Altruism Quotes

“Don’t sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.”
― Karl Lagerfeld

“Help someone, you earn a friend. Help someone too much, you make an enemy.”
― Erol Ozan

“Just because I do not accept the teachings of the devotaries does not mean I've discarded a belief in right and wrong."
"But the Almighty determines what is right!"
"Must someone, some unseen thing, declare what is right for it to be right? I believe that my own morality -- which answers only to my heart -- is more sure and true than the morality of those who do right only because they fear retribution.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

“Love only grows by sharing. You can only have more for yourself by giving it away to others.”
― Brian Tracy

“It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself,
than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all
connected with you.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

“Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”
― P.J. O'Rourke, All the Trouble in the World

“If you were born with the ability to change someone’s perspective or emotions, never waste that gift. It is one of the most powerful gifts God can give—the ability to influence.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“My dear, I used to think I was serving humanity . . . and I pleasured in the thought. Then I discovered that humanity does not want to be served; on the contrary it resents any attempt to serve it. So now I do what pleases myself.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

“It takes a female to have a baby,
It takes a woman to raise a child,
It takes a mother to raise them correctly,
It takes a warrior to show them how to change the world.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Lawyers are alright, I guess — but it doesn't appeal to me", I said. "I mean they're alright if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides, even if you did go around saving guys' lives and all, how would you know if you did it because you really wanted to save guys' lives, or because you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is you wouldn't.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self; but the point is not only to get out - you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.”
― Henry James, Roderick Hudson

“When you are able to shift your inner awareness to how you can serve others, and when you make this the central focus of your life, you will then be in a position to know true miracles in your progress toward prosperity.”
― Wayne W. Dyer

“We have so far to go to realize our human potential for compassion, altruism, and love.”
― Jane Goodall, Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating

“I said to my children, 'I'm going to work and do everything that I can do to see that you get a good education. I don't ever want you to forget that there are millions of God's children who will not and cannot get a good education, and I don't want you feeling that you are better than they are. For you will never be what you ought to be until they are what they ought to be.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”
― Jack Kerouac, The Portable Jack Kerouac

“Every game is winnable if you change your mind about what the prize should be and your perspective about the players at the table.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“Wars are never fought for altruistic reasons.”
― Arundhati Roy

“In honor of Oprah Winfrey: Even greater than the ability to inspire others with hope is the power to motivate them to give as much to the lives of others as they would give to their own; and to empower them to confront the worst in themselves in order to discover and claim the best in themselves.”
― Aberjhani, Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

“In the unceasing ebb and flow of justice and oppression we must all dig channels as best we may, that at the propitious moment somewhat of the swelling tide may be conducted to the barren places of life.”
― Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House

“A thousand years from now nobody is
going to know that you or I ever lived. The cynic is
right, but lazy. He says ‘You live, you die and nothing you do will ever make a difference.’ But as long as I live, I’m going to be like Beethoven and shake my fist at fate and try to do something for those who live here now and who knows how far into the future that will go. If I accomplish nothing more than making my arm sore, at least I will be satisfied that I have lived.”
― Jackson Burnett, The Past Never Ends

“People do more for their fellows than return favors and punish cheaters. They often perform generous acts without the slightest hope for payback ranging from leaving a tip in a restaurant they will never visit again to throwing themselves on a live grenade to save their brothers in arms. [Robert] Trivers together with the economists Robert Frank and Jack Hirshleifer has pointed out that pure magnanimity can evolve in an environment of people seeking to discriminate fair weather friends from loyal allies. Signs of heartfelt loyalty and generosity serve as guarantors of one s promises reducing a partner s worry that you will default on them. The best way to convince a skeptic that you are trustworthy and generous is to be trustworthy and generous.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“You know, Emily was a selfish old woman in her way. She was very generous, but she always wanted a return. She never let people forget what she had done for them - and, that way she missed love.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“I don't really care if people forget me. My legacy wasn't about me. It was about everything I could do for another. When that sinks in...well you try a little harder. You dream a little broader. Your heart stretches a little farther and you find that you can't go back to the same place and make it fit. You become a person of ideas and seek out your own kind. And then it happens: One day you discover that staying the same is scary and changing has become your new home.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“The most altruistic and sustainable philosophies fail before the brute brain stem imperative of self-interest.”
― Peter Watts, Blindsight

“I thought how you can never tell just by looking at them what they were thinking or what was happening In their lives. Even when you got daft people or drunk people on buses, people that went on stupid and shouted rubbish or tried to tell you all about themselves, you could never really tell about them either... I knew if somebody looked at me, they'd know nothing about me, either.”
― David Almond, Skellig

“Human tool-makers always make tools that will help us get what we want, and what we want hasn't changed for thousands of years because as far as we can tell the human template hasn't changed either. We still want the purse that will always be filled with gold, and the Fountain of Youth. We want the table that will cover itself with delicious food whenever we say the word, and that will be cleaned up afterwards by invisible servants. We want the Seven-League Boots so we can travel very quickly, and the Hat of Darkness so we can snoop on other people without being seen. We want the weapon that will never miss, and the castle that will keep us safe. We want excitement and adventure; we want routine and security. We want to have a large number of sexually attractive partners, and we also want those we love to love us in return, and be utterly faithful to us. We want cute, smart children who will treat us with the respect we deserve. We want to be surrounded by music, and by ravishing scents and attractive visual objects. We don't want to be too hot or too cold. We want to dance. We want to speak with the animals. We want to be envied. We want to be immortal. We want to be gods.
But in addition, we want wisdom and justice. We want hope. We want to be good.”
― Margaret Atwood, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination

“That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)”
― Thomas Jefferson