Famous Quotes & Sayings

Abraham Lincoln

The money power preys on the nation in times of peace, and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces, as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes.

Alessandro Nivola

Acting can be very selfish and all-consuming.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.

Aleister Crowley

Love is a virtue; it grows stronger and purer and less selfish by applying it to what it loathes; but theft is a vice involving the slave-idea that one's neighbor is superior to oneself.

Albert Einstein

... a person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his ability, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and aspirations to which he clings because of their superpersonal value.

Alfred North Whitehead

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's not me.

Alec Baldwin

My life, in some ways, has been a half-measure. I didn't commit myself all the way to my marriage and family, because I would have given up more. And I didn't go all the way with just being completely selfish. I always wonder where my career would be if I was more selfish.

E. O. Wilson

Competing is intense among humans, and within a group, selfish individuals always win. But in contests between groups, groups of altruists always beat groups of selfish individuals.

Dorothy Thompson

Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom for activities of private persons and groups who often identify their own interests, essentially selfish, with the general welfare.

Donald Driver

In my final years in Green Bay, when I wasn't getting the ball, people would ask me why I never complained. 'Because these guys are my family,' I would say. 'I'm not selfish. It's not about me. It's about these guys, my family, and winning championships together.

Dr. Seuss

If you don't like me, remember it's mind over matter. I don't mind, and you don't matter.

Donald Miller

The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.

Dalai Lama

If one's cause is supported by sound reasoning, there is no point in using violence. It is those who have no motive other than selfish desire and who cannot achieve their goal through logical reasoning who rely on force.

Dalai Lama

We can't be useful to ourselves unless we're useful to others .... Anyone concerned only by his own well-being will suffer eventually. Anyone concerned with the well-being of others takes care of himself without even thinking about it. Even if we decide to remain selfish. let us be intelligently selfish - let us help others.

Dinesh D'Souza

Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.

Andrea Tantaros

Conservatives need to figure out a way to motivate by reason and persuade through emotion. Meaning that when they talk about our issues, it can't come from a selfish place - "Give me a tax cut. Where's my tax cut." We have to get back to that "shining city on the hill."

Anthony de Mello

Live your life as you see fit. That's not selfish. Selfish is to demand that others live their lives as you see fit.

Anthony de Mello

A writer arrived at the monastery to write a book about the Master. "People say you are a genius . Are you?" he asked. "You might say so." said the Master, none too modestly. "And what makes one a genius?" "The ability to recognize." "Recognize what?" "The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.

Anthony de Mello

The butterfly in a caterpillar: the eagle in an egg; the saint in a selfish human being.

Anne Rice

Heaven would be Hell in no time if every cruel, selfish, vicious soul went to Heaven.

Anna Deavere Smith

My main concern is theater, and theater does not reflect or mirror society. It has been stingy and selfish, and it has to do better.

Anita Brookner

It is best to marry for purely selfish reasons.

Anita Brookner

You have no idea how promising the world begins to look once you have decided to have it all for yourself. And how much healthier your decisions are once they become entirely selfish.

Daniel Kahneman

People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.

D. H. Lawrence

California is a queer place in a way, it has turned its back on the world, and looks into the void Pacific. It is absolutely selfish, very empty, but not false, and at least, not full of false effort.

David Foster Wallace

I'm not afraid of new things. I'm just afraid of feeling alone even when there's somebody else there. I'm afraid of feeling bad. Maybe that's selfish, but it's the way I feel.

David Simon

What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason—instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it’s the postmodern institutions . . . those are the indifferent gods.

David Platt

So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.

David Lynch

Negativity is the enemy of creativity. For instance if you're filled with depression, you can hardly even get out of bed, let alone feel like creating something. If you are filled with bitter, selfish anger, this occupies the mind and leaves little room for creative ideas.

David Lynch

Meditation is not a selfish thing. Even though you're diving in and experiencing the Self, you're not closing yourself off from the world. You're strengthening yourself, so that you can be more effective when you go back into the world.

Andy Murray

One of the worst things sin did for man was to make him selfish, for selfishness cannot love.

Ambrose Bierce

Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Anthony Kiedis

It was because all we wanted was each other's constant love and attention and for no one else to receive that love and attention, which is a selfish and difficult place to be in a relationship. We were emotionally retarded, and that was the best we could do at the time.