Selfish Motives Quotes

War seems to be ingrained in human nature, and even to be regarded as something noble to which man is inspired by his love of honor, without selfish motives. ~ Immanuel Kant

On the historical scale, the damages wrought by individual violence for selfish motives are insignificant compared to the holocausts resulting from self-transcending devotion to collectively shared belief-systems. It is derived from primitive identification instead of mature social integration; it entails the partial surrender of personal responsibility and produces the quasi-hypnotic phenomena of group-psychology. ~ Arthur Koestler

Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. ~ Mother Teresa

Meditation without selfless giving is not enough. You may go into very high states of consciousness but the rough edges will still be there - there may be lots of selfish motives lurking within the self - that you don't see. ~ Frederick Lenz

I think the reason this was so important to Jesus was that He wanted people to know that God is relational - truly relational without any impure or selfish motives. He wanted His Father to be trusted, and therefore He needed men and women who represented this. The psychology of agendas is that they make relationships transactional, which means that people are used for a purpose. People become a means to someone else's end, and this erodes a person's belief that he or she is valued regardless of any production. ~ Hugh Halter

Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. ~ Stephen Kendrick

Whatever I may do to serve you will be prompted solely from selfish motives, since it gives me more pleasure to serve you than not. ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive. ~ Lord Byron

Be careful of selfish motives. You can mistake them for principles and end up dying for them. ~ Robert Breault

We are all very good at rationalizing our actions so that they are in line with our selfish motives. ~ Dan Ariely

The error I found in the philosophy of Henry George was its cocksureness, its simplicity, and the small value that it placed upon the selfish motives of men. The doctrine was a hang-over from the seventeenth century in France, when the philosophers had given up the idea of God, but still thought that there must be some immovable basis for man's conduct and ideals. In this dilemma they evolved the theory of natural rights. If 'natural rights' means anything it means that the individual rights are to be determined by the conduct of Nature. But Nature knows nothing about rights in the sense of human conception. ~ Clarence Darrow

I am convinced that the majority of people would be generous from selfish motives, if they had the opportunity. ~ Charles Dudley Warner

Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt. Give the world your best anyway. ~ Mother Teresa

War itself requires no particular motivation, but appears to be ingrained in human nature and is even valued as something noble; indeed, the desire for glory inspires men to it, even independently of selfish motives. ~ Immanuel Kant

How is power of speech (vacchanbud) attained? It is when, not a single word is uttered to make fun of others; when not a single word is uttered for wrong selfish motives, material self-gain; when speech has not been misused; when speech has not been used to gain recognition or importance from others - that is when one's power of speech is attained. ~ Dada Bhagwan

The trouble with selfish motives is that they harden into principles, and you end up sending your kids to war for them. ~ Robert Breault

You need to put aside your own selfish motives and consider other people for a change. ~ Joe Schreiber

As an artist, my talents are not mine alone to just keep. My creations have to touch lives, spread love and let my skills be used only in good things but should be selfless not through selfish motives. In this manner, I am giving the gift back to my Master Creator. - Elizabeth's Quotes ~ Elizabeth E. Castillo

Selfish acts will only lead to your own destruction. ~ Faith Tigere

what? When men can hate without risk, their stupidity is easily convinced, the motives supply themselves. From ~ Louis Ferdinand Celine

Yet, while producing increasingly selfish people, the mantra of the Left, and therefore of the universities and the media, has been for generations that capitalism and the free market, not the welfare state, produces selfish people. ~ Dennis Prager

It is a terrible thing to feel sorry for one's mother or indeed father. And it's an additionally awful thing to feel this and to know the impotence of the adolescent to do anything at all about it. Worse still, perhaps, is the selfish consolation that it isn't really one's job to rear one's parents. ~ Christopher Hitchens

