Quotes About Self-interest

She had suddenly a clear view of him as a man extraordinarily clear-sighted in the affairs of others, in great affairs, but in his own so simple as to be almost a baby. And gentle! And extraordinarily unselfish. He didn't betray one thought of self-interest… not one.

You see, I'm not above helping an unfortunate soul find new purpose in life…so long as it benefits me

Moral decisions are always easy to recognize," Odrade said. "They are where you abandon self-interest.

What religion and self-interest cannot hide, governments can, Edric said.

The thing is, people can't complain about profit-oriented moves if they're only interested in profit themselves. You can't have it both ways. If they're willing to polish up a gift and sell it to make money, they can't really complain about the fact that somebody above them has sold them down the river. That's the way it goes.

The history of business has shown that companies usually only regulate themselves if they're forced to by legislation, or out of self-interest - often in the shape of a marketable message that will help sell more products.

The only thing I find interesting is self-interest.

The individual's striving for his own gain, in fine, without an equal emphasis on social welfare, no longer automatically brings good to the community.

Still, at its heart the Rwandan story is the story of the failure of humanity to heed a call for help from an endangered people. The international community, of which the UN is only a symbol, failed to move beyond self-interest for the sake of Rwanda. While most nations agreed that something should be done they all had an excuses why they should not be the ones to do it. As a result, the UN was denied the political will and material mean to prevent the tragedy.

There is no rest for the humble except in despising the great, whose only thought of the people is inspired by self-interest or sadism.

Men are as liable to pursue their own ruin as their own advantage. In

For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person's success, or be that person.

The government is to you what God is to agnostics – only to be invoked when your own well-being is at stake!

Además, ejercía una profesión noble. Es verdad, cobra dinero por ello. Me gustaría saber si un hombre puede ser buen médico y buscar al mismo tiempo su propio provecho. Quizá sea posible.

Faith is a disability insofar as it constrains you from self-interest; atheism is a disability inasmuch as it shields you from hope. One might see power as a disability, too, for the isolation in which it imprisons those who wield it.

Unchecked power, driven by self-interest, scarcity, grandiosity and aggression, is deadly to God's original fruitful purposes.

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

But the bottom line is that, as humans, we are by nature selfish creatures. The only way we care about anything, really, is by making it about us.

Political realists see the world as it is: an arena of power politics moved primarily by perceived immediate self-interests, where morality is rhetorical rationale for expedient action and self-interest.

Ethical egoism is the theory that the morality of an act is determined by one's self-interest.

When deliberating about blowing the whistle, many employees become ethical egoists, using their own self-interest as the determining factor for what they should do in the situation.

Some have even suggested that the Bible is entirely egoistic and simply changes the categories of what constitutes a person's self-interest. However, that is too strong a statement. While the Bible never condemns self-interest, it does require that it be balanced with concern for others (Phil. 2:4). It is one thing to occasionally appeal to rational self-interest as the Bible does, but quite another to claim that egoism is a sufficient ethical system, as do thoroughgoing ethical egoists.

Believers are called to be servants, and that invariably involves periodically putting others' needs ahead of our own and in rare circumstances can involve laying down one's life for another. It does not, however, obligate believers to neglect their legitimate self-interest.

One should remember that at times even Jesus separated from the crowds to seek solitude with his heavenly Father. Hence the Bible seems to suggest that self-interest has a legitimate place, but it needs to be balanced by a compassionate concern for the interests of others.