“Our own happiness, and that of our species, are assumed to be so pre-eminent that we sacrifice without hesitancy the most sacred interests of others, in order that our own may be carefully provided for.”

Source: The New Ethics (1907), Human Attitude Toward Others, pp. 40–41

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J. Howard Moore183

1862–1916

James Rachels book The Elements of Moral Philosophy

The Elements of Moral Philosophy (McGraw-Hill, 1999), p. 95

“Whatever affection we have for our friends or relations, the happiness of others never suffices for our own.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 188.

“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: The Social Contract and Discourses

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)

“My own life has convinced me that the limitations most of us encounter in our relations with other animals reflect not their shortcomings, as we so often assume, but our own narrow views about who they are and the kinds of relationships we can have with them. And so I conclude by urging anyone with an interest in animal rights to open your heart to the animals around you and find out for yourself what it's like to befriend a nonhuman person.”

Barbara Smuts (1950) American anthropologist

Source: Reflections (1999), p. 120

“Most often we are judging not others, but rather our own faculties in others.”

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804–1869) French literary critic

Le plus souvent nous ne jugeons pas les autres, mais nous jugeons nos propres facultés dans les autres.
Œuvres choisies (Paris: A. Hatier, 1934) p. 774; Andrew George Lehmann Sainte-Beuve (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962) p. 301.

“We always want more, he thought, we always take our past successes for granted and assume they point the way to future triumphs. But the universe does not have our own best interests at heart, and to assume for a moment that it does, ever did or ever might is to make the most calamitous and hubristic of mistakes.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Look to Windward (2000), Chapter 2 “Winter Storm” (p. 36)

“Protecting elephants and conserving natural ecosystems remain my personal priorities. But I am not so sure this would be so were I ill, hungry, and living in dispair. …We must somehow find a way to provide for our own species if we are also to preserve others.”

Richard Leakey (1944) Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and politician

Wildlife Wars: My Fight to Save Africa's Natural Treasures (2001) with Virginia Morell

“But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"The United States of Europe", The Saturday Evening Post (15 February 1930)
Reproduced in The Collected Essays of Sir Winston Churchill, Vol II, Churchill and Politics, Centenary Edition (1976), Library of Imperial History, p. 184.
The 1930s
Context: We are bound to further every honest and practical step which the nations of Europe may make to reduce the barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and common welfare. We rejoice at every diminution of the internal tariffs and martial armaments of Europe. We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonalty. But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed. And should European statesmen address us in the words which were used of old, 'Wouldest thou be spoken for to the king, or captain of the host?', we should reply, with the Shunammite woman: 'I dwell among mine own people.

“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belong to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.”

Graham Greene book The End of the Affair

Bk. 2, ch. 1
The End of the Affair (1951)

“Our own happiness, and that of our species, are assumed to be so pre-eminent that we sacrifice without hesitancy the most sacred interests of others, in order that our own may be carefully provided for.”

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J. Howard Moore183

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