Unselfishness

“ I have made such a parade of my willingness to thwart my own will that I might please others, so that while I should have been startled to see a full-grown trumpeter at my side proclaiming my unselfishness, I have all the while been keeping in my service a little dwarf page, who has been sounding out my praises on his shrill whistle.”
“You judge yourself hardly, dear Grace; and yet, no doubt, self does enter largely even into our unselfishness. I am sure I have felt it, oh, how deeply! And specially just lately, since I have undertaken this work at Bridgepath.” ”

“ Unselfishness is, of course, a very noble feeling, independently of the cause. But this is only one of the emotions of a higher class when powerfully aroused. There is pity, tenderness—the same kind of tenderness that one feels toward a child—the love of the helpless, the desire to protect. And a third sentiment felt at such a time more strongly than at any other, is the sentiment of duty; responsibilities moral and social are then comprehended in a totally new way. Surely none can dispute these facts nor the beauty of them. ”

“ You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognise the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less from your fellows. They will not disappoint you, and you will look upon them more charitably. Men seek but one thing in life—their pleasure." ”

“ I should despise myself, sir, if I had within me other sentiments toward any man or race of men, and I feel, therefore, that it is not unbecoming in me to arrogate to myself the pure unselfishness of this motive. ”

“ We intend, so far as possible without reference to others, to ask, and in our own way to develope, the question, What is selfishness, and what self-sacrifice? and to include in that the enquiry, What ground is there for the denial of unselfishness? ”

“ But the nicest thing of all is your prodigious unselfishness, the unselfishness that’s leaving this talk of ours kind of—well, kind of hallowed, and something we’ll not be unhappy in remembering, when it could have so easily turned into something selfishly mean and ugly and sordid. ”

“ You show your selfishness by dwelling on what you have lost. You never think of what I have lost. I make no profession of unselfishness. I am suffering for my folly and egoism; and I deserve to suffer. ”

“ Obviously the former group are for us the right, the latter group are for us the wrong.
In all these thoughts and feelings which are clearly wrong, we recognize one dominant note, the thought of self; while in all those which are clearly right we recognize that the thought is turned toward others, and that the personal self is forgotten. Wherefore we see that selfishness is the one great wrong, and that perfect unselfishness is the crown of all virtue. ”

“ Their eyes stared at one another. His heart beat riotously, and behind the beating there was a strange pain, a poignant longing, a deep deep tenderness.
"I don't understand everything you say," she replied at last. "Except that I am sure you are doing an injustice to yourself when you give such an account. But what you say about unselfishness I don't agree with. How is one unselfish if one is doing things for people one loves? ”

“ Now, do you suppose unselfishness is unreal and nowhere extant? On the contrary, nothing is more ordinary! One may even call it an article of fashion in the civilized world, which is considered so indispensable that, if it costs too much in solid material, people at least adorn themselves with its tinsel counterfeit and feign it. ”

“ That is the real courage of unselfishness--the kind your species cannot understand. Your fellow beings applaud cowardice which they mistake for strength of character. They seem unable to comprehend that it requires far more courage to suffer pain than to inflict it upon others. ”

“ Unselfishness.—This popularity was partly, however, due to another quality which shone conspicuously in his character—the spirit of unselfishness. This is the rarest quality in human nature, and it is the most powerful of all in its influence on others, where it exists in purity and strength. ”

“ And that's why I'm pained and grieved beyond measure when anyone calls me selfish; because each time I do wrench myself, creaking and protesting, to an act of sacrifice, I make a mental register of that stupendous fact, its date and circumstance——Here's a nut one—catch!—no—it's quite all right—I've provided for myself!... Well, naturally, memory becomes crowded in time with these bulging obsessions of one's own acts of unselfishness—twice a year, or thereabouts, mounts up, let me tell you, in nineteen years. ”

“ The apparent unselfishness of certain virtues gives them a varnish of purity, which makes them rash enough to break and run counter to the moral law; and many people are the dupes of this strange illusion, to rise higher than morality and to endeavor to be more reasonable than reason. ”

“ The only intelligent selfishness is structurally identified with unselfishness, as warp and woof in a piece of silk. Egoism that is not equally altruism tends to collapse of its own weight.
The pertinence of these reflections appears in view of the fact that the crisis calling for special relief brought into the consciousness of many representative citizens some most potent clauses of the organic translation of society. ”

“ You see, unselfishness is supposed to be a characteristic of Christmas giving. And unselfishness, true unselfishness, was known to the philosophy of the Transcendentalists as little as it is known to that of the Nietzscheans. He who gives really in accordance with the spirit of the feast gives not to express his own personality, to call attention to his own prowess as a painter or a poet or a candlestick-maker, but to make his friend happy. ”

“ Unselfishness leads thee out of the mists of blind self -adoration, and shows thee, in all the life of nature about thee, the one omnipresent, conscious struggle for the getting of the desired. In all the songs of the forest birds ”

“ I enter into these details, not because they are necessarily connected with selfishness, for many unselfish, generous-minded people are the unfortunate victims of ill-temper, to which vice the preceding traits of character more peculiarly belong; but for the purpose of showing you that your conduct towards strangers can be no test of your unselfishness. It is only in the more trying details of daily life that the existence of the vice or the virtue can be evidenced. ”

“ How can any persons be so presumptuous as to think that any person, or a number of persons, exist solely for his comfort and advantage! Let two such selfish persons get together, a permanent riot is assured. Unselfishness in the home means thoughtfulness, discipline, self-control. Each child is taught the rights and privileges of others as well as his own. ”

