Quotes About Self-interest

experiments show that bankers—especially when they are reminded that they are bankers—act in a more dishonest and selfish way.50 They are shaped by their profession

They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him.

No such private nights of ecstasy or hushed-up drinking and sex orgies ever occurred. They might have occurred if either General Dreedle or General Peckem had once evinced an interest in taking part in orgies with him, but neither ever did, and the colonel was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him.

So, the advice I'd give to the 1 percent today is: Harden your hearts. When invited to consider proposals to reduce inequality - by raising taxes and investing in education, public works, health care, and science - put any latent notions of altruism aside and reduce the idea to one of unadulterated self-interest. Don't embrace it because it helps other people. Just do it for yourself.

Why should I want what's good for me?' Beatrice asked him, smiling. 'Is that what you want for yourself - only what's good for you?

According to Plato, the wise man is the best ruler precisely because he doesn't care unduly about political honor and power, much less about bodily pleasures. He is too absorbed in the pleasures of learning to be tempted by the lesser pleasures of glory, wealth, and hedonism. His rule is therefore benevolent and unmarred by self-interest, because the passions which in lesser men would be absorbed in material goods and sensual pleasures are sluiced off into the pleasures of the mind. The

Some say it's wrong to profit from the misfortune of others. I ask my students whether they'd support a law against doing so. But I caution them with some examples. An orthopedist profits from your misfortune of having broken your leg skiing. When there's news of a pending ice storm, I doubt whether it saddens the hearts of those in the collision repair business. I also tell my students that I profit from their misfortune—their ignorance of economic theory.

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. (Quoting Adam Smith)

Do-gooders fail to realize that most good is not done in the name of good but done in the name of self-interest.

the world's interactions with Africa are not necessarily motivated by altruism, but by the self-interest of states seeking to maximize their opportunities and minimize their costs, often at the expense of those who are not in a position to do either.

People who like to remove food from other people's lips never want to feed the people afterwards. It's the same for those who want other people to give up on their dreams to please them or fit their needs, they never have a better dream to offer.

I mistrust the judgment of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned.

There will always be a way getting involved to make profit at everybodys expense.

Politics was an illusion of service that cloaked the corruption of power. It was lies, deceptions, self-interest, and self-aggrandizement: suitable work only for the mad and the venal and the naïve.

But if instead this man [i.e., Pope Francis] turns out to be as gripped by institutional self-interest as any corporate leader, then reasonable expectations of creative solutions to problems as varied as climate change, nuclear proliferation, and mass migration are doubly dashed.

Party leads to vicious, corrupt and unprofitable legislation, for the sole purpose of defeating party.

The power holder may be the person whose "private motives are displaced onto public objects and rationalized in terms of public interest

A bureaucracy is an agency that has power over us and therefore will use that power to advance its own self-interest. Bureaucrats have little or no incentive to serve the interests of the public as their compensation is received whether or not they do so and they lack the expertise to do so even if so inclined.

If the moral senses can conflict with one another and with what prudent action requires under particular circumstances, then living a good life requires striking a delicate balance among those senses and between them and prudent self-interest.

The fact that there is so much immoral behavior is not evidence of the weakness of the moral senses. The problem of wrong action arises because of the conflict among the several moral senses that exist, because of the struggle between morality and self-interest, and because of the corrosive effect of those forces that blunt the moral senses. We must often choose between duty and sympathy or between fairness and loyalty.

Self interest feeds more people than self sacrifice.

Each party profited by the offices when in power," Roosevelt explained, "and when in opposition each party insincerely denounced its opponents for doing exactly what it itself had done and intended again to do.

Put ambition for the collective interest above self-interest.

They turned into wrong and destructive paths believing that they were better than others whose belief in self-interest was open and expressed, better because they, and they alone, knew how the practical affairs of the planet should be conducted. An emotional reaction to the sufferings of Shikasta seemed to them a sufficient qualification for curing them.