A man of fine qualities can never live for himself alone, as a ray cannot give its light alone.
The egoist sees himself as the ultimate goal of creation; he would expect that the moment of his death would also be the end of the world.
It is a false idea that one gains more by receiving than by giving: no, the receiver and the giver are equal in profit.
And the man is sometimes with the frog of a kind: / may the whole world perish, but may he live.
The egoist: ...the one who doesn't think about me.
The egoist: ... he who does not constrain himself for anyone, does not mourn for anyone, knows only his misfortunes, does not mourn the death of others at all, fears only his own, which he would gladly redeem at the price of the extinction of human genius.
Interest, which we blame for all our misdeeds, often deserves to be praised for our good deeds.
Through the fog of selfishness, neither the light of truth nor the warmth of beauty shines.
What is the importance of what only matters to me?
Man ... every active manifestation of his nature, every appropriation of him, every vital instinct of his, becomes a need, a necessity, which causes his selfishness to be transformed into an interest in other things and other people outside himself.
Communists do not consider selfishness in opposition to devotion, nor devotion in opposition to selfishness... on the contrary, they reveal its material roots, with the disappearance of which the opposition disappears by itself.
To scold the poor man for the bread you gave him is to soak Attic honey in absinthe.
A monster crawling in its armored cage. / He alone is his ship, helmsman, sailor: / chasing other small monsters, but all the same, / here he rises, here he falls again, neither the wave touches him, nor the wave. / Suddenly it bursts like a blister, / nobody knows anything about his life / nor about his sinister end: / that was the egoist!
Generosity is always self-sacrifice. This sacrifice is the very essence of generosity.
When you fight only for yourself, you risk becoming everyone's prisoner.
The egoist: ...the one who starts from him and ends where he left.
Human societies do not make effective progress, progress that does not consist only in superficial changes in the external forms of their life, only to the extent that the people who compose them rise above the ancestral selfishness of zoological origin, they become altruistic, more full of respect and love, more capable of justice and generosity towards each other.
The selfish life is a harsh thing; it does not enjoy the support of friendly walls, nor the shelter of quiet bays, nor warm, cordial handshakes.
Mine, yours: "This dog is mine," say the children; "this is my place under the sun," say the grown-ups. I see in these words the beginning and the image of the usurpation of the whole earth.
The man who loves himself hates nothing more than being alone with himself. He seeks nothing but himself, and flees from nothing as himself, because when he looks, he does not find himself as he would like, and because he finds in himself a heap of inevitable miseries and a void of real and lasting goods on who is unable to fill it.
He who gives to whom he deserves receives his reward by giving.
Interest came into the world to support the world; then he destroyed it.
When we see that others are selfish, we are amazed: as if we alone have the right to be, and the ardor to live.
Our selfishness goes so far that we think, when there is a storm, it only thunders for us.
Self-love is the opposite of love.
Man does not live only for himself. He must fight for the good of others as much as for his own good.
However selfish we may think man to be, yet we must admit that a certain natural disposition of his heart compels him to share in the fate of his brethren.
If the self is hateful, loving your neighbor as yourself becomes an atrocious irony.
The sunbeam that warms you is not diminished by the fact that it also warms your neighbor.
You are good for nothing if you are only good for yourself.