Effe Tive Altruism Quotes

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'. ~ Greg Egan

Before Darwin, our world was very religious. People saw altruism as something given by God for us to be good so that we could go to Paradise. ~ Isabella Rossellini

Writers are the most pathetic souls when it comes to expressing their personal feelings. Their personalities are as complex as the characters they have weaved. And in a curious way, without them really knowing it, writers are the sum total of the characters they created in their heads or in their writings. Yes, My Dear Tania; writers are capable of reflecting their characters, even though most of them are determined to be just like your ordinary guy next door. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The dignity we create in the time allotted to us becomes a continuum with the dignity we achieve by the altruism of accepting the necessity of death. ~ Sherwin B. Nuland

Elephant altruism on the Kenyan plains. With her tusks, Grace (right) lifted the fallen three-ton Eleanor to her feet, then tried to get her to walk by pushing her. But Eleanor fell again and eventually died, leaving Grace vocalizing with streaming temporal glands - a sign of deep distress. Being matriarchs of different herds, these two elephants were likely unrelated. ~ Frans De Waal

That men, in reality, did not have friends in other men. That the fellowship of men, despite its joyous banter, old memories of exaggerated mischief and the altruism of sharing pornography, was actually a farcical fellowship. Because what a man really wanted was to be bigger than his friends. ~ Manu Joseph

The psychological attitudes which are indispensable in the American market place are disastrous to family life. Family life ... requires yieldingness, generosity, sympathy, altruism, tenderness-all the qualities, in fact, which lead straight to bankruptcy ... the American family is tragically out of gear with the profit structure which has mushroomed up around it. ~ Margaret Halsey

Pharmaceutical companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new HIV/AIDS treatments not out of altruism but because they can make up those research costs in sales. ~ David Mixner

It takes a female to have a baby,
It takes a woman to raise a child,
It takes a mother to raise them correctly,
It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world. ~ Shannon L. Alder

To be doing good deeds is man's most glorious task. ~ Sophocles

The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary. "The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism. "Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self. "No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue. ~ Ayn Rand

General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocite, flatterer. ~ William Blake

While we avoid taking credit for success, women leap at the opportunity to take responsibility for failure. Men tend to externalize the reasons for their failure, putting it off on something or someone else. Not so women, who absorb blame as if they were born to be societys doormats. (Some women like to speak of their willingness to take blame as if it were a form of altruism. It isn't. Women take the blame because they find it scary to confront those who are actually culpable of wrongdoing.) ~ Colette Dowling

Effective altruism is an advance in ethical behavior as well as in the practical application of our ability to reason. I have described it as an emerging movement, and that term suggests that it will continue to develop and spread. If it does, then once there is a critical mass of effective altruists, it will no longer seem odd for anyone to regard bringing about "the most good I can do" as an important life goal. If effective altruism does become mainstream, I would expect it to spread more rapidly, for then it will be apparent that it is easy to do a great deal of good and feel better about your life as a result. ~ Peter Singer

That doesn't mean they're not still angling for something. The most charitable people in the world are choosing altruism, not because it's a noble endeavor, but because being noble fulfills a need within them. ~ Lindsay Buroker

Authentic happiness can only come from the long-term cultivation of wisdom, altruism, and compassion, and from the complete eradication of mental toxins, such as hatred, grasping, and ignorance. ~ Carmine Gallo

Love and hate when stretched to their extremes blind reasoning. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

All the others arts are lonely. We paint alone
my picture, my interpretation of the sky. My poem, my novel. But in music
ensemble music, not soloism
we share. No altruism this, for we receive tenfold what we give. ~ Catherine Drinker Bowen

Altruism does not mean mere kindness or generosity, but the sacrifice of the best among men to the worst, the sacrifice of virtues to flaws, of ability to incompetence, of progress to stagnation-and the subordinating of all life and of all values to the claims of anyone's suffering. ~ Ayn Rand

Guilt is altruism's stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuati on. ~ Ayn Rand

The three values which men held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism - as a cultural power - died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism - as a political ideal - died in World War II. As to altruism - it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it ... ~ Ayn Rand

Anthropomorphism originally meant the attribution of human characteristics to God. It is curious that the word is now used almost exclusively to ascribe human characteristics
such as fidelity or altruism or pride, or emotions such as love, embarrassment, or sadness
to the nonhuman animal. One is guilty of anthropomorphism, though it is no longer a sacrilegious word. It is a derogatory, dismissive one that connotes a sort of rampant sentimentality. It's just another word in the arsenal of the many words used to attack the animal rights movement. ~ Joy Williams

