Selfishness proverbs

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◆ The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit.

- Gretchen Rubin99

◆ Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.

- Daniel Goleman99

◆ The only gift I have to give, is the ability to receive. If giving is a gift, and it surely is, then my gift to you is to allow you to give to me.

- Jarod Kintz99

◆ Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

- Ouida99

◆ Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves.

- Stephen Kendrick99

◆ We keep on being told that religion, whatever its imperfections, at least instills morality. On every side, there is conclusive evidence that the contrary is the case and that faith causes people to be more mean, more selfish, and perhaps above all, more stupid.

- Christopher Hitchens99

◆ Don't try to hog loneliness and keep it all to yourself. Share it with a special someone.

- Jarod Kintz99

◆ If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine.

- P.G. Wodehouse99

◆ Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.

- Abu Hamid al-Ghazali99

◆ Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.

- George Eliot99

◆ Selfishness is a bad habit. That's why I always rationally think through my decisions to act without regard for others.

- Bauvard99

◆ Nothing resembles selfishness more closely than self-respect

- George Sand99

◆ Love is the most selfish of all the passions.

- Alexandre Dumas99

◆ There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.

- Lydia Davis99

◆ You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

- Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu99