Egoism Quotes

Egoism will be destroyed, if you constantly tell yourself, 'It is He, not I','He is the force, I am but the instrument'. Keep His name always on the tongue, and contemplate His glory whenever you see or hear anything beautiful or grand. ~ Sathya Sai Baba

Human nature is governed by general self-interest and affected by genetic predisposition, which implies that there are likely to be limits to our moral sensitivities. ~ Nayef Al-Rodhan

If due to ego you think:i shall not fight;
this resolve of yours is vain. your own nature will compel you. ~ Anonymous

On every level - as individuals, and as members of a family, a community, a nation, and a planet - the most mischievous troublemakers we face are anger and egoism. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

With egoism at the center, the awareness of all worldly things can be set beautifully. The awareness of 'I am Pure Soul' can never setup with ego being at the center. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me
indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm
and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt. ~ Alexandre Dumas

Political liberty, what are we to understand by that? Perhaps the individual's independence of the State and its laws? No; on the contrary, the individual's subjection in the State and to the State's laws ... Political liberty means that the polis, the State, is free; freedom of religion that religion is free, as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free; not, therefore, that I am free from the State, from religion, from conscience, or that I am rid of them. It does not mean my liberty, but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me; it means that one of my despots, like State, religion, conscience, is free. State, religion, conscience, these despots, make me a slave, and their liberty is my slavery. ~ Max Stirner

Someone may have a broken heart or someone may have a broken ego. Such people will have to suffer tremendously because of that. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Suffering is a form of egoism.
I speak only of myself. I am not talking about her, saying what she was, making an overwhelming portrait (like the one Gide made of Madeleine).
(Yet: everything is true: the sweetness, the energy, the nobility, the kindness.) ~ Roland Barthes

Failure to recognize one's own absolute significance is equivalent to a denial of human worth; this is a basic error and the origin of all unbelief. If one is so faint-hearted that he is powerless even to believe in himself, how can he believe in anything else? The basic falsehood and evil of egoism lie not in this absolute self-consciousness and self-evaluation of the subject, but in the fact that, ascribing to himself in all justice an absolute significance, he unjustly refuses to others this same significance. Recognizing himself as a centre of life (which as a matter of fact he is), he relegates others to the circumference of his own being and leaves them only an external and relative value. ~ Vladimir S. Soloviev

One has to attain an ego-less state (nir-ahankari); attaining a nir-maani state (a desire-free state that wants importance from others) is not enough. The egoism one has of being nir-mani is very subtle. The external 'horns' are worn down but the internal ones still remain. The inner 'horns' will cause an internal biting. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Until the Tower of Babel, humans had only planted and sown, reaped and harvested. Farmers are dependent upon nature and, in their dependency, turn to God. Builders, however, seek to control nature. And in their sense of might they tend to overplay their own role and at times to believe that they are no longer dependent on God. "Come let us build a city and a tower with its top in Heaven" (Genesis 11:4). The Talmud adds (Sanhedrin 109a): "We will build a tower that reaches so high that we will be able to come to the very throne of the Almighty and topple him." The metaphor is profound. The scientist says if we build high enough, if we indicate our ultimate strength, if we reach the skies and soar to the very Heavens, then we, too, with Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut, can say with unbounded egoism, "There is no God, because I was in the Heavens and I did not see Him." "Let us make us a name" was the cry of the first technological wizards. "We will dethrone God." And so they built the Tower of Babel. ~ Benjamin Blech

It is interesting that for Plato, and for most Platonists, an altruistic individualism cannot exist. According to Plato, the only alternative to collectivism is egoism; he simply identifies all altruism with collectivism, and all individualism with egoism. This is not a matter of terminology, of mere words, for instead of four possibilities, Plato recognized only two. This has created considerable confusion in speculation on ehtical matters, even down to our own day.

Plato's identification of individualism with egoism furnishes him with a powerful weapon for his defence of collectivism as well as for his attack upon individualism. In defending collectivism, he can appeal to our humanitarian feeling of unselfishness; in his attack, he can brand all individualists as selfish, as incapable of devotion to anything but themselves. This attack, although aimed by Plato against individualism in our sense, i.e. against the rights of human individuals, reaches of course only a very different target, egoism. But this difference is constantly ignored by Plato and by most Platonists...

