Self Centered Quotes

I want what I want! And I want to find what I want in the exact place, at exact time that I want it to be there. And maybe that's why so many of us go 'wanting'. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Any school would gain, if the students began the day with meditation, cleared their heads and got themselves centered. ~ Pico Iyer

I always say that my agenda is sufficiently gracious to leave more than ample room for the agenda of others. But if that's the case, why is it that such a big room only has space for one chair? ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

that He is committed to meeting our needs, but not our wants. That concept comes in reaction to those who have taken the wonderful Gospel and made it a self-centered lifestyle, in which we use the name of God, along with His principles, to get what we want. While that is a tragic misuse of Scripture, so is the concept that God cares only for our needs. He is not the director of an orphanage, guaranteeing us three meals a day and a cot to sleep on at night. He is a Father who delights in His children by becoming involved in their dreams. He fulfills dreams and desires out of His nature. It is who He is. ~ Bill Johnson

There are more pompous, arrogant, self-centered, mediocre-type people running corporate America who should be sent out on some postal route delivering mail. ~ Joe Jamail

One is not necessarily made self-centered because he is foolish, but one is very often made foolish because he is self-centered. ~ Criss Jami

Now. Maybe you think it is arrogant or self centered, or ridiculous for me to believe that God bothered to wiggle a cheap bolt out of my new used car because he or she needed to keep me away for a few days until just the moment when my old friend most needed me to help her mother move into whatever comes next. Maybe nothing conscious helped to stall me so that I would be there when I could be most useful. Or maybe it did. I'll never know for sure. And anyway, it doesn't really matter. ~ Anne Lamott

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community. For too long as a nation, we have been lulled by the anthem of self-interest. For a decade, led by Ronald Reagan, self-aggrandizement has been the full-throated cry of this society: "I've got mine, so why don't you get yours" and "What's in it for me? ~ Joe Biden

When I read the Bible, I see that we should have victory in our life and be overcomers, and I can't even control my temper. I'm impatient. I'm hard to get along with. I'm selfish and self-centered, and I don't seem to have any control over it. ~ Joyce Meyer

I go through a loop in which I notice all the ways I am - for just an example - self-centered and careerist and not true to standards and values that transcend my own petty interests, and feel like I'm not one of the good ones; but then I countenance the fact that here at least I am worrying about it; so then I feel better about myself (I mean, at least this stuff is on my mind, at least I'm dissatisfied with my level of integrity and commitment); but this soon becomes a vehicle for feeling superior to (imagined) Others ... It has to do with God and gods and a basic sense of trust in the universe v. fear that the universe must be held at bay and micromanaged into giving me some smidgen of some gratification I feel I simply can't live without. It's all very confusing. I think I'm very honest and candid, but I'm also proud of how honest and candid I am - so where does that put me. ~ D.T. Max

Do I strike you as a frivolous man, Kelly?"
I look at him, sitting there in another thousand dollar suit. Pompous? Yes. Self-centered? Yes. Careless? "No. ~ Bill Blais

If I were a lesbian and had a thing for narcissistic ex-sorority girls? I'd totally do me.
Bitter is the New Black: Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart-Ass, or Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment Office: A Memoir ~ Jen Lancaster

Good leaders motivate others by their listening skills. We are to: avoid prejudicial first impressions; become less self-centered; withhold initial criticism; stay calm; listen with empathy; be active listeners; clarify what we hear; and recognize the healing power of listening. Then we are to act on what we hear ~ John C. Maxwell

The greatest cause involves the decision not to make myself the greatest cause. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

As long as you are focused on your own problems, you live and think as a self-centered man. ~ Sunday Adelaja

It's good to be selfish. But not so self-centered that you never listen to other people. ~ Hugh Hefner

There is a certain type of beautiful boy who plays Ultimate Frisbee and invites you to come watch his game," I said, "not because he is vain and self-centered, although he maybe is, but because it is the only way he knows how to invite someone to share in his particular joy, and I think maybe the only thing I have ever wanted is to be a very beautiful, very dead, gentle boy that everyone gathers around and looks at. ~ Daniel Mallory Ortberg

