Quotes about Selfishness

Even though my natural acts are good they have a tendency, when they are only natural, to concentrate my faculties on the man that I am not, the one I cannot be, the false self in me, the character that God does not know. This is because I am born in selfishness. I am born self-centered. And this is original sin.

We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely and absolutely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved.

A spirit that is drawn to God in contemplation will soon learn the value of obedience: the hardships and anguish he has to suffer every day from the burden of his own selfishness, his clumsiness, incompetence and pride will give him a hunger to be led and advised and directed by somebody else.

Prayer is often stereotyped in our culture as a form of pietism, a lamentable privatization of religion. Even many Christians seem to regard prayer as a grocery list we hand to God, and when we don't get what we want, we assume that the prayers didn't "work." This is privatization at its worst, and a cosmic selfishness.

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.

No man is more cheated than the selfish man.

The test of a man is in his immediate acts, and not in ultra-sentiments; and if those acts are consistently informed with selfishness and bitterness, if those at home hear his steps with dread, and feel a joyful relief on his departure, how empty are his expressions of sympathy for the suffering or down trodden how futile his membership of a philanthropic society.

Sympathy can never hinder success. It is selfishness that blights and destroys. As goodwill increases, man's prosperity will increase. All interests are mutual, and stand or fall together, and as sympathy expands the heart, it extends the circle of influence, making blessings, both spiritual and material, to more greatly abound.

If selfishness is the key to being miserable, then selflessness must be the key to being happy!

He wouldn't give a duck a drink if he owned Lake Michigan.

He kissed her forehead and the curve of her cheek. "I love you, McKenna. I have for some time now. And when Hawkins mentioned the option of you marrying today . . ." He brushed the hair from her temple and kissed her there. Twice. A weakness settled in her knees. His laughter came soft. "It wasn't hard for me to know what I wanted to do. So just to be clear . . . honor had little to do with my actions today. They were mostly selfish at heart.

When marriage exposes a person's selfishness and sins it's doing what it is meant to do: bringing our sins and wounds to light so we can recognize them, confess them, and begin the healing process.