Top 1200 Self-Serving Quotes & Sayings

Literary criticism is generally bunk. Nonsense. Usually based on self-serving post-intellectual bullshit.

You can't defend the indefensible. Anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

By its very nature, hard-line ideology is self-serving and self-perpetuating; its primary goal is to survive - and that precludes everything.

The Alternative Vote is sectarian and self-serving and it will not improve people's lives.

Inquisitiveness is self-serving, Johanna. -Marcus Eaton

Kindness is weak when you use it in a self-serving manner. Self-serving kindness is thin - people can see right through it when a kind leader has an agenda.

It seems we are suffering from a very narrow and self serving reading of the Gospel right now.

Serving others breaks you free from the shackles of self and self-absorption that choke out the joy of living.

A letter is not a dialogue or even an omniscient exposition. It is a fabric of surfaces, a mask, a form as well suited to affectations as to the affections. The letter is, by its natural shape, self-justifying; it is one's own evidence, deposition, a self-serving testimony. In a letter the writer holds all the cards, controls everything about himself and about those assertions he wishes to make concerning events or the worth of others. For completely self-centered characters, the letter form is a complex and rewarding activity.

We're always serving something, even if we're not aware of it. We're usually serving capitalism.

It's the human condition. We gravitate to what's easy, things that are comfortable, convenient, pain-free, self-serving.

The myth of the self-made man, has to be profoundly hypocritical: it is the self-serving demonstration that a lie is the truth

[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

Serving ice cream isn't exactly like serving in state government, but what I learned guides me today.

Of course the self-serving bias is something you want to get out of yourself. Thinking that what's good for you is good for the wider civilization and rationalizing all these ridiculous conclusions based on this subconscious tendency to serve one's self is a terribly inaccurate way to think.

The FBI, to its credit in a self-serving sort of way, rejects the routine use of the polygraph on its own people.

When I'm shooting, I don't care who the star is. I have an actor playing a part, and I'm serving the script, not serving anyone's career.

The history of psychiatry rewrites itself so often that it almost resembles the self-serving chronicles of a totalitarian and slightly paranoid regime.

When you start just focusing exclusively on trying to tear the other person down instead of what you are going to do on behalf of the American people to deal with this economy, then that's not serving Democrats, that's not serving Republicans, that's not serving anybody.

People had an illogical, self-serving rationale when it came to interpreting the behavior of others.

Forgiveness feels most dramatic when some ancient pattern of self-punishment collapses in a torrent of tears. But it is just as effective when practiced daily in tiny doses - relinquishing a pointless worry, getting wise to a self-destructive habit, serving notice on a cruel notion about yourself that has previously seemed justified. The beginning of forgiveness is alertness to false ideas.

I think people are inherently self-aggrandizing, pleasureseeking, unempathetic, self-serving, greedy and lustful.

When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.

Selfishness is the controlling force of sinful living. It is this motive which pulsates through the natural mind, emotions and will - self-pleasing, self-serving, living for self.

self-sacrifice is one of a woman's seven deadly sins (along with self-abuse, self-loathing, self-deception, self-pity, self-serving, and self-immolation).

There's nothing self-serving about what motivated me to bring 'Schindler's List' to the screen.

Unsolicited advice is always self-serving.

We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of the self.

As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith.

Takers are self-serving in their interactions. It's all about what can you do for me.

If you don't allow for self-serving bias in the conduct of others, you are, again, a fool.

What we get in punk these days are layers of 'anti-', and so many of them are so self-serving. It's not about larger freedom.

Our greatest individual challenge in life is self-discipline. The self-discipline of a healthy diet, daily exercise, controlling our thoughts, selflessly serving others, and living a life of integrity.

You can't defend the indefensible - anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.

New Labour was the most short-sighted, self-serving, incompetent, useless, and ineffective government that Britain has ever known.

Contrary to some self-serving reports, I am okay and strong. I have not hit rock bottom.

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

I think Stills has been playing better than ever. I know a lot of it sounds self-serving, but he truly has.

Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers.

I got active in this business of politics and self-government in 1958 when my father, who was serving in the U.S. Army, took us to the battlefield of Verdun.

I read "Women Heroes of World War I" and was absolutely astonished. When we imagine women serving in the First World War, mostly we think of Red Cross nurses, but here I was reading about women serving as front-line soldiers, women serving as war journalists . . . and women who worked undercover as spies.

We can no more condone the wastefulness of self-serving company executives than we can the sacrifice of the lives of our citizens in a senseless war.

Increasingly, people perceive no difference between the narcissistic self-serving reporters asking questions, and the narcissistic self-serving politicians who evade them.

Animosity towards the merchant class has been around for centuries. Why? The goal of making a profit is quite obviously a self-serving motive. Other occupations, while equally self-serving, are better able to hide their motives.

Of course you want to drive that out of yourself because you want to be wise, not foolish. You also have to allow for the self-serving bias of everybody else because most people are not going to remove it all that successfully, the human condition being what it is. If you don't allow for self-serving bias in your conduct, again you're a fool.

There's a real self-serving element to hip-hop that threatens its life span.

Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.

I think it's a self-serving effort to put a political agenda above the safety of our law enforcement officers.

Repentance is more than just sorrow for the past; repentance is a change of mind and heart, a new life of denying self and serving the Savior as king in self's place.

But I tend to think of the expressive part of me as rather tedious - never curious or responsive, but blind and self-serving.

When politics is no longer a mission but a profession, politicians become more self-serving than public servants.

Lost in the barrage of images and self-serving analysis are the economic and social causes of the conflict.

The steadily inward look leads us all to death, nations as well as persons, and is equally infantile in them all. Perhaps the most useful thing I have learned in my lifetime is that the process of maturing gradually turns the mind away from the small-self to the greater-self that is only served by serving others.

Philosophy is a bad master for poetry; religion worse; and politics self-serving will never serve the Muse.

A lot of presidential memoirs, they say, are dull and self-serving. I hope mine is interesting and self-serving.

True patriots believe that we should measure a citizen's worth by contribution to country and community, not by wealth or power-that those whom America has benefited most should contribute in proportion to their good fortune-and that serving others should be esteemed more highly than serving self.

If you're not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.

I think Bush is amateurish and self-serving, and frankly, it's disgusting.

Serving reconnects people to purpose. Serving someone else's dream empowers not just us, but them.