If she does have a failing, and it's obviously only a tiny one, it's that she doesn't seem particularly curious about other people, or me, anyway. ~ David Nicholls

When we are impatient, we are neither reverential nor reflective because we are too self-centered. Whereas faith and patience are companions, so are selfishness and impatience. It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative; so easy to be indignant without being intelligent; so easy to be impulsive without being insightful. It is so easy to command others when we are not in control of ourselves. ~ Neil A. Maxwell

If I'm owed anything, it would be all of the consequences that come with believing that I'm owed. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I was a self-centered bore. I was masochistic, and only thought I was happy. When I woke up and said, "there must be something wrong with me", I grew up. Because I never understood myself, how could I hope to understand anyone else? That's why I can truly say that now I can give a woman love for the first time in my life, because I can understand her. ~ Cary Grant

Body tension will always be present if our good feeing is just ordinary, self-centered happiness. Joy has no tension in it, because joy accepts whatever is as it is. ~ Charlotte Joko Beck

Our good nature and endearing qualities will not arouse the answers to our prayers. Rather it is our mischievous, dishonest attributes that provide the master keys to heaven. When we identify and work to transform our self-centered qualities and crooked characteristics, the key turns and the gates unlock. Blessings and good fortune are now free to rain down upon us. ~ Yehuda Berg

The problem is not that we don't recognize the truth when we hear it. The problem is that we don't want to recognize what the truth might mean for us if we hear it. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Too often there is this sinister greed that pulls at my coattails, subtly whispering in the ear of my soul that it is within my rights to tuck away a few dark trinkets to toy with when the tedium of righteous living gets a bit boring. But God would suggest that I empty my pockets. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Humans are by nature self-centered. It doesn't matter how civilized or primitive they are. If they want something, they'll find a way to get it or take it. The old empires used land, women, religion, pride in one's nationality, or preservation of their culture as an excuse to start war. Presently, you use technology, world policing, expanding markets, and protecting national interest, but the underlying theme has never changed. As long as there are greedy people in this world, there will always be wars. ~ Ednah Walters

God-given prayer and praise have as their essence a waiting on God, a willingness to be wrought upon by the hammer and the fire of the Almighty, until the chains of self-centered desires fall away from the personality, and the love of Christ become the deepest hunger of the inner life. ~ C. John Miller

white middle-upper class guys in highly educated families have a unique burden placed on us to be the hero of every story that we tell. I don't think it's merely that we're self-centered and arrogant, but that we feel like we're supposed to be in charge, and if we're not the hero of the story, we've somehow failed in our life duty.group ~ Morgan Guyton

We live in a culture of reductionism. Or better, we are living in the aftermath of a culture of reductionism, and I believe we have reduced the complexity and diversity of the Scriptures to systematic theologies that insist on ideological conformity, even when such conformity flattens the diversity of the Scriptural witness. We have reduced our conception of gospel to four simple steps that short-circuit biblical narratives and notions of the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven in favor of a simplified means of entrance to heaven. Our preaching is often wed to our materialistic, consumerist cultural assumptions, and sermons are subsequently reduced to delivering messages that reinforce the worst of what American culture produces: self-centered end users who believe that God is a resource that helps an individual secure what amounts to an anemic and culturally bound understanding of the 'abundant life. ~ Tim Keel

I'm still pretty self-centered, greedy and angry. ~ Denis Leary

Confidence makes you strong, not proud.
Composure makes you tough, not timid.
Courage makes you bold, not arrogant.
Prudence makes you practical, not intolerant.
Respect makes you honorable, not weak.
Humility makes you modest, not spineless.
Silence makes you prudent, not feeble.
Meekness makes you gentle, not helpless.
Kindness makes you caring, not vulnerable.
Charity makes you compassionate, not spineless.
Mercy makes you sympathetic, not fragile.
Patience makes you cautious, not powerless.
Piety makes you noble, not bigoted.
Loyalty makes you trustworthy, not foolish.
Justice makes you fair, not vengeful.
Integrity makes you strong, not stern.
Chastity makes you disciplined, not narrow.

