Thoughts on Selfish from Daily Inspiration

Thoughts on Selfish

May you find inspiration in these thoughts and quotes on Selfish from my large Daily Inspiration library of inspiring quotes and inspirational words.

Self-honor (self-respect) is in no way selfish.
Before I can give to others,
I must have something to give.
Only by first creating
my own self-esteem and happiness,
do I possess the resources to
contribute anything meaningful to others.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

"Mother Teresa Prayer"
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
... Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
... Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some
false friends and some true enemies;
... Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
... Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
... Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
... Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
... Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
... Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
We can do no great things - only small things with great love.
- although commonly attributed to Mother Teresa,
who kept a copy of this prayer on
the wall of her Calcutta orphanage,
this prayer was actually written by Kent Keith.

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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Real love is never a selfish emotion.
If you want something from someone -
especially if that something is sex -
what you are feeling is not true love.
True love is about wanting happiness for the person you love -
and not about seeking happiness for yourself.
Fortunately, in most cases our own loving presence
is the greatest gift we can give to a person we love.
Nonetheless, the litmus test of love is knowing
we would choose never to see that person again
if we believed that distance would bring them greater happiness.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure.
I make mistakes, I am out of control
and at times hard to handle.
But if you can't handle me at my worst,
then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.
- Marilyn Monroe

Every man must decide whether he will
walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice,
and is never the result of selfishness.
- Napoleon Hill

Personal importance, or taking things personally,
is the maximum expression of selfishness
because we make the assumption that everything is about me.
- don Miguel Ruiz

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu

As selfishness and complaint
pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy
clears and sharpens the vision.
- Helen Keller

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live,
it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde

All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

A man who was completely innocent,
offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others,
including his enemies,
and became the ransom of the world.
It was a perfect act.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Faith is a living and unshakable confidence,
a belief in the grace of God so assured that
a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake.
- Martin Luther

The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer

A man's pride shall bring him low,
but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.
- Proverbs 29:23

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu

Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]

Every man and woman is born into the world
to do something unique and something distinctive;
and if he or she does not do it,
it will never be done.
- Benjamin E. Mays

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

There is One Infinite Mind,
which of necessity includes all that is,
whether it be the intelligence in man,
the life in the animal,
or the invisible Presence which is God.
- Ernest Holmes

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

For man with no forgiveness in heart,
life worse punishment than death.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2

Anger is a killing thing:
it kills the man who angers,
for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -
it takes something from him.
- Louis L'Amour

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Whenever a man or women is truly inspired,
it is because the same One Universal Spirit
is doing the inspiring.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain

The mind of man is continuously unfolding
into a greater recognition of its real plan
in the creative order of the Universe.
- Ernest Holmes

The Divine Plan is one of Freedom.
The inherent nature of man is ever seeking
to express itself in terms of freedom,
because freedom is the birthright of every living soul.
- Ernest Holmes

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man
take which course he will,
he will be sure to repent.
- Socrates

If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language,
that goes to his heart.
- Nelson Mandela

Before the throne of the Almighty,
man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions.
For God alone reads our hearts.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man,
but if you're up there and you can hear me ...
show me the way... show me the way.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)

He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus

When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar,
and the lightnings blaze around us
it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
- Luther Martin

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

Man does not weave this web of life.
He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web,
he does to himself.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)

I wept because I had no shoes
until I met a man who had no feet.
- old Persian Proverb

If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

Non-violence requires a double faith,
faith in God and also faith in man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

A man is a success if he gets up in
the morning and gets to bed at night,
and in between he does what he wants to do.
- Bob Dylan

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Thoughts on Selfish

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