Self Serving Quotes:

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

- Mahatma Gandhi

source: "The Power of Purpose: Find Meaning, Live Longer, Better". Book by Richard Leider, p. 35., 2010.

topic: Encouragement, Freedom, Business, Way In Life, Social Good

If you walk down the street and see someone in a box, you have a choice. That person is either the other and you're fearful of them, or that person is an extension of your family.

- Susan Sarandon

topic: Diversity, Choices, Boxes, Self Serving

People had an illogical, self-serving rationale when it came to interpreting the behavior of others.

- Marisha Pessl

topic: Self, People, Behavior, Illogical, Self Serving

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

- William J. Clinton

topic: Hope, Self, Interesting, Self Serving

Most of us hide behind egocentric biases that generate the illusion that we are special. These self-serving protective shields allow us to believe that each of us is above average on any test of self-integrity. Too often we look to the stars through the thick lens of personal invulnerability when we should also look down to the slippery slope beneath our feet.

- Philip Zimbardo

topic: Stars, Integrity, Believe, Egocentric, Invulnerability

Smart people instinctively understand the dangers of entrusting our future to self-serving leaders who use our institutions, whether in the corporate or social sectors, to advance their own interests.

- James C. Collins

topic: Smart, Self, People, Entrusting, Business Management

If you don't allow for self-serving bias in the conduct of others, you are, again, a fool.

- Charlie Munger

topic: Self, Fool, Bias, Self Serving

You also know you’re surrendered when you don’t react to criticism and rush to defend yourself. Surrendered hearts show up best in relationships. You don’t edge others out, you don’t demand your rights, and you aren’t self-serving when you’re surrendered.

- Rick Warren

topic: Heart, Rights, Self, Self Serving

When you meet silent and inscrutable people, don't tell them what you are thinking. When you meet irritable and self-serving people, be careful what you say.

- Zicheng Hong

topic: Thinking, Self, People, Inscrutable, Careful What You Say

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

- Diane Abbott

source: " Abbott defends indefensible in sending son to private school" by Patrick Wintour, www.theguardian.com. November 1, 2003.

topic: Self, Sound, Hypocritical, Self Serving

Pretty is a self-serving situation in which it's all about you. People who are pretty are superficial, but they are not beautiful. Beauty requires more depth.

- Diane Keaton

source: "Diane Keaton on Woody Allen's feet, Al Pacino's nose" by Bob Minzesheimer, www.usatoday.com. April 28, 2014.

topic: Beautiful, Self, People, Self Serving

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

- Mark Strand

topic: Thinking, Expression, Self, Expressive, Self Serving

It would be incredibly presumptuous and self-serving of me to believe that Facebook was the end of history. The only way it could possibly be the end of history is if it becomes some sort of artificial super intelligence that takes over the world.

- Sean Parker

topic: Believe, Self, Would Be, Presumptuous, Self Serving

It was self-serving politicians who convinced recent generations of Americans that we could all stand in a circle with our hands in each other’s pockets and somehow get rich.

- Paul Harvey

topic: Self, Hands, Circles, Self Serving

[All the ancient wisdom] tells us that work is necessary to us, as much a part of our condition as mortality; that good work is our salvation and our joy; that shoddy or dishonest or self-serving work is our curse and our doom. We have tried to escape the sweat and sorrow promised in Genesis - only to find that, in order to do so, we must forswear love and excellence, health and joy. (pg. 44, "The Unsettling of America")

- Wendell Berry

topic: Order, Sweat, America, Ancient Wisdom, Self Serving

Gluttony might be innocuous were it not for the fact that gluttons tend to disregard whether their self-serving behaviors harm anyone else. We don’t need to look far and wide to find examples of gluttonous behavior, as they are numerous throughout the history of capitalism.

- Simon Mainwaring

source: "Capitalism’s Seven Debtly Sins" by Simon Mainwaring, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 24, 2011.

topic: Self, Example, Needs, Gluttony, Self Serving

Selfishness is the controlling force of sinful living. It is this motive which pulsates through the natural mind, emotions and will - self-pleasing, self-serving, living for self.

- Walter J Chantry

topic: Self, Mind, Emotion, Self Serving

I'm suspicious of dreams in books too. Because they're boring and too self-serving.

- Jill Alexander Essbaum

source: "INTERVIEW: Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of Hausfrau". Interview With Heather Scott Partington, electricliterature.com. March 12, 2015.

topic: Dream, Book, Self, Self Serving

Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

- John Fante

topic: Self, Bullshit, Intellectual, Literary Criticism, Bunk

Instead of being lost in your thinking, when you awaken you recognize yourself as the awareness behind it. Thinking then ceases to be a self-serving autonomous activity that takes possession of you and runs your life.

