Jealousy is a child of selfishness and distrust.
- Mourning Dove
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live,
it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
- Oscar Wilde
As selfishness and complaint
pervert and cloud the mind,
so love with its joy
clears and sharpens the vision.
- Helen Keller
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
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.
Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity,
reduce selfishness, have few desires.
- Lao Tzu
Every experiment, by multitudes or by individuals,
that has a sensual and selfish aim, will fail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
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.
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
Take time to laugh.
It is the music of the soul.
Take time to think.
It is the source of power.
Take time to play.
It is the source of perpetual youth.
Take time to read.
It is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to pray.
It is the greatest power on Earth.
Take time to love and be loved.
It is a God-given privilege.
Take time to be friendly.
It is the road to happiness.
Take time to give.
It is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to work.
It is the price of success.
- Anonymous
How could youths better learn to live
than by at once trying the experiment of living?
- Henry David Thoreau
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have no fear that the result of our experiment
will be that men may be trusted to
govern themselves without a master.
- Thomas Jefferson
Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed,
but nature does not depend on us.
We are not the only experiment.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right;
a single experiment can prove me wrong.
- Albert Einstein
Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
The more experiments you make the better.
What if they are a little coarse,
and you may get your coat soiled or torn?
What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled
in the dirt once or twice.
Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beyond mind, there is an awareness that is intrinsic,
that is not given to you by the outside, and is not an idea -
and there is no experiment up to now
that has found any center in the brain
which corresponds to awareness.
The whole work of meditation is
to make you aware of all that is "mind"
and disidentify yourself from it.
That very separation is the
greatest revolution that can happen to man.
Now you can do and act on only that
which makes you more joyous, fulfills you,
gives you contentment, makes your life a work of art, a beauty.
But this is possible only if the master in you is awake.
- Osho
The time-traveling is just too dangerous.
Better that I devote myself to study
the other great mystery of the universe - women!
- the movie Back to the Future II
For my part, I consider that it will be found much better
by all parties to leave the past to history,
especially as I propose to write that history myself.
- Winston Churchill
I care not much for a man's religion
whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
- Abraham Lincoln
I love to shop after a bad relationship.
I don't know. I buy a new outfit
and it makes me feel better. It just does.
Sometimes I see a really great outfit,
I'll break up with someone on purpose.
- Rita Rudner
The man who reads nothing at all
is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
- Thomas Jefferson
Today is probably a good day for something;
but it's a better day for doing nothing.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It's better to burn out, than to fade away.
- Neil Young
I think men who have a pierced ear
are better prepared for marriage.
They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.
- Rita Rudner
As a cure for worrying,
work is better than whiskey.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is far better to be alone,
than to be in bad company.
- George Washington
I always avoid prophesying beforehand,
because it is a much better policy to prophesy
after the event has already taken place.
- Winston Churchill
Money can't buy friends
but it can get you a better class of enemy.
- Spike Milligan
The only advantage of not being too good a housekeeper
is that your guests are so pleased
to feel how very much better they are.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Which form of proverb do you prefer
Better late than never, or Better never than late?
- Lewis Carroll
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool,
than to speak and remove all doubt.
- sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, or Samuel Johnson
Money is better than poverty,
if only for financial reasons.
- Woody Allen
Really I feel less keen about the Army every day.
I think the Church would suit me better.
- Winston Churchill
People living their lives for you on TV;
They say they're better than you, and you agree.
- Jewel
Anger? perhaps there is a better way.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Our faith gives us knowledge of something better.
- E. F. Schumacher
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
- Chinese proverb often quoted by Eleanor Roosevelt
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
People change so that you can learn to let go,
things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right,
you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself,
and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe
At the end of a matter ask,
"What will I learn from this to make me better?"
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy
between the genius and his human qualities
that one has to ask oneself whether
a little less talent might not have been better.
- Carl Jung
To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children,
to leave the world a better place,
to know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived,
this is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Why, I'd like nothing better than to achieve
some bold adventure, worthy of our trip.
- Aristophanes
Better learn balance. Balance is key.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid
I don't like that man.
I must get to know him better.
- Abraham Lincoln
The River of Life has no meaning,
no good, no bad, no better, no worse,
no love, no hate, no fear, no anger, no joy.
The River of Life has no judgment, no expectation.
The River of Life just IS.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Better learn balance. Balance is key.
Balance good, karate good. Everything good.
Balance bad, better pack up, go home. Understand?
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Because we believe that our ethnic group,
our society, our political party, our God,
is better than your God, we kill each other.
- Neale Donald Walsch
A bad peace is better than a good war.
- Yiddish Proverb
Maybe I could have loved you better.
Maybe you should have loved me more.
Maybe our hearts were just next in line.
Maybe everything breaks sometime.
- Jewel
Discretion is the better part of valor.
(originally "The better part of valor is discretion")
- William Shakespeare
Better do a good deed near at home
than go far away to burn incense.
- Amelia Earhart
Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.
Don't bother just to be better than
your contemporaries or predecessors.
Try to be better than yourself.
- William Faulkner
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
- Thomas Jefferson
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius
and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous
than absolutely boring.
- Marilyn Monroe
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.
- Albert Camus
Positive thinking will let you do everything
better than negative thinking will.
- Zig Ziglar
Look deep into nature, and then
you will understand everything better.
- Albert Einstein
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,
and the word happy would lose its meaning
if it were not balanced by sadness.
It is far better take things as they come along
with patience and equanimity.
- Carl Jung
Kindness is better than piety.
- Yiddish Proverb
Successful people ask better questions,
and as a result, they get better answers.
- Tony Robbins
Sometimes it is better to lose
and do the right thing
than to win and do the wrong thing.
- Tony Blair
Sometimes good things fall apart
so better things can fall together.
- Marilyn Monroe
It is better to learn late than never.
- Publilius Syrus
A truly good book teaches me better than to read it.
I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint.
What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.
- Henry David Thoreau
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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