Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think it's really easy to be the altruistic hero of your own narrative and story.
Selfish genes actually explain altruistic individuals, and to me that's crystal-clear.
With our brains and our smarts and our altruistic capability, we can do a lot of good.
Every action that we take has some motivation of either being selfish or altruistic. All that adds up.
Purely altruistic behavior is pretty much impossible because of the selfish pleasures we derive from it.
Too many members of the U.N. benefit from the status quo and won't make decisions for purely altruistic reasons.
Elephants have the largest brains of any mammal on the face of the Earth. They are creative, altruistic and kind.
The United States doesn't do what it does in the world for altruistic reasons. Nobody set out to be the world's government.
I now believe in God for my own ends. I'm not an altruistic Christian - I'm only doing it in case there is in fact a Heaven.
It is possible to call God 'Lord,' to feel emotionally connected to faith, to do the altruistic things and still not want God.
'The Portrait of Dorian Grey' beautifully articulates how the altruistic part of ourselves clashes with our essentially narcissistic state.
Gorillas are almost altruistic in nature. There's very little if any 'me-itis.' When I get back to civilization, I'm always appalled by 'me, me, me.'
If schooling becomes little more than preparation for the job market and consumption, it cannot produce socially responsible and altruistic citizens.
One of the things I realized... is how few success stories there are in websites or products or businesses that exist primarily for an altruistic purpose.
I say you don't need religion, or political ideology, to understand human nature. Science reveals that human nature is greedy and selfish, altruistic and helpful.
The problem with comedy audiences - it's like the Coliseum - when they see someone struggling, they don't feel altruistic towards them. They feel slightly repulsed by it.
The great majority of people are calm, resourceful, altruistic or even beyond altruistic, as they risk themselves for others. We improvise the conditions of survival beautifully.
We do foreign assistance for altruistic reasons, certainly for humanitarian reasons, of course. But the main reason we do foreign assistance is we do it in the American national interest.
We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others.
Whether you're saying 'thank you' to friends, family members, customers, or a hiring manager who interviewed you for a job, the case in favor of gratitude is both altruistic and pragmatic.
I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure.
It is true that food banks are a sign that the British retain their altruistic instincts. I support my local food banks whenever and however I can. But I am deeply concerned about their normalisation.
Successful givers secure their oxygen masks before coming to the assistance of others. Although their motives may be less purely altruistic, their actions prove more altruistic, because they give more.
The government must adopt a rights-based approach that speaks to the needs and aspirations of surrogate mothers, children born out of surrogacy, and all individuals who want access to altruistic surrogacy services.
In fact, if you think hard about it, animal conservation should actually be anathema to the Darwin-loving liberal agenda, which holds up evolution - and not altruistic compassion - as the final word on the survival of a species.
In my experience, people looking for progress aren't actually looking to move things forward. They're looking to be perceived in a certain way: as a forward thinker. It's about vanity rather than any altruistic motives for the art.
We benefit from doing nothing, from going out to play, from giving from the heart and spending time in nature. Most of all we benefit from having healthy, strong, and loving relationships with other people and from exercising the altruistic parts of ourselves.
When it comes to vampires, Daniel Gillies's Elijah is the cream of the crop. Since leaving 'The Vampire Diaries' to headline 'The Originals,' we've seen the brother of Klaus grow from the altruistic, steadfast, suit-wearing stud into a complicated, nuanced lead.
Nobody else in the world can do what we can do. And nobody else is willing to do it for altruistic reasons. I mean, we don't go into places like Iraq to grab their oil or colonize their country. We go there to deliver, as George W. Bush said, the blessings of liberty.
At the basis of a country's immigration policy is the recognition that a country has the right to pursue its interests first, and whenever it wishes to be altruistic and humane, this is instantiated without ever risking the danger of its citizens and/or its cultural values.
Science is a victim of its own reductive metaphors: 'Big Bang,' 'selfish gene' and so on. Richard Dawkins' selfish gene fitted with the Thatcherite politics of the time. It should actually be the 'altruistic gene,' but he'd never have sold as many books with a title like that.
Consider the perverse effect cap and trade has on altruistic actions. Say you decide to buy a small, high-efficiency car. That reduces your emissions, but not your country's. Instead it allows somebody else to buy a bigger S.U.V. - because the total emissions are set by the cap.
If the Olympic Games ever served a true altruistic purpose, they have long since outlived it. Yeah, the pursuit of athletic excellence, sportsmanship and international goodwill is plenty noble. But the modern Olympics are at best a vehicle for agitprop; at worst, a scandal magnet.
Evolutionary psychology tells us that men, especially powerful men, feel invincible and entitled to spread their seed, and that women can't resist the scent of masculine power. Women, by contrast, are said to be more altruistic and collaborative, seeking power so that they can share it with others.
When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children - just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him.
I'm very much a believer in the character always heading for something or after something. But that doesn't always have to be a selfish thing - it could be an altruistic thing as well. You can't play good; you can't play evil. But you have to think: what does this person want to happen in this situation?
Upbeat is for people who want to feel good about their cause: the reformers, the progressives, the revolutionaries, the utopians, the collectivists, and the rest of the altruistic scum of the earth. Why do these people want to feel good? They want to feel good in order to convince themselves that they are good.
It's not that bad things never happen. But there's a pattern in which most people are calm, resourceful, altruistic, and they improvise emergency systems that work really well - whether it's getting the babies out of a collapsed hospital or putting together a community kitchen to feed everybody for the next few months.