- Eckhart Tolle

source: Source: www.qiwithoutborders.org

topic: Running, Thinking, Self, Autonomous, Self Serving

I invest because I love helping entrepreneurs and watching them learn and succeed. In my opinion your motives are driven by self serving factors around ego satisfaction and "making a buck". My motives and values are very different.

- Ron Conway

topic: Self, Entrepreneur, Ego, Self Serving

[Oliver North is a] document-shredding, Constitution-trashing, Commander in Chief-bashing, Congress-thrashing, uniform-shaming, Ayatollah-loving, arms-dealing, criminal-protecting, résumé-enhancing, Noriega-coddling, Social Security-threatening, public school-denigrating, Swiss-banking-law-breaking, letter-faking, self-serving, election-losing, snake-oil salesman who can't tell the difference between the truth and a lie.

- Chuck Robb

topic: Funny, Lying, School, Law Breaking, Swiss

Love yourself not in some egocentric, self-serving sense but love yourself the way you would love your friend in the sense of taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, trying to understand, comfort, and strengthen yourself.

- Frederick Buechner

source: Frederick Buechner (1991). “Telling Secrets”, Harper San Francisco

topic: Love You, Self, Trying, Egocentric, Take Care Of Yourself

Media bias in editorials and columns is one thing. Media fraud in reporting 'facts' in news stories is something else. ...The issue is not what various journalists or news organizations' editorial views are. The issue is the transformation of news reporting into ideological spin, along with self-serving taboos and outright fraud.

- Thomas Sowell

topic: News Stories, Self, Views, Media Bias, Self Serving

A letter is not a dialogue or even an omniscient exposition. It is a fabric of surfaces, a mask, a form as well suited to affectations as to the affections. The letter is, by its natural shape, self-justifying; it is one's own evidence, deposition, a self-serving testimony. In a letter the writer holds all the cards, controls everything about himself and about those assertions he wishes to make concerning events or the worth of others. For completely self-centered characters, the letter form is a complex and rewarding activity.

- Elizabeth Hardwick

topic: Character, Self, Wish, Omniscient, Assertion

The power to regulate the value of money does not involve a power to dilute the value of money by inflation, an absurd and self-serving rendering.

- Thomas Woods

source: Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Kevin R. C. Gutzman (2008). “Who Killed the Constitution?: The Fate of American Liberty from World War I to George W. Bush”, p.92, Crown Forum

topic: Self, Doe, Absurd, Value Of Money, Self Serving

self-sacrifice is one of a woman's seven deadly sins (along with self-abuse, self-loathing, self-deception, self-pity, self-serving, and self-immolation).

- Sarah Ban Breathnach

topic: Sacrifice, Self, Abuse, Deadly Sins, Self Serving

Assume the worst. About everybody. But don't let this poisoned outlook affect your job performance. Let it all roll off your back. Ignore it. Be amused by what you see and suspect. Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt ***** shouldn't prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.

- Anthony Bourdain

topic: Jobs, Self, Assuming, Kitchen Confidential, Self Serving

By and large, the making of serious, thoughtful and occasionally valuable art has become a lonely persuasion, while the marketing of art has become a boutique operation, manipulated by fashion, self-serving art scholars and the vagaries of the auction block.

- Abe Ajay

topic: Lonely, Fashion, Art, Self Serving

Read at least one book a month. This is self-serving, obviously. It's a proven fact that people who read buy more books than people who don't read. In truth, I wish you'd read ten books a month, or at least buy that many.

- Randy Pausch

topic: Book, Self, People, Self Serving

The world has been tragic since the day Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. From that moment murder, mayhem and war entered the scene and we are still suffering the consequences of a man-driven, self-serving, short-sighted environment.

- Louie Giglio

topic: War, Men, Garden, Suffering The Consequences, Mayhem

David Halberstam often wrote about the powerful, but his real sympathies lay with ordinary people. He was very uncomfortable with bigfoot Washington journalism - he thought it was lazy and self-serving.

- Jonathan Yardley

source: Source: www.washingtonpost.com

topic: Powerful, Real, Self, Bigfoot, Self Serving

I think Bush is amateurish and self-serving, and frankly, it's disgusting.