It is meaningless to rise while leaving others behind! It is also unethical and selfish! If you know the paths to rise, rise altogether with others! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Imagine a world in which people told lies as a matter of principle, where lying was regarded as a good and moral thing to do. In such a world, lying itself would cease to have any meaning. Lying needs a presumption of truth for its very definition. If a moral principle is something we should wish everybody to follow, lying cannot be a moral principle because the principle itself would break down in meaninglessness. Lying, as a rule for life, is inherently unstable. More generally, selfishness, or free-riding parasitism on the goodwill of others, may work for me as a lone selfish individual and give me personal satisfaction. But I cannot wish that everybody would adopt selfish parasitism as a moral principle, if only because then I would have nobody to parasitize. ~ Richard Dawkins

The actions driven by fear and guilt are not an antidote to lukewarm, selfish, comfortable living. I hope you realize that the answer is love. ~ Francis Chan

In some ways," admitted the Overlord gravely. "In others perhaps a better analogy can be found in the history of your colonial powers. The Roman and British Empires, for that reason, have always been of considerable interest to us. The case of India is particularly instructive. The main difference between us and the British in India was that they had no real motives for going there - no conscious objectives, that is, except such trivial and temporary ones as trade or hostility to other European powers. They found themselves possessors of an empire before they knew what to do with it, and were never really happy until they had got rid of it again. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

He ran because his decision had been made. It had been made for him by the convergence of half-forgotten motives, of desires and reasons, of varied yet congruous impulses. And the convergence of all these to a focus point of action. ~ Mervyn Peake

I'm often called in as a coach and speaker to motivate staff, teams, the public and leaders. The key to this is simple; you cannot truly, deeply and sustainably motivate anybody until you know what their motives are...what motivates them...? ~ Rasheed Ogunlaru

Casting a spell, in self-defense or in self-interest is not selfish, but positive, life-affirming. You have been given powers, the very same powers that society devalues ... What if it comes back tenfold? Well, don't be a fool. Never use your magick to attack the innocent. Then you have nothing to fear ... Don't be frivolous or cowardly. If your course is righteous, and your tools ready, go to it. ~ Zsuzsanna Budapest

What makes a genius? The ability to see. To see what? The butterfly in a caterpillar, the eagle in an egg, the saint in a selfish person, life in death, unity in separation,
God in the human and human in God and suffering as the form in which the incomprehensibility of God himself appears. ~ Brennan Manning

Or consider this one: people's judgments about strangers are affected by whether they are drinking iced coffee or hot coffee! Those given iced coffee are more likely to see other people as more selfish, less sociable, and, well, colder than those who are given hot coffee.27 This, too, happens quite unconsciously. ~ Richard H. Thaler

Most fans probably wouldn't understand that because they're not in bands, but when there's too many cooks in the kitchen it can really ruin things, it can destroy a band. So for me and Burt to approach it as just two guys it makes things a lot easier. This may sound selfish but it was less people we had to share our ideas with so there was less interference. ~ Dino Cazares

I want my books to explore motives which make people think, 'Wow! Imagine the psychological state you'd have to be in for that to be your motive!' Whereas things like blackmail, jealousy - they're rational reasons for committing murder. ~ Sophie Hannah

You know, I've never understood it. They make a deal with the devil herself and then expect me to bail them out of every minor scrape. Then when I show up to help them, they cop an attitude and tell me to blow. So if I'm selfish for wanting four days a year to be left alone, then I'm just a selfish bastard. Sue me. (Acheron) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Of all the vices which degrade the human character, Selfishness is the most odious and contemptible. An undue love of Self leads to the most mon¬strous crimes and occasions the greatest misfortunes both in States and Families. As a selfish man will impoverish his family and often bring them to ruin, so a selfish king brings ruin on his people and often plunges them into war. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

When one has extensively pondered about men, as a career or as a vocation, one sometimes feels nostalgic for primates. At least they do not have ulterior motives. ~ Albert Camus

In truth, he hadn't liked the idea of anything on Ruby's body but him. It was selfish, a little sexist. But that was the way he'd felt."
-Aaron Clairmont, Ruby Ink ~ L.J. Wilson

When we confess a sin, we are not asking that God or others see it from our point of view, from the vantage point of our intentions or our motives. Instead, we use God's point of view. We submit to the righteous hand of God. We consent that the Bible is true and that the law of God condemns us. And this either drives us into mad depression or into the open arms of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The implications are far-reaching. Confession of sin is meant to drive us to Christ, for our good and for his glory. ~ Rosaria Champagne Butterfield

