Top 69 Quotes About Human Selfishness
#1. Human selfishness being what it is, almost everyone kept the pleasant task for themselves.
Steven Pinker
#2. Legal plunder has two roots: One, as we have just seen, is in human selfishness; the other is in false philanthropy.
Frederic Bastiat
#3. The effect of capitalism is to steer human selfishness so that, through the invisible hand of competition, the energies of the capitalist produce the abundance from which the whole society benefits.
Dinesh D'Souza
#5. Pseudo idealism: apparent charitable behaviour that on scrutiny is revealed as selfish, because the giver is engaging in it only so that he or she can feel good about him or herself
Jeremy Griffith
#6. 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
#7. one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is
David Mitchell
#9. Self-interest lies behind all that men do, forming the important motive for all their actions; this rule has never deceived me
Marquis De Sade
#10. Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself.
Julio Cortazar
#11. I now know that deep within the human concept is something dark, selfish, and completely willing to do whatever is necessary to support the idea of humanity. Because that's what it is, an idea. True humanity would never behave as we have behaved.
Melissa West
#12. I believe that the writers of Genesis had detected the inherent selfishness in human nature that I propose is in our genes, and invented the myth of original sin to account for it. It's an image. I am not acting as an exegete - I don't interpret scripture.
Christian De Duve
#13. The sun of truth rises in the human being and illuminates his world when he lifts his mind from the darkness of ignorance and selfishness into the light of wisdom and altruism
Samael Aun Weor
#14. It was the mystical dogma of Bentham and Adam Smith and the rest, that some of the worst of human passions would turn out to be all for the best. It was the mysterious doctrine that selfishness would do the work of unselfishness.
Gilbert K. Chesterton
#15. Human beings are never to be treated as a means but always as ends.
Immanuel Kant
#16. Chastity by no means signifies rejection of human sexuality or lack of esteem for it: rather it signifies spiritual energy capable of defending love from the perils of selfishness and aggressiveness, and able to advance it towards its full realization.
Pope John Paul II
#17. Blame is a human concept, one of its blackest and most selfish and self-binding.
Patrick Ness
#18. I thought he'd pick me, I know he has kids, but when it came down to it, I really thought he'd pick me."
Tears rolled down her face and her nose ran. She sniffed.
"I know I'm selfish"
"You're human"
"I wanted him to abandon his children
Anna McPartlin
#19. Human nature is a complex mix of preparations for extreme selfishness and extreme altruism. Which side of our nature we express depends on culture and context. When opponents of evolution object that human beings are not mere apes, they are correct. We are also part bee.
Jonathan Haidt
#20. Is the selfishness of children really so different from our own? During the summer in the country we curse the rain, while the farmers are crying out for it.
Raymond Radiguet
#21. The common trait of all evil is nothing other than egoism ... Basically all human evil comes from what we call the selfishness.
Rudolf Steiner
#22. Man is an extremely complex creature: he usually acts in an unselfish manner for selfish reasons.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
#23. The heart of our problem is the selfishness in our heart.
The human spirit soars with hope when lifted by an encouraging word.
The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle.
Pierre De Coubertin
#24. There's no room for selfishness when you have a defenseless human being depending on you.
Mia Asher
#26. Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects.
William Wilberforce
#27. In times of stress and danger such as come about as the result of an epidemic, many tragic and cruel phases of human nature are brought out, as well as many brave and unselfish ones.
William Crawford Gorgas
#28. The ruling of men is the effort to direct the individual actions of many persons toward some end. This end theoretically should be the greatest good of all, but no human group has ever reached this ideal because of ignorance and selfishness.
W.E.B. Du Bois
#29. The hypocrisy of human interaction, wherein selflessness was publicly championed and selfishness privately pursued, both amused and disgusted him. Every act of kindness seemed, to him, to be performed only with an eye to the payback that might one day be extracted from the recipient.
Dean Koontz
#30. My view is my entire life has been shaped by giving when I didn't have it. Some idiot who's wealthy and doesn't give, they'll rot in their own selfishness. I'm not worried about them. What I'm really interested in is the day-to-day person, human beings who want to go to another level of their life.
Tony Robbins
#31. It is unfortunate that for some, kindness is an unwarranted expenditure, compassion an avoidable weakness, and love an unnecessary gamble.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
#32. No universal selfishness can bring social good to all. Communism - the effort to give all men what they need and to ask of each the best they can contribute - this is the only way of human life.
W.E.B. Du Bois
#33. The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies.
B.C. Forbes
#34. Sometimes a decade arrives when nations have the chance to turn away from bigotry and selfishness and turn to their countrymen and women and embrace them as loved members of the human family. But do we have the ticker for it?
Bruce Pascoe
#36. The selfishness of an age that has devoted itself to the mere cult of pleasure has tainted the whole human race with an error that makes all our acts more or less lies against God.
