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Selflessness Quotes

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Selflessness Quotes

“A man has a very insecure tenure of a property which another can carry away with his eyes. A few months reduced me to the cruel necessity either of destroying my machine, or of giving it to the public. To destroy it, I could not think of; to give up that for which I had laboured so long, was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying, I gave it to the public. [On his inability to keep for himself a profitable income from his invention of the Spinning Mule.]”

“Belief is not subject to the will. Men think as they must. Children do not, and cannot, believe exactly as they were taught. They are not exactly like their parents. They differ in temperament, in experience, in capacity, in surroundings. And so there is a continual, though almost imperceptible change. There is development, conscious and unconscious growth, and by comparing long periods of time we find that the old has been almost abandoned, almost lost in the new.”

“Think long and hard whether you have reached that mature stage of selflessness for this one you think you love so much. The love you enjoy will be the best thing that ever happened to you, but it will cost you your independence.... The responsibility of marriage and family demands time, and when we cheat on that, we rob ourselves of the investment returns.”

“...many women have almost always done it differently, power without control, leading without terrorizing, nurturing community and communal input and output like nurturing a family. Maybe that's one of the main reasons powerful men resist women in power; it's not just control they don't want to give up, not just privilege, but exploitation.”

“He saw everything he related. It passed before him, as he spoke, so vividly, that, in the intensity of his earnestness, he presented what he described to me, with greater distinctness than I can express. I can hardly believe, writing now long afterwards, but that I was actually present in these scenes; they are impressed upon me with such an astonishing air of fidelity”

“If you are ready to trade the hollow self-made beauty of this world for the glorious Christ-built beauty of a set-apart young woman, this is where it all begins. Denying self, taking up your cross, and following the Lamb wherever He leads. In other words, letting go of all preoccupation with self: our comfort, our pleasure, our agenda, our popularity, our ability to gain the world's approval, even our own dreams and desires. And, as Paul did, treating all those things as rubbish for the excellence of the knowledge of Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Philippians 3:7-9).”

“Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.”

“We are but cells living in a much larger organism, however, this does not make our existence less significant – for an organism without cells is no organism at all. We define it; we make it what it is. We are responsible for its health, its functionality, and above all, its purpose. A lone cell can restore the others, or a lone cell can spread a plague.”

“Forget The honors handed out, the lists of winners. Forget the certificates, bright trophies you Could have, should have, maybe won. Remind yourself you never wanted them. When the spotlight briefly shone on you, You stepped back into darkness, Let the empty stage receive the light, The black floor suddenly less black— Scuff-marks, dust, blue tape—the cone Of light so perfect, slicing silently that perfect Silent darkness, and you, hidden in that wider dark, Your refusal a kind of gratitude at last.”

“Forget about how much the whole world can weigh us down, sometimes just a little debt can make us dance to the tunes of every opportunist around us. So have a healthy fear toward debt, especially ones with interest, and don't make yourself vulnerable to the vultures living among mankind. My stance is... Give your all in every good work your hands can find, and know when to be sharp and when to be selfless as you spend your coin.”

“Do something kind for another person. Proceeding with this selfless gesture, while not feeling at your best, shows that you are in control of your emotions. It is not the other way around.”

“Humility is by far the most spiritual virtue of the lot. The only way by which one may cease obsessing over himself is to wholly step outside his flesh. But who could do this by himself? And who would really want to under his natural pretense? And even if somehow he could and he succeeded, would not it be artificial? Would not he seem far too aware of his own talents of achieving humility for it to be such? Alternatively, he would need a distraction, something else to love; it is not that the Humbleman thinks poorly of himself, nor highly for that matter, but rather he does not think of himself at all - and this is because he is too busy loving something or someone else to do it. For the humility of this kind 'rears its head' as the most love-driven and free, spiritual of virtues; whereas its opposite, pride, the most self-imprisoning human vice.”

“In a pocket of his knapsack he'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and then poured his own cup with hot water and sat blowing at the rim. You promised not to do that, the boy said. What? You know what, Papa. He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy's cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back. I have to watch you all the time, the boy said.”

“Every molecule in our body is conditioned through millions of years of natural selection to ensure our survival, but if you can jeopardize your own survival to lift up another life, that, my friend, is called human life.”

“Honor He Wrote Sonnet 12 After all this time, the sun doesn't say to us, Listen you guys, you owe all your light to me. The trees don’t grab our throat with its vines, And yell, all your air and food are my charity. A candle does not burn to be appraised, But because to burn is the purpose of a candle. A candle not burning is no candle at all, Be a burning candle and live life purpose-driven. Life is a vessel of infinite majesty and potential, Let us not let it rot at the shore playing safe. Come hail or high water, let us be shredded, Let us be annihilated in service and in help. Let us be human, let us be alive across all narrowness. Let us be the shinning beacon of supreme unselfishness.”