Selfish famous quotes
Last updated: Sep 5, 2024
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Good mothers make all kinds of choices. Making a decision that might sound selfish does not make a woman a bad mother.
-- Jada Pinkett Smith -
My father is a man with a great capacity for love and a huge heart, which has led him to be somewhat of a lothario, but at the same time, he's genuine. He's far more loving and kind than I could ever be. As selfish as he is, he is an extremely giving person. He's just 100 percent in every direction.
-- Jake Busey -
I was given such a great gift. It's a miracle that never stops amazing me and reminding me to give thanks, every day. Having a wife and daughter gives me a lot more purpose. I was much more selfish before, but now I think about what kind of role model I'll be. I just want to be a better man.
-- Jake Owen -
Where all are selfish, the sage is no better than the fool, and only rather more dangerous.
-- James Anthony Froude -
People are so docile right now. It is almost as if good government means when the politicians lie to us for our own good, for the public good, and bad government is when politicians lie for their own selfish interests.
-- James Bovard -
If we desire to do what will please God, and what will help men, we presently find ourselves taken out of our narrow habits of thought and action; we find new elements of our nature called into activity; we are no longer running along a narrow track of selfish habit.
-- James Freeman Clarke -
I considered becoming a priest very seriously. I wanted to travel the world. By the time I turned 16, I realized I was only in it for selfish reasons. And, more importantly, I didn't want to sacrifice the ladies!
-- James McAvoy -
I decided a long time ago I would feed on the vultures until a dove came along. A pigeon. The kind of soul that didn't impede on anyone; just walked around worrying about its own business, trying to get through life without pulling everyone else down. With its own needs and selfish habits. Brave. A communicator. Intelligent. Beautiful. Soft-spoken. A creature that mates for life. Unattainable until she has a reason to trust you.
-- Jamie McGuire -
I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.
-- Jane Austen -
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
-- Jane Austen -
From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.
-- Jane Austen -
People think that you are a nasty, selfish person if you don`t want to have children.
-- Janeane Garofalo -
At first it upset me to realize how many people are, at heart, selfish. Now I take that in stride, but people's loneliness still gets to me.
-- Janette Rallison -
Those who joined us for selfish personal reasons, for a career or other motives will be the ones to leave.
-- Janos Kadar -
I address myself to the Communists, to those Communists who were prompted to join the Party by the progressive ideas of mankind and socialism, and not by selfish personal interests - let us represent our pure and just ideas by pure and just means.
-- Janos Kadar -
I think we are living in selfish times. I'm the first one to say that I'm the most selfish. We live in the so-called 'first world,' and we may be first in a lot of things like technology, but we are behind in empathy.
-- Javier Bardem -
Our parents, our tribesman, our authority figures, clearly expect us to be bad or anti-social or greedy or selfish or dirty or destructive or self-destructive. Our social nature is such that we tend to meet the expectations of our elders. Whenever this reversal took place and our elders stopped expecting us to be social and expected us to be anti-social, just to put it in gross terms, that's when the real fall took place. And we're paying for it dearly.
-- Jean Liedloff -
Nothing will make me change my principles. Even with the knife at my neck I shall still declare, up to this day, the poor have done everything; it is time for the rich to take their turn... The selfish people, the young idlers, must be made useful, whether they like it or not, and some respite be procured for the useful and respectable worker.
-- Jean-Paul Marat -
...even a tiny bit of deceit is dishonorable when it's used for selfish or cowardly reasons. - Mr. Penderwick
-- Jeanne Birdsall -
Gaining control over your health and well-being is one of those times in your life that you get to be completely selfish and not feel bad about it. If you want to meet your goals, you have to make it about you. You have to make it work for you and you alone. Anything less is a setup for failure.
-- Jennifer Hudson -
We receive mixed messages about taking good care of ourselves. Love thy neighbor as thyself means to love thyself and thy neighbor. Yet, self-love often is confused with selfishness and conceit. We are selfish when we do not love and accept ourselves, and attempt to take from others to fill the emptiness. Conceit indicates low self-worth and an attempt to conceal it. It is difficult to extend to others what you have not been able to give yourself. Take good care of yourself so you can care about the rest of us.
-- Jennifer James -
It's not about the fish; it's not about the pollution; it's not about the climate change. It's about us and our greed and our need for growth and our inability to imagine a world that is different from the selfish world we live in today.
-- Jeremy Jackson -
I am probably the most selfish man you will ever meet in your life. No one gets the satisfaction or the joy that I get out of seeing kids realize there is hope.
