Famous Quotes & Sayings

Marcus Tullius Cicero

It is difficult to persuade mankind that the love of virtue is the love of themselves.

Margaret Chase Smith

I speak as briefly as possible because too much harm has already been done with irresponsible words of bitterness and selfish political opportunism. I speak as simply as possible because the issue is too great to be obscured by eloquence. I speak simply and briefly in the hope that my words will be taken to heart.

Margaret Cho

That we are selfish gives us the opportunity to gain the power so that, in time, we might be selfless. To give back what we have learned. To teach what we know, and shorten the journey for those who will come after us.

Lauren Oliver

Amor deliria nervosa isn't a disease of love. It's a disease of selfishness.

Oscar Wilde

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbour that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him.

Lyman Abbott

If the impure and the unjust, the drunkard and the licentious, are loathsome to us, what must be the infinite loathing of an infinitely pure Spirit for those who are worldly and selfish, licentious and cruel, ambitious and animal! But with this great loathing is a great pity. And the pity conquers the loathing, appeases it, satisfies it, is reconciled with it, only as it redeems the sinner from his loathsomeness, lifts him up from his degradation, brings him to truth and purity, to love and righteousness; for only thus is he or can he be brought to God.

Lydia M. Child

All who strive to live for something beyond mere selfish aims find their capacities for doing good very inadequate to their aspirations. They do so much less than they want to do, and so much less than they, at the outset, expected to do, that their lives, viewed retrospectively, inevitably look like failure.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Man liveth from hour to hour, and knoweth not what may happen; Influences circle him on all sides, and yet must he answer for his actions: For the being that is master of himself, bendeth events to his will, But a slave to selfish passions is the wavering creature of circumstance.

Nicole Scherzinger

If believing in yourself and going after what you want in life and realising your worth is ruthless and selfish, then I'm definitely ruthless and selfish.

Mark Twain

All our acts, reasoned and unreasoned, are selfish

Nicholas Sparks

he'd once believed that the answer lay somehow in the music he created, he suspected now that He'd been mistaken. The more he thought about it, the more he'd come to realize that for him, music had always been a movement away from reality rather than a means of living in it more deeply. .. he now knew that burying himself in music had less to do with God than a selfish desire to escape.

Nicholas Sparks

Love is patient and kind.It's never jealous.Love is never boastful or conceited.It is never rude or selfish.It does not take offence and is not resentful

John Greenleaf Whittier

To be saved is only this-salvation from our own selfishness.

Pat Summitt

I think sometimes for me that sounds like almost being selfish. I am not about personal records.

Mary Wollstonecraft

Thinking it selfish to dwell on her own sufferings, when in the midst of wretches, who had not only lost all that endears life, but their very selves, her imagination was occupied with melancholy earnestness to trace the mazes of misery, through which so many wretches must have passed to this gloomy receptacle of disjointed souls, to the grand source of human corruption.

Martha Beck

Do something today that you think is too delicious, too selfish, too wacky to fit within the rules of your life.

Selfish men were...trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of civil rights

Mark Twain

Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! Risk your souls! Risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!

Christopher Hitchens

I have always found it quaint and rather touching that there is a movement [Libertarians] in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough.

Christopher Darden

I suppose that one of the reasons I wrote "In Contempt" was because of the money. After the trial I came to realize that there were things that I needed to do if I was to protect myself and my family, so there were some selfish reasons for it.

Christina Baker Kline

I know too much; I've seen people at their worst, at their most desperate and selfish, and this knowledge makes me wary. So I am learning to pretend, to smile, to nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.

Gertrude Stein

Men ... are so conservative, so selfish, so boresome, and ... they are so ugly, and ... they are gullible, anybody can convince them.

Gerard Way

People have evolved into something selfish, greedy and intolerant. People are unaccepting, because of religion, race, gender, sexual orientation... I've seen it in punk clubs, and I've seen it in the world.

George W. Romney

We need leadership that can elevate religion and morality to their position of paramount importance and thus eliminate growing selfishness, immorality and materialism.

George Weah

I know I have a successful career, a successful life. If I sit and say, 'Look, I have a comfortable life,' and I... just think about myself, I don't think that would be fair. That would be very selfish. Because everything I do in my life is to benefit my people.

George Santayana

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own infinitude, and his infinitude is, in one sense, overcome.

G. Stanley Hall

Education has now become the chief problem of the world, its one holy cause. The nations that see this will survive, and those that fail to do so will slowly perish. . . . There must be re-education of the will and of the heart as well as of the intellect; and the ideals of service must supplant those of selfishness and greed.

Nate Lowman

People have these weird ideas about artists being romantic, generous people, and sometimes I feel like an asshole, a selfish kid, a brat, the lucky one, because I get to do this and it's how I make my living.

Morihei Ueshiba

A technique can only work if it is in harmony with universal principles. Such principles need to be grasped through Mind, pure consciousness. Selfish desires thwart your progress, but Mind, not captivated by notions of victory or defeat, will liberate you. Mind fixes your senses and keeps you centered. Mind is the key to wondrous power and supreme clarity.

Morarji Desai

From this it follows that con-sideration for other persons or for other living beings is very vital for goodness and want of consideration for other people makes human beings selfish, regardless for other people's good.

Miles Franklin

Only a very small percentage can regard conditions from any but a selfish point of view or conceive of any but their own shoe-pinch.

Mike Leigh

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

Jose Rizal

Cowardice rightly understood begins with selfishness and ends with shame.