Top 181 Altruism Quotes & Sayings

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

Altruism is the best source of happiness. There is no doubt about that.

We cannot fight against collectivism, unless we fight against its moral base: altruism. We cannot fight against altruism, unless we fight against its epistemological base: irrationalism. We cannot fight against anything, unless we fight for something--and what we must fight for is the supremacy of reason and a view of man as a rational being.

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

Charity should be spontaneous. Calculated altruism is an affront.

There is another kind of altruism that seems to go beyond that, a kind of super-altruism, which humans appear to have. And I think that does need a Darwinian explanation.

Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil.

The three values which men had held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism — as a cultural power — died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism — as a political ideal — died in World War II. As to altruism — it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it.

It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise.

The biggest pests are the people who use altruism as an alibi. What they passionately wish is to make themselves important.

Meditation is about cultivating constructive emotions, like altruism, compassion.

The secret dread of modern intellectuals, liberals and conservatives alike, the unadmitted terror at the root of their anxiety, which all of their current irrationalities are intended to stave off and to disguise, is the unstated knowledge that Soviet Russia [was] the full, actual, literal, consistent embodiment of the morality of altruism, that Stalin did not corrupt a noble ideal, that this is the only way altruism has to be or can ever be practiced.

We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.

I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one.

Our own species evolved under the influence of group selection, as Darwin emphasized when he discussed the evolution of altruism.

Compassion, along with love, is the face of altruism.

Social motherliness has made women's struggle for liberty the loveliest synthesis of egoism and altruism.

There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It's important because it combines both the heart and the head.

Force, governmental coercion, is the instrument by which the ethics of altruism - the belief that the individual exists to serve others - is translated into political reality.

There's no such thing as altruism.

Countries that intervene militarily rarely do so out of pure altruism.

Chronically insecure people easily lose their altruism, tolerance, and respect for non-conformity. If they have no alternative on offer, they can be led to attribute their plight to strangers in their midst.

Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness.

Infinite altruism is the basis of peace and happiness. If you want altruism, you must control hate and you must practice patience. The main teachers of patience are our enemies.

The only justifiable stopping place for for the expansion of altruism is the point at which all whose welfare can be affected by our actions are included within the circle of altruism. This means that all beings with the capacity to feel pleasure or pain should be included; we can improve their welfare by increasing their pleasures and diminishing their pains.

Effective altruism is the form of altruism in which we bring our rational capacities to bear in order to do the most good that we can.

Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

Human altruism which is not egoism, is sterile.

Altruism is a barbarism. Love is the word.

Whenever I see people getting a bad deal I want to step in and do something about it. Of course, this is not pure altruism - there's a profit to be made too.

Altruism is for those who cannot endure their desires.

The root of happiness is altruism - the wish to be of service to others.

The most popular form of altruism is giving to others the advice you cannot use yourself.

In brief, egoism in its modern interpretation, is the antithesis, not of altruism, but of idealism.

All altruism springs from putting yourself in the other person's place.

In the development of mankind as a whole, just as in individuals, love alone acts as the civilizing factor in the sense that it brings a change from egoism to altruism.

Altruism accrues little benefit to those lying cold in the gutter.

It is part of the business of marketing to muddy the distinction between altruism and cynicism.

Love is the most ethically consistent experience, because selfishness and altruism no longer seem opposed or in conflict.

I think there is a level of altruism that wants to help fellow human beings.

Altruism itself depends on a recognition of the reality of other persons, and on the equivalent capacity to regard oneself as merely one individual among many.

No country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself and this is the risk that the countries of Europe run through misguided altruism.

We need to build websites with celebrity speakers who talk about the ideals of fairness, sharing, democratic cooperation, and altruism in public life.

Acknowledging someone is an act of altruism in the first place, so converting that act of altruism into a pizza party or company fleece jacket or a gift card is fine, but it's not in keeping with spirit in which it all began.

Which is more subversive-and corrosive-to believe in altruism or to see it simply as a cloak of self interest? Even if altruism did not exist, it would be necessary to believe in it. Pessimists in power are prone to despotism.

People who criticize The Selfish Gene like that often haven't read it. The selfish gene accounts for altruism toward kin and individuals who might be in a position to reciprocate your altruism.

The Goliath Corporation was to altruism what Genghis Khan was to soft furnishings.

I have spent over 50 years preaching and teaching the values of peace, mutual respect and altruism.

Altruism is written in everlasting and resplendent character on the Cross of Christ, and it was at Calvary that the centre of life was shifted from selfishness to sacrifice.

Altruism is a hard master, but so is opportunism.

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

Altruism is a fine motive, but if you want results, greed works much better.

Altruism, especially involving basic freedoms, can be what shareholders value most.

Altruism is selfishness out with a pair of field glasses and imagination.

Politicians should reflect on the well-documented fact that fearful, insecure people lose their sense of tolerance and altruism.

You seem cynical because you're always talking about that selfish behavior that's dressed up as altruism. It doesn't mean there isn't altruism. It just means that it's harder to make jokes about altruism.

Is this what you have in mind,' I asked the Dalai Lama, 'when you say in teachings that the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the world are the most selfish beings of all, that by cultivating altruism they actually achieve ultimate happiness for themselves?' Yes. That's wise selfish,' he replied. 'Helping others not means we do this at our own expense. Not like this. Buddhas and bodhisattvas, these people very wise. All their lives they only want one thing: to achieve ultimate happiness. How to do this? By cultivating compassion, by cultivating altruism.

Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.

Wikipedia flourished partly because it was a shrine to altruism.

A large part of altruism, even when it is perfectly honest, is grounded upon the fact that it is uncomfortable to have unhappy people about one.