People who are excessively focused on themselves and just think about their own needs and desires above those of others are typically labeled as ‘selfish’ people.
Their disregard for the sentiments or situations of others often results in a lack of empathy and understanding.
Such selfishness may be harmful to relationships, causing rifts and strife that can be difficult to heal.
Friendships, in particular, are formed on mutual respect and understanding; selfish conduct, on the other hand, may destroy these fundamental features.
We’ve compiled a list of enlightening quotes about selfish individuals to help you understand and negotiate these situations.
These thoughts give insight on the nature of selfishness and its effects on relationships.
Top 10 Selfish People Quotes
It is impossible to be both selfish and happy. ~ Joyce Meyer.
Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race. ~ William E. Gladstone.
You can’t be faulted for being selfish if you’re going to get better because of it. ~ Jerry Lewis.
The more selfish you are, the more involved life becomes. ~ Thomas Merton.
To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. ~ Albert Camus.
A man is nothing more than the things he does to get what he wants. ~ Hal Ackerman.
The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels. ~ Edward Young.
Selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Marriage takes your whole heart; selfish people can’t pull it off. ~ Helen Hunt.
No one is disgusted with his own bad smell. ~ John Taylor Wood.
Famous Selfish People Quotes
Teamwork: I love the idea of all for one – especially if that one is me. ~ Jarod Kintz.
He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals. ~ Benjamin Franklin.
That man who lives for self alone, lives for the meanest mortal known. ~ Joaquin Miller.
In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. ~ David Mitchell.
The rich are seldom remarkable for modesty, ingenuity, or humanity. Their wealth has rather a tendency to make them penurious and selfish. ~ John Adams.
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle. ~ Unknown *
We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and thinks too much to be beautiful. ~ Oscar Wilde.
A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor’s. ~ Richard Whately.
Man is a rebel, and a rebel is naturally in confusion. He is in conflict with every other rebel. For a rebel by his very nature is selfish. He is seeking his own good and not the good of others. ~ Billy Graham.
Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you. ~ Karl Lagerfeld.
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Thought-Provoking Selfish People Quotes
If there is one thing I dislike, it is the man who tries to air his grievances when I wish to air mine. ~ P. G. Wodehouse.
Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without himself. ~ Henry Ward Beecher.
All sensible people are selfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it fair. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
They, the selfish ones, are like spiritual lame people who use other beings as crutches to walk on the path of life. And they are the Blind of Spirit who never find Love, because they do not know how to love and do not let themselves be loved. ~ Ivan Figueroa Otero.
If we were not all so excessively interested in ourselves, life would be so uninteresting that none of us would be able to endure it. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer.
Being sorry is the highest act of selfishness, seeing value only after discarding it. ~ Douglas Horton.
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure. ~ Jane Austen.
We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path. ~ Paulo Coelho.
Perhaps one should not think so much of oneself, though it is an interesting subject. ~ Norman Douglas.
Almost every sinful action ever committed can be traced back to a selfish motive. It is a trait we hate in other people but justify in ourselves. ~ Stephen Kendrick.
Profound Selfish People Quotes
Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it. ~ Criss Jami.
There are two kinds of people in the world; compassionate people and selfish people. Selfish people live on the dark side… But by being selfish, following your pleasures, always entertaining yourself with pleasure and buying things and doing stuff, you’re always going to be unhappy. And the more you do it, the worse it gets. You finally get everything you want and you’re miserable, because there’s nothing at the end of that road. ~ George Lucas.
I am always thinking about myself, and I expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. ~ Oscar Wilde.
We must oppose the tendency towards selfish departmentalism by which the interests of one’s own unit are looked after to the exclusion of those of others. ~ Mao Tsetung.
Selfishness is weakness. But loving and caring for others is a position of power beyond anything we can possibly imagine. ~ Joel Osteen.
No man will work for your interests unless they are his. ~ David Seabury.
Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others? ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. ~ Oscar Wilde.
If you think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig. ~ Woodrow Wilson.
Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness. ~ Napoleon Hill.
Best Selfish People Quotes
Selfish man, who does not want to be selfish – that aspiration for something better, is of God. Worldly man, conscious of spiritual things – that consciousness is of God. ~ Henry Ward Beecher.