Wealth makes you prominent, not selfish.
Power makes you influential, not self centered.
Honor makes you important, not narcissistic.
Fame makes you privileged, not spoiled.
Servitude makes you respectable, not sycophantic.
Self-control makes you dignified, not self-righteous.
Discipline makes you focused, not obsessed.
Imagination makes you special, not odd.
Pleasure makes you happy, not corruptible.
Goodness makes you saintly, not narrow.
Faith makes you spiritual, not obstinate.
Love makes you mystical, not religious.
God makes you transcendent, not ordinary. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Have you fallen into the world's trap, following its self-indulgent goals and driven by its self-centered motives? It can happen without you even being aware of it. Make sure Christ is first in your life, and make it your goal to live according to His Word. ~ Billy Graham

We have self-centered minds which get us into plenty of trouble. If we do not come to understand the error in the way we think, our self-awareness, which is our greatest blessing, is also our downfall. ~ Joko Beck

To be happy is easy enough if we give ourselves, forgive others, and live with thanksgiving, No self centered person, no ungrateful soul can ever be happy, much less make anyone else happy. Life is giving, not getting. ~ Joseph Fort Newton

So, if we really want to create a different world, a different relationship between human beings, a different attitude toward life, it is essential that we should first understand ourselves, is it not? This does not mean self-centered concentration, which leads to utter misery. What I am suggesting is that without self-knowledge, without deeply knowing oneself, all inquiry, all thought, all conclusions, opinions, and values have very little meaning. Most of us are conditioned - conditioned as Christians, as Muslims, or what you will, and within that narrow area we have our being. Our minds are conditioned by society, by education, by the culture about us, and without understanding the total process of that conditioning, our search, our knowledge, our inquiry can only lead to further mischief, to greater misery, which is what is actually happening. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Thee Temple is a church of only LEADERS, no followers. A radical step. Even thee Nazis, though they bred an elite of leaders, still wanted to control thee masses, lead them and entangle themselves with them. We want thee leaders alone. Fuck thee sleeping masses. We have no desire to be superior rulers of boring, dull masses of people who we despise. We want JUST leaders. A church full of leaders, only leaders and not leading anyone. Merely co- habiting. A separate existence for OUR satisfaction. Why waste all that time, energy and vision dealing with boring masses of people. We've got better things to do. Enjoying and stimulating ourselves. A self-centered religion instead of a crippling, selfless Christian ideal. ~ Genesis P-Orridge

I can never remember names. I'm so self-centered and have a terrible memory ... ~ Jim Shaw

If I'm my biggest fan, the only person in the stadium is probably me. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The rich eat life, the poor eat death; so what is the problem they ask? ~ Anthony Liccione

It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered. ~ Aristotle.

I don't know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism. Everyone is worried only about proving himself in practical matters, and as for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of their infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore the truth. Politics don't appeal to me. I don't like people who don't care about the truth. ~ Boris Pasternak

Xinxin Ming or Trust in the Heart


The Perfect Way is only difficult for those who pick and choose;
Do not like, do not dislike; all will then be clear.
Make a hairbreadth difference, and heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want the truth [of nonduality] to stand clear before you, never be for or against.
The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease.
When the Way is not understood, the mind chatters endlessly to no avail.

The Perfect Way is vastness without holiness.
Like infinite space it contains all and lacks nothing.
Because you pick and choose, cling and reject, you can't see its Suchness.

Neither be entangled in the world, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things,
And dualism vanishes of its own accord.

Craving the passivity of Oneness you are filled with activity.
As long as you tarry in dualism,
You will never know Oneness.

