Egocentric Quotes

"Our kingdom go" is the necessary and unavoidable corollary of 'Thy kingdom come.' For the more there is self, the less there is of God. The divine eternal fulness of life can be gained only by those who have deliberately lost the partial, separative life of craving and self-interest, of egocentric thinking, feeling, wishing, and acting. ~ Aldous Huxley

I do my job. I do what I'm paid to do and I show up and I'm always prepared. I prepare by learning the text so well that when I show up, I'm relaxed and focused for the part. Now, whether that's good or bad I don't know. Whatever I'm going to say is going to sound very egocentric and self-centered so I'd better shut up. ~ Anthony Hopkins

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead. ~ Carl Jung

The consciousness of an embryo is the universal consciousness. What we learn after birth is awareness and egocentric consciousness that we call the mind. Everyday we learn to conform to the beauty, tragedy, and adversity of this world and that forms our judgmental mind. ~ Debasish Mridha

Give me needy emotional whining bullshit.
Flash.
Give me self-absorbed egocentric twaddle.
Christ. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

...the capacity to identify with others is definitely not gained all at once or from the start. The mind has to increase its capacity for inclusiveness through a slow and arduous growth process, and thus this capacity gets a little bigger (moving from egocentric to ethnocentric - from "me" to "us"), then a little bigger (from ethnocentric to worldcentric - from "us" to "all of us"), and a little bigger still (from worldcentric to integral, which starts to include even other species, resulting eventually in a "cosmic consciousness" - from "all of us" to "all of reality). ~ Ken Wilber

Maybe it's egocentric or whatever, but when I'm playing Beethoven, Bach, Hendrix, or whoever it is, in the end, it just feels like my own music and I'm making it up as I'm going along. ~ Nigel Kennedy

I am with you always. You just have to find me by opening your inner eyes and closing your egocentric mind. ~ Debasish Mridha

I'm feeling more and more thoughts that aren't songs, just reflections. I'm always been very shy and in some ways a prisoner in one language and I feel that the liberation of creativity has to be in all senses. So I've been deciding to publishing something very simple but very small at the same time, nothing egocentric. ~ Ana Tijoux

Egocentric: A person who has his I's too close together. ~ Evan Esar

Be soul-conscious not self-conscious. Self-consciousness is egocentric and soul-consciousness is spiritual. ~ Debasish Mridha

This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before! ~ Ayn Rand

Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings. ~ Stephen King

Find me any performer anywhere who isn't egocentric. You'd better believe you're good, or you've got no business being out there. ~ Johnny Carson

Our learned egocentric and judgmental consciousness is the source of unhappiness; however, universal consciousness is always blissful. ~ Debasish Mridha

People should not confuse opinions and rules with egocentric interests. ~ Duop Chak Wuol

If it has anything to do with me, it has nothing to do with sacrifice. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Children's egocentric tendency to attribute their own view of world to others, only later come to realize that they may have a unique and subjective view of the world too. ~ Jacqui Stedmon

If we ignorantly act to solely serve our agenda, we're simply slogging around in the egocentric and brackish backwaters of selfishness. Any response that comes out of that kind of cesspool will be vulgarly irresponsible. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is my considered opinion that the human race (soi disant) is cruel, idiotic, sentimental, predatory, ungrateful, ugly, conceited and egocentric to the last ditch and that the occasional discovery of an isolated exception is as deliciously surprising as finding a sudden brazil nut in what you know to be five pounds of vanilla creams. These glorious moments, although not making life actually worth living, perhaps, at least make it pleasanter. ~ Noel Coward

The love for stories is sometimes portrayed as a self-centered, individualistic concern. But if story-grip stems primarily from an interest in other lives, then those who love stories will be the least egocentric. They know that there are too many other human paths that are equally or more interesting. Perhaps, then, a distaste for fiction is a sign of self-centeredness. ~ Douglas M. Jones III

What we have here, fellow citizens, is a crassly egocentric, raving twit. ~ Molly Ivins

The universe is almost 14 billion years old, and, wow! Life had no problem starting here on Earth! I think it would be inexcusably egocentric of us to suggest that we're alone in the universe. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