This interplay of military and academic motives became ingrained in the Internet. "The design of both the ARPANET and the Internet favored military values, such as survivability, flexibility, and high performance, over commercial goals, such as low cost, simplicity, or consumer appeal," the technology historian Janet Abbate noted. "At the same time, the group that designed and built ARPA's networks was dominated by academic scientists, who incorporated their own values of collegiality, decentralization of authority, and open exchange of information into the system."90 These academic researchers of the late 1960s, many of whom associated with the antiwar counterculture, created a system that resisted centralized command. It would route around any damage from a nuclear attack but also around any attempt to impose control. ~ Walter Isaacson

people see you the way they want to see you, but people are always more complex than that, and always more selfish than they lead you to believe." She ~ Dana Moss

The characteristic of a disciple is not that he does good things, but that he is good in his motives, having been made good by the supernatural grace of God. ~ Oswald Chambers

Deep down inside, I'm a selfish bastard, but I'm a selfish bastard that will love her in ways no other man ever will. She has been mine since that first day in English class, since the first time I kissed her and told her I loved her. And really, it's not my fault another man fell in love with the woman whose heart belongs to me. ~ Stevie J. Cole

Miss Warrender's 'selfish' inner quest was to find a 'purpose in life and give it all I have got'. This instructive, amusing, dramatic and bravely candid account is an answer in itself. She also took the photographs, reproduced in black and white, that adorn an already pleasing book. All together, this is an essential addition to the canon. -John McEwen book critic ~ Alice Warrender

Let me say, on behalf of the entire gay male community, we hate your fucking guts 'cause you landed him. Share, you selfish bastard. ~ Andrea Speed

Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants - all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs.

With much that was spoken and written on the subject Konyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw that there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a ~ Leo Tolstoy

Hummingbird
Flitting, darting
A restless quest
To fuel a fire
That burns your breast
Seeking sweetness
For selfish glee
Bringing gifts
So heedlessly
Your touch a trigger
You fire life
Igniting beauty
In vibrant strife
To equal you
In colors bright
They dazzle, dumbfound
And delight
But in tableau
Their beauty ends
Enlivened only
By the wind
Whilst you with
Generous energy
Prove a lovely
Vibrant Persephone
Their season ends
Those blooms of spring
And hummingbird
On fragile wing
Too soon I fear
You will expire
Sweetness smolders
Consumed in fire. ~ Michael Sullivan

Everyone who comes within the reach of your knowledge is, as it were, on trial in your mind. It is easy to be an unjust, ignorant, and even a merciless judge. The real character of the actions of others depends in great measure on the motives that prompt them, and these motives are unknown to you. ~ Lawrence G. Lovasik

Under private property, each tries to establish over the other an alien power, so as thereby to find satisfaction of his own selfish need. The increase in the quantity of objects is therefore accompanied by an extension of the realm of the alien powers to which man is subjected, and every new product represents a new potentiality of mutual swindling and mutual plundering. ~ Karl Marx

I thought women enjoyed affairs. I thought they got sparks of pleasure at the buzz of their phone, thought they ran around with a glow, their world suddenly on fire with new love. I thought they were women with terrible husbands and unhappy lives, an affair the first step in an eventual ending of their marriage. I thought that they were horrible, selfish women. I never thought that I would be one of them. I never thought that I'd be so weak. It turned out being the perfect wife was only easy when there was no temptation, no mistake haunting and overshadowing your marriage. ~ Alessandra Torre

He was suffering from self-love, a chief cure for which is the practice of love for others. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

I hate those TV shows where characters talk about one thing, such as their patient on the operation table (let's say they're a doctor), then you realize they're actually talking about actually talking about themselves. The patient's open-heart surgery is nothing compared to their own messed-up heart or whatever. It's selfish. And means they're not concentrating, which is medical negligence. ~ Jaclyn Moriarty

You shouldn't live for yourself alone but you must also learn to live the Christian life ~ Sunday Adelaja