by wise Laws, and secured by well-constructed institutions.”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 42
1780s

Love, Men, Making love, Justice

“We are the earth his word must sow like wheat
And, if it finds no earth, it cannot grow.
We are his earth, the mortal and the dying,
Led by no star — the sullen and the slut,
The thief, the selfish man, the barren woman,
Who have betrayed him once and will betray him,
Forget his words, be great a moment's space
Under the strokes of chance,
And then sink back into our small affairs.
And yet, unless we go, his message fails.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Innkeeper's wife
Source: A Child is Born (1942)

Star, Chance, Forgetting

“The thing we really need to fix is ourselves. It's not about the fish; it's not about the pollution; it's not about the climate change. It's about us and our greed and our need for growth and our inability to imagine a world that is different from the selfish world we live in today. So the question is: Will we respond to this or not? I would say that the future of life and the dignity of human beings depends on our doing that.”

Jeremy Jackson (scientist) (1942) American marine biologist

Source: How we wrecked the ocean https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_jackson_how_we_wrecked_the_ocean (April 2010)

Life, World, Imagination, Question

“We live in a country afflicted by a senile and selfish capitalist system...where families are homeless, sick people unattended, children untaught whilst building workers, nurses and teachers are unemployed”

Neil Kinnock (1942) British politician

Source: ‘Introduction’, in Why Vote Labour? (1979), p. 2, quoted in Tudor Jones, ‘Neil Kinnock's socialist journey’, Contemporary Record, Volume 8, Issue 3 (1994), p. pp. 568–569

Children, People, Family, Affliction

“There is the first condition, the sine quanon. For the selfish no such advance is possible; for the unselfish such advance is certain. And in whatever life the man begins to think more of the common good than of his own individual gain, whether it be in the service of the town, of the community, of the nation, of the wider joinings of nations together, right up to the service of humanity itself, every one of those is a step towards the Path, and is preparing the man to set his feet thereon.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Life, Communication, Thinking

“Our fathers, in New England, in the Middle Colonies, and in the South, brought African slaves to America for reasons of their own, which it is impossible to justify, and useless now to censure. The God of our fathers has set them free by overruling a vast amount of human selfishness and passion in long-continued political and military conflict. Let the dead past bury its dead. Forgetting the things which are behind, let us reach forth to those things which are before.”

John Albert Broadus (1827–1895) American pastor and theologian

"As to the Colored People" (1 February 1883), as quoted in Report on Slavery and Racism in the History of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary https://sbts-wordpress-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/sbts/uploads/2018/12/Racism-and-the-Legacy-of-Slavery-Report-v4.pdf#page=6 (December 2018), by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, pp. 38–39

God, Passion, Past, Dead

“The animals [nature] brings forth (not to speak of the plants and the minerals) are in many cases ugly, unamiable, ferocious, and tormented with monstrous appetites, which can only be satisfied by devouring their fellow-creatures; nearly all of them are quite selfish and immoral; and the few of them that are philanthropic (such as surly old lions, tigers, wolves, sharks, vultures and other sweet carrion fowl; all genuine lovers of man) are almost as disagreeably so as our human philanthropists themselves.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 60
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Lovers, Nature, Animals

“Our country is suffering from the lack of food. We don't have rice for the military. Our country is in a state of anarchy because of the dysfunctional food rationing system. The administration department is responsible for this mess, as well as the Party officials. The Party's Central Committee members have failed their duty in generating a revolutionary spirit, diminishing the Party's effectiveness. We must solve the food problem according to socialist principles, and we must not rely on individuals. If we let the people solve the problem on their own, only merchants and markets will prosper. Then, selfishness will rule our society and destroy our system of true equality.”