If you don't trust in the Heart, you fall into assertion or denial.
In this world of Suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.
To be in accord with the Way, let go of all self-centered striving.

Denying the world [of duality] is the asserting of it;
Asserting emptiness [oneness] is the denying of it.
The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you go.

To return to the root [the One] is to ~ Sengcan

Her eyebrows lifted up. "You came here to seduce me armed with just one condom? What were you thinking?"
He breathed out hard. "Oh come on, Tate, don't be nasty. I wasn't sure whether you'd talk to me. I didn't want to jinx it by being cocky and coming here with a string of latex. You know you would have had mt arrogant, self-centered ass for it," he muttered. ~ Elle Aycart

Secondly, I've always harbored a deep fear of appearing to be selfish or self-centered. Finally, ~ Nate Terrell

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway. ~ Paulo Coelho

The Bible makes clear a basic truth that we self-centered humans find difficult to accept, namely, that the natural universe was not created primarily for us. There is no doubt that God wants us to enjoy it and even use its resources to optimize a good life for ourselves. But the ultimate purpose of creation is worship. Nature and all living things were created to glorify God. ~ Tony Campolo

The selfish and self-centered have a hard time being kind, even though you and I know that kindness is a source of relief to the soul. ~ Janvier Chouteu-Chando

Your love reaches every living being, including animals, because they deserve love. Your love spreads to plants, mountain ranges, galaxies, as all part of one ever-changing, fluid energy.

This doesn't happen every second of every day. In fact, it happens in fleeting moments, and then you return to your self-centered concerns. But for that fleeting moment, you are the World's Greatest Lover.

So what? Who cares about a title like that? The title doesn't matter, but being able to love like that changes you. ~ Anonymous

You have always been alone, always self-centered and fearful of opening yourself to other persons, for to do so is to risk rejection and pain. But it is a risk we are born to take, we humans. We cannot live alone, cannot find happiness or peace alone, cannot love alone. The person alone must always be fleeing, always searching. He flees from the loneliness without end. He searches, whether he will or not, for another who will fill his emptiness. ~ Julian May

It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully. ~ Mother Teresa

God knows us in all our conniving, self-centered, and jealousy-laden splendor and loves us anyway. ~ Tullian Tchividjian

Do you realize, then, what Jesus is teaching? Neither son loved the father for himself. They both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. This means that you can rebel against God and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping all of them diligently. ~ Timothy Keller

As artists, it's tempting to forget the audience's needs. Too often, we're self-centered and self-indulgent in what we share with the world. We're prideful, only showing what we deem as perfect or what we think our peers will respect. ~ Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick

How lonely am I ?


I am 21 year old. I wake up get ready for college.

I go to the Car stop where I have a bunch of accquaintances whom I go to college with.

If I'm unfortunately late to the stop, I miss the Car . But the accquaintances rarely halt the car for me. I have to phone and ask them to halt the car.

In the car I don't sit beside anyone because the people I like don't like me and vice versa.

I get down at college. Attend all the boring classes. I want to skip a class and enjoy with friends but I rarely do so because I don't have friends and the ones I have don't hang out with me.

I often look at people around and wonder how everyone has friends and are cared for. And also wonder why I am never cared for and why I am not a priority to anyone.

I reach home and rest for few minutes before my mom knocks on my door.

I expect her to ask about my day. But she never does. Sometimes I blurt it out because I want to talk to people.

I have a different relationship with my dad. He thinks I don't respect him and that I am an arrogant and self centered brat. I am tired of explaining him that I'm not. I am just opinionated. I gave up.

Neither my parents nor my sis or bro ask me about my life and rarely share theirs.

I do have a best friend who always messages and phones when she has something to say. That would mostly be about his girlfriend .

