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Selfishness Quotes

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Selfishness Quotes

“It is almost impossible to overestimate the value of true humility and its power in the spiritual life. For the beginning of humility is the beginning of blessedness and the consummation of humility is the perfection of all joy. Humility contains in itself the answer to all the great problems of the life of the soul. It is the only key to faith, with which the spiritual life begins: for faith and humility are inseparable. In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself or in itself for God: and it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.”

SoulProblemSpiritualJoyValuesLostAnswersPerfectImpossibleHumilityKeysPerfectionDisappearSelfishnessYour SoulSpiritual LifeTransformedInseparableOverestimateSubmergedBlessednessTrue HumilityLonger Life
Book:New Seeds of Contemplation
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“What is 'grace'? It is God's own life, shared by us. God's life is love. Deus caritas est. By grace we are able to share in the infinitely selfless love of Him Who is such pure actuality that He needs nothing and therefore cannot conceivably exploit anything for selfish ends. Indeed, outside of Him there is nothing, and whatever exists exists by His free gift of its being, so that one of the notions that is absolutely contradictory to the perfection of God is selfishness.”

NeedsEndsAbleLife IsGraceSharePurePerfectionNotionSelfishSelfishnessSelflessExploitsContradictorySelfless LoveActualityFree Gifts
Book:The Seven Storey Mountain
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“All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure and reputation and power, cut themselves off from that charity which is the principle of all spiritual vitality and happiness because it alone saves us from the barren wilderness of our own abominable selfishness.”

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Book:The Seven Storey Mountain
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“To one degree or another we all struggle with selfishness. Since it is so common, why worry about selfishness anyway? Because selfishness is really self-destruction in slow motion. No wonder the Prophet Joseph Smith urged, "Let every selfish feeling be not only buried, but annihilated" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 178). Hence annihilation - not moderation - is the destination! . . . Meekness is the real cure, for it does not merely mask selfishness but dissolves it!”

DoeRealSelfFeelingsCommonWonderWorryStruggleTeachingDegreesDestructionSelfishCuresSelfishnessProphetMaskDestinationBuriedModerationSelf DestructionAnnihilationMeeknessSlow MotionJoseph Smith
Author:Neal A. Maxwell
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“Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"”

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Author:Neal A. Maxwell
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“The Civilized… murder their children by producing too many of them without being able to provide for their well-being. Morality or theories of false virtue stimulate them to manufacture cannon fodder, anthills of conscripts who are forced to sell themselves out of poverty. This improvident paternity is a false virtue, the selfishness of pleasure.”

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Author:Charles Fourier
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“To the end, I will remain a child of Europe, of worry and of shame. I have no message of hope to deliver. For the West, I do not feel hatred. At most I feel a great contempt. I know only that every single one of us reeks of selfishness, masochism and death. We have created a system in which it has simply become impossible to live, and what's more, we continue to export it.”

KnowsFeelsChildrenEndsWorryImpossibleMessagesEuropeHatredShameWestSelfishnessContemptMasochismMessage Of Hope
Book:Platform: A Novel
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“The hope for the twentieth century rests on recognition that war and depression are man-made, and needless. They can be avoided in the future by turning from the nineteenth-century characteristics just mentioned (materialism, selfishness, false values, hypocrisy, and secret vices) and going back to other characteristics that our Western Society has always regarded as virtues: generosity, compassion, cooperation, rationality, and foresight, and finding a increased role in human life for love, spirituality, charity, and self discipline.”

MenHumansMadeWarSelfValuesSpiritualitySecretCompassionRolesVirtueCenturyDisciplineFindingsCharityWesternVicesRecognitionGenerositySelfishnessHuman LifeCharacteristicsHypocrisyMaterialismCooperationSelf DisciplineRationalityAvoidedTwentieth CenturyNineteenth CenturyForesightWestern Society
Author:Carroll Quigley
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“Through the practice of devotion to God, I was coming to learn that preserving loving relations in this world required much forgiveness, tolerance, patience, gratitude, and humility. An essential virtue of humility is to accept others for what they are, despite differences. I contemplated again how the tendency to judge others is often a symptom of insecurity, immaturity, or selfishness, and I yearned to rise above it. Everyone is a child of God. God loves all of His children. If I wish to love God, I must learn to love those whom He loves.”

IfsWorldChildrenWishDifferencesAcceptingPracticeVirtueThis WorldHumilityJudgingGratitudeEssentialsRelationToleranceDevotionTendenciesDespiteSelfishnessGod LoveInsecuritySymptomsRise AboveChild Of GodImmaturityDevotion To GodRise Above It
Book:The Journey Home
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“Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.”

WorldMindRealityOrderFightingHeavenSocialGoalTermSimpleExistenceThis WorldPureNormalEthicsKillingGreedAlternativesSelfishnessMysticismBiblicalSocial ChangeMisunderstoodExitPhenomenalEscapismMind SetGnosticismGreed Is Good
Author:Walter Wink
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“From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged ... in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society.”

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Book:An Inquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
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“Good character consists of recognizing the selfishness that inheres in each of us and trying to balance it against the altruism to which we should all aspire. It is a difficult balance to strike, but no definition of goodness can be complete without it.”

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Book:Letters to a Young Lawer (Easyread Large Edition)
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“Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.”

HumansMaySelfHumanityCenturySelf LoveRootsConstantAfrican AmericanSelfishnessGod LoveMotiveOutburstLanguishSporadicBurrowing
Book:The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt
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