Thomas Merton
#37. Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.
William Howard Taft
#38. ...We are truly human when we live for a purpose far above ourselves; but most people prefer to identify with an entity for the sake of belonging; thereby subjecting themselves to the spirit of collective selfishness that is only found in groups...
Janvier Chouteu-Chando
#39. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.
David Mitchell
#40. Capitalism satisfied the Christian demand for an institution that channels selfish human desire toward the betterment of society. Some critics accuse capitalism of being a selfish system, but the selfishness is not in capitalism - it is in human nature.
Dinesh D'Souza
#41. That was the way with folk; full of sympathy for the plight of others until something was asked of them.
Sam J. Charlton
#42. Although the human heart is selfish and arrogant, so many struggle against their selfishness and learn humility; because of them, as long as there is life, there is hope that beauty lost can be rediscovered, that what has been reviled can be redeemed.
Dean Koontz
#43. Most human beings know only the language of exploitation. Due to their selfishness, they are unable to consider others.
Mata Amritanandamayi
#44. Contrary to popular opinion, we are all a vast brotherhood of human beings whose very survival hinges not on what we keep, but on what we give. And it is in the giving that we not only survive to live another day, but we thrive to celebrate another day.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
#45. To practice properly the Art of Peace, you must: Calm the spirit and return to the source. Cleanse the body and spirit by removing all malice, selfishness, and desire. Be ever grateful for the gifts received from the universe, your family, Mother nature, and your fellow human beings.
Morihei Ueshiba
#46. We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. (Despite) all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether ... The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#47. Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.
Alveda King
#48. We have developed a culture of self-interest, self-gratification, self-aggrandizement, and utter selfishness. We have institutionalized and disseminated these values as never before in human history.
Michael C. Hill
#49. I think schools, as they are now regulated, the hot-beds of vice and folly, and the knowledge of human nature supposedly attained there, merely cunning selfishness.
Mary Wollstonecraft
#50. How tolerable misfortunes appear when they affect only other people! How strong the human body seems when it's another man's flesh that bleeds! How easy it is to look death in the face when it's another man's turn!
Irene Nemirovsky
#51. The major threats to our survival no longer stem from nature without but from our own human nature within. It is our carelessness, our hostilities, our selfishness and pride and willful ignorance that endanger the world.
M. Scott Peck
#52. [Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing.
Aristophanes
#53. The greatest surprise of human evolution may be that the highest form of selfishness is selflessness.
Robert E. Ornstein
#54. I content myself with the fact that the general system of our trade is a system of selfishness, is not dictated by the high sentiments of human nature much less by the sentiments of love and heroism but is a system of distrust not of giving, but of taking advantage.
Joshua Ferris
#55. The individualism of current economic theory is manifest in the purely self-interested behavior it generally assumes. It has no real place for fairness, malevolence, and benevolence, nor for the preservation of human life or any other moral concern.
Herman E. Daly
#56. We make allowance for a certain degree of selfishness in men; because we know it to be inseparable from human nature, and inherent in our frame and constitution. By this reflexion we correct those sentiments of blame, which so naturally arise upon any opposition.
David Hume
#57. We cannot doubt that self-interest is the mainspring of human nature. It must be clearly understood that this word is used here to designate a universal, incontestable fact, resulting from the nature of man, and not an adverse judgment, as would be the word selfishness.
Frederic Bastiat
#58. The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.
William Graham Sumner
#59. I don't think there's any need to have essays advocating selfishness among human beings; I don't know what your impression has been, but some things require no further reinforcement.
Christopher Hitchens
#60. Love is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service.
Jack Hyles
#61. Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice.
Elihu Root
#63. Deeds that seemed unimportant at the time would prove to have been momentous; a tiny act of selfishness and unkindness or, conversely, an unconsidered act of generosity would become the measure of a human life
Karen Armstrong
#64. Because of our selfishness and inclination toward personal comfort and convenience, we'd rather not have to deal with constant change and uncertainty. We have difficulty reconciling the goodness of God with the mystery of his ways.
Chris Hodges
#65. To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature.
Adam Smith
#66. Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.
Wendell Phillips
#67. America wasn't perfect, but nothing touched by human hands could be. There was greed, corruption, selfishness, pettiness, hatred. But there were good things too. Freedoms, ideas, choices, hope and the possibility that anyone could be anything, here, if they were willing to strive for it.
Wildbow
#68. Selfish needs, wants, and desires needed to be obliterated. Greed, overindulgence, and gluttony had to be expunged from human behavior. The solution was in self-control, in minimalism, in sparse living conditions; one simple and a brand-new dictionary filled with words everyone would understand.
Tahereh Mafi
#69. Two conflicting forces cannot exist in one human heart. When doubt reigns, faith cannot abide. Where hatred rules, love is crowded out. Where selfishness rules, there love cannot dwell.
Billy Graham
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