Kim Jong-il (1941–2011) General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea

Reported speech at Kim Il Sung University in December 1996, as quoted in Exit Emperor Kim Jong-il (2012) by John H. Cha and K. J. Sohn. Domestic collections of Kim's works do not confirm the speech or the wording, but an April 1996 speech to the Central Committee began with similar observations, and a "state of anarchy" arising from privatization in former socialist countries was a theme in earlier works.
1990s

People, Food, Problem, Suffering

“Party has no doubt its evils; but all the evils of party put together would be scarcely a grain in the balance, when compared to the dissolution of honourable friendships, the pursuit of selfish ends, the want of concert in council, the absence of a settled policy in foreign affairs, the corruption of separate statesmen, the caprices of an intriguing Court, which the extinction of party connection has brought and would again bring upon this country.”

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878) leading Whig and Liberal politician who served as Prime Minister on two occasions

From the introduction to Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford, Vol. 3 (1847), p. lxii
1840s

Friendship, Evil, Country

“Do I still need to tell you that I am not guided by selfish motives? No gentlemen, although Belgium is small, it is happy and content with its fate. I have no ambition other than to serve it. In this century, our civilized society imparts unprecedented values to barbarian communities in other parts of the world.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians in a speech at the Brussels Geographic Conference on September 12, 1876. Quoted from the book "Zaïre, Ketens van Koper (translated: Zaire, Chains of Copper)" Chapter 2: From Leopold II to Bwana Kitoko, page 16. Leuven, Kritak Fonds, 1978. ISBN 9063030185”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Fate, Happiness, Books, World

“Why should we think so everlastingly of the effects of our crimes on ourselves? Why should we not lavish an occasional thought on our victims? Because we are partial instead of impartial; because we are narrow and selfish in our feelings and understanding instead of broad and altruistic; because we are a lot of fervid barbarians without any realisation of our true dimensions, and revelling in the unchallenged conceit that we are the whole thing in this world.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Human Attitude Toward Others, p. 49

World, Feeling, Understanding, Thinking

“I feel like saying over and over and over, what I have said many times before, that we do not know the world of living, longing, suffering, enjoying life in the midst of which we have evolved. The inhabitants of our own fields and dooryards are strangers to us. We are so little, and proud, and selfish, we never think it worth while to stop and look into their faces and get acquainted with them. It never occurs to us what a great favour it would be to them if we would actually get over into their places occasionally and realise what tragedies are constantly being enacted in their lives as a result of our insensate natures. We treat them with no consideration or respect because we have no understanding of them; and we do not understand them because we do not care anything at all about the matter. We are too busy tossing bouquets at ourselves to have much time or thought left for anybody else. We have grown up in the belief that all those who have a different shape from what we have were intended, not for life and happiness and immortality, as we were, but for death and wretchedness and chymification, and we are too dull-minded and selfish to make any change now.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 37

Life, Death, Happiness, World

“Whether Protection is a universal poison, or whether it may be conceived to operate as food in cases where it is granted for a few years in order to shelter the first investments in a new industry, I do not now inquire. We at least have never seen or known it in that mitigated form. With us it has sheltered nothing but the most selfish instincts of class against the just demands of the public welfare. These it has supplied with strongholds, from whose portals our producers have too generally marched forth in the day of need, armed from head to foot with power and influence largely gotten at the expense of the community, to do battle with a perverted prowess, against nature, liberty, and justice.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

'Free Trade, Railways, and the growth of Commerce', The Nineteenth Century, No. XXXVI (February 1880), quoted in The Nineteenth Century, Vol. VII (January–June 1880), p. 377
1880s

Justice, Food, Communication, Nature

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Wisdom

“In this world where selfishness and violence make noise, we value love.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In questo mondo dove egoismo e violenza fanno rumore, diamo valore all'amore.
Source: prevale.net

Love, World

“In this wicked and selfish world, with no essential values… being asshole is self-defense.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: In questo mondo malvagio ed egoista, senza valori essenziali... essere stronzi è legittima difesa.
Source: prevale.net

World

“What’s not fair is that our society rewards selfishness. That’s not fair.”