When a person tries to obey the unconscious, he will often, as we have seen, be unable to do just as he pleases. But equally he will often be unable to do what other people want him to do. It often happens, for instance, that he must separate from his group-from his family, his partner, or other personal connections-in order to find himself. That is why it is sometimes said that attending to the unconscious makes people antisocial and egocentric. As a rule this is not true, for there is a little-known factor that enters into this attitude: the collective (or, we could even say, social) aspect of the Self. ~ C. G. Jung

A breezy style is often the work of an egocentric, the person who imagines that everything that pops into his head is of general interest and that uninhibited prose creates high spirits and carries the day. ~ E.B. White

He was a selfish, pompous, egocentric, nasty man. She did not want to be married to him, but she did not want him to marry someone else. She did not want him, but she wanted him to want her. ~ Liane Moriarty

I always wondered what your type was, but I never imagined it would be a hard-core rocker!"
Here we go. I had been hoping he'd be too sleepy for this conversation.
"He's not my type. If I had a type it would be...nice. Not some hotheaded, egocentric male slut."
"Did you just call him a male slut?" Jay laughed. "Dang, that's, like, the worst language I've ever heard you use."
I glowered at him, feeling ashamed, and he laughed even harder.
"Oh, hey, I've got a joke for you. What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?"
He raised his eyebrows and I shrugged. "I don't know. What?"
"A drummer!" I shook my head while he cracked up at his joke for another minute before hounding me again about Kaidan. "All right, so you talked about my CDs, you had some cultural confusion with some of his lingo, then you talked about hot dogs? That can't be everything. You looked seriously intense."
"That's because he was intense, even though we weren't really talking about anything. He made me nervous."
"You thought he was hot, didn't you?"
I stared out my window at the passing trees and houses. We were almost to school.
"I knew it!" He smacked the steering wheel, loving every second of my discomfort. "This is so weird. Anna Whitt has a crush."
"Fine, yes. He was hot. But it doesn't matter, because there's something about him I don't like. I can't explain it. He's...scary."
"He's not the boy next door, if that's what you mean ~ Wendy Higgins

If we fail to appreciate the soul that Easternism gives us, then what we have is a disconnected, Greco-Roman, Western, egocentric, compartmentalized, reductionist, fragmented, linear thought process that counts on cleverness. ~ Joel Salatin

In other words, the real problem is not exterior. The real problem is interior. The real problem is how to get people to internally transform, from egocentric to sociocentric to worldcentric consciousness, which is the only stance that can grasp the global dimensions of the problem in the first place, and thus the only stance that can freely, even eagerly, embrace global solutions. ~ Ken Wilber

It was fun yet challenging to play the dual roles. I'm a really nice guy, and the character [of Dubious] is egocentric and hard-edged, so I had to pull out the negative aspects of me to attribute to the role. ~ Carson Grant

For someone as amazing as you, attention is like food, and you're always hungry. ~ Seth McDonough

Our culture, self-toxified by the poisonous by-products of technology and egocentric ideology, is the unhappy inheritor of the dominator attitude that alteration of consciousness by the use of plants or substances is somehow wrong, onanistic, and perversely antisocial. I will argue that suppression of shamanic gnosis, with its reliance and insistence on ecstatic dissolution of the ego, has robbed us of life's meaning and made us enemies of the planet, of ourselves, and our grandchildren. We are killing the planet in order to keep intact the wrongheaded assumptions of the ego-dominator cultural style. ~ Terence McKenna

Hope keeps us alive. Life is interesting because of egocentric hope and love full sprit. ~ Debasish Mridha

An egocentric pessimist is a person who thinks he hasn't changed, but that other people are behaving worse than before. ~ Idries Shah

Love yourself not in some egocentric, self-serving sense but love yourself the way you would love your friend in the sense of taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, trying to understand, comfort, and strengthen yourself. ~ Frederick Buechner

Mental health depends upon the maintenance of a balance within the personality between the basic human urges and egocentric wisheson the one hand and the demands of conscience and society on the other hand. ~ Selma Fraiberg

I spend my life constantly calling in 'imaginary' debts that aren't owed to me in order to avoid the 'real' debts that I owe to others, and so everybody ends up bankrupt. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it's like when Biggie passed and Jay-Z was allowed to become Jay-Z. ~ Kanye West