-- Jerry Lewis -
I think that people who don't like animals tend to be selfish, but I'm biased.
-- Jessica Alba -
I don't know if it's ever OK for someone to be selfish. Perhaps there's a time and place to be self-centered, but I think selfish never wins the race.
-- Jessica Capshaw -
Given the reality of unintended parenthood and parental unhappiness, one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children - who are deliberate and thoughtful about the choice to bring another person into the world - would be seen as less selfish than those who unthinkingly have children. Yet the stigma remains.
-- Jessica Valenti -
Selfish isn't a dirty word. It means we take care of ourselves and are able to give back.
-- Jillian Michaels -
Oh, I think I've been entirely selfish with my career. I've done what I wanted to do, and not put myself out for anyone else particularly.
-- Jim Broadbent -
I think we all have a selfish gene which rises to the top, sometimes. But then we're also all capable of a sudden magnanimity.
-- Jim Broadbent -
People are just self-centered-it's all about them. And we're telling people it's okay to be 'all about you' because you're a victim and it's not your fault. That's why society has gotten more and more belligerent and selfish.
-- Jim Norton -
The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter.
-- Jimmy Carter -
I think I was righteous. I saw myself as the good guy in my own movie. I didn't get into many fights when I was younger, but when I did, they were righteous. I always thought I was defending something good. I fought for friends who couldn't fight for themselves. I was still being selfish and arrogant, but I was focused on what was fair and unfair.
-- Jo Nesbo -
I think my heart is quite selfish. If I followed my heart, I would not be a good person. But I have moral principles. I have to sit down and reflect.
-- Jo Nesbo -
i hate leaving places i love i was never at one place long. am i selfish?
-- Joan Bauer -
The challenge and the energy running requires may be a selfish one, but it actually motivates me to be stronger in my relationships.
-- Joan Benoit -
It's funny. I'm attracted to things that don't have any impact on life. People say I've done a great thing for women. I don't think I have. People say I've given people courage. That makes me feel good, but I don't see how I do that. I think my running is a selfish thing. But it provides the challenge that allows me to feel good about myself. How can I expect to do well in other activities if I don't feel good about myself?
-- Joan Benoit -
The more our hearts and minds are turned to assisting others less fortunate than we, the more we will avoid the spiritually cankering effects that result from greed, selfishness and overindulgence.
-- Joe J. Christensen -
Cast down, O Lord, all the forces of cruelty and wrong. Defeat all selfish and worldly-minded schemes, and prosper all that is conceived among us in the spirit of Christ and carried out to the honour of His blessed name. Amen.
-- John Baillie -
Human beings are selfish by nature. Everything that happens to a child, you immediately grab your own child and say, "I will never let that happen to you."
-- John Darnielle -
The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses... This little coterie...runs our government for their own selfish ends. It operates under cover of a self-created screen...seizes...our executive officers...legislative bodies...schools... courts...newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.
-- John Francis Hylan -
The more we obey God, the more we desire to help others. The more we help others, the more we love God and on and on. Conversely, the more we disobey God and the more selfish we are, the less love we feel.
-- John H. Groberg -
The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age. He can only get a vision of the unselfish forces in the world by appealing to them, and every appeal is a call to arms. If he fights he must fight, not one man, but a conspiracy. He is always at war with a civilization. On his side is proverbial philosophy, a galaxy of invisible saints and sages, and the half-developed consciousness and professions of everybody. Against him is the world, and every selfish passion in his own heart.
-- John Jay Chapman -
My love is selfish. I cannot breathe without you.
-- John Keats -
I knew I was breaking about a dozen laws but I guess I had different attitudes to stuff like that since the war. Laws were for the stupid the immature the irresponsible. The inflexible and the narrow-minded. The prejudiced. The obsessive. The lazy and careless and selfish and spoilt. The violent.
-- John Marsden -
Capricious, wanton, bold, and brutal Lust Is meanly selfish; when resisted, cruel; And, like the blast of Pestilential Winds, Taints the sweet bloom of Nature's fairest forms.
-- John Milton -
I had no companions to quarrel with, nobody to assist, and nobody to thank... the evil consequence of all this was not, however, what might perhaps have been expected, that I grew up selfish or non affectionate; but that, when affection did come, it came with a violence utterly rampant and unmanageable.
