Quotes About Selfishness

Greed knows no shame

Even memories have their youth … When you let them grow old, they turn into revolting phantoms dripping with selfishness, vanity, and lies … They rot like apples

Autant pas se faire d'illusions, les gens n'ont rien à se dire, ils ne se parlent que de leurs peines à eux chacun, c'est entendu. Chacun pour soi, la terre pour tous.

When, grown older, we look back on the selfishness of the people who've been mixed up with our lives, we see it undeniably for what it was, as hard as steel or platinum and a lot more durable than time itself. As

Why kid ourselves, people have nothing to say to one another, they all talk about their own troubles and nothing else. Each man for himself, the earth for us all. They try to unload their unhappiness on someone else when making love, they do their damnedest, but it doesn't work, they keep it all, and then they start all over again, trying to find a place for it.

When, grown older, we look back on the selfishness of the people who've been mixed up with our lives, we see it undeniably for what it was, as hard as steel or platinum and a lot more durable than time itself.

For him freedom meant doing exactly what you wanted all the time. Was that freedom for everybody?

the sole, general, complete expression was that of selfish impassivity, that of eternal deafness, that of a rigid will.

Mais comment un prince pourra connaître son ministre, voici un moyen qui ne trompe jamais: quand tu vois le ministre penser plus à soi qu'à toi et que dans toutes les affaires il recherche là-dedans son profit, un tel homme ainsi fait jamais ne sera bon ministre, jamais tu ne te pourras fier à lui.

Des hommes, en effet, on peut dire généralement ceci: qu'ils sont ingrats, changeants, simulateurs et dissimulateurs, ennemis des dangers, avides de gain; et tant que tu leur fais du bien, ils sont tout à toi, t'offrent leur sang, leurs biens, leur vie, leurs enfants, comme j'ai dit plus haut, quand le besoin est lointain; mais quand il s'approche de toi, ils se dérobent.

For this can be said of men in general: that they are ungrateful, fickle, hypocrites and dissemblers, avoiders of dangers, greedy for gain; and while you benefit them, they are entirely yours, offering you their blood, their goods, their life, their children,...when need is far away, but when you actually become needy, they turn away. (translated by Wayne A. Rebhorn)

The temptation for farandola or for man or for star is to stay an immature pleasure-seeker. When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe. A fara or a man or a star has his place in the universe, but nothing created is the center.

One definition of hell is having your own way all the time.

those who sought power were greedy, wanting gifts, and bribes, and willing to steal from the poor.

When we seek our own pleasure as the ultimate good we place ourselves as the center of the universe.

He's not good for you, Omio said. He wants too much. He is someone who takes. He does not give.

I'll tell you what's brought it on – the behaviour of a man who has acted like a selfish bastard. You've thought of nobody but yourself, Louis, all the time … self, self, self.

Good deeds are only done when there's a profit margin.

Sympathizing and selfish people are alike, both given to tears.

Self-love, so sensitive in its own cause, has rarely any sympathy to spare for others.

I have precious little sympathy for the selfish propriety of civilized man, and if aware of races should occur between the wild beasts and Lord Man, I would be tempted to sympathise with the bears.

...and as a result yet today we are unable to distinguish between sympathy and selfishness.

That which a man takes for himself no one can deny him.

is morbid individualism that turns crises into tragedies.