Quotes about Self-interest

Citing both the Buddha and Aristotle, Sachs makes the case for a "middle path," a path of moderation and balance between work and non-work (what he calls, quaintly in this day and age, "leisure"), savings and consumption, self-interest and compassion, individualism and citizenship.

No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne.

We have moved away from traditional Judeo-Christian values toward a worldview that lets us self-select values based on whether they serve our self-interests. Like a child loose in a candy store, we pick our values, we determine our own fate, we captain our own ship.

It's pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests.

If you are wise, you are wise to your own advantage; but if you scoff, you alone will bear the consequences.

He who isolates himself pursues selfish desires; he rebels against all sound judgment.

Thus to forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that summum bonum, that greatest good, communal harmony that enhances the humanity and personhood of all in the community.

Anger, resentment, lust for revenge, even success through aggressive competitiveness, are corrosive of this good. To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. What dehumanizes you inexorably dehumanizes me. It gives people resilience, enabling them to survive and emerge still human despite all efforts to dehumanize them. When uhuru, or freedom and independence

What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.

charity is oftentimes really sensuality, for man's own inclination, his own will, his hope of reward, and his self-interest, are motives seldom absent. On the contrary, he who has true and perfect charity seeks self in nothing, but searches all things for the glory of God.

It's overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure, democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel.

A person's toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.