{"quotes":[{"text":"Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.","author":"Aristophanes","tags":["corruption","greed","injustice","intrigue","politicians","poverty","public-service","self-interest","selfishness","wealth"],"id":32580,"author_id":"Aristophanes"},{"text":"ECONOMICS IS HAUNTED by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine—the special pleading of selfish interests.","author":"Henry Hazlitt","tags":["economics","self-interest"],"id":82287,"author_id":"Henry+Hazlitt"},{"text":"Courage is a decision you make to act in a way that works through your own fear for the greater good as opposed to pure self-interest. Courage means putting at risk your immediate self-interest for what you believe is right.","author":"Derrick A. Bell","tags":["courage","fear","self-interest"],"id":99562,"author_id":"Derrick+A.+Bell"},{"text":"Oh, tell me, who first declared, who first proclaimed that man only does nasty things because he does not know his own real interests; and that if he were enlightened, if his eyes were opened to his real normal interests, man would at once cease to do nasty things, would at once become good and noble because, being enlightened and understanding his real advantage, he would see his own advantage in the good and nothing else… . Oh, the babe! Oh, the pure, innocent child!","author":"Fyodor Dostoyevsky","tags":["degeneration","innocence","liberation","privacy","reticence","self-interest","shame"],"id":150712,"author_id":"Fyodor+Dostoyevsky"},{"text":"Stay away from lazy parasites, who perch on you just to satisfy their needs, they do not come to alleviate your burdens, hence, their mission is to distract, detract and extract, and make you live in abject poverty.","author":"Michael Bassey Johnson","tags":["burden","detractors","distract","egocentric","egoism","egotism","egotist","fake-friends","fatal","laziness","lazy","michael-bassey-johnson","mission","narcissism","parasites","perch","satisfaction","self-absorbed","self-centred","self-interest","self-obsessed","vain"],"id":168283,"author_id":"Michael+Bassey+Johnson"},{"text":"The immediate result of abandoned idealism is an embittered and drained man, whether he realizes it or not, whether he likes it or not. He is capable of acting in his own interest, but only to the extent that those interests coincide with those of the lowest animals.","author":"Mike Klepper","tags":["animal-existence","embitterment","idealism","self-interest","self-knowledge","selling-your-soul"],"id":175823,"author_id":"Mike+Klepper"},{"text":"I mean what does a democracy depend on? A democracy depends on the individual voter making an intelligent and rational choice for what he regards as his enlightened self-interest, in any given circumstance.","author":"Aldous Huxley","tags":["choices","decisions","democracy","elections","political-process","self-interest","voting"],"id":186400,"author_id":"Aldous+Huxley"},{"text":"Sacrifice of the self is sheer stupidity if sacrifice is not for the self.","author":"Amit Kalantri","tags":["adage","advantage","advertisement","alliterations","amit-kalantri","amit-kalantri","amit-kalantri-writer","book-writing","catch-lines","catchphrases","characters","charity","essay","inspirational","knowledge","motivational","movie","movie-dialogue","novel-writing","own","personal-loss","philosophy","proverbs","public-speaking","quotes","rhetoric","scrifice","script","script-writing","scriptwriting","self","self-centered","self-interest","self-respect","selfishness","social-service","soul","speech","speechwriting","story","struggle","stupid","stupidity","tag-lines","to-give-up","tolerance","tolerate","wisdom","writing"],"id":199631,"author_id":"Amit+Kalantri"},{"text":"Betrayal is advancing myself at the expense of the one who I committed myself to advance.","author":"Craig D. Lounsbrough","tags":["advance","advancing","affairs","betray","betrayal","commit","committed","friendships","hurt","lies","marriages","pain","relationships","sabotage","self-interest","selfish","selfishness"],"id":206172,"author_id":"Craig+D.+Lounsbrough"},{"text":"It’s the moment when something happens not just deep among the trees but also in the dark interior of the human heart, for the heart, too, has its night and its wild surges, as strong an instinct for the hunt as a wolf or a stag. The human night is filled with the crouching forms of dreams, desires, vanities, self-interest, mad love, envy, and the thirst for revenge, as the desert night conceals the puma, the hawk and the jackal.","author":"Sándor Márai","tags":["desire","dreams","love","night","self-interest","vanity"],"id":212588,"author_id":"S%C3%A1ndor+M%C3%A1rai"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":30,"pages":3,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}