Quotes About Self-interest

Everybody is always willing to throw someone else's country to the dogs.

every external interest inspires some activity which, so long as the interest remains alive, is a complete preventive of ennui. Interest in oneself, on the contrary, leads to no activity of a progressive kind. It may lead to the keeping of a diary, to getting psycho-analysed, or perhaps to becoming a monk.

If men were rational, they would take a more correct view of their own interest than they do at present; and if all men acted from enlightened self-interest the world would be a paradise in comparison with what it is. I do not maintain that there is nothing better than self-interest as a motive to action; but I do maintain that self-interest, like altruism, is better when it is enlightened than when it is unenlightened.

The less rational a man is, the oftener he will fail to perceive how what injures others also injures him, because hatred or envy will blind him. Therefore, although I do not pretend that enlightened self-interest is the highest morality, I do maintain that, if it became common, it would make the world an immeasurably better place than it is.

To preach an altruistic morality appears to me somewhat useless, because it will appeal only to those who already have altruistic desires. But to preach rationality is somewhat different, since rationality helps us to realize our own desires on the whole, whatever they may be.

Democracy actually requires that the whole public be able to see common problems and address them and step outside of their own sort of narrow self-interest to do so.

Politics makes me sick.

Only a passion for God's glory can overpower our self-interest. Submission is simply being empty of self, and this is the key to enduring relationships.

Ordinary goodness is fraught with veins of vanity and self-interest and above all with pleasure--because goodness makes you feel more alive.

If you really want me to give up my car or my air conditioner, you'd better prove to me first that the earth would otherwise be uninhabitable, Dr. Lave says. Me is you, I presume, whereas you refers to them. You as in me—that is, me, me, me—certainly strike a hard bargain. Uninhabitable the world has to get before you rein in your requirements

een maatschappij waarin het er alleen nog om ging om tijdens de grote uitverkoop van waarden en normen de eigen schaapjes op het droge te krijgen.

What's good for the financial industry probably isn't good for you.

Man is essentially a selfish creature. The differences in the degree with which this developed are infinite.

Do business managers have a commitment to anything more than the success of their company and to making money? It would be hard to say that they do. Indeed, many business leaders deny that there is any conflict between self-interest and the interests of all.

You quickly find, when you are a hand-reader as I am, that nothing interests people so much as themselves.

An egoist is someone who doesn't think about me...

Patachula habla de la información como de una droga adictiva. Cree que en el fondo no nos interesa la noticia, sino la sensación placentera que nos produce. ¡Qué alivio saber que una desgracia le ha ocurrido al prójimo y no a nosotros!

No hagas lo que quieres ni lo que debes, haz lo que te convenga.

Any work done by a follower of Christ to the glory of God is "gold, silver, precious stones." But if any follower of Christ works with any self-interest or personal ambition involved, it will be "wood, hay, and stubble" and will be burned.

Huey Long, Rasputin, Sir Basil Zaharoff, Milton, London, Nietzsche, Capone and other "de facto Satanists" who practiced or wrote of rational self-interest, became LaVey's primary teachers.

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest; and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

It has always seemed strange to me…. The things we admire in men—kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding, and feeling—are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest—sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism, and self-interest—are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first, they love the produce of the second." —John Steinbeck, Cannery Row

No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness.

pero al fin y al cabo todas las buenas obras son una mezcla de altruismo e interés propio,...