If you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming Egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid. ~ Pope Francis

My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer's disease. But I'd often thought, God, we were so lucky that was the order in which they died because she would have felt put upon. ~ Sue Miller

If it's about me, I can be assured that there will be a bunch of empty chairs in the auditorium of my life; save the one I'm sitting in. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

We humans are born egocentric. The sky thunders and children believe that God is mad at them for something they've done - parents divorce and children believe it's their fault for not being good enough. Growing up means putting aside our egocentricity for truth. Still, some people cling to this childish mind-set. As painful as their self-flagellation may be, they'd rather believe their crises are their fault so they can believe they have control. In doing so they make fools and false gods of themselves. ~ Richard Paul Evans

Why sacrifice the innocent?
Why crucify mankind,
Is it just life, or the deeds of an egocentric God?
Why create a thief, the monster that kills the soul?
What is the purpose of pain and suffering?
Is it just life or the sick mind of an egocentric God? ~ Quetzal

I know it's very egocentric to believe that someone is put on Earth for a reason. In my case, I like to think I was. ~ Art Buchwald

One can write, think and pray exclusively of others; dreams are all egocentric. ~ Evelyn Waugh

In everything we do in this life we are making ourselves the kind of persons we shall be for all eternity: loving or hateful, egocentric or outgoing, fulfilled or frustrated, beautiful or ugly, ecstatically delighted or utterly miserable. ~ Thomas Dubay

Self-giving is the only pathway to a meaningful life in this world and is the habit of heart that leads us into the world to come, but it is the opposite of the egocentric grasping we see increasingly around us. ~ Collin Raye

I'm not claiming that Stanley wasn't self-absorbed, but I don't think that just because he was obsessive-retentive he was a monomaniac, or even any more egocentric than anybody else in the movies. And I suppose that he was selfish, which doesn't exactly make him a freak in the Director's Guild (or the Writer's Guild either), nor was his particular selfishness uncharacteristic of artists in general, especially when they've acquired the reputation for genius. A powerful vision can be very fragile while it's still only in the mind, and people have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect it. He didn't think he was the only person in the world, or the only director, or even the only great director. I just think that he thought he was the greatest director, although he never said so in so many words. ~ Michael Herr

Basically, I got into stand-up because I'm too egocentric to be an actor and not disciplined enough to be a writer. ~ Christian Finnegan

If I'm conceited enough to believe I'm invincible, then maybe it will take me doing the very thing I swore I would never do to understand that I'm not as wonderful as I thought I was. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

As soon as enough people in contemporary societies progress beyond adolescence, the entire consumer-driven economy and egocentric lifestyle will implode. The adolescent society is actually quite unstable due to its incongruence with the primary patterns of living systems. The industrial growth society is simply incompatible with collective human maturity. No true adult wants to be a consumer, worker bee, or tycoon, or a soldier in an imperial war, and none would go through these motions if there were other options at hand. The enlivened soul and wild nature are deadly to industrial growth economies - and vice versa. ~ Bill Plotkin

Cleverness is egocentric, dramatic, gives you an illusion of success. We are always running behind it and ultimately suffer. Whereas simplicity is spiritual, blissful, not dramatic, simple but joyful and gives inner peace. Which is our ultimate goal. ~ Debasish Mridha

Children are so egocentric - they want to watch their lives, and not yours. ~ Nick Offerman

Paranoia, he said, was fundamentally egocentric, and every conspiracy theory served in some way to aggrandize the believer.
But he was also fond of saying, at other times, that even paranoid schizophrenics have enemies. ~ William Gibson

Some might say that looking inside of ourselves for spiritual truths is egocentric and selfish, and that egolessness and selflessness lie in working for others in the world. But until we find our inner truth, our work in the world will always revolve around our 'selves'. As long as we think about the world in terms of 'self' and 'others', our actions will be selfish. Our 'self' follows us wherever we go, so positive results will be limited. ~ Tarthang Tulku