Max Barry book Jennifer Government

Source: Jennifer Government (2003), Chapter 5, “Wal-Mart” (p. 18)

“In this world that hides injustice, selfishness, hatred, falseness and appearance; you, impose on yourself to be a good person.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) In questo mondo che cela ingiustizia, egoismo, odio, falsità ed apparenza; tu, imponiti di essere una brava persona.
Source: prevale.net

World, Appearance, Personality, Falseness

“In the long term, profit without loss is considered as selfishness.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Loss

“My favorite part of my job is never having to doubt that I’m doing something of value. And I don’t mean this in the global sense; there are more practical ways to help people. But I do think that--and this may be selfish--I am working at something that’s making me a better human.”

Kirstin Chen Singaporean writer

As quoted in "Kirstin Chen Ventures Out Of Singapore With Novel Set In 1950s Maoist China" in Forbes (27 April 2018) https://www.forbes.com/sites/priscaang/2018/04/27/kirstin-chen/?sh=235a75302016

People, Way, Thinking, Sense

“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.”

David Mitchell book Cloud Atlas

"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", p. 508
Cloud Atlas (2004), The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 2)

World, Soul

“Genes do indeed behave as if they have selfish goals, not consciously, but retrospectively: genes that behave in this way thrive and genes that don’t don’t.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 8 “Self-Interest” (p. 128)

Way

“The Hindus are so divided and so foolishly selfish that their majority does not count in actual politics. The atmosphere can clear only after a thunderstorm— after showers of blood.”

Jadunath Sarkar (1870–1958) Indian historian

Sir Jadunath Sarkar, letter on 14 August 1931 to Padam Bhushan Dr. G. S. Sardesai https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.98914/2015.98914.Life-And-Letters-Of-Sir-Jadunath-Sarkar-Section-1---2_djvu.txt https://www.dharmadispatch.in/history/jadunath-sarkar-as-a-seer-a-few-glimpses

“The genome is littered, one might almost say clogged, with the equivalent of computer viruses, selfish, parasitic stretches of letters which exist for the pure and simple reason that they are good at getting themselves duplicated. We are full of digital chain letters and warnings about marmalade.”

Matt Ridley book Genome

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 8 “Self-Interest” (p. 127)

“People don't change their basic nature, they just accumulate more stuff upon which they can apply their stupidity, selfishness, and horniness. From this perspective, the future isn't hard to predict.”

Scott Adams (1957) cartoonist, writer

Source: Books, The Dilbert Future (1997)

People, Stupidity, Nature, Change

“[National-Socialism is] not only narrow and selfish but arrogant [with a] very weak scientific foundation for its racial philosophy.”

Subhas Chandra Bose (1897–1945) Indian nationalist leader and politician

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

“The basic ideological programme of the great proletarian Cultural Revolution is 'to combat selfishness and criticize revisionism.'”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

Source: Directives on the Cultural Revolution (1966-1972)

“It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth at a 'higher standard of living than any have ever known.' It no longer has to be you or me. Selfishness is unnecessary and henceforth unrationalizable as mandated by survival... It is a matter of converting the high technology from weaponry to livingry.”

Buckminster Fuller book Critical Path

Source: From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

“Of all our feigned affections, there is none
So hollow, selfish, and injurious,
As what we christen Patriotism.”

Alfred Austin (1835–1913) British writer and poet

Source: Fortunatus the Pessimist (1892), Fortunatus in Act I, sc. ii; p. 15.

“Oh, my shoulders grow aweary of the burdens I am bearin',
An' I grumble when I'm footsore at the rough road I am farin',
But I strap my knapsack tighter till I feel the leather bind me,
An' I'm glad to bear the burdens for the ones who come behind me.
It's for them that I am ploddin', for the children comin' after;
I would strew their path with roses and would fill their days with laughter.Oh, there's selfishness within me, there are times it gets to talkin',
Times I hear it whisper to me, "It's a dusty road you're walkin';
Why not rest your feet a little; why not pause an' take your leisure?
Don't you hunger in your strivin' for the merry whirl of pleasure?"
Then I turn an' see them smilin' an' I grip my burdens tighter,
For the joy that I am seekin' is to see their eyes grow brighter.”

Edgar Guest (1881–1959) American writer

Source: The Path to Home (1919), p.112 - The Burden Bearer, stanzas 1 and 2.