Individualism was part of the old intuitive idea of justice. That justice is not, as Plato would have it, the health and harmony of the state, but rather a certain way of treating individuals, is emphasized by Aristotle, when he says, 'justice is something that pertains to persons. ~ Karl Popper

Social motherliness has made women's struggle for liberty the loveliest synthesis of egoism and altruism. ~ Ellen Key

It is not possible to know 'Who am I?' by 'doing'. 'Doing' (anything), requires egoism, and where there is egoism, 'Who am I' cannot be known. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Freedom from all types of pain and misery is the exact (proper) religion. It is exact (proper) religion when egoism departs and all 'wrong beliefs' go away. If the 'wrong' beliefs' are there, true religion cannot be there. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Children may end up being the unexpected teachers of people many times their age, to whom they offer - through their exhaustive dependence, egoism, and vulnerability - an advanced education in a wholly new sort of love, one in which reciprocation is never jealously demanded or fractiously regretted and in which the true goal is nothing less than the transcendence of oneself for the sake of another. The ~ Alain De Botton

Worrying is the greatest egoism! ~ Dada Bhagwan

Human pride and egoism always create divisions, build walls of indifference, hate and violence. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, makes hearts capable of understanding the languages of all, as he re-establishes the bridge of authentic communication between earth and Heaven. ~ Pope Benedict XVI

...only the one who knows and practices the iconoclastic fury of destruction can possess the joy born of freedom, of that unique freedom fertilized by sorrow. I rise up against the reality of the outer world for the triumph of the reality of my inner world. I reject society for the triumph of the I. I reject the stability of every rule, every custom, every morality, for the affirmation of every willful instinct, all free emotionality, every passion and every fantasy. I mock at every duty and every right so I can sing free will. I scorn the future to suffer and enjoy my good and my bad in the present. I despise humanity because it is not my humanity. I hate tyrants and I detest slaves. I don't want and I don't grant solidarity, because I am convinced that it is a new chain, and because I believe with Ibsen that the one who is most alone is the strongest one. This is my Nihilism. ~ Renzo Novatore

The true instrument is that, with the help of which, the egoism and my-ness goes away. ~ Dada Bhagwan

All action of Sattva, a modification of Prakriti characterised by light and happiness, is for the soul. When Sattva is free from egoism and illuminated with the pure intelligence of Purusha, it is called the self-centred one, because in that state it becomes independent of all relations. ~ Swami Vivekananda

The worldly [spiritual] science is methodic (kramic) in nature; one progresses "step by step"; one has to ascent one step at a time. Whereas this here, is Akram Vignan, a path of step-less spiritual science; it is a science that has arisen after 10 Lac (a million) years. In this path, one travels in only an 'elevator'. There is no effort to climb stairs here. Thereafter, one is constantly in the uninterrupted bliss of the Self (samadhi). There is constant bliss amidst mental affliction (aadhi), internal suffering (vyadhi) and externally induced affliction (oopadhi). ~ Dada Bhagwan

If you are worrying about reputation, you are taking time away from doing the things that really matter. ~ Taite Adams

True love is egoism à duex - egoism for two. ~ Ellen Kenner

Our ego occupies so much space, there is little room for anything else. ~ Nilesh Rathod

Many people suffer great miseries but if you ask them in front of others, 'you went through great difficulty, didn't you?', then they will respond, 'no, no I didn't have any suffering'. Then they feel happy. So what kind of 'egoism' should one do? During times of sorrow, one should do the 'egoism' of happiness such that 'no one is happier than I!' People in general do the 'egoism' of sorrow at the time of happiness. ~ Dada Bhagwan

You are very fond of bending little minds; but where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great ones. ~ Jane Austen

If we want to encourage people to do the most good, we should not focus on whether what they are doing involves a sacrifice, in the sense that it makes them less happy. We should instead focus on whether what makes them happy involves increasing the well-being of others. If we wish, we can redefine the terms egoism and altruism in this way, so that they refer to whether people's interests include a strong concern for others - it if does, then let's call them altruists, whether or not acting on this concern for others involves a gain or loss for the altruist. ~ Peter Singer

I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her. She will be June plus all that I contain. ~ Anais Nin

If I assume the 'truth' to be negotiable based on whether or not it serves my agenda, then my agenda has become my 'truth.' And the 'truth' of the matter is, when I do this I've chosen to take a treacherous path through some very deep woods where neither path nor woods exist. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

If we break someone's ego, then we can't be happy. Egoism is his life! ~ Dada Bhagwan

