Self Interest Quotes

“Stay away from lazy parasites, who perch on you just to satisfy their needs, they do not come to alleviate your burdens, hence, their mission is to distract, detract and extract, and make you live in abject poverty.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“If I have to choose between you and me - I like me better.”
― Charlaine Harris

“I'm convinced that most men don't know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How many people blame God for man's atrocities, but wouldn't dream of imprisoning a mother for her son's crime?”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

“Beware:
At war
Or at peace,
More people die
Of unenlightened self-interest
Than of any other disease.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.”
― Aristophanes, Plutus

“Just because you have stolen someone's heart, luckily owned and occupied as a home, doesn't give you the audacity to enforce hurtful policies.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson

“Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire... Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.”
― St. Bernard of Clairvaux

“Happiness is attained, not through self-interest, but through unconditional fidelity in endless love of eternal light.”
― Aaron Cohen

“Courage is a decision you make to act in a way that works through your own fear for the greater good as opposed to pure self-interest. Courage means putting at risk your immediate self-interest for what you believe is right.”
― Derrick Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth

“The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“In a way she actually preferred Peter to other people because of this. He always acted out of intelligent self-interest.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“A true generous heart can never revolve majorly with monetary skills nor business acumen nor cunning mind.”
― Angelica Hopes

“Democrats see our voluntary military supported by taxpayer dollars as their personal Salvation Army. Self-interested behavior, such as deploying troops to serve the nation, is considered boorish in Manhattan salons.”
― Ann Coulter

“If virtue must be discarded on the altar of happiness, then so be it.”
― Frances Wren, Earthflown

“... his future, had either been sold or laid to waste by his parents' generation, trapping him in a perpetual adolescence that was further heightened by the infantilising unreality of the Internet as it encroached upon, and colonised, real life - 'real life', Tony thought, with bitter air quotes, for late capitalism would admit nothing 'real' beyond the logic of late capitalism itself, having declared self-interest the only universal, and profit motive the only absolute, and deriding everything that did not serve its ends as either a contemptible weakness or a fantasy.”
― Eleanor Catton, Birnam Wood

“We deny the fact that people get into or remain in our lives mainly for selfish reasons mainly for a selfish reason, namely, to protect our cherished belief that we are special.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“The factor that contributed most to the demise of the Republic was not, in fact, the war, but rampant self-interest. Endemic to the political process our ancestors engineered, the insidious pursuit of self-enrichment grew only more pervasive through the long centuries, and in the end left the body politic feckless and corrupt. Consider the self-interest of the Core Worlds, unwavering in their exploitation of the Outer Systems for resources; the Outer Systems themselves, undermined by their permissive disregard of smuggling and slavery; those ambitious members of the Senate who sought only status and opportunity.”
― James Luceno, Tarkin

“The Good Samaritan was a Bad Economist”
― Charles Dickens, Hard Times

“Strip away all self-interest, embrace self-sacrifice as the noblest of all pursuits, see your existence as the asset that amplifies the existence of another; embrace these things and courage will finally have a place to be courageous.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Speak no ill of the successful black male sellout, for he has achieved the goal of the community that has produced him: he has “made it,” used his skills to attain the status that would be denied him, earned entry at the door of the big house of prosperity. His only flaw is that he agreed to leave the community, its hopes, customs, aspirations, on the porch behind him. It is a matter of expedience as much as morality.”
― Mat Johnson, Pym

“Human nature is a complex blend of altruism and self-interest, creating odds that fluctuate between acts of kindness and moments of insensitivity.”
― Monika Ajay Kaul

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But if for some reason you want to persuade others to hold your opinions, either you have to have high-end rhetorical skills or, better yet, some emotional leverage over how they pursue their self-interest.”
― George Hammond

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But if for some reason you want to persuade others to hold your opinions, either you have to have high-end rhetorical skills or, better yet, some emotional leverage over how they pursue their self-interest. Most persuasive of all, though, is simply to express their already held opinions more passionately.”
― George Hammond

“The contradiction of the time had been the heightened moral obligation to consider other people as a means to keeping one's own self-interest afloat. Showing other people care meant avoiding them.”
― Jo Hamya, The Hypocrite

“Passion comes from feeling like you are a part of something that you believe in, something bigger than yourself. If people do not trust that a company is organized to advance the WHY, then the passion is diluted. Without managed trust, people will show up to do their jobs and they will worry primarily about themselves. This is the root of office politics—people acting within the system for self-gain often at the expense of others, even the company. If a company doesn't manage trust, then those working for it will not trust the company, and self-interest becomes the overwhelming motivation.”
― Simon Sinek, Start with Why

“Gregg: What is self-interest, properly understood?
Smith: Well, it means that the individual peers more to less. In terms of traditional kind of utility theory, it means that the subjective value, say, of something like money is monotone increasing. You are worse off if you get less of it, better off if you get more of it. Now, Adam Smith in Theory of Moral Sentiments says that we are all self-loving. [...] His point is that although we are all self-loving, in the process of maturation, of growing up in a social world, we are led to modify our decisions to take into account others, so that, as he says, we humble that self-interest and bring it down to what other people will go along with. So there is never a denial of the self-interest. If in an experiment in which I can take an action in which you are better off—you get more money and I get less—how do we now that more is better for someone else and less is worse? It’s because we have common knowledge of that. So in other words, being self-interested is necessary in order to know that when you take an action it can be hurtful to someone else. If you didn’t have that, then you wouldn’t know whether a particular action was hurtful or beneficial.”
― Vernon L. Smith, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics

“Gregg: I notice you did not use the word greed in that answer. When many people hear “self-interest,” they think “greed”. So are you suggesting that a Smithian approach actually has nothing to do with greed at all when it comes to self-interest properly understood?
Smith: It’s not a matter of greed. It’s a matter of, as Smith says, the individual being fitter than anyone else to take care of himself or herself in terms of knowing what he or she wants and in making judgments about that. And so, knowing that other people are also self-interested, I know what action I take would be hurtful to them. And then I take that into account. In other words, being self-interested is an input to our socializing process. There are many experimental economists and behavioral economists who want to explain that with a utility function so that if I am other-regarding, it’s because I am taking into account your reward as well as mine. Adam Smith says no. Adam Smith is right. It is not in the utility function. That’s the difference between an emphasis on outcomes and process.”
― Vernon L. Smith, The Evidence of Things Not Seen: Reflections on Faith, Science, and Economics

“Yet experience had taught me that promises from the genteel class were not to be relied upon if my safety clashed with their self-interest.”
― Jane Yang, The Lotus Shoes

“The difference between "can" and "must" is the key to understanding the profound effects of self-interest on reasoning . . . The social psychologist Tom Gilovich studies the cognitive mechanisms of strange beliefs. His simple formulation is that when we WANT to believe something, we ask ourselves, "Can I believe it?" Then, we search for supporting evidence, and if we find even a single piece of pseudo-evidence, we can stop thinking. We now have permission to believe. We have a justification, in case anyone asks. In contrast, when we DON'T want to believe something, we ask ourselves, "Must I believe it?" Then we search for contrary evidence, and if we find a single reason to doubt the claim, we can dismiss it. You only need one key to unlock the handcuffs of "must." Psychologists now have file cabinets full of findings on "motivated reasoning," showing the many tricks people use to reach the conclusions they want to reach.”
― Jonathan Haidt

“If your morality disappears the moment it costs you something, it was never a morality, just a polite disguise for self-interest.”
― Marc Kandalaft