Hunger, Children, Pleasure, Feeling

“You are the excellence of charm: strong and fragile, cheerful and melancholy, innocent and perverse, selfish and altruistic, sociable and asocial, simple and complicated, sensitive and impassive, elegant and trendy, sweet and bitchy, true, concrete… authentic and sincere. You are a condemnation for the one who hosanna you. Your essence is a masterpiece of woman.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Tu sei l'eccellenza del fascino: forte e fragile, allegra e malinconica, innocente e perversa, egoista e altruista, socievole e asociale, semplice e complicata, sensibile e impassibile, elegante e trendy, dolce e stronza, vera, concreta... autentica e sincera. Sei una condanna per chi ti osanna. La tua essenza è un capolavoro di donna.
Source: prevale.net

Strong, Sincerity

“Not giving importance to the misconduct of many people: is not selfishness, but an act of survival.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Non dare importanza al comportamento scorretto di molte persone: non è egoismo, ma un atto di sopravvivenza.
Source: prevale.net

People

“I only appear selfish to a saint.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy: Volume 2 (2022)

Appearance

“We don't have to complain about human selfishness: everyone cares about us, and even our enemies would like to correct our defects.”

Daniel Salamanca (1863–1935) President of Bolivia (1863-1935)

“Nobody out here was going to find an alternative here to Earth’s tiresome clash of selfish individualisms and stifling collectivisms.”

Gregory Benford book The Sunborn

The Sunborn (2005), Part II, Chapter 5, “A Day at the Beach” (p. 114)

“The highest form of selfishness is that of the man who is content to go to heaven alone.”

J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop

Vol. I, Luke VIII: 16–21, p. 257
Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: St. Luke (1858–1859)

“While fully recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)
Context: What we principally thought of, was to alter people's opinions; to make them believe according to evidence, and know what was their real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard to it upon one another. While fully recognizing the superior excellence of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings.

Love, Education, Justice, Feeling

“Become selfish if you must survive. Though, don't die without reviving others.”

Yusuf Cornelius Otijenu

“The world of entertainment and showbiz is cruel, ruthless, selfish and risky. Never give in to any compromise. Make your art count and remember: true talent is not for sale. He will never need it.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Il mondo dell'intrattenimento e dello spettacolo è crudele, spietato, egoista e rischioso. Non cedete mai a nessun compromesso. Fate valere la vostra arte e ricordate: il vero talento non è in vendita. Non ne avrà mai bisogno.
Source: prevale.net

World, Art

“Learning to politely say “no” is not an act of selfishness or rejection towards others, but an important skill to improve the quality of your life.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Imparare a dire educatamente di "no" non è un atto di egoismo o di rifiuto verso gli altri, ma un'abilità importante per migliorare la qualità della propria vita.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Learning

“Often, not worrying is not selfishness, but an act of survival.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Spesso, non preoccuparsi non è egoismo, ma un atto di sopravvivenza.
Source: prevale.net

This quote waiting for review.

“So much immorality, so much petty selfishness in using migrants for mere electoral interests.”

José Baroja (1983) Chilean author and editor

Source: La Otra Historia. Radiorama de Occidente. 1480AM Rock&Pop. Guadalajara, Mexico.

“Setting boundaries with some individuals is not selfishness or weakness, but a strategy of wisdom to protect one's emotional, physical and mental health.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Stabilire dei confini con alcuni individui non è egoismo o debolezza, ma una saggia strategia per proteggere la propria salute emotiva, fisica e mentale.
Source: prevale.net

Wisdom, Health

“It's surprising how some people can be true, selfless and honest; others, how they can be false, selfish and dishonest.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: È sorprendente come alcune persone possano essere vere, altruiste ed oneste; altre, come possano essere false, egoiste e disoneste.
Source: prevale.net

People, Falseness

“Knowing how to say no isn't always an act of selfishness, but often of survival: it protects your physical well-being and your mental energies.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Saper dire di no non sempre è un atto di egoismo, ma spesso di sopravvivenza: protegge il tuo benessere fisico e le tue energie mentali.
Source: prevale.net

Quotes about selfishness page 7

Quotes about selfishness
page 7