But ~ Ahmed Abdelazeem

Why is it, I wondered, that old people are always so self-centered and excitable? But I just smiled benignly and stood back, comforted by the thought that soon they would be dead. ~ Bill Bryson

Few find inner peace but this is not because they try and fail, it is because they do not try ... When your life is governed by the divine nature instead of the self-centered nature you have found inner peace. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered. ~ Mason Cooley

People have found inner peace by losing themselves in a cause larger than themselves. Finding inner peace means coming from the self-centered life into the life centered. ~ Peace Pilgrim

Every presidential nominee says his vice president will be given a serious, important role in his new administration. But it almost never materializes. A strong, totally self-centered politician like Tom Dewey sharing his hard-won power with a vice president? Don't count on it.' - David Brinkley ~ David Pietrusza

But isn't a life based on seeking personal happiness by nature self-centered, even self-indulgent? Not necessarily. In fact, survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who tend to be most self-focused and are often socially withdrawn, brooding, and even antagonistic. Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be more sociable, flexible, and creative and are able to tolerate life's daily frustrations more easily than unhappy people. And, most important, they are found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

All drunks, particularly those who grew up in alcoholic homes, have that same sense of angst and trepidation, one that has no explainable origins. The fear is not necessarily self-centered, either. It's like watching someone point a revolver at his temple while he cocks and dry-fires the mechanism, over and over again, until the cylinder rotates a loaded chamber into firing position. ~ James Lee Burke

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

There are people so blind and self-absorbed in all matters that they always believe that, whatever they desire or think, they can impose their will on other people. Whatever bad reason they use to persuade others, these self-centered people are so caught up in the process that it seems to them all they have to do is to speak their wishes in a lofty and commanding tone of voice in order to convince everybody. ~ Madeleine De Souvre, Marquise De ...

Neither parenting, Christian education, heritage, nor fine church involvement can alter anyone's essential sin nature. To lie, make self-centered choices, be destructive, or be deeply hurtful to oneself or others may be "out of character," but it is not outside of any human being's nature. ~ Rick Horne

Loving yourself has nothing to do with being selfish, self-centered or self-engrossed. It means that you accept yourself for what you are. Loving yourself means that you accept responsibility for your own development, growth and happiness. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

They lost their sense of reality, the notion of time, the rhythm of daily habits. They closed the doors and windows again so as not to waste time getting undressed and they walked about the house as Remedios the Beauty had wanted to do and they would roll around naked in the mud of the courtyard, and one afternoon they almost drowned as they made love in the cistern. In a short time they did more damage than the red ants: they destroyed the furniture in the parlor, in their madness they tore to shreds the hammock that had resisted the sad bivouac loves of Colonel Aureliano Buendía and they disemboweled the mattresses and emptied them on the floor as they suffocated in storms of cotton. Although Aureliano was just as ferocious a lover as his rival, it was Amaranta ?rsula who ruled in that paradise of disaster with her mad genius and her lyrical voracity, as if she had concentrated in her love the unconquerable energy that her great-great-grandmother had given to the making of little candy animals. And yet, while she was singing with pleasure and dying with laughter over her own inventions, Aureliano was becoming more and more absorbed and silent, for his passion was self-centered and burning. Nevertheless, they both reached such extremes of virtuosity that when they became exhausted from excitement, they would take advantage of their fatigue. They would give themselves over to the worship of their bodies, discovering that the rest periods of love had unexplored possibilities, ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Hey, I'm not a total idiot," said Nagasawa. "Of course life frightens me sometimes. I don't happen to take that as the premise for everything else, though. I'm going to give it a hundred percent and go as far as I can. I'll take what I want and leave what I don't want. That's how I intend to live my life, and if things go bad, I'll stop and reconsider at that point. If you think about it, an unfair society is a society that makes it possible for you to exploit your abilities to the limit." "Sounds like a pretty self-centered way to live," I said. "Maybe so, but I'm not just looking up at the sky and waiting for the fruit to drop. In my own way, I'm working hard. I'm working ten times harder than you are." "That's probably true," I said. ~ Haruki Murakami

Too many people think only of their own profit. But business opportunity seldom knocks on the door of self-centered people. No customer ever goes to a store merely to please the storekeeper. ~ Kazuo Inamori

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we're going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it's our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it's because we're focused on ourselves! ~ Joyce Meyer

I have never been particularly impressed by the self centered musings of my fellow writers. ~ Gore Vidal

This quick foray onto the toilet has been no different an endeavor than any other time I've used the restroom in my adult life. Try then to imagine my surprise when instead of the waste going down the u-bend like the thousands of times previous, the bowl's contents go not gentle into that good night.
Instead, they shoot directly up at me ... at approximately 80 miles an hour.
As I leap backward, slamming into the glass shower door, the only thought going through my now-banged head is, When did I eat corn?
Pretty in Plaid: A Life, a Witch, and a Wardrobe, or, the Wonder Years Before the Condescending, Egomanical, Self-Centered Smart-Ass Phase ~ Jen Lancaster

Progressive liberals seem incapable of stating the obvious truth: that we who are well off should be willing to share more of what we have with poor people not for the poor people's sake but for our own; i.e., we should share what we have in order to become less narrow and frightened and lonely and self-centered people. ~ David Foster Wallace

Tthe problem isn't that life is unfair – it's our broken idea of fairness. Meaning, our idea of fairness is self-centered ~ Tony Warrick

My wheelchair was the key to seeing all this happen - especially since God's power always shows up best in weakness. So here I sit ... glad that I have not been healed on the outside, but glad that I have been healed on the inside. Healed from my own self-centered wants and wishes. ~ Joni Eareckson Tada

I do not belong to anyone! Certainly not to a self-centered, brute of man, err ... being or whatever it is you are, person! she fumbled. ~ Madison Thorne Grey

I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be so and painted only the ideal aspects of it - pictures in which there are no drunken slatterns or self-centered mothers ... only foxy grandpas who played baseball with kids and boys who fished from logs and got up circuses in the back yard. ~ Norman Rockwell

Far from applying the teachings of their religion in our personal lives, we have a tendency to use them to reinforce our self-centered attitudes. We relate to our religion as something we own or as a label that separates us from others. Surely this is misguided? ~ Dalai Lama XIV

Shame is a child of self-centeredness. Heaven's occupants are not self-centered, they are Christ-centered. You will be in your sinless state. The sinless don't protect a reputation or project an image. You won't be ashamed. You'll be happy to let God do in heaven what he did on earth - be honored in your weaknesses. Heads bowed in shame? No. Heads bowed in worship? No doubt. ~ Max Lucado

Freeman's theory helps to explain how love and plasticity affect each other. Plasticity allows us to develop brains so unique in response to our individual life experiences - that it is often hard to see the world as others do, to want what they want, or to cooperate. But the successful reproduction of our species requires cooperation. What nature provides, in a neuromodulator like oxytocin, is the ability for two brains in love to go through a period of heightened plasticity, allowing them to mold to each other and shape each other's intentions and perceptions. The brain for Freeman is fundamentally an organ of socialization, and so there must be a mechanism that, from time to time, undoes our tendency to become overly individualized, overly self-involved, and too self-centered. ~ Norman Doidge

Love isn't self-centered, even at the supreme scale. ~ John K. Brown

Human nature means battling constantly between being completely self-absorbed and trying to be a communal creature. Nature makes you a communal creature. The ultimate single-minded, self-centered creature is a cancer cell. And mostly, we're not made up of cancer cells. ~ George Lucas

As for my ideal type, I like girls who don't have powerful presence, and not self-centered. I'd like her to have a light skin, and a calm personality. ~ Yesung

Subjective storytelling is now almost as common in the news media as it is in feature films, TV dramas, novels or theater shows. Journalists at their worst are self-centered storytellers who either knowingly or unknowingly bend truths into stories that match their personal beliefs or those of their employers. ~ Lance Morcan

