Top 100 Its Own Sake Quotes
#1. Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.
Charles Kingsley
#2. I write - and read - for the sake of the story ... My basic test for any story is: 'Would I want to meet these characters and observe these events in real life? Is this story an experience worth living through for its own sake? Is the pleasure of contemplating these characters an end itself?
Ayn Rand
#3. Building community for its own sake is like attending a cancer support group without having cancer.
Alan Hirsch
#4. Perhaps," the half-breed admitted. "But why fight when there is no need? Why fight just for its own sake? That is not fighting to save anyone, or to win anything, or even for glory. It is fighting from sheer bloodlust, from love of violence alone. And I am sick of that. I want no part of it.
Aaron Rosenberg
#5. It has been a privilege to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to see how it might help mankind in more practical ways.
Paul Nurse
#6. Unemployment, with its injustice for the man who seeks and thirsts for employment, who begs for labour and cannot get it, and who is punished for failure he is not responsible for by the starvation of his children
that torture is something that private enterprise ought to remedy for its own sake.
David Lloyd George
#7. I enjoy spending time with other awakened people and feeling the shared vibration of that, whereas just fun for its own sake might no longer be quite so enticing as it used to be.
Arjuna Ardagh
#8. The open mode is a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate, because we're not under pressure to get a specific thing done properly. We can play.
John Cleese
#9. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forewarmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack.
C.S. Lewis
#10. I've always loved just learning stuff for its own sake. Just to be smarter about the world around me.
Cory Doctorow
#11. The sages advise us to study Torah lishma-"for its own sake" rather than to impress others with our scholarship. A paradox of parenting is that if we love our children for their own sake rather than for their achievements, it's more likely that they will reach their true potential.
Wendy Mogel
#12. I had then and still retain an interest in science for its own sake and as a metaphor for our current lives.
Peter Hammill
#13. Secrecy can spring from the best motives; but as it grows it begins to exist only for itself, only for its own sake, only to cover its own abuses.
Christopher Dodd
#14. It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but the love of money for its own sake.
Margaret Thatcher
#15. Amusement that is excessive and followed only for its own sake, allures and deceives us.
Blaise Pascal
#16. To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.
Arthur Conan Doyle
#17. We must do our work for its own sake, not for fortune or attention or applause.
Steven Pressfield
#18. I was watching Monster's Ball, which is a fabulous movie. It's just a little gem: beautifully shot, and shot in a way I never would have done. It made me feel very old, really, because it wasn't eccentric for its own sake, it was just very original.
Adrian Lyne
#19. [W]e should be mucking about all the time, because mucking about is enjoying life for its own sake, now, and not in preparation for an imaginary future. It's obvious that the mirth-filled man, the cheerful soul, the childish adult is the one who has least to fear from life.
Tom Hodgkinson
#20. Those who have ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose, and not to be chosen for, is an unalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.
Isaiah Berlin
#21. Whether the task is writing, design, or hanging a picture straight, it is obvious that we do our best work when healthy, rested, refreshed, alert, and eager to do the job for its own sake.
Jeffrey Zeldman
#22. We can begin to open our hearts to others when we have no hope of getting anything back. We just do it for its own sake.
Pema Chodron
#23. One must devote oneself to figuring out that one must live for the good, for its own sake. It was a secular morality. Contemporaries did not know what to call a thing like that - he questioned their every faith, their every way of life - so they called it atheism.
Jennifer Michael Hecht
#24. Great art is never produced for its own sake. It is too difficult to be worth the effort.
Robert Quillen
#25. Each piece of dialogue MUST be "something happening" ... The "amusing" for its OWN sake should above all be censored ... The functional use of dialogue for the plot must be the first thing in the writer's mind. Where functional usefulness cannot be established, dialogue must be left out.
Elizabeth Bowen
#26. The charlatan takes very different shapes according to circumstances; but at bottom he is a man who cares nothing about knowledge for its own sake, and only strives to gain the semblance of
it that he may use it for his own personal ends, which are always selfish and material.
Arthur Schopenhauer
#27. If nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved. Similarly if nothing is obligatory for its own sake, nothing is obligatory at all.
C.S. Lewis
#28. [Practical intelligence is] practical in nature: that is, it's now knowledge for its own sake. It's knowledge that helps you read situations correctly and get what you want.
Malcolm Gladwell
#29. The carpenter, lab technician, and conductor are all craftsmen because they are dedicated to good work for its own sake.
Richard Sennett
#30. No Romeo-and-Juliet acts, no nonsense about Love with a large L, none of that popular song claptrap with its skies of blue, dreams come true, heaven with you. Just sensuality for its own sake.
Aldous Huxley
#31. Though this was all but a fiction of his own, yet it had its desired effect; Atkins fell upon his knees to beg the captain to intercede with the governor for his life; and all the rest begged of him, for God's sake, that they might not be sent to England.