Altruism eventuates in all realities, else self-destruction consumes it. ~ Guy Lozier

A humanitarian seldom makes a good lover. For a lover's world revolves around their lover, while a humanitarian's world revolves around the world. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good. ~ Mandell Creighton

Most people live lives that are full of mysteries, lives whose ultimate purpose we may never really understand. But for the sake of serenity, we must believe in life's nobleness. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

In 2010, my two Harvard mathematician colleagues and I dismantled kin-selection theory, which was the reigning theory of the origin of altruism at the time. ~ E. O. Wilson

At the core, our motives are always self-serving, Kate. Altruism is a fog created by sly minds seeking to benefit from the energy and skill of others. Nothing more. ~ Ilona Andrews

Humans have long since possessed the tools for crafting a better world. Where love, compassion, altruism and justice have failed, genetic manipulation will not succeed. ~ Gina Maranto

Without empathy and love there is no morality, no altruism, no compassion for others. The scientific mindset, like the artistic and spiritual ones, must be passionate and not easily dissuaded from its path. Although, the empirical mindset must be ever more vigilant than the artist because there is much more at stake than just individual freedom, there is the very basis for truthful inquiry. ~ Leviak B. Kelly

A writer needs a partner who can act as fuel to his artistic mind, yet has the great ability to sober him up and help him be in sync with the non-artistic part of his soul. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Love is the most ethically consistent experience, because selfishness and altruism no longer seem opposed or in conflict. ~ Peter Breggin

[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships. ~ Ayn Rand

Enthusiasm is the thing which makes the world go round. Without its driving power, nothing worth doing has ever been done. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to career or hobby-all these, and most of the other good things of life, are forms of enthusiasm. ~ Robert Haven Schauffler

You see, in this world, there is one awful thing, and that is that everyone has his reasons. ~ Jean Renoir

It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise. ~ Richard Dawkins

No one would argue that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Goliath Corporation. They helped us to rebuild after the Second War and it should not be forgotten. Of late, however, it seems as though the Goliath Corporation is falling far short of its promises of fairness and altruism. We are finding ourselves now in the unfortunate position of continuing to pay back a debt that has long since been paid
with interest ... ~ Jasper Fforde

It's time, friends. Time to give back. Time to step out and risk more than we want. Time to dream dreams bigger than we imagined. Time to mourn with those who mourn, to bring beauty where there are ashes, to announce a new season in the world. This isn't mere altruism or sympathy; it's more than a tax write-off or publicity stunt. It's a shot at living the lives we were meant to live, that the world needs us to live, that we're scared to live. ~ Jeff Goins

Poverty of young men alone behind the
stairways, who practice
alchemy inside bottle caps, who know
the altruism of a last syringe. ~ Jim Carroll

In today's world, human desires far supersede human needs. Waste, as you can see, is the result of that disparity. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

The most popular form of altruism is giving to others the advice you cannot use yourself. ~ Evan Esar

Kissinger traces the balances made in foreign policy, including that of realism and idealism, from the times of Cardinal Richelieu through chapters on Theodore Roosevelt the realist and Woodrow Wilson the idealist. Kissinger, a European refugee who has read Metternich more avidly than Jefferson, is unabashedly in the realist camp. "No other nation," he wrote in Diplomacy, "has ever rested its claim to international leadership on its altruism." Other Americans might proclaim this as a point of pride; when Kissinger says it, his attitude seems that of an anthropologist examining a rather unsettling tribal ritual. The practice of basing policy on ideals rather than interests, he pointed out, can make a nation seem dangerously unpredictable. ~ Walter Isaacson

The writer is the cursed artist of the soul. The expression of his art is a reflection of his quest to understand man by unraveling the mysteries that have been haunting humankind from time immemorial. In the end of his journey to understand man, the writer becomes more human even though his soul ends up finding less peace. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ultimately humanity is one, and this small planet is our only home. If we're to protect this home of ours, each of us needs to experience a vivid sense of universal altruism and compassion. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something
and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being. ~ Ayn Rand

Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others. ~ Brian Tracy

Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word. ~ John Lancaster Spalding

If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. ~ Robert Locke

The Fathers of the Republic, I believe, were far cleverer fellows than they are commonly represented to be, even in the schoolbooks. If it was not divine inspiration that moved them, then they must have drunk better liquor than is now obtainable on earth. For when they made religion a free-for-all, they prepared the way for making it ridiculous; and when they opened the doors of office to the mob, they disposed forever of the delusion that government is a solemn and noble thing, by wisdom out of altruism. ~ H.L. Mencken