Many individuals are so constituted that their only thought is to obtain pleasure and shun responsibility. They would like, butterfly-like, to wing forever in a summer garden, flitting from flower to flower, and sipping honey for their sole delight. They have no feeling that any...
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Theodore Dreiser
Human beings appear to be sufficiently selfish and calculating to be capable of indefinitely greater harmony and social homeostasis. This statement is not self-contradictory. True selfishness, if obedient to the other constraints of mammalian biology, is the key to a more nearly perfect social contract....
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Edward O. Wilson
...only in relatively recent times have people decided that "because I want to" is sufficient reason for annoying others.
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Bill McKibben
Selfishness is one of the principal fruits of the corruption of human nature; and it is obvious that selfishness disposes us to over-rate our good qualities, and to overlook or extenuate our defects.
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William Wilberforce
That she had loved Sylveste because he was such a self-important bastard and made something noble of being a self-important bastard, did it with such utter aplomb that it became a kind of virtue, like the wearing of sackcloth
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Alastair Reynolds
More Quotes By Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Creator has — I say it in all reverence - drawn a myriad red herrings across the track, but the true scientist refuses to be baffled by superficial appearances in detecting the secrets of Nature. The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fact,...
It takes two men to make one brother.
In these electric times the criminal receives a cosmopolitan reputation. It is a privilege he shares with few other artists.
There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper; they wear it long for the same reason they wear their hats...
America is God's crucible the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! ... The Real American has not yet arived. He is only in the crucible Itell you - he will be the fusion of all races the common superman.