- Sandra Bernhard

topic: Thinking, Self, Disgusting, Self Serving

But I am living in the midst of the uncertainty and risk, amid things that can and do bring physical destruction, because I am running from things that can destroy my soul: complacency, comfort, and ignorance. I am much more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy.

- Katie Davis

topic: Running, Jesus, Ignorance, Comfortable Life, Self Serving

I am more more terrified of living a comfortable life in a self-serving society and failing to follow Jesus than I am of any illness or tragedy.

- Katie Davis

source: Katie J. Davis, Beth Clark (2012). “Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption”, p.19, Simon and Schuster

topic: Comfortable Life, Self Serving

There's a real self-serving element to hip-hop that threatens its life span.

- John Mayer

source: AIM Celebrity Interview, November 2005.

topic: Real, Self, Hip Hop, Self Serving

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.

- Michael Crichton

source: "Mediasaurus" by Michael Crichton, www.wired.com. April 1, 1993.

topic: Asking Questions, Self, Differences, Self Serving

Monks transgress the Laws of the Buddha, stir up the common people, store wealth and weapons, and spread rumors; under the guise of religion, they are nothing more than self-serving agitators.

- Eiji Yoshikawa

topic: Self, Law, People, Self Serving

The evolutionary struggle for survival is really a self-serving series of blows and stabs, and yet it can lead to extremely social animals like dolphins, wolves or, for that matter, primates.

- Frans de Waal

topic: Struggle, Animal, Blow, Struggle For Survival, Primates

I do think that sports is really rich dramatically that, and this is kind of a self-serving thing to say, but I wonder why there aren't more, better sports novels.

- Chad Harbach

source: Source: www.gq.com

topic: Sports, Thinking, Self, Self Serving

I do not trust self serving misinformation coming from corporations and their media trolls. I do not trust politicians who are taking millions from those corporations either. I trust people. So I make my music for people not for candidates.

- Neil Young

source: "Donald Trump Slams 'Total Hypocrite' Neil Young Over Music Snub" by Ed Mazza, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 25, 2015.

topic: Self, Media, People, Misinformation, Self Serving

Animosity towards the merchant class has been around for centuries. Why? The goal of making a profit is quite obviously a self-serving motive. Other occupations, while equally self-serving, are better able to hide their motives.

- James Cook

topic: Self, Class, Goal, Self Serving

The problem with an autobiography is that all these extra factors make it difficult. You don't want to hurt people's feelings. You don't know how much you can trust your memory. You don't want it to be self-serving. And you have all these issues about how to present yourself. All these factors make it harder to do than a novel.

- Richard Hell

source: Source: pitchfork.com

topic: Hurt, Memories, Self, Self Serving

I think people are inherently self-aggrandizing, pleasureseeking, unempathetic, self-serving, greedy and lustful.

- Park Dietz

topic: Thinking, Self, People, Self Serving, Lustful

If we cover a court case involving a murderer, we would still seek out the side of that murderer, even as we realize that what people say is going to be self-serving.

- Rukmini Maria Callimachi

topic: Self, People, Sides, Court Cases, Self Serving

Of course the self-serving bias is something you want to get out of yourself. Thinking that what's good for you is good for the wider civilization and rationalizing all these ridiculous conclusions based on this subconscious tendency to serve one's self is a terribly inaccurate way to think.

- Charlie Munger

topic: Thinking, Self, Civilization, Self Serving

As coercive monopolies that spend other people's money taken by force, governments are uniquely unqualified to solve problems. They are riddled by ignorance, perverse incentives, incompetence and are self-serving.

- John Stossel

source: "Don't Look to Government to Cool Down the Planet". abcnews.go.com. November 14, 2007.

topic: Taken, Ignorance, Government, Self Serving

In a true community we will not choose our companions, for our choices are so often limited by self-serving motives. Instead, our companions will be given to us by grace. Often they will be persons who will upset our settled view of self and world. In fact, we might define true community as the place where the person you least want to live with always lives

- Parker J. Palmer

topic: Self, Views, Choices, Self Serving

[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

- Ta-Nehisi Coates

topic: Self, Hands, Intellectual, Self Serving

Our understanding of what constitutes intelligence is utterly relative. If an aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, for example, all of Western civilization would probably flunk. We have a very convenient and self-serving way of defining intelligence. If an animal does something, we call it instinct. If we do the same thing for the same reason, we call it intelligence.

- John Robbins

source: John Robbins (2011). “Diet for a New America: How Your Food Choices Affect Your Health, Happiness, and the Future of Life on Earth”, p.38, H J Kramer

topic: Western Civilization, Self Serving