Five of the most dangerous words I know: 'What's in it for me? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The pathologized images have moved the soul in several ways: we are afraid; we feel vulnerable and in danger; our very physical sustance and sanity appear to be menaced; we want to prevent or rectify. Especially this last seizes us. We feel protective, impelled to correct, straighten, repair. For we have confused something sick with something wrong. [ ... ]
affliction reaches us partly through the guilt it brings. Guilt belongs to the experiences of deviation, the the sense of being off, failing, 'missing the mark'. [ ... ]
However the true missing of the mark is taking the guilt literally, where failings becomes faults to be set right. This places the guilt on the shoulders of the ego who 'should not' have failed. Then pathologizing reinforces the ego's style and guilt serves a secondary gain, increasing the ego's sense of importance: ego becomes superego, drivenly busy with repairing wrongs. A guilty ego is no less egocentric than a proud one. ~ James Hillman

What passes for education, culture or maturity in most minds is merely how individuals want to think of themselves, a contrived egocentric self-concept, not actual and effective principles and values. This is what is known in the cliche as the "veneer" of civilization. ~ Kenny Smith

Prayer is one action where I lay aside my abilities to immerse myself wholly in God's capabilities. And the liberation found in such an action is less about being engaged with God and more about being freed from myself. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Leaders who are kind of insecure or egocentric, they basically sabotage themselves. ~ John C. Maxwell

I think everyone is a little egocentric, but when I help someone I lose 0.01% of my ego. ~ Adriana Lima

Show me someone without an ego, and I'll show you a loser. ~ Donald J. Trump

We cannot simply recommend love and compassion per se, for those unfold from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric, and do we really want an increase in ethnocentric love? ~ Ken Wilber

If I worship the fact that I don't worship anything, amongst other things what I'm worshipping is denial. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

When dancing is right, the movement possesss a logic common to us all, an inevitability that takes it beyond the personal and egocentric and makes of it classical art. ~ Twyla Tharp

Many people you think are individual achievers in fact have either a strong spousal partner over many years or a business partner who's either in the background, not given enough publicity or less egocentric. ~ Michael Eisner

The moment we use the term 'help', a kind of egocentric idea enters into us. If we help someone, that means we are in a superior position. When we help, we feel that we are one step ahead or one step higher than the ones that we are helping. But if we serve someone, then we offer our capacity with humility, on the strength of our loving concern and oneness. So let us use the proper term, 'service'. ~ Sri Chinmoy

All I care is that my family, and my loved ones, understand me. Or that they understand me to a degree - I don't understand me very much. And I don't need the world to understand me. That is the most egocentric thing. ~ Andrea Corr

Don't think of Diana Vreeland's memoir as a book; it's more like a lunch. A bit of souffle, a glass of champagne, some green grapes - light, bubbly and slightly tart - all served up by an egocentric but inventive hostess. ~ Cathleen McGuigan

The pro-psychedelic plant position is clearly an antidrugs position. Drug dependencies are the result of habitual, unexamined, and obsessive behavior; these are precisely the tendencies in our psychological makup that the psychedelics mitigate. The plant hallucinogens dissolve habits and hold motivations up to inspection by a wider, less egocentric, and more grounded point of view within the individual. ~ Terence McKenna

The burdens I carry on my back are in direct correlation to the weight of my ego. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

People with a sense of humor tend to be less egocentric and more realistic in their view of the world and more humble in moments of success and less defeated in times of travail. ~ Bob Newhart

Among our egocentric sad-sacks, despair is as addictive as heroin and more popular than sex, for the single reason that when one is unhappy one gets to pay a lot of attention to oneself. Misery becomes a kind of emotional masturbation. ~ Tom Robbins

God doesn't desire our worship because He is egocentric. He desires it because we are. ~ Mark Hart

What good is it to continue to focus on the exterior technological wonders before us
from indefinite life extension to computer/mind interlinks to unlimited zero-point energy to worm-hole intergalactic space travel
if all we carry with us is an egocentric red-mem Nazis and KKK? Do we really want Jack the Ripper living 400 years, zipping around the country in his hypercar, unleashing misogynistic nanorobots? Exterior developments are clearly a concern; how much more so are interior developments
or lack there of ... ~ Ken Wilber

Most of us are consumed with our own thoughts and desires and are not always thinking about what other people may want. This is not necessarily being egocentric; it is just being human. ~ Bo Bennett

Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose. ~ Doris Grumbach

If we put our money where our mouth is, arguments will become less egocentric and more reasonable. ~ Sola Kosoko

