Selflessness Quotes

Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust, is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his life for the good of those outside his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it.

~ David Wong

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

SHE Is A Wonderful Romantic Poem With Billions of Lines. Even If I Could, I Wouldn't Finish Reading HER In My Entire Life....

~ Muhammad Imran Hasan

How odd it is that we so often weep for each other’s distresses, when we shed not a tear for our own!

~ Anne Brontë

To behold virtue in her proper form is nothing else but to contemplate morality stripped of all admixture of sensible things and of every spurious ornament of reward or self-love. How much she then eclipses everything else that appears charming to the affections, every one may readily perceive with the least exertion of his reason, if it be not wholly spoiled for abstraction.

~ Immanuel Kant

I learned to love my son without wanting to possess him and I learned how to teach him to teach himself.

~ Maya Angelou

I always tell my kids to cut a sandwich in half right when you get it, and the first thought you should have is somebody else. You only ever need half a burger.

~ Louis C.k.

The key to a self-fulfilled life lies in consistent selfless deeds.

~ Hafiz

When indeed it is in God we live, and move, and have our being. We cannot draw a breath without his help.

~ Jonathan Edwards

I think sometimes we gravitate toward broken people, not ’cause we want to fix them, but ’cause we want to fix ourselves. The line between selflessness and selfishness is thin and intangible. It’s imaginary. We can’t see it. People project their problems onto other people’s problems. It happens all the time. We see ourselves in each other. We can’t help it. It’s human nature.

~ Kris Kidd

The purpose of salt is to change the nature of what it invades without calling attention to itself. Attracting attention to yourself in the Kingdom of God is like seducing the bride because you are the best man of the groom.

~ Kingsley Opuwari Manuel

Nature is infinitely rich and diverse in her ways. She can be seen to break her most unchanging laws. She has made self-interest the motive of all human action, but in the great host of men she produces ones who are strangely constituted, in whom selfishness is scarcely perceptible because they do not place their affections in themselves. Some are passionate about the sciences, others about the public good. They are as attached to the discoveries of others as if they themselves had made them, or to the institutions of public welfare and the state as if they derived benefit from them. This habit of not thinking of themselves influences the whole course of their lives. They don't know how to use other men for their profit. Fortune offers them opportunities which they do not think of taking up.In nearly all men the self is almost never inactive. You will detect their self-interest in nearly all the advice they give you, in the services they do for you, in the contacts they make, in the friendships they form. They are deeply attached to the things which affect their interests however remotely, and are indifferent to all others. When they encounter a man who is indifferent to personal interest they cannot understand him. They suspect him of hidden motives, of affectation, or of insanity. They cast him from their bosom, revile him.

~ Jan Potocki

Purpose, meaning, and hope are the edge of a coin; on one side is imprinted the image of God; and on the other is self … As complicated as life seems at times, the mystery of fulfillment and the paradox of contentment are as simple as that. What makes life complicated, I suspect, isn’t the choice between these two value systems and the paths they define, sin and holiness, so much as it is our unwillingness to make the choice between the two.

~ James Castleton

Making oneself large involves intentionally making oneself small.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

You don’t go to church to find God, you bring him with you—attitude.

~ Shannon L. Alder

After the fire, when I'd tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, they'd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.'Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did?' I'd asked.'Do you really need to know?' my father had asked back.

~ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Service of self is best developed in dealings of service to others.

~ Tyler J. Hebert

I didn't want the clothes or the perfect shoes or the expensive anything. I didn't want to be draped in silk. All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

~ Tahereh Mafi

Although I’m seldom aware enough to see it, the greater cost regarding that which I possess was not what I paid for it, but what someone along the way sacrificed so that I might have the opportunity to pay for it.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

I do not look at myself. I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began

~ C.s. Lewis

Blessed is the man who has the gift of making friends; for it is one of God's best gifts. It involves many things, but above all, the power of going out of oneself, and seeing and appreciating whatever is noble and living in another man.

~ Thomas Hughes

We are to give (and take) true love without falling into the narcissistic habit of only trying to take it in.

