Quotes About Self-interest

When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.

How will you do it?" says Sinclair. "I'll know when I see the setup, but I imagine I'll basically just kill them all and take their stuff. Is that okay with everyone?" Sandoval says, "It's fine with me." "Me too," says Sinclair. Howard just grunts.

I had my own skeptic's thoughts about God and free will, but that was a discussion for another time. The idea of human beings in power acting out of anything except self-interest, however, was absurd to me. "Are you being naive?" I asked her. "No

Nations existed in a condition of international anarchy. No hierarchical authority defined their relations with one another. They negotiated voluntarily as self-interest moved them and took what they could get. War had been their final negotiation, brutally resolving their worst disputes. Now an ultimate power had appeared.

Never appeal to a man's better nature. He may not have one. Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.

One might almost define intelligence as the level at which an aware organism demands, 'What's in it for me?

The basis of all morality is duty, a concept with the same relation to group that self-interest has to individual.

Morgenthau begins his argument by noting that the world "is the result of forces inherent in human nature." And, human nature, as Thucydides pointed out, is motivated by fear ( phobos ), self-interest ( kerdos ), and honor ( doxa ).

Human nature - the Thucydidean pantheon of fear, self-interest, and honor - makes for a world of incessant conflict and coercion.

Self-interest at its healthiest implicitly recognizes the self-interest of others, and therein lies the possibility of compromise. A rigid moral position admits few compromises.

But to say self-interest is all that exists, or that it should be given free rein! My Lord. Believe that and nothing matters but money.

It wasn't even fair. Which was okay, since Sorceri only cared about fair play when it benefited them. Otherwise, they were not fans.

There exists no "invisible hand"—that was always an unfortunate turn of phrase—but billions of highly visible fingers, doing, purely for personal gain, what others will freely barter for, with the sole object of improving their lives and those of their children.

Egoism is altruism.

What Smith says is, in fact, that greed is good, and that by becoming richer I benefit everybody, not just myself. Egoism is altruism.

The rich are taught to disregard the poor, while the poor are taught to disregard their true interests. No amount of self-reflection or psychotherapy will help, because the psychotherapists are also working for the capitalist system.

Couples were always keen to return to the task of trying to destroy their lifelong partners while pretending to have their best interests at heart.

The forces that will drive the whole world to become rich are temperate self-interest and temperate governance. As Adam Smith put it in 1755, "Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

Our own interests are still an exquisite means for dazzling our eyes agreeably.

But Comey and company came to realize—as others would soon learn in the crucible of Donald Trump's presidency—that they had no idea of the magnitude of his flaws, of his narcissism, sociopathy, and ignorance. Trump's only concern was his feral self-interest, his only belief was that those around him existed to serve him.

The free market is not a system. It is not a policy dictated by anyone in particular. It is not something that Washington implements. It does not exist in any legislation, law, bill, regulation, or book. It is what you get when people act on their own, entirely without central direction, and with their own property, and within human associations of their own creation and in their own interest. It is the beauty that emerges in absence of control.

We must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering.

Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering—

an ideal relationship, the balance of power is equal. But if someone has to have more power, that someone needs to be the woman. Her reasoning is that when most men wield the power, they abuse it and succumb to their innately self-serving, self-indulgent instincts. Women who have power, on the other hand, tend to rule in the interest of the family unit rather than their own self-interest. Which is why matriarchal societies are peaceful, harmonious ones.