“ To say that unselfishness itself is only the more refined expression of a selfish instinct, is to use the term selfish with a double meaning, is a mere empty play on words. We have the innate need of harmony in the moral relations ”

“ Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of its own. ”

“ On the other hand, however, more idealistic moralists have tried to make unselfishness dependent on some impulse, such as pity or sympathy, whose dictates shall be perfectly definite and self-evident, and yet not, like the supposed dictates of conscience, either abstract or mysterious. But to such a foundation one opposes very naturally again the objection that all such judgments of feeling are capricious, that pity and sympathy are confused and deceitful feelings, wholly unfit to give moral insight, and that no ideal can be founded on the shifting sand of such realities. ”

“ Quite as ‘deep’ as his discovery of the egoism of all unselfishness is Nietzsche’s harangue ‘to the teachers of unselfishness.’ [397] The virtues of a man are called good, not in respect of their effects upon himself, but in respect of the effects which we suppose them to have upon ourselves and society. ”

“ But such unselfishness is permissible only by fits as lapses from the course which all men naturally take. But that men should act consistently on disinterested motives is an idea too preposterous for them to allow of its existence. ”

“ The sole fact that we demand unselfishness in action assures us that the standard of enlightened self-interest is false. And, indeed, if we consult the opinions of men where they are least likely to be warped by sophistry, we shall find that disinterestedness is the universal criterion by which moral worth is measured. ”

“ Unselfishness is the most rare and at the same time the most Christian virtue [179] possible for human nature to attain to, but did anybody ever yet grow unselfish through a life of indolent self-indulgence and ease? ”

“ Moreover, once the tender spot of pity touched, a self-ignoring energy of helpfulness and desire to benefit arose, which was at once the most beautiful and the least fully understood trait in his character. It is difficult for many to understand a passion for unselfishness. ”

“ One should consider successively from the same standpoint the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice. The praise of the unselfish, self-sacrificing, virtuous person—he, consequently, who does not expend his whole energy and reason for his own conservation, development, elevation, furtherance and augmentation of power, but lives as regards himself unassumingly and thoughtlessly, perhaps even indifferently or ironically,—this praise has in any case not originated out of the spirit of unselfishness! The "neighbour" praises unselfishness because he profits by it! ”

“ As employed everywhere outside of this particular theoretical controversy, the term 'unselfishness' refers to the kind of aims and objects which habitually interest a man. And if we make a mental survey of the kind of interests which evoke the use of this epithet, we shall see that they have two intimately associated features. (i) The generous self consciously identifies itself with the full range of relationships implied in its activity, instead of drawing a sharp line between itself and considerations which are excluded as alien or indifferent ”

“ And so, while one of the great tasks of moral education is to make men unselfish, that alone is not enough; unselfishness must be directed by reason and tact, rendered far-sighted and intelligent.
What mental and moral obstacles hinder altruistic action? ”

“ While it may be acknowledged that unselfishness and disinterestedness are the criterion of moral sublimity, it must be noted at the outset that considerable confusion of thought exists as to the meaning of motive. Even in those moral systems in which virtue is represented as wholly disinterested, the motive may be said to reside in the object itself. ”

“ He would feel nothing, believe nothing, do nothing, that was unbecoming of what he esteemed the noblest expression of man and gentleman. Nevertheless he had no serious objects in life, no absorbing ambition, no ability to originate. But he could espouse another man’s cause with a fervor of unselfishness. ”

“ The girl I married later was faultlessly pretty, but there was nothing in the world to her.”
“We seem to be a nice sort, don’t we?” said the woman, reflectively.
“We are no worse than others. Unselfishness is out of fashion. Everybody takes what he wants nowadays.” ”

“ Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. ”

“ Unselfishness appears to consist in doing good when it is not exactly pleasant to do it, and to people who are not in our own groove, or in “our set,” but like the people invited in the feast prescribed by Christ, and for whom we work as a duty, whether it is immediately agreeable or not. ”

“ The answers of some recent moralists will illustrate for us afresh the great problem of ethics. We shall find two classes of efforts made to solve the difficulty. On the one hand moralists appear whose tendency is mainly, although not always quite wholly realistic. They say that, assuming the selfish aim as from the beginning self-evident, the unselfish aim soon appears as a necessary concomitant and assistant of the selfish aim. Such writers, from Hobbes to the present day, have insisted upon unselfishness as a more or less refined selfishness, the product of enlightenment. ”

“ He could hardly have quoted anything more apparently apt to the purpose.
In the sphere of minor morals there is no more important topic. Unselfishness is too often only the most exasperating form of selfishness. ”

“ It was a pity that with his great qualities, his unselfishness and honour, his intelligence and sensibility, he should be so unlovable. ”

“ Of the whole picture, selfishness is the prevailing feature;—selfishness admirably drawn, indeed; apologised for by every palliating circumstance of education and habit, and clothed in the brightest colours of which it is susceptible, from youth, talents, and placidity. ”

“ You are so modest, so loath to think of yourself, so unselfish in this respect that I must tell you of you and about you.
You have a warm heart that throbs for others' woes and holds sympathy. The great world is cold, selfish, and cares little for others. ”

“ "You are the embodiment of selfishness," she said. ”

“ When selfishness is silent, the heart pays its tribute to nought but worth. Why, then, should those of lowly station envy the trappings of vanity, that are but the boast of a moment, when, by piety and virtue, they may attain a distinction so much more lasting and glorious? ”