Why should one ever get pain? One is the Absolute Supreme Self (parmatma), how can one have any pain? It is the egoism that causes pain and it is also the egoism that suffers the pain! The absolute Supreme Self doesn't have any suffering! ~ Dada Bhagwan

By consequence I hold that no one ever did, or can do, anything for "society." ... Comte invented the term altruism as an antonym for egoism , and it found its way at once into everyone's mouth, although it is utterly devoid of meaning, since it points to nothing that ever existed in mankind; This hybrid or rather this degenerate form of hedonism served powerfully to invest collectivism 's principles with a specious moral sanction, and collectivists naturally made the most of it. ~ Albert J. Nock

These ordained atheists cultivate their egoism, the source of every atheist's activity, but they defile it and it becomes repulsive whereas the egoism of good atheists is a beautiful principle. They preach raging sermons not because they fear for the eternal damnation of their fold, but because they fear for the eternal damnation of their gold; before every sermon they feel their pockets to see if there's a hole, and if there is, they mend it with a sermon instead of a patch. ~ N.G. Pomyalovsky

What is Zen? Zen means doing anything perfectly, making mistakes perfectly, being defeated perfectly, hesitating perfectly, doing anything perfectly or imperfectly, perfectly. What is the meaning of this perfectly? How does it differ from perfectly? Perfectly is in the will; perfectly is in the activity. Perfectly means that at each moment of the activity there is no egoism in it ... our pain is not only our own pain; it is the pain of the universe. The joy of the universe is also our joy. Our failure and misjudgment is that of nature, which never hopes or despairs, but keeps on trying. R. H. Blyth ~ R.H. Blyth

The constant reprimands made me hyperconscious of my own performance, and so instead of getting rid of self, I had become embedded in the egoism I was supposed to transcend. Now I was beginning to understand that a silence that is not clamorous with vexation and worried self-regard can become part of the texture of your mind, can seep into you, moment by moment, and gradually change you. ~ Karen Armstrong

The hospitable instinct is not wholly altruistic. There is pride and egoism mixed up with it. ~ Max Beerbohm

With our father dead and our mother lost, we surviving siblings became unmoored. Unusual behaviors revealed themselves at inauspicious times. Simmering beneath the surface of our loneliness was a kind of inarticulable fury, reducing each of us to a meanness we despised. We longed to reach out to one another, but at every turn this instinct was thwarted, tangled in a web of suspicion and resentment. As much as we had loved one another in the fullness of life, we hated what we had become when that wholeness was eclipsed by loss. Mendacity, jealousy, and rage percolated on the back burner while egoism masqueraded as generosity. In our confusion, we second-guessed one another, and because we never learned to confront each other with frank vulnerability, we fell back into the roles assigned to us at birth. ~ Kate Mulgrew

Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see - Egoism, Arrogance, Conceit, Selfishness, Greed, Lust, Intolerance, Anger, Lying, Cheating, Gossiping and Slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then will be ready to fight the enemy you can see. ~ Al-Ghazali

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pierglass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, the candle is the egoism of any party now absent. ~ George Eliot

True devotion must not get dispirited; nor elated or satisfied with lesser gains; it must fight against failure, loss, calumny, calamity, ridicule and against egoism and pride , impatience and cowardice . ~ Sathya Sai Baba

1. A time machine on the shoulders of memories, two advisers: on the right shoulder there is good future, in the left past that is evil, two open rays of time in which consciousness travels.
2. A halo of knowledge within life, this is a recording of a projection, one who feels reality can feel the universe: the past, present and future, and that which is timeless.
3. The laugh of rage
Rap beat: Trumpet music ram there beat street rhythm boo boom bang bang there tudum pub bam pa bang boom boom
The laughter of rage and the bloody gloom in a smile in consciousness from an evil joke of reality from the fact that you are not worthy to live like everyone else. The ragged strings of the ever-laughing psyche, like the blinking light of madness where there is insight between light and darkness. The interrupted melody of the harmony of the soul. The silence of insight overcomes the mind, the light is visible, leading to a new dimension of thinking, because everything is visible through the transparent eyelids of the vigilance of fear, and only unconsciousness temporarily closes our eyes from fatigue in the realm of the subconscious.
4. Gangsta music: Car sound Wooo ooo woooo oo drum beat drums pap pap pap
Laughing grin of smiling reality from the fact that billions of internal realities of people form a single reality of the hidden chaos of egoism.
5. There is nothing cheaper than sins.
7. Patience gives friends.
8. The trumpet sounds a symp ~ Musin Almat Zhumabekovich.

