Quotes About Selfishness

Time is greedy, man is greedier

And that is how a self-seeking hotchpotch distorts and debases the very finest social schemes. It is the black vein in white marble; it gets everywhere, appears under your chisel at any moment without warning. Your statue has to be redone.

A person may not want any more of his cake; but that is no reason for giving it away.

Serious men, grave persons and reasonable people; favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism takes its word of command from pedantry

Do your own thing" has a lot in common with "Every man for himself." If it feels good, do it: for some that will mean smoking weed and watching porn—and for others, opposing modest gun regulation and paying yourself four hundred times what you pay your employees.

pathological narcissism

The United States was as weak as it had been in human memory. Its people were unconcerned with anything but their own selfish needs and had turned their political system into just another source of cheap entertainment.

For those who do not know God, selfishness will eventually win out in their hearts; the forces of hell will run rampant in and through them to the world.

Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn about anyone else

QUINN; You always look after Number One, don't you? ASH; Doesn't everybody?

For a moment Eustace contemplated an existence spent in pleasing himself. How would he set about it? He had been told by precept, and had learned from experience, that the things he did to please himself usually ended in making other people grieved and angry, and were therefore wrong. Was he to spend his life in continuous wrong-doing, and in making other people cross? There would be no pleasure in that. Indeed what pleasure was there, except in living up to people's good opinion of him?

When we lavish our money we rob our heir; when we merely save it we rob ourselves.

This wasn't a person, Zuzana thought, this was greed wearing skin.

Many people, even in this country, have material problems because they are concerned for only themselves. Even though society offers many good situations, they are still in the preta realm. I think so, isn't it? You are living in America but you're still living in the preta realm—of the three lower realms, the hungry ghost realm; you are still living in the hungry ghost realm.

Come back to me, Tessa. Henry said that perhaps, since you had touched the soul of an angel, that you dream of Heaven now, of fields of angels and flowers of fire. Perhaps you are happy in those dreams. But I ask this out of pure selfishness. Come back to me. For I cannot bear to lose all my heart.

You're a disaster for us, Clary! You're a mundane, you'll always be one, you'll never be a Shadowhunter! You don't know how to think like we do, think about what's best for everyone-- all you think about is yourself! But there's a war now, or there will be, and I don't have time or the inclination to follow around after you, trying to make sure you don't get us killed! Go home, Clary. Go home!

People were intrinsically selfish, and many hated the idea of a woman in charge of the Institute. They would not put themselves at risk for her. Only a few weeks ago he would have said the same thing about himself. Now, knowing Charlotte, he realized to his surprise, the idea of risking himself for her seemed an honor, as it would be to most Englishmen to risk themselves for the queen.

There's a reason people will always let you down. It's because they came to this weird planet to live their own lives. Not anybody else's. Classic case of needs in conflict.

She said it was very selfish of me to base my participation in the world on whether the world was pleasing me at the moment. She said of course the world can be cruel; this is a given. She asked if I knew what she would have sacrificed to be ninety-two.

He said it was because Christopher was willing to share the day with Daniel, but Daniel wasn't willing to share the day with Christopher." - Nathan's Grandfather

At the very bottom of human experience comes a set of certain privileges, a special zone where the rules apply to everyone else except you. It was good of the world to build itself that way, and include that tiny consolation prize for those who have nothing else to recommend their lives in that moment. The

We plunge ourselves into enormous debt and then take two and three jobs to stay afloat. We uproot our families with unnecessary moves just so we can have a more prestigious house. We grasp and grab and never have enough. And most destructive of all, our flashy cars and sports spectaculars and backyard pools have a way of crowding out much interest in civil rights or inner city poverty or the starved masses of India. Greed has a way of severing the cords of compassion. Richard J. Foster, 1981

Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don't you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.

you lot would rather watch someone suffer untold horrors than watch them enjoy so much as a cool drink if you don't have two of your own, and yours have cherries in them as well as more ice and little paper umbrellas, and even then most of you would still prefer to take theirs and have three. This is not the behavior of a sentient race.