Daniel Defoe
#32. Graphic Design for its own sake will never happen, because the concept cancels itself out - a poster about nothing other than itself is not Graphic Design, it's ... makin' ART.
Chip Kidd
#33. While men believe themselves to be seeking truth for its own sake, they are in fact seeking life in truth.
Miguel De Unamuno
#34. For she was the only one, of all of them, to have spared me a pleasant word; and suddenly I longed for time to pass, not for its own sake, but as it would take me back to her.
Sarah Waters
#35. I'm less interested in proselytizing or a bigger tent for its own sake than in issues of human flourishing. What are the best conditions in which people live and flourish? It's more the, How do we get along? What does it mean for living now?
Karen L. King
#36. Love is alone sufficient by itself, it pleases by itself and for it's own sake. It is itself a merit, and itself it's own recompense. It seeks neither cause, nor consequences beyond itself. It is its own fruit, its own object and usefulness. I love because I love you, I love that I may love.
Bernard Of Clairvaux
#37. Knowledge for its own sake was meaningless, its mere accumulation a waste of time. Knowledge must lead to understanding.
Moses Finley
#38. I think most people see drawing as subservient to the subject, a sort of meditation, a studying, a searching observation, in my case, for its own sake.
Peter Wright
#39. Lord, in our work for justice, let us not seek after martyrdom for its own sake, but neither let us turn away from your truth because we fear suffering. Give us grace to live faithfully whatever the cost. Amen.
Shane Claiborne
#42. Love is the ultimate, the end. You love for love's own sake. It is not a means to anything else, it is its own end.
Rajneesh
#43. If philosophy is to be a valuable part of life, we have to appreciate it for its own sake, and not just for what it's done for us lately.
Julian Baggini
#44. The world often seemed more like a template for fiction than something that should be indulged in for its own sake.
Dan Simmons
#45. Or: "The ideal student values knowledge for its own sake, as well as for its instrumental uses. He or she hopes to make a contribution to society at large.
Carol S. Dweck
#46. Societies will, of course, wish to exercise prudence in deciding which technologies that is, which applications of science are to be pursued and which not. But without funding basic research, without supporting the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, our options become dangerously limited.
Carl Sagan
#47. Wealth for its own sake is an empty shell. Wealth that includes making other people's lives better will reward you even more than the beautiful mansion you live in.
Gene Simmons
#48. There were hundreds of varieties of orchids, each with a history of its own. Royalty had been known to die for the sake of orchids. Orchids had an ineffable aura of fatalism. And on the article went. To all things, philosophy and fate.
Haruki Murakami
#49. Human beings are too important to be treated as mere symptoms of the past. They have a value which is independent of any temporal process--which is eternal, and must be felt for its own sake.
Lytton Strachey
#50. Uselessness is a fatal accusation to bring against any act which is done for its presumed utility, but those which are done for their own sake are their own justification.
George Santayana
#51. Although he didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks (grades or comparisons).
C.S. Lewis
#52. This is excellence - the following of anything for its own sake and with its own integrity ...
Freya Stark
#53. A thing chosen always as an end and never as a means we call absolutely final. Now happiness above all else appears to be absolutely final in this sense, since we always choose it for its own sake and never as a means to something else.
Aristotle.
#54. We have lied to ourselves. We have not built this box for the good of our brothers. We built it for its own sake. It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth.
Ayn Rand
#55. I was to be buried inside my own creation, the better to keep its secrets. I will not tell you more, for your sake. But if you ask, I will answer.
Jedediah Berry
#56. So here are our truisms about truth:
Truth is objective.
Truth is good.
Truth is a worthy goal of inquiry.
Truth is worth caring about for its own sake.
Michael P. Lynch
#57. Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.
Colin Powell
#58. He was like some wild, untamed creature that you could keep and feed for a time, but in the end you knew you'd have to let it go for its own sake as well as yours.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#59. No man, perhaps, is so wicked as to commit evil for its own sake. Evil is generally committed under the hope of some advantage the pursuit of virtue seldom obtains. Yet the most successful result of the most virtuous heroism is never without its alloy.
Benjamin Haydon
#60. When the artist ... intends from the beginning to be obscure and take obscurity as his objective or goal for its own sake and wishes to astonish, shock, and seem mysterious, that is a swindle.
Tawfiq Al-Hakim
#61. Your mind has some clearness and capacity for right thinking; it opens towards the heights, but for its own sake, - to receive light from above for its own activity.
Sri Aurobindo
#62. As soon as you start asking what education is for, what the use of it is, you're abandoning the basic assumption of any true culture, that education is worth while for its own sake.
Ann Bridge
#63. An opening and a receptiveness to design and pattern for its own sake seems to free the painting hand.
Robert Genn
#64. Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaining it.
Georges Bataille
#65. To pursue happiness for its own sake is the surest way to lose it.
George Roche
#66. I think what's always important is not to be contrarian for its own sake but to really get at the truth.