There is no religion and no philosophy that can give us a comprehensive answer to the whole of our problems, and the abandonment and isolation of the individual who is given no answer, or only inadequate answers, to his question lead to a situation in which more and more cheap, obvious solutions and answers are sought and provided. As, everywhere and in all departments of life, there are contradictory schools and parties, and an equal number of contradictory answers, one of the most frequent reactions is that modern man ceases to ask questions and takes refuge in a conception that considers only the most obvious, superficial aspects, and becomes skeptical, nihilistic, and egocentric. Or, alternatively, he tries to solve all his problems by plunging headlong into a collective situation and a collective conviction, and seeks to redeem himself in this way. ~ Erich Neumann

Being 'all about myself' is the surest way that I can end up being 'all by myself. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Sacrifice" and "self" both begin with the same letter, but the spelling is way different after that. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

What's happening in Russia is devoid of autobiographical interest for me. Maybe it's egocentric. Whatever it is, feel free to use it. ~ Joseph Brodsky

Although I had nothing to offer in return, I came to understand that there was something beneficially reciprocal happening to the people who were blessing me. For a few minutes, they suspended their normal egocentric lives, placed a fellow human being in higher priority than themselves, and expressed their hopes for the other's peace and well-being. In so doing, they inevitably lived life on a higher plane, if only for a few moments. It always smelled like the kingdom of God to me. ~ David Brazzeal

They looked over stimulated by something that had distracted them from their usual boredom and lazy egocentric paragraphs about nothing at all that ever held any interest for me. ~ Vera Jane Cook

I'd be a conservative if I'd never met any. They're selfish, mean-spirited, egocentric, reactionary, and boring. ~ Pat Conroy

What makes the difference between "ideal" and an ordinary object of desire is that the former is impersonal; it is something having(at least ostensibly)no special reference to the ego of the man who feels the desire, and therefore capable, theoretically, of being desired by everybody.
Thus we might define an "ideal" as something desired, not egocentric, and such that the person
Desiring it wishes that everyone else also desired it. I may wish that everybody had enough to eat,
that everybody felt kindly towards everybody, and so on, and if I wish anything of this kind I shall
also wish others to wish it. In this way, I can build up what looks like an impersonal ethic,
although in fact it rests upon the personal basis of my own desires--for the desire remains mine
even when what is desired has no reference to myself. For example, one man may wish that
everybody understood science, and another that everybody appreciated art; it is a personal
difference between the two men that produces this difference in their desires.
The personal element becomes apparent as soon as controversy is involved. Suppose some man
says: "You are wrong to wish everybody to be happy; you ought to desire the happiness of
Germans and the unhappiness of everyone else. "Here "ought" maybe taken to mean that that is
what the speaker wishes me to desire. I might retort that, not being German, it is psychologically
impossible for me to desire th ~ Bertrand Russell

Can a selfish egocentric jealous and unimaginative female write a damn thing worthwhile? ~ Sylvia Plath

You know, I'm a really individualistic person. I'm extremely narcissistic and egocentric, too. So I have one life, and I have to live it the way I want. ~ Marjane Satrapi

All people are, at heart, egocentric. We exist at the center of our own little universes. We believe that we are living out our lives as best we can, and that we have our own sphere of influence which exists of both friends and enemies. They in turn have their own friends and enemies with whom they interact. That is a given. But we, each of us, tend to put ourselves ahead of others because we believe that we are significant. We must attend to our own needs, desires, wants, and aspirations, because each of us is our own greatest priority. No one else cares for us as much as we do, no one else can exist in our skin. We think we're important. It is where our sense of self-worth comes up, where our egos reside, where "we" are. And we believe that each of our lives means something. ~ Peter David

The same powerful Scripture text that brings a loving person to even greater love will be mangled and misused by a fearful or egocentric person. This is surely what Jesus means when he talks about the one who has being given more and those who have not losing what little they have. ~ Richard Rohr

