Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to all the world besides.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
—Jane Austen (1775–1817) English Novelist
How a sickness enlarges the dimensions of a man’s self to himself! He is his own exclusive object. Supreme selfishness is inculcated in him as his only duty.
—Charles Lamb (1775–1834) British Essayist, Poet
Selfishness at the expense of others’ happiness is demonism.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
Selfishness is never so exquisitely selfish as when it is on its knees … Self turns what would otherwise be a pure and powerful prayer into a weak and ineffective one.
—A. W. Tozer (1897–1963) American Christian Pastor, Preacher, Author, Editor
Self-interest, that leprosy of the age, attacks us from infancy, and we are startled to observe little heads calculate before knowing how to reflect.
—Delphine de Girardin (1804–55) French Novelist, Author
Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself.
—Thomas Brooks (1608–80) English Puritan Preacher, Author
Milton has carefully marked, in his Satan, the intense selfishness which would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
To be saved is only this,—salvation from our own selfishness.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
No man will work for your interests unless they are his.
—David Seabury (1885–1960) American Psychologist
I would tear out my own heart if it had no better disposition than to love only myself, and laugh at all my neighbors.
—Alexander Pope (1688–1744) English Poet
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor’d, and unsung.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
None are so empty as those who are full of themselves.
—Benjamin Whichcote (1609–83) British Anglican Priest, Theologian, Philosopher
Where all are selfish, the sage is no better than the fool, and only rather more dangerous.
—James Anthony Froude (1818–94) British Historian, Novelist, Biographer, Editor
Our gifts and attainments are not only to be light and warmth in our own dwellings, but are to shine through the window, into the dark night, to guide and cheer bewildered travellers on the road.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
It is astonishing how well men wear when they think of no one but themselves.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Selfishness, when it is punished by the world, is mostly punished because it is connected with egotism.
—Arthur Helps (1813–75) English Dramatist, Essayist
He who makes an idol of his self-interest, will often make a martyr of his integrity.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
Whenever education and refinement grow away from the common people, they are growing toward selfishness, which is the monster evil of the world. That is true cultivation which gives us sympathy with every form of human life, and enables us to work most successfully for its advancement. Refinement that carries us away from our fellowmen is not God’s refinement.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
How much that the world calls selfishness is only generosity with narrow walls—a too exclusive solicitude to maintain a wife in luxury, or make one’s children rich.
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823–1911) American Social Reformer, Clergyman
Did any man, at his death, ever regret his conflicts with himself, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness’ sake?
—William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) American Unitarian Theologian, Poet
knowledge is hidden by selfish desire—hidden by this unquenchable fire for self-satisfaction.
—The Bhagavad Gita Hindu Scripture
Heroism, magnanimity, and self-denial, in all instances in which they do not spring from a principle of religion, are but splendid altars on which we sacrifice one kind of self-love to another.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Show me the man who would go to heaven alone, and I will show you one who will never be admitted there.
—Owen Feltham (1602–1668) English Essayist
If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German Philosopher
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor’s.
—Richard Whately (1787–1863) English Philosopher, Theologian
One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.
—George MacDonald (1824–1905) Scottish Novelist, Lecturer, Poet
A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The fondness we have for self furnishes another long rank of prejudices.
—Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English Hymn writer
As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
—Helen Keller (1880–1968) American Author
When a man is wrapped up in himself he makes a pretty small package.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness. Selfishness corrodes. Unselfishness ennobles, satisfies. Don’t put off the joy derivable from doing helpful, kindly things for others.
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
If your prayer is selfish, the answer will be something that will rebuke your selfishness. You may not recognize it as having come at all, but it is sure to be there.
—William Temple (1881–1944) British Clergyman, Theologian
Those who are most disinterested, and have the least of selfishness, have best materials for being happy.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion.
—Israel Zangwill (1864–1926) English Playwright, Novelist, Zionist Activist
Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
A little group of willful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American Head of State
What we call personality (…) has become the most impersonal thing in the world. Its pale and featureless face appears like a ghost at every corner and in every crowd. … Individualism kills individuality, precisely because individualism has to be an ‘ism’ quite as much as Communism or Calvinism. The economic and ethical school which calls itself individualist ended by threatening the world with the flattest and dullest spread of the commonplace. Men, instead of being themselves, set out to find a self to be: a sort of abstract economic self identified with self-interest. But while the self was that of a man, the self-interest was generally that of a class or a trade or even an empire. So far from really remaining a separate self, the man became part of a communal mass of selfishness.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
The greatest productive force is human selfishness.
—Robert A. Heinlein (1907–88) American Science Fiction Writer
The world is governed only by self-interest.
—Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) German Poet, Dramatist
Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
The selfish man suffers more from his selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important benefit.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.
—Charles William Eliot (1834–1926) American Educationalist
The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are in the sea.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) French Writer
The man who lives by himself and for himself is likely to be corrupted by the company he keeps.
—Charles Henry Parkhurst (1842–1933) American Clergyman, Civic Reformer
He who takes but never gives, may last for years but never lives.
—Unknown
Supreme and abiding self-love is a very dwarfish affection, but a giant evil.
—Richard Cecil