Quotes About Self-interest

que el que ayuda a otro a hacerse poderoso causa su propia ruina.

We should not forget Adam Smith's perspicuous observation that the "masters of mankind"—in his day, the merchants and manufacturers of England—never cease to pursue their "vile maxim": "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people.

If it is plausible that ideology will in general serve as a mask for self-interest, then it is a natural presumption that intellectuals, in interpreting history or formulating policy, will tend to adopt an elitist position, condemning popular movements and mass participation in decision making, and emphasizing rather the necessity for supervision by those who possess the knowledge and understanding that is required (so they claim) to manage society and control social change.

The rise of multinational corporations that know neither patriotism nor morality but only self-interest, has made accountability almost non-existent. At virtually every level, I discern a demand by business for docile government and unrestrained corporate individualism. Where industry once yearned for subservient unions, it now wants no unions at all.

In the final analysis there can be no solid foundation for peace in the world so long as the super-Powers insist on taking unilateral military action whenever they claim to see a threat to their security"91—or, we may add, a threat to the perceived self-interest of dominant social groups.

The dark side is honest. The dark side is direct. It is the knife in the front rather than one stuck in your back. The dark side is self-interested, yes, but it is about extending that interest outward. To yourself, but then beyond yourself.

America's politicians were concerned with nothing but the perpetuation of their own power through the next election cycle. The

Why wouldn't he recognize that Washington was an operating environment that didn't reward loyalty and courage? It rewarded treachery and self-interest. Adapt or die.

Why do we forget the dead? Because they are no longer any use to us. Just as we forget, or push into the background, someone who is ill or bowed down with grief, because, physically or mentally, they have nothing to give us. No one will ever devote himself to you except for what he will get out of it.

There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

The Occupation, Lucien realized, hadn't just bred hatred of Jews, it had brought out the very worst in human beings. Hardship had bred pure self-interest, setting group against group, neighbor against neighbor, and even friend against friend. People would screw over each other for a lump of butter.

Hardship had bred pure self-interest, setting group against group, neighbor against neighbor, and even friend against friend. People

No nation has friends only interests

Now you see, Tom," said Mr. Harthouse (...); "every man is selfish in everything he does, and I am exactly like the rest of my fellow-creatures.

Oh self, self, self! At every turn nothing but self!

Politics: "poli" (many) and "tics" (blood-sucking parasites).

We have a special name, here, for a certain kind of failure to defer to the greater good—for putting a personal sense of doing right above any objective measure of the outcome. It's called 'moral vanity'.

Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction.

An analytic colleague, Alden Josey, once employed the telling metaphor that secretly "we wish to colonize the other," and like most imperial powers, we are flush with rationalizations to justify our agendas of self-interest.

Unfortunately, the media, which are not at all reluctant to act in their own self-interest, have succeeded in equating reform in the public mind with further restrictions on just about everyone else's freedom of political speech.

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as it is thought we can serve them.

I'm not unhappy with the idea of appealing to people's self-interest if that's what makes them understand something about the non-human world.

A culture in which guilt is automatically assumed to be neurotic and unhealthy has devised a remarkably clever way of protecting its self-interest.