Obeying the Spirit instead of your own self-centered whims will lead you to places you've never been, challenge you in ways you have never been challenged, and invite levels of sacrifice you never dreamed you could make. This is the power and the promise of full-throttle faith, of living a life fueled solely by God. ~ Bill Hybels

Writers are too self-centered to be lonely. ~ Richard Condon

Anger met with anger only increases enmity rather than diffusing a tense situation. Anger, in turn, gives birth to hate. In such cases the wisest thing to do is not to engage through emotion. Emotions are self-centered and denying them spares animosity. ~ Donna Lynn Hope

Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated. ~ Alveda King

Don't misunderstand me," I said. "Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain. "When I was retarded I had lots of friends. Now I have no one. Oh, I know lots of people. Lots and lots of people. But I don't have any real friends. Not like I used to have in the bakery. Not a friend in the world who means anything to me, and no one I mean anything to. ~ Daniel Keyes

Bums panhandled instead of getting a job. People dropped their trash on the sidewalk or tossed it from their car windows. All these actions said the same thing: my shit is more important than yours. The world was a self-centered place and he hated it for it. ~ Simon Wood

I cured myself of shyness when it finally occurred to me that people didn't think about me half as much as I gave them credit for. The truth was, nobody gave a damn. Like most teenagers, I was far too self-centered. When I stopped being prisoner to what I worried was others' opinions of me, I became more confident and free. ~ Lucille Ball

I am most thankful for what I don't have, for had my life's wish list been filled in the manner I had chosen I would be steeped in meaningless trinkets verses bathed in God's treasures. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

To sacrifice myself is the most radical way that I can exchange what I've become for what I was supposed to become. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

When outsiders criticize Americans, they regularly note that we seem self-centered, which we are. But few contend we are selfish, and with good reason; we are not. ~ Harry Beckwith

Selfishness is like a disease that suffocates our capacity to love. While love asks us to deny ourselves for the sake of another, selfishness demands we put ourselves first at their expense. When we choose to be self-centered, we become less kind and content - more needy, sensitive, and demanding. More unsatisfiable. Moodiness and impatience, laziness and irresponsibility, are only selfishness in disguise. ~ Stephen Kendrick

A compassionate attitude opens our inner door, and as a result it is much easier to communicate with others. If there is too much self-centered attitude, then fear, doubt and suspicion come and as a result our inner door closes. Then it is very difficult to communicate with others. ~ Dalai Lama

Know that you are God's beautiful child, always in God's hands. Accept God ... accept God's protection ... there is really no problem to fear. Know that you are not the clay garment. Know that you are not the self-centered nature which governs your life needlessly. Know that you are the God-centered nature, The Kingdom of God within. The Indwelling Christ. Eternal and indestructible. Identify with the real you. ~ Peace Pilgrim

In the beginner's mind there is no thought, "I have attained something." All self-centered thoughts limit our vast mind. When we have no thought of achievement, no thought of self, we are true beginners. Then we can really learn something. The beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When our mind is compassionate, it is boundless. Dogen-zenji, the founder of our school, always emphasized how important it is to resume our boundless original mind. Then we are always true to ourselves, in sympathy with all beings, and can actually practice. ~ Shunryu Suzuki

Love implies great freedom - not to do what you like. But love comes only when the mind is very quiet, disinterested, not self-centered. These are not ideals. If you have no love, do what you will - go after all the gods on earth, do all the social activities, try to reform the poor, the politics, write books, write poems - you are a dead human being. And without love your problems will increase, multiply endlessly. And with love, do what you will, there is no risk; there is no conflict. Then love is the essence of virtue. And a mind that is not in a state of love is not a religious mind at all. And it is only the religious mind that is freed from problems, and that knows the beauty of love and truth. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

We are what we think about. When we stay fixed on one person, thought or situation, we get caught in the grip of self-centered thoughts. The more we give attention to that which is upsetting, the more strength it has to rule our lives. ~ Brenda Shoshanna