Selfishness

Famous quotes containing the word selfishness:

“Throughout the 1980’s, we did hear too much about individual gain and the ethos of selfishness and greed. We did not hear enough about how to be a good member of a community, to define the common good and to repair the social contract. And we also found that while prosperity does not trickle down from the most powerful to the rest of us, all too often indifference and even intolerance do.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton (b. 1947)

“... the selfishness that is bred of great success is our shame. We have subdued the wilderness and made it ours. We have conquered the earth and the richness thereof. We have indelibly stamped upon its face the seal of our dominating will. Now, unlike Alexander sighing for more worlds to conquer, we should address ourselves to adding beauty to that glory and grandeur.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)

“My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)