God can't fill you when you are already full of yourself. ~ Max Lucado

Can I come look?"
He sat back on his heels and gestured to his artwork. "By all means. I'm done."
I got up, happily noting that my ankle was now pain free. I carefully tiptoed around the two square feet of floor over which his drawing sprawled, and settled in next to him. "It's beautiful," I told him. "I'm flattered. I've never had anyone draw a picture of me before."
Sage cocked his head and studied what he'd etched. "You think it looks like you?"
Again a hot crawl of embarrassment raced up my neck and flooded my face. I looked more closely at the etching. The image did look like me, but only if you really wanted to see the resemblance. The woman in it had the same hair, and slept in the same position I had, but on closer inspection her features were quite different. Her eyes were farther apart, her nose more pointed, her cheekbones less defined…differences that seemed insignificant when I'd assumed the picture was of me, but knowing it wasn't…
I was an egocentric idiot. My dreams about this man may have been vivid, but they were dreams. They had nothing to do with reality; not mine, and clearly not his. I stammered, groping for some kind of explanation. I had nothing.
"She does look like you, a little," Sage admitted. His eyes lingered on the contours of the drawing's face. I was eager to change the subject, but I felt like I had to ask.
"Who is she?"
"Someone I loved a long time ago," he murmured. ~ Hilary Duff

The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. ~ Gary Hamel

An obese ego is just about the heaviest thing you'll ever carry. So maybe you should stop feeding it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I'm a very intense person. The way I look in your eyes, my stance, how I walk and choose my words. The way I say your name and the look in my eye that says I need you here.

I have an extremely distinct aptitude for the way I present myself and the energy I give off. It sounds egocentric, but they always remember my name, my mind and the force behind my voice. ~ Dominic Riccitello

Thomas Merton said it was actually dangerous to put the Scriptures in the hands of people whose inner self is not yet sufficiently awakened to encounter the Spirit, because they will try to use God for their own egocentric purposes. (This is why religion is so subject to corruption!) Now, if we are going to talk about conversion and penance, let me apply that to the two major groups that have occupied Western Christianity - Catholics and Protestants. Neither one has really let the Word of God guide their lives.

Catholics need to be converted to giving the Scriptures some actual authority in their lives. Luther wasn't wrong when he said that most Catholics did not read the Bible. Most Catholics are still not that interested in the Bible. (Historically they did not have the printing press, nor could most people read, so you can't blame them entirely.) I have been a priest for 42 years now, and I would sadly say that most Catholics would rather hear quotes from saints, Popes, and bishops, the current news, or funny stories, if they are to pay attention. If I quote strongly from the Sermon on the Mount, they are almost throwaway lines. I can see Catholics glaze over because they have never read the New Testament, much less studied it, or been guided by it. I am very sad to have to admit this. It is the Achilles heel of much of the Catholic world, priests included. (The only good thing about it is that they never fight you like Protestants do about Scripture. They are e ~ Richard Rohr

As far as the game of marbles is concerned, there is therefore no contradiction between the egocentric practice of games and the mystical respect entertained for rules. This respect is the mark of a mentality fashioned, not by free cooperation between equals, but by adult constraint. ~ Jean Piaget

Still rarer is the man who thinks habitually, who applies reason, rather than habit pattern, to all his activity. Unless he masques himself, his is a dangerous life; he is regarded as queer, untrustworthy, subversive of public morals; he is a pink monkey among brown monkeys
a fatal mistake. Unless the pink monkey can dye himself brown before he is caught.
The brown monkey's instinct to kill is correct; such men are dangerous to all monkey customs.
Rarest of all is the man who can and does reason at all times, quickly, accurately, inclusively, despite hope or fear or bodily distress, without egocentric bias or thalmic disturbance, with correct memory, with clear distinction between fact, assumption, and non-fact. ~ Robert A. Heinlein

Perhaps that is what made me sick with weary nausea. Here was no principle good or bad, no direction. These blowzy women, with their little hats and their clippings, hungered for attention. They wanted to be admired. They simpered in happy, almost innocent triumph when they were applauded. Theirs was the demented cruelty of egocentric children, and somehow this made their insensate beastliness much more heart-breaking. These were not mothers, not even women. They were crazy actors playing to a crazy audience. The ~ John Steinbeck

THE SELF IS THE ROOT of the mental poisons. Our mind fabricates, projects, and attaches concepts to people and things. Egocentric fixation reinforces the qualities or defects that we attribute to others. From ~ Dalai Lama XIV