A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

An unconscious, easy, selfish person shocks less, and is more easily loved, than one who is laboriously and egotistically unselfish. There is at least no fuss about the first; but the other parades his sacrifices, and so sells his favours too dear.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1880-01/02?), “Reflections and Remarks on Human Life,” § 5 “Selfishness and Egoism”

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A quotation from Ambrose Pierce

CONCEIT, n. Self-respect in one whom we dislike.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Conceit,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-08-12)

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A quotation from Montesquieu

When virtue is banished, ambition invades the hearts of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community.
 
[Lorsque cette vertu cesse, l’ambition entre dans les cœurs qui peuvent la recevoir, & l’avarice entre dans tous.]

Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 3, ch. 3 (3.3) (1748) [tr. Nugent (1750)]

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves. Through such interests a man comes to feel himself part of the stream of life, not a hard separate entity like a billiard-ball, which can have no relation with other such entities except that of collision.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
 
[Les vertus se perdent dans l’intérêt, comme les fleuves se perdent dans la mer.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶171 (1665-1678) [tr. Whichello (2016)]

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A quotation from Mignon McLaughlin

Of course no one is so sensitive as you, but try to remember they think they are.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 4 (1966)

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A quotation from Judith Martin

   Contrary to rumor, bridesmaids are not obliged to entertain in honor of the bride, nor to wear clothes that they cannot afford and that make them look stupid.
   And no, the bride does not have a “right” to demand either one because it is “her day.” Any sensible person who hears someone speaking in an imperious tone of “her day” would be wise to consider that it therefore isn’t going to be anyone else’s day, and to leave her to enjoy it alone.

Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
“Miss Manners,” syndicated column (1993-03-07)

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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Selfish,” The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 10 “Is Happiness Still Possible?” (1930)

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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique (“a great task that occurs once in two thousand years”), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did. The troops of the Einsatzgruppen had been drafted from the Armed S.S., a military unit with hardly more crimes in its record than any ordinary unit of the German Army, and their commanders had been chosen by Heydrich from the S.S. élite with academic degrees. Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical suffering. The trick used by Himmler — who apparently was rather strongly afflicted by these instinctive reactions himself — was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, ch. 6 (1963)

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