An ego devoted to fighting against all the world's slurs is bound for trouble. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster

Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and a great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety? ~ George Eliot

If we are to grow in love, the prisons of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering, constant effort and repeated choices. ~ Jean Vanier

As long as the egoism is alive, 'my-ness' remains within the self. ~ Dada Bhagwan

For a human character to reveal truly exceptional qualities, one must have the good fortune to be able to observe its performance over many years. If this performance is devoid of all egoism, if its guiding motive is unparalleled generosity, if it is absolutely certain that there is no thought of recompense and that, in addition, it has left its visible mark upon the earth, then there can be no mistake. ~ Jean Giono

Those who come close to people in need do so first of all in a generous desire to help them and bring them relief; they often feel like saviours and put themselves on a pedestal. But once in contact with them, once touching them, establishing a loving and trusting relationship with them, the mystery unveils itself. At the heart of the insecurity of people in distress there is a presence of Jesus. And so they may discover the sacrament of the poor and enter the mystery of compassion.

People who are poor seem to break down the barriers of powerfulness, of wealth, of ability and of pride; they pierce the armour the human heart builds to protect itself; they reveal Jesus Christ. They reveal to those who have come to 'help' them their own poverty and vulnerability. These people also show their 'helpers' their capacity for love, the forces of love in their hearts. A poor person has a mysterious power: in his weakness he is able to open hardened hearts and reveal the sources of living water within them. It is the tiny hand of the fearless child which can slip through the bars of the prison of egoism. He is the one who can open the lock and set free. And God hides himself in the child. ~ Jean Vanier

Miss Mapp had experienced a cruel disappointment last night, though the triumph of this morning had done something to soothe it, for Major Benjy's window had certainly been lit up to a very late hour, and so it was clear that he had not been able, twice in succession, to tear himself away from his diaries, or whatever else detained him, and go to bed at a proper time. Captain Puffin, however, had not sat up late; indeed he must have gone to bed quite unusually early, for his window was dark by half-past nine. To-night, again the position was reversed, and it seemed that Major Benjy was "good" and Captain Puffin was "bad". On the whole, then, there was cause for thankfulness, and as she added a tin of biscuits and two jars of Bovril to her prudent stores, she found herself a conscious sceptic about those Roman roads. Diaries (perhaps) were a little different, for egoism was a more potent force than archaeology, and for her part she now definitely believed that Roman roads spelt some form of drink. She was sorry to believe it, but it was her duty to believe something of the kind, and she really did not know what else to believe. She did not go so far as mentally to accuse him of drunkenness, but considering the way he absorbed red-currant fool, it was clear that he was no foe to alcohol and probably watered the Roman roads with it. With her vivid imagination she pictured him--

Miss Mapp recalled herself from this melancholy reflection and put up her hand just in time ~ E.F. Benson

There is no word more generally misinterpreted than the word egoism, in its modern sense. ~ John Buchanan Robinson

I've lived history. I've made history, and I know I'll have my place in history. That's not egoism. ~ John Diefenbaker

All desires and egoism will have to be banished from the being. ~ Sri Aurobindo

If you say a word against a 'sensitive' person, it will have an immediate effect. In reality, words are simply a 'record' playing. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Tolerance is an attribute of egoism. ~ Dada Bhagwan

If 'one' really were the sufferer or the enjoyer, then he would get tired. But the Self in reality is not experiencing anything. He simply does egoism only. ~ Dada Bhagwan

The heart's egoism sees itself suffering when it sees another suffering and so it learns sympathy, because it can put itself into another's place; then the heart comes a little way out of its egoism and tentatively encounters the world. But, before the prospect of its own suffering, the heart melts completely and retreats into egoism, again, to protect itself. ~ Angela Carter

God does remain in a state of witnessing (sakshibhav), but that is a worldly God. Worldly God means witnessing through 'egoism'. If one constantly remains in the witnessing state, then he would not bind karma. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Mourning. At the death of the loved being, acute phase of narcissism: one emerges from sickness, from servitude. Then, gradually, freedom takes on a leaden hue, desolation settles in, narcissism gives way to a sad egoism, an absence of generosity. ~ Roland Barthes

Ego like bile over taste buds. Get it out or hold it in. It's the suspension will drive you nuts, churn your gut. ~ Patrick Bryant

I know', is a big ghost. 'This is mine', is a huge demonic possession! ~ Dada Bhagwan

