Altruism Quotes

Some of our friends are our friends only because we used to be friends.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Females and boys are the only creatures that propose others for friendship. As for the rest of us, friendship sort of just happens.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Business is about profit, yes – and it is about more than profit: at its best, it is about expanding the possibilities of humanity.

~ Jon Miller

Loving others is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Altruism that rewards one's self.

~ Allan Lokos

Despite the fact that we cannot be absolutely altruistic in our behavior, we can still build our character to be loving and compassionate – to empathize with others.

~ Abhijit Naskar

It is infinitely better to rely on the pursuit of economic interest by landowners or street companies than to depend on the dubious “altruism” of bureaucrats and government officials.

~ Murray N. Rothbard

The only thing I hate about good people is that they like making their being good people bad people’s problem.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The pleasure or the benefit that the object of our deed derives from it is every now and then greater or even more important than the one we derive from the deed.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Every single good person is a good person for their own sake, not for the sake of humanity, not even for the sake of another human being.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

No single bad person regards themselves as a bad person.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

To label someone as selfless is symptomatic of having bought the preposterous claim that a human being can have great concern for other human beings and little concern for themselves, or that, when taken to extremes, a human being can have great concern for other human beings and absolutely no concern for themselves.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

It is humanly impossible to be selfless. As a matter of fact, human beings are inherently selfish.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.

~ Shannon L. Alder

You will achieve what you want to achieve, only if you can cope with the theory of altruism.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

I could doubt the value of my books as much as many do, except that, as a researcher and very curious person, I do read a lot too, and can clearly see the difference in value between what I do and what others do. I have no doubt that my books have much more value than nearly all others out there, and it wouldn't make sense for me to be an author if I couldn't see that, or if I saw the opposite, as I believe that, if we're not upgrading mankind, we're just making it lost and vulnerable to the claws of ignorance.

~ Robin Sacredfire

If 10 percent of the population were to take a consciously ethical outlook on life and act accordingly, the resulting change would be more significant than any change of government

~ Peter Singer

Kindness is love in action, not feeling emotions or thoughts of empathy only. Kindness is doing!

~ Shannon L. Alder

He was always in a sort of fever because he was dropping behind schedule with his daily acts of kindness. However hard he tried, he'd fall behind; and then you would find him prowling about the house, setting such a clip to try and catch up with himself that Easeby was rapidly becoming a perfect hell for man and beast.

~ P.g. Wodehouse

In the end, the only thing that really matters is how we treated all living things.

~ Ka Chinery

When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity.

~ Wayne W. Dyer

I want to feel proud and happy about my selflessness. But what happens when being selfless takes away a big part of your self?

~ Jaye Robin Brown

Like, in general I think people have very complicated reasons for wanting things, and we often have no idea whether we’re actually motivated by altruism or a desire to hook up or a search for answers or what. I always get annoyed when in books or movies characters want clear things for clear reasons, because my experience of humanness is that I always want messy things for messy reasons.

~ John Green

You can be broken into a dozen shattered pieces and still heal the world because service has its own medicine--hope.

~ Shannon L. Alder

And you spend your day going around from the house of the washerman to the house of the sweeper, asking about this one's son and that one's nephew, but spending no time with your own family. It is no secret that many people here think that you are a communist.'Rasheed reflected that this probably meant only that he loathed the poverty and injustice endemic to the village, and that he made no particular secret of it.

~ Vikram Seth

Rabbi Hiyya advised his wife, “When a poor man comes to the door, be quick to give him food so that the same may be done to your children.” She exclaimed, “You are cursing our children [with the suggestion that they may become beggars].” But Rabbi Hiyya replied, “There is a wheel which revolves in this world.” —Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 151b

~ Joseph Telushkin

We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results.

~ Henry Melvill

Nothing can save you from hate, empty all your treasures and give it to people and one out of the multitudes will curse you, so live your life to please yourself and not others.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?

~ Cormac Mccarthy

It is pleasure that lurks in the practice of every one of your virtues. Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand your admiration.

~ W. Somerset Maugham

Even though there is neither much altruism nor equality in the world, there is almost universal endorsement of the values of altruism and equality - even, notoriously (and as Nietzsche seemed well aware), by those who are is worst enemies in practice. So Nietzsche's critique is that a culture in the grips of MPS [Morality in the Pejorative Sense], even without acting on MPS, poses the real obstacle to flourishing, because it teaches potential higher types to disvalue what would be most conductive to their creativity and value what is irrelevant or perhaps even hostile to it.

~ Brian Leiter

Egoism holds, therefore, is that each man's happiness is the sole good--that a number of different things are each of them the only good thing there is--an absolute contradiction! No more complete and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired.

~ G.e. Moore

That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)

~ Thomas Jefferson

The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life – the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.

~ Hubert H. Humphrey

As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.

~ President George Washington

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. &It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion.

~ Aristotle

My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood. The '80s were about acquiring — acquiring wealth, power, prestige. I know. I acquired more wealth, power, and prestige than most. But you can acquire all you want and still feel empty. What power wouldn't I trade for a little more time with my family? What price wouldn't I pay for an evening with friends? It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime. I don't know who will lead us through the '90s, but they must be made to speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul....I was wrong to follow the meanness of Conservatism. I should have been trying to help people instead of taking advantage of them. I don't hate anyone anymore. For the first time in my life I don't hate somebody. I have nothing but good feelings toward people. I've found Jesus Christ – It's that simple. He's made a difference. (Reagan's campaign manager death-bed confession in Feb. 1991 article for Life Magazine )

~ Lee Atwater

Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.

~ Aristotle

In his 1907 retirement address, Joseph Pulitzer urged his successors to always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty.

~ Joseph Pulitzer

A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.

~ Leonard Bernstein

In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.

~ Jane Addams