-- John Ruskin -
Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction.... In its horror of sensuality, it made an idol of asceticism, which has been gradually compromised away into one of legality. It holds out the hope of heaven and the threat of hell, as the appointed and appropriate motives to a virtuous life - in this falling far below the best of the ancients, and doing what lies in it to give to human morality an essentially selfish character.... It is essentially a doctrine of passive obedience; it inculcates submission to all authorities found established.
-- John Stuart Mill -
It is just as foolish to complain that people are selfish and treacherous as it is to complain that the magnetic field does not increase unless the electric field has a curl. Both are laws of nature.
-- John von Neumann -
As it's your 50th birthday The very best of cheers to you Truthfully, I'm just being selfish Coz now I am so cheerful, too Happy, Cheerful Birthday
-- John Walter Bratton -
Although our emotions sometimes behave like spoiled, selfish children, unfortunately we cannot send them to their room or tell them to stop screaming.
-- Jonathan Carroll -
Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness.
-- Jonathan Haidt -
But the most important lesson I have learned in my twenty years or research on morality is that nearly all people are morally motivated. Selfishness is a powerful force, particularly in the decisions of individuals, but whenever groups of people come together to make a sustained effort to change the world, you can bet that they are pursuing a vision of virtue, justice, or sacredness.
-- Jonathan Haidt -
It's true, I am afraid of dying. I am afraid of the world moving forward without me, of my absence going unnoticed, or worse, being some natural force propelling life on. Is it selfish? Am I such a bad person for dreaming of a world that ends when I do? I don't mean the world ending with respect to me, but every set of eyes closing with mine.
-- Jonathan Safran Foer -
Cunning has only private selfish aims, and sticks at nothing which may make them succeed. Discretion has large and extended views, and, like a well-formed eye, commands a whole horizon; cunning is a kind of shortsightedness, that discovers the minutest objects which are near at hand, but is not able to discern things at a distance.
-- Joseph Addison -
False riches, consisting of money, houses and lands, acquired by selfish means at cost to others and thereafter used selfishly, are almost always used for the oppression of other persons.
-- Joseph Franklin Rutherford -
You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.
-- Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu -
He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.
-- Josh Lanyon -
And yet there was something about his strength, his arrogance, his sheer size that got under my skin. He probably couldn't even spell vanilla. He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.
-- Josh Lanyon -
I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.
-- Joshua Bell -
She's an idiot. She's looking at life through a selfish, lusty haze.
-- Joy Browne -
In the event of an oxygen shortage on airplanes, mothers of young children are always reminded to put on their own oxygen mask first, to better assist the children with theirs. The same tactic is necessary on terra firma. There's no way of sustaining our children if we don't first rescue ourselves. I don't call that selfish behavior. I call it love.
-- Joyce Maynard -
The term revolution means: a sudden, radical, and complete change from the way things are normally done. I love that definition because I really feel that in order for us to start walking in the kind of love that Christ commanded us to - the "love your neighbor as yourself" kind - it's going to take a radical change in our current behavior. The church has become passive and selfish and it's going to take a revolution to get us back to the place where we are not just talking the talk, but walking in a love that shows the world Christ's love.
-- Joyce Meyer -
It astounds us to come upon other egoists, as though we alone had the right to be selfish, and to be filled with eagerness to live.
-- Jules Renard -
No matter what your age or your life path, whether making art is your career or your hobby or your dream, it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.
-- Julia Cameron -
There is no hell like that of a selfish heart, and there is no misfortune so great as that of not being able to make a sacrifice. These two thoughts come to me strongly this morning. It is something to have learned these truths so that we can never again doubt them.
-- Julia Ward Howe -
I have learned to go fully in the face of my dreams. I would recommend you do the same. Now is the time in your life to be selfish. To explore. To take chances. Remember being selfish is not the same as being self-indulgent. You have the gift of time. Use it to do what you love. Believe anything is possible and then work like hell to make it happen.
-- Julianna Margulies -
I think I have a better sense of my weaknesses - being self-important, selfish and having a big ego probably triggers all the other stuff. I can see myself more clearly.
-- K. D. Lang -
Going out at night and having a fabulous social life takes a lot out of you, and I don't know if I have that much to give, honestly. I would rather give that time to my kids or spend that time reading a book or watching a film. I am selfish and lazy.
-- Kajol -
Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.
-- Karl Lagerfeld -
If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.
-- Karl Marx -
I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.
-- Katharine Hepburn -
Humans. Violent but peace-loving. Passionate but cerebral. Humane but cruel. Impulsive but calculating. Generous but selfish. And yet, somehow I knew that they represented the best hope of the galaxy.