An animal that embarks on forming states without greatly restricting egoism will perish. ~ Erwin Schrodinger

What does egoism mean? It means to become blind through one's own vision. The Gnani [the enlightened one] removes the egoism. ~ Dada Bhagwan

When egoism ends, that indeed is called the Absolute supreme Self (Parmatma). Egoism indeed is the illusion. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle. ~ Blaise Cendrars

I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours with our words is that our good will gets adulterated, in spite of ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. ~ George Eliot

We must master our egoism, and through this mastery, step outside ourselves and educate ourselves in giving. Fasting requires that we rediscover all that is alive around us, and reconcile ourselves with our environment. ~ Tariq Ramadan

Worry is the greatest seed [cause] for the worldly life because worrying is the greatest egoism. If the egoism leaves, then worries will go away. ~ Dada Bhagwan

There is no Gnan (True Knowledge) where there is 'egoism' and where there is Gnan, there is no 'egoism'. ~ Dada Bhagwan

An egoist is always intelligent, never wise. ~ Raheel Farooq

Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.... Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. ~ Ken Auletta

A good man cares about others. A good man has not only selfish desires. He is not only centered in himself. A bad man has no concern for others. He has only selfish concerns. He is centered in his own world. ~ Swami Dhyan Giten

Freedom is 'Self-earned' and worldly life is 'earned by egoism'! ~ Dada Bhagwan

We are buds on a single tree – what do we know of what can become of us in the interest of the tree! But in our consciousness we feel as if we wanted to and should be everything, a daydream of 'I' and 'not I.' Stop feeling like this fantastic ego! Learn step by step to rid yourself of this supposed individual! Discover the errors of the ego! Understand the ego as egoism! The opposite is in no sense to be understood as altruism! That would be love of other supposed individuals! No! Beyond 'me' and 'you'! feel cosmically! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

What we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife ... Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment ... ~ Nikola Tesla

But self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance. ~ Stephen Mitchell

Ego doesn't want us to be loving, forgiving and kind to each other or even to ourselves. ~ Taite Adams

Do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individualist is a man who says: "I'll do as I please at everybody else's expense." An individualist is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man - his own and those of others. ~ Ayn Rand

The semimetaphysical problems of the individual and society, of egoism and altruism, of freedom and determinism, either disappear or remain in the form of different phases in the organization of a consciousness that is fundamentally social. ~ Margaret Mead

Niels Lyhne was tired. These repeated runnings to a leap that was never leaped had wearied him. Everything seemed to him hollow and worthless, distorted and confused, and, oh, so petty! He preferred to stop his ears and stop his mouth and to immerse himself in studies that had nothing to do with the busy everyday world, but were like an ocean apart, where he could wander peacefully in silent forests of seaweed among curious animals.

He was tired, and the root of his weariness sprang from his baffled hope of love; thence it had spread, quickly and surely, through his whole being, to all his faculties and all his thoughts. Now he was cold and passionless enough, but in the beginning, after the blow had fallen, his love had grown, day by day, with the irresistible power of a malignant fever. There had been moments when his soul was almost bursting with insane passion; it swelled like a wave in its infinite longing and frothing desire; it rose and went on rising and rising, till every fiber in his brain and every cord in his heart were strung tense to the breaking point. Then weariness had come, soothing and healing, making his nerves dull against pain, his blood too cold for enthusiasm, and his pulse too weak for action. And more than that, it had protected him against a relapse by giving him all the prudence and egoism of the convalescent. When his thoughts went back to those days in Fjordby, he had a sense of immunity akin to the feeling of a man who has just passed ~ Jens Peter Jacobsen

What man's not guilty? It's taken you a long time to learn
That everybody loves himself more than his neighbour. ~ Euripides

This is not suitable for me"- to say this is indeed madness, it is nothing but egoism. To say 'will not suit' is an offense. ~ Dada Bhagwan

The enemy stays in the hearts of friends. Watch what your friends know about you and watch what you tell your friends, remember, egoism breeds jealousy and ends a relationship in discord. ~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Sheer egoism ... Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen - in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. ~ George Orwell