Peter Thiel
#67. I went to Russia a Communist; but contact with those who have no doubts has intensified a thousandfold my own doubts, not as to Communism in itself, but as to the wisdom of holding a creed so firmly that for its sake men are willing to inflict widespread misery.
Bertrand Russell
#68. I think it was important that I learned to love to dance eventually for its own sake, as opposed to wanting to be a ballerina.
Suzanne Farrell
#69. Not everyone is willing to defend a position of 'not knowing.' There is no virtue in ignorance for its own sake.
B.F. Skinner
#70. To arrive at a place called Mastery, you must commit to daily and rigorous practice. Enjoy practising your craft for its own sake without turning your attention to your ultimate destination. Understand, once and for all, that the journey is as important as the destination.
Robin Sharma
#71. The Revolution had reached that classic mature stage where it existed only for its own sake.
Ben Fountain
#72. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.
George Bernard Shaw
#73. I do not think that a museum needs to engage with pop culture in order to make itself interesting to museumgoers. Museums are already interesting and engaging with pop culture for its own sake is just a quick way to seem and become dated.
John Hodgman
#74. He enjoyed life for its own sake, not for material possessions. Life was the exact opposite of money, which in itself meant nothing.
Sergei Lukyanenko
#75. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.
Bertrand Russell
#76. The notion of evil for its own sake strikes me as boring
all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims ... for what?
Steven Erikson
#77. Unfortunately, however, power is sweet, and the man who in the beginning seeks power merely in order to have scope for his benevolence is likely, before long, to love the power for its own sake.
Bertrand Russell
#79. Open-mindedness should not be fostered because, as Scripture teaches, Truth is great and will prevail, nor because, as Milton suggests, Truth will always win in a free and open encounter. It should be fostered for its own sake.
Richard Rorty
#80. Change is not for its own sake, it's the means to the end, not the end.
Pearl Zhu
#81. My friends and I live in the American SW because we love it, and love it for its own sake - not merely because it's the last region of the forty-eight states to be buried under asphalt and greed.
Edward Abbey
#82. Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake.
Richard Sennett
#83. It is not for its own sake that men desire money, but for the sake of what they can purchase with it.
Adam Smith
#84. It may be enough to study history in all its nuance and ambiguity for its own sake. But there is no country free of the need to find new ways of reading the past as an inspiring way of thinking about everything else, including the present.
Colm Toibin
#85. When I write I'll sometimes say things which are somewhat controversial - not because I'm seeking out controversy for its own sake, but if I don't have anything to say which is different, why am I bothering to write stuff down in the first place?
Paul Bloom
#86. Culture is the one thing that we cannot deliberately aim at. It is the product of a variety of more or less harmonious activities, each pursued for its own sake.
T. S. Eliot
#87. Cupidity ... takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.
Thomas Merton
#88. I like the idea of being a student, and I play with very good musicians. So playing with them allows me to get better. My aim is to get better, but I really love it for its own sake.
Jeff Goldblum
#89. Style to me is incidental. The British are very adept at creating it for its own sake, but the best style is incidental. John Coltrane had a style but it was totally incidental to what he was.
Tom Verlaine
#90. Murder, of course, is not recommended for its own sake. But it is implicit in
the value - supreme for the romantic - attached to frenzy. Frenzy is the reverse of boredom
Albert Camus
#91. The critics could never mortify me out of heart - because I love poetry for its own sake, - and, tho' with no stoicism and some ambition, care more for my poems than for my poetic reputation.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#92. Cubism is ... a picture for its own sake.
Literary Cubism does the same thing in literature, using reality merely as a means and not as an end.
Max Jacob
#93. I am not at all in favor of hard work for its own sake; many people who work very hard indeed produce terrible things, and should most certainly not be encouraged.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
#94. The value of the goal lies in the goal itself; and therefore the goal cannot be attained unless it is pursued for its own sake.
Arnold J. Toynbee
#95. If a person forges ahead in the light and yet has lost his care for the others, the purpose of the light is wasted. God does not give us light for its own sake, but for the purpose of doing something in the light.
Johan Oscar Smith
#96. It is in the blood of genius to love play for its own sake, and whether one uses one's skill on thrones or women, swords or pens, gold or fame, the game's the thing.
Gelett Burgess
#97. Everything I'm doing musically is for its own sake. I'm recording at my house, trying really hard to write songs with a four-track tape recorder.
Bucky Pope
#98. One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.
Walter Pater
#99. 'Science in itself' is nothing, for it exists only in the human beings who are its bearers. 'Science for its own sake' usually means nothing more than science for the sake of the people who happen to be pursuing it.
Rudolf Virchow
#100. Beauty he loved for its own sake; ugliness, which more often than not was a form of inverted beauty, fascinated him. Life offered far too little of either, and far too much appalling mediocrity, which he thought hideous.
Lloyd Biggle Jr.
