Famous quotes containing the word selfish:
“So each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent, bilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that fret my leaves. Such a one has curculios, borers, knife-worms; a swindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth, plausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You can’t change what happened between you and your ex-spouse, but you can change your attitude about it. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that what your ex did was right or that you condone what he or she did; it simply means that you no longer want to hold a grudge. Forgiveness is not a gift for the other person; it is a purely selfish act that allows you to put the past behind you.”
—Stephanie Marston (20th century)
“[F]rom Saratoga [N.Y.] till we got back to Northampton [Mass.], was then mostly desert. Now it is what 34. years of free and good government have made it. It shews how soon the labor of man would make a paradise of the whole earth, were it not for misgovernment, and a diversion of all his energies from their proper object, the happiness of man, to the selfish interests of kings, nobles and priests.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)