Maybe a new religion will rise now. Maybe without it, man will crumble in cynicism and selfishness because he really needs his gods.
The worthless and offensive members of society, whose existence is a social pest, invariably think themselves the most ill-used people alive, and never get over their astonishment at the ingratitude and selfishness of their contemporaries.
Tyranny or slavery, born of selfishness, are the two educational methods of parents; all gradations of tyranny or slavery.
The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of malice, hatred, bigotry, and selfishness from the hearts of humanity.
A gamester, as such, is the cool, calculating, essential spirit of concentrated, avaricious selfishness.
Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible.
Selfishness, not love, is the actuating motive of the gallant.
Indeed, beauty is one of mankind's greatest needs; it is the root from which the branches of our peace and the fruits of our hope come forth. Beauty also reveals God because, like him, a work of beauty is pure gratuity; it calls us to freedom and draws us away from selfishness.
Selfishness is blind.
Selfishness beats altruism within groups. Altruistic groups beat selfish groups. Everything else is commentary.
It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise.
Selfishness at the core is to think you have a special problem- a problem that God cannot deal with, that God didn’t deal with at the cross. You do not have anything special that has been dealt out to you.
Selfishness is unnecessary. War is obsolete.
Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to the entire world besides.
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
The vital Christian arouses opposition because he is a standing rebuke to the selfishness and sin of those around him.
Many a good intention dies from inattention. If, through carelessness or indolence, or selfishness, a good intention is not put into effect, we have lost an opportunity, demoralized ourselves, and stolen from the pile of possible good. To be born and not fed, is to perish. To launch a ship and neglect it is to lose it. To have a talent and bury it, is to be a "wicked and slothful servant. " For in the end we shall be judged, not alone by what we have done, but by what we could have done.
We had one or another form of state capitalism during an extremely brief period of human history, which tells us essentially nothing about human nature. If you look at human societies and human interactions, you can find anything. You find selfishness, you find altruism, you find sympathy.
I can only say that I have acted upon my best convictions, without selfishness or malice, and that by the help of God I shall continue to do so.
Love. . . [is] a lack of personal selfishness.