Quotes About Selflessness

When we go out of ourselves through obedience and strip ourselves of what is ours, then God must enter into us; for when someone wills nothing for themselves, then God must will on their behalf just as he does for himself.

God never gives, nor did He ever give a gift, merely that man might have it and be content with it. No, all gifts which He ever gave in heaven or on earth, He gave with one sole purpose - to make one single gift: Himself. With all His gifts He desires only to prepare us for the one gift, which is Himself.

Truly, if someone were to renounce a kingdom or the whole world while still holding on to themselves, then they would have renounced nothing at all.

You should love, respect and regard all others as yourself; and you should feel that whatever happens to someone else, whether good things or bad, is happening to you ... If you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, this is wrong, for if you love blessedness in yourself more than in another, than you love yourself [instead of others], and where you love yourself, God is not your sole love, and that is wrong.

I've been a pretty selfish mom and a very unselfish athlete for about three years now and it's time to put my family first. It's probably time to move on.

Don't let anyone take care of you. Can you maybe leave that for me to do? I mean, take care of you? Feel free to take care of me in return... because I think I'll need you to do that.

That someone can want something out of another person who gives absolutely nothing in return astounds me.

It is what a man does for strangers that counts more than what he does for his family.

And he saw it in her eyes. Still. The belief that there could be someone other than herself. You, he wanted to shout. You. No one but you. Stupid, stupid girl.

never put you first again. And for that, I'm truly sorry. You deserve to be put above all others with me, all the time.

If she loved him the way she said she did, she wanted him whole. Maybe this was what love meant after all: sacrifice and selflessness. It did not mean hearts and flowers and a happy ending, but the knowledge that another's well-being is more important than one's own.

Ellie's eyes twinkled like the Christmas lights surrounding them. She looked beautiful, a gray cat on her right and an orange one on her left. She was everything Josiah hadn't known he wanted. From the way she put others first to teaching herself about nonprofits to her hot kisses, she'd earned his respect and stole his heart.

The perfect embodiment of the courtier-poet was a heroic nobleman born in one of the great houses of England, Penshurst Place, in 1554, and dead a mere thirty-one years later on a battlefield fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands: Sir Philip Sidney. He achieved lasting fame for giving his water bottle to another wounded soldier with the words "Thy need is greater than mine.

As Socrates said, "Know thyself." Cicero said, "Control thyself." And as Jesus taught, "Give thyself.

He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting.

Lieutenant Dunbar had fallen in love. He had fallen in love with this wild, beautiful country and everything it contained. It was the kind of love people dream of having with other people: selfless and free of doubt, reverent and everlasting. His

On September 11, 2001, thousands of first responders heroically rushed to the scene and saved tens of thousands of lives. More than 400 of those first responders did not make it out alive. In rushing into those burning buildings, not one of them asked "What God do you pray to?" "What beliefs do you hold?"

You can't force people to be thankful just because in your mind they seem to benefit from what you're doing… especially when what you're doing is something you would do anyway, even without them as an excuse.

Behind every specific call, whether it is to teach or preach or write or encourage or comfort, there is a deeper call that gives shape to the first: the call to give ourselves away - the call to die.

St. John of the Cross: "Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.

About the main character approaching death in old age, observed by her husband . . .] He saw that she had already laid down a large portion of her life long ago. Piece by piece she had given it away as she wrestled with existence, as her self was absorbed as nourishment into his life and the life of the children and the community. And laid down most piercingly, as she abandoned, one by one, the shapes of the dreams she had planned. Only to take them up again in other forms.

No true love is possible, Lewis demonstrates, until we abandon our claims, our rights, our grievances. Until then we will be trapped in the obscurity of our heart's mixed motives, our will to possess, to control, to be our own gods.

He concluded that at worst, his heart was still rooted in selfish desire; at best, he was seeking not so much a specific person as love itself.

Not so, Tarek. The highest love is given without thought of cost or reward—anything less is not love.