~ Criss Jami

It's not easy, but do it anywayIt's not easy to love,when you get resentment in return.Love anyway...Its not easy to forgive,when you get hurt in return.Forgive anyway...It's not easy to be kind,when you get rudeness in return.Be kind anyway...It's not easy to empathise,when you are judged in return.Empathise anyway...It's not easy, but do it anyway...Let your light shine in the livesof those around you.And one day it will brightentheir hearts and overpowerthe darkness within.

~ Henna Sohail

It's not easy, but do it anywayIt's not easy to love,when you get resentment in returnLove anyway.Its not easy to forgive,when you get hurt in returnForgive anyway.It's not easy to be kind,when you get rudeness in returnBe kind anyway.It's not easy to empathise,when you are judged in returnEmpathise anyway.It's not easy, but do it anyway...Let your light shine in the livesof those around you.And one day it will brightentheir hearts and overpowerthe darkness within.

~ Henna Sohail

You said it was a sacrifice. Coming from me, it's a gift.

~ Becky Allen

A man has a very insecure tenure of a property which another can carry away with his eyes. A few months reduced me to the cruel necessity either of destroying my machine, or of giving it to the public. To destroy it, I could not think of; to give up that for which I had laboured so long, was cruel. I had no patent, nor the means of purchasing one. In preference to destroying, I gave it to the public.[On his inability to keep for himself a profitable income from his invention of the Spinning Mule.]

~ Samuel Crompton

And who would dare write their own death into the script so that the rest of the characters in the tale might live? God of course.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

If we lack the proper antidotes of emptiness and bodhichitta, we will not be able to control our minds when frightening appearances manifest. It is considered a sign of progress in this practice if we go unconscious, and then, when we wake up, have forgotten our names and whose bodies we have! This is the ceasing of clinging to the body.

~ Zongtrul Losang Tsöndru

When we are meditating in a haunted graveyard, or even in our rooms, frightening external and internal appearances may arise during Chöd practice. If this happens, check the two 'superstitions'—the external, frightening appearance, and the internal appearance of the inherently existent 'I' that is frightened. Do they exist from their own sides? With determination, check for the 'I' that experiences fear, whether of a sight or a sound. Recalling that our purpose is to compassionately sacrifice ourselves to the spirits, and remembering emptiness of the three spheres of giving, we mix our minds with space and visualize the spirits consuming our bodies as well as our sense of an inherently existent self. After the spirits have eaten the body, again investigate the two superstitions. It is by checking for the independent 'I' that we come to realize emptiness.

~ Zongtrul Losang Tsöndru

Happy to be here, proud to serve.

~ Keith Allan Moore

...minimalism in the service of others is a logical extension of the same ethos of selflessness.

~ Joshua Becker

Do not seek popularity or self-affirmation; just show people God’s love and mercy, and help them to prosper and succeed. Simply serve God

~ Pastor Adelaja Sunday

Being a samurai is all about selfless service and if the lord abuses the servant, it is no longer a situation of service; it becomes the situation of a victim. It is never acceptable for a samurai to be a victim. It is never acceptable to allow a lord to abuse you or rob you of your dignity. In such a situation, it is acceptable to walk away.

~ Alexei Maxim Russell

When in doubt as to what you should do, err on the side of 'giving.

~ Tony Cleaver

Ecstatic technology isn't limited to silicon chips and display screens. As John Lilly's early research established, it's the knowledge of how to tweak the knobs and levers in our brain. When we get it right, it produces those invaluable sensations of selflessness, timelessness, effortlessness, and richness.

~ Steven Kotler

In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory may be won.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

When YOU Say YOU Love Me, I Don't Hear With My Ears Or Read YOUR Lips As I Already Know That By Looking In YOUR Eyes....

~ Muhammad Imran Hasan

The only honorable, desirable kind of fear that shouldn't be feared is the fear of harm on a loved one. It's the kind of fear that leads to self-sacrifice and the kind of fear where you would truly jump in front of a bus to save another.

~ Criss Jami

In a pocket of his knapsack he'd found a last half packet of cocoa and he fixed it for the boy and then poured his own cup with hot water and sat blowing at the rim.You promised not to do that, the boy said.What?You know what, Papa.He poured the hot water back into the pan and took the boy's cup and poured some of the cocoa into his own and then handed it back.I have to watch you all the time, the boy said.

~ Cormac Mccarthy

The noblest life is the one laid down for another.

~ Jessica Khoury