[The goal is] "liberation from the bondage of rebirth. According to the Vedantists the self, which they call the atman and we call the soul, is distinct from the body and its senses, distinct from the mind and its intelligence; it is not part of the Absolute, for the Absolute, being infinite, can have no parts but the Absolute itself. It is uncreated; it has existed form eternity and when at least it has cast off the seven veils of ignorance will return to the infinitude from which it came. It is like a drop of water that has arisen from the sea, and in a shower has fallen into a puddle, then drifts into a brook, finds its way into a stream, after that into a river, passing through mountain gorges and wide plains, winding this way and that, obstructed by rocks and fallen trees, till at least it reaches the boundless seas from which it rose."
"But that poor little drop of water, when it has once more become one with the sea, has surely lost its individuality."
Larry grinned.
"You want to taste sugar, you don't want to become sugar. What is individuality but the expression of our egoism? Until the soul has shed the last trace of that it cannot become one with the Absolute."
"You talk very familiarly of the Absolute, Larry, and it's an imposing word. What does it actually signify to you?"
"Reality. You can't say what it is ; you can only say what it isn't. It's inexpressible. The Indians call it Brahman. It's not a person, it's not a thing, it's not a c ~ W. Somerset Maugham

It is individuality which is the original and eternal within man; personality doesn't matter so much. To pursue the education anddevelopment of this individuality as one's highest vocation would be a divine egoism. ~ Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package. ~ John Ruskin

To change from inauspicious [bad] to auspicious [good] can be done, through egoism. But egoism is not required to come to pure-state from auspicious-state. From there, one will not be able to know where to find the staircase to climb up the steps! That's why, all this has stopped from going further. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Once the egoism has gone (stopped), all the worldly 'matter' of the body-complex [pudgal] are renounced! Where there is egoism, there is my-ness and where there is my-ness, there is a hidden egoism. When 'Knowledge of the Self' is attained, egoism and my-ness goes away. Only the dramatic (discharge) 'egoism' and 'my-ness' will remain. ~ Dada Bhagwan

What we can and should change is ourselves: our impatience, our egoism (including intellectual egoism), our sense of injury, our lack of love and forbearance. I regard every other attempt to change the world, even if it springs from the best intentions, as futile. ~ Hermann Hesse

Where there is 'egoism', there is no God. Where there is God, there is no 'egoism'. ~ Dada Bhagwan

All true love and all sacrifice are
in their essence Nature's contradiction of the primary egoism and
its separative error; it is her attempt to turn from a necessary first
fragmentation towards a recovered oneness. All unity between
creatures is in its essence a self-finding, a fusion with that from
which we have separated, a discovery of one's self in others.
But it is only a divine love and unity that can possess in the light what the human forms of these things seek for in
the darkness. ~ Sri Aurobindo

One' is not a doer in this world. Where he believes that he is the doer, there is 'charging' (of karma). When one tastes egoistic pride of, "I did this samayik, I did these activities", he will 'charge' (karma). The taste of egoistic pride is very sweet. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Medicine labours to restore 'natural' structure or 'normal' function. But greed, egoism, self-deception,and self-pity are not abnormal in the same sense as astigmatism or a floating kidney. For who, in Heaven's name, would describe as natural or normal any man from whom these failings were wholly absent? 'Natural,' if you like, in a quite different sense; archnatural, unfallen. We have only seen one such Man. And he was not at all like the psychologist's picture of the integrated, balanced, adjusted, happily married, employed, popular citizen. You can't really be 'well adjusted' to your world if it says 'you havea devil' and ends by nailing you up naked to a stake of wood. ~ C.S. Lewis

A strong egoism is a protection. ~ Sigmund Freud

Every action ('doing') causes bondage. 'Doing' is not needed for Liberation. For liberation, 'action' of Knowledge is required. Action of ignorance [of the self] is bondage. Action done with egoism is known as ignorant-action and the action done without egoism is known as knowledge-action. ~ Dada Bhagwan

Here's a free tip," his father says: "The feds aren't terribly impressed by infantile egoism. In fact, if Objectivism were at the center of human philosophical discourse rather than the fringes, we wouldn't be here - the Big Zap would have arrived decades ago. But I'm going to be generous and let you write down the ghost of Ayn Rand as a brain fart. I won't bring her up again if you don't. ~ Cory Doctorow

[A]s moral philosophers through the ages have pointed out, a philosophy of living based on "Not everyone, just me!" falls apart as soon as one sees oneself from an objective standpoint as a person just like others. It is like insisting that "here," the point in space one happens to be occupying at the moment, is a special place in the universe. ~ Steven Pinker

Accept the long night patiently, quietly, humbly, and resignedly as intended for your true good. It is not a punishment for sin committed but an instrument of annihilating egoism. ~ Paul Brunton

I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows. ~ Ayn Rand