Selfish people are, by definition, those whose activities are devoted to bringing themselves happiness. Yet. . . these selfish people are far less likely to be happy than those whose efforts are devoted to making others happy. ~ Bernard Rimland.
Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either. ~ Erich Fromm.
Selfish people also tend to have victim mindsets… Their actions plant seeds of loneliness; then they cry upon the blooming. ~ Steve Maraboli.
Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. ~ Ayn Rand.
Selfish prosperity makes a man a vortex rather than a fountain; instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in. ~ Henry Ward Beecher.
Envy and greed always-always-exact a terrible price. I have never met an envious or greedy person who was at peace. ~ Billy Graham.
As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision. ~ Helen Keller.
Popular Selfish People Quotes
Selfish men may possess the earth, but it is the meed who inherit it, and enjoy it as an inheritance from their heavenly Father, free from all the defilements and perplexities of unrighteousness. ~ John Woolman.
Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others. ~ Ouida.
A person is called selfish, not for pursuing his or her own good, but for neglecting his or her neighbor’s. ~ Richard Whatly.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself. ~ Khalil Gibran.
Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt. ~ William Cowper.
Selfish people lost so much in life, because even when they realize they are wrong, they don’t know how to ask for forgiveness or show regrets. ~ Unknown *
There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up. ~ Oscar Wilde.
If all the people in this world, in which we live, were as selfish as a few of the people in this world, in which we live, there would be no world in which to live. ~ W. L. Orme.
Sympathizing and selfish people are alike, both given to tears. ~ Leigh Hunt.
When we refer to selfishness, it’s important to note that there are healthy levels of selfishness. In order to survive, we all need to maintain a certain level of self-care and self-concern. Selfishness only takes a turn for the worst when we begin to disregard the welfare of others in order to ensure our own happiness. ~ Carla Loving.
We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness. ~ Booker T. Washington.
From the beginning of time until the present moment, man’s ungodly quest for power, his determination to use his gift of free choice for his own selfish ends, has brought him to the brink of doom. ~ Billy Graham.
Great Selfish People Quotes
A selfless act out of even the purest desire to do for others, will be selfish in the satisfaction and happiness it brings to one doing it. ~ Ashly Lorenzana.
Selfishness comes from poverty in the heart, from the belief that love is not abundant. ~ Don Miguel Ruiz.
Some people know how to gain personal achievement but have no clue as to how to help others achieve theirs. While there are also some who know how to help others achieve theirs but are too selfish to share their information with anyone. They will even try to talk you out of the little you know and make it seem irrelevant. They are insignificant where your progress is concerned. ~ Nadia McInnis.
It is the ignorant person who seeks his or her own ends at the expense of the greater whole. It is the ignorant person, therefore, who is the selfish person. The truly wise person is never selfish. ~ Ralph Waldo Trine.
There are many selfish people who are extremely original, then they take those pure ideas and use them to raise themselves up, that is an insincere move. ~ Daniel Smith.
Egoism: measuring others by our likes and dislikes-not by their needs but by our preferences. ~ A.R. Orage.
Man seeks his own good at the whole world’s cost. ~ Robert Browning.
Selfish people, with no heart to speak of, have the best time of it. ~ Josh Billings.
No man is more cheated than the selfish man. ~ Henry Ward Beecher.
A selfish man is a thief. ~ Jose Marti.
Giving yourself some loving attention is not selfish. It is sensible. If you feel loved and cherished, even if it is only by yourself, then you will have more love to give to others, too. ~ Penelope Quest.
The only truly friendless people are those who are too well off to need help, but too selfish to provide any. ~ Christian Neville Bovee.
I have discovered that there are far more selfish people in the world than kind people. Do not put your future in the hands of any man. The Bible says that men kept talking about how good Jesus was but He never gave himself to them because he knew their hearts. ~ Nadia McInnis.
Give me the luxuries, and anyone can have the necessaries. ~ Oscar Wilde.
So these were the 80 quotes about Selfish People.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Suicide Prevention quotes and Women’s History Month quotes.
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