-- Katherine Applegate -
Every noble action is selfish. Some selfish actions are nobler than others. But they are all selfish. And as such there can be no action purely noble anyway. Even the nobility in God's great philosophical intentions is bounded by his vanity.
-- Kedar Joshi -
A Christian marriage is [not] one with no problems or even a marriage with fewer problems. (It may well mean more problems.) But it does mean a life in which two people are able to accept each other and love each other in the midst of problems and fears. It means a marriage in which selfish people can accept selfish people without constantly trying to change them -- and even accept themselves, because they realize personally that they have been accepted by Christ.
-- Keith Miller -
Maybe I'm being selfish, but I choose you." He leaned over, lips brushing mine as he whispered, "I always choose you.
-- Kelley Armstrong -
...Good leaders wait to be called and they give up their power when they are no longer needed. Selfish men and fools put themselves first and keep their power until someone throws them out. It is no good to have a way where selfish men and fools fight with each other to be leaders, while the good ones watch.
-- Kent Nerburn -
You instantly become less selfish. You can't be the biggest person in the world anymore-they are. [Motherhood] really grounds you.
-- Keri Russell -
I think its really rare to see women on television who are brilliant, selfish, vain, fallible - and I feel like I have all those capacities in myself, so its good to see people in the media representing all of those things.
-- Kerry Bishe -
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
-- Khalil Gibran -
Sometimes you have to be selfish to get what you want and move forward in life.
-- Kristen Stewart -
Humility is the essence of repentance. Humility is selfless, not selfish. It doesn't demand its own way or speak with moral superiority. Instead, humility answers softly and listens kindly for understanding, not vindication. Humility recognizes that no one can change someone else, but with faith, effort, and the help of God, we can undergo our own mighty change of heart.
-- L. Whitney Clayton -
I kissed him on the cheek and left to find Bobby Lee. Him, I trusted to be in the line of fire. But it was more than that: I wasn't sleeping with bobby Lee. I didn't love him. Sometimes love makes you selfish. Sometimes it makes you stupid. Sometimes it reminds you why you love your gun.
-- Laurell K. Hamilton -
You'll be a good parent when you're ready to no longer be selfish. Until I was about 35, it was all about me. I look back and I'm astonished at how I lived my life - it was totally self-involved.
-- Lauren Holly -
In this lifetime you're nothing more than you appear to be: a stupid, selfish, ignorant, spoiled little girl who thinks the world lives or dies on whether she gets to go out with some good-looking boy at school...I'd still relish this moment...killing you.
-- Lauren Kate -
Forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of its immense benefits to the one who forgives.
-- Lawana Blackwell -
Everywhere I've been, I've been the best player. I love being a leader, and I love being the best. I just want to get better. It's not about being cocky or selfish or anything like that. It's just how I am.
-- LeBron James -
Sometimes the coaches tell me to be selfish, but my game won't let me be selfish.
-- LeBron James -
Moral evil is the immorality and pain and suffering and tragedy that come because we choose to be selfish, arrogant, uncaring, hateful and abusive.
-- Lee Strobel -
A man's sentiments are generally just and right, while it is second selfish thought which makes him trim and adopt some other view. The best reforms are worked out when sentiment operates, as it does in women, with the indignation of righteousness.
-- Leland Stanford -
Anyone who does anything for pleasure to indulge his selfish soul will surely burn in Hell.
-- Lenny Bruce -
The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good; the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.
-- Leo Rosten -
Rather than assume that the wealthy are a monolithic, selfish and unfeeling lot who must be subjugated by the force of the state, set a tone that encourages people of good will to meet in the middle.
-- Leon G. Cooperman -
There are always rebels and radicals, I suppose,' McCleethy allows. 'Those who live on the fringes of society. But what do they contribute to the society itself? They reap its rewards without experiencing its costs. No. I submit that loyal, hardworking citizens who push aside their own selfish desires for the good of the whole are the backbone of the world. What if we all decided to run off and live freely without thought or care for society's rules? Our civilization would crumble. There is a joy in duty and a security in knowing one's place...It is the only way.
-- Libba Bray -
If I had children, I would be very selfish. I wouldn't be out doing things. But by not having kids, it makes me freer to travel the world and talk about things I feel are important.
-- Linda Blair -
Only you could love such a vile, selfish peacock, Evie.
-- Lisa Kleypas -
God would be a very selfish god if he gave all the soul to one race. ... When one sings from the heart and it reaches another heart, that's soul.
-- Little Richard -
This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
