"Selfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... should be dismissed with disdain. If a young man will not determine to do right because it is right, his motives are sordid; and the probability is very great that so soon as some stronger incentive appeals to his selfishness, he will forget his vows and promises and relapse into ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... exterior, I suspect our Frattino to be a very worthless, as well as a very unhappy being. While he pleases, he repels me. There is a want of heart about him, a want of fixed principles—a degree of profligacy, of selfishness, of fickleness, caprice and ill-temper, and an excess of vanity, which all his courtly address and savoir faire cannot hide. What would be insufferable in another, is in him bearable, and even interesting and amusing: such is the charm of manner. ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... huckster-like avowal Is made continually, behind the bar. It means—though rather "laid on with a trowel"— A Trade with Public Spirit quite at jar. The "mercenary politician," making A pocket-business of a patriot's task, Recently put your Press in a great taking; But sordid selfishness here doffs all mask! Which with a patriot's conscience plays most tricks? Which most the venal virus has betrayed,— The man who makes his Trade his Politics, Or he who makes his Politics ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... it—you do not understand me; and yet it is not selfishness on my part. I would marry a man in the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... unhappy country was the scene of the most violent party struggles; during which the heads of the parties conducted themselves with the most revolting selfishness, and an entire forgetfulness of all political consequences and of their own moral responsibility. The fanaticism of the bishops of Cracow and Warsaw refused to the dissidents the restoration of their rights; and Russia thus acquired the first pretext for intermeddling ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
|
