Famous Quotations

Self interest speaks all sorts of tongues - Francois Duc de La Rockefoucauld

There are many things we would throw away if we were not afraid others might pick them up. - Oscar Wilde

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. - Jane Austen

Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself. - Julio Cortazar

The force of selfishness is as inevitable and as calculable as the force of gravitation. - Hailiard

Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves. - Gene Fowler

Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race. - William E. Gladstone

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope for a cure. - Jane Austen

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.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

There were examples of both selfishness and unselfishness throughout the novel:

Effie stole the Traveling Pants out of her own selfish behavior. She wanted them and she was mad. I think Lena however, showed she was not selfish by simply forgiving Effie and making the best out of a bad situation.

When Tibby dumped Brian, I think she displayed selfish behavior because she acted irrationally and didn't think about him or his feelings during the whole pregnancy scare. Then, she was only thinking about herself when she went behind Effie's back to get Brian back.

Carmen's "friend" Tina was totally selfish when she tried to sabotage Carmen because she was jealous of the role Carmen recieved.

All four girls were unselfish when they immediately jumped on the plane to be with each other and help each other, in the same way that Lena was unselfish when she went to help Tibby durning her pregnancy scare.

Bee was pretty selfish when she hooked up with Peter because she was only thinking about herself instead of what would happen for Peter if his wife found out, or how it would destroy his family, or how her boyfriend Eric would feel.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Was Stephen selfish in renounching the Church and his parents' wishes or is it his right to follow his heart and search for happiness?

I don't think Stephen is selfish in renouncing the church because he tried to participate but it simply didn't work for him. It didn't make him happy, it didn't fill the space in his heart that he needed filled.... I don't think that's selfish at all. He finally found love and happiness in his poetry, when the Church failed to give it to him.

"I tried to love God. It seems now I've failed. It is very difficult. I tried to unite my will with the will of God instant by instant" (217).

"There's real poetry for you. That's real love" (221).

The race to the polls....or should I say the cut throat marathon to victory?

We all know how heated elections can become, and it comes as no surprise that perhaps the biggest and most important one is the most heated of all the competitions. As of now, when we are still struggling to pick a candidate for each party, it is hard to determine where the personal competition stops and the goals for the country begin. The race between Hilary and Barak is almost more of a "yo mama" type stage than a presidential campaign. Shouldn't they be more focused on getting a democrat in office than destroying each other? They seem to disagree. I see this as pretty selfish. Yes their ideas are different and their plans take our country in different directions, but doesn't it all come down to the fact that they're both democrats and their core beliefs are probably pretty similar? I think so, and therefore think that it's pretty selfish that they're both destroying the other for their own gain, only at the expense of the party. In an article from Time magazine, Michael Duffy says the "Democratic race is sidetracked on a direction that leads, like a scene from one of those Back to the Future movies, off a cliff."

*Duffy, Michael. Race Spells Trouble for the Dems. 14, Jan. 2008. <http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1703310,00.html>.

I Wanna Talk About Me

The song, I Wanna Talk About Me by Toby Kieth doesn't directly display selfishness but shows how it is natural for people to want things for themselves without being concidered selfish.

I Wanna Talk About Me
We talk about your work how your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church and your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles you've been having with your brotherAbout your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover
We talk about your friends and the places that you've been
We talk about your skin and the dimples on your chin
The polish on your toes and the run in your hoseAnd God knows we're gonna talk about your clothes
You know talking about you makes me smile
But every once in awhile

I wanna talk about me
Wanna talk about
I Wanna talk about number one
Oh my me mine
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you you you you, usually, but occasionally
I wanna talk about me (me,me,me,me,me,me,-background singers)
I wanna talk about me

Crime and Punishment

Is Raskolinkov selfish? It's so hard to tell, you could argue either way. Did he steal and murder for his own gain or did he do it to take the burdon off his mother and sister?
I think he did it more to take the burden off of his mother and sister which wouldn't make him selfish.
wanted to stop his sister's marriage:
"As long as I'm alive, this marriage will not take place: Mr. Luzhin can go to hell!" p.38

But then Raskolinkov ended up just hiding the money and doing nothing with it. Without a purpose for the murder, he could be seen as selfish.
"If you did this business concienciously, not like a fool, but if you really had a firm and definate purpose, why is it you haven't even looked into the purse, why is it you don't even know what you've got, you don't know why you've put yourself to all these torments...." p.105

Also, Raskolinkov couldn't deal with his suffering so he chose to tell Sonia to let her take some of the burden, knowing that the knowledge would cause her to suffer too. I think this is selfish on Raskolinkov's part.



Dounia is definately not selfish as she sacrifices herself for the sake of her family and her brother.
" 'Love Dounia, Rodia, for she loves you more than she loves herself. ' Why it's remose secretly making her suffer, for she has concented to a sacrifice, a daughter for a son." p.39
"Nevertheless, I know that my sister would sooner work like a Negro slave on a plantation or like a Lett peasant for a Baltic German landowner than debase her soul and her moral sense by marrying a man she does not respect..." p.41
"For herself, for her own comfort, she would not do it; she would not sell herself even to escape death. For someone else, though - yes she would; she'd sell herself! p.42

Sonia is very unselfish in the same way. She sacrifices herself by selling her body for her family. She's also unselfish when she gives up living her own life to help Raskolinkov while he is in jail.

Marmelodov is selfish because he uses all of his family's money for alcohol while his children and wife are cold and starving.