Andre Gide Quotes

If one is guided by profit in one's actions, one will incur much ill will.

I believe that the human motive to share is very powerful. The human motive to profit is also very powerful, and I think that the profit motive and the sharing motive are not exclusive.

The Master said, “If your conduct is determined solely by considerations of profit you will arouse great resentment.

All my actions have their rise in my inalienable love of mankind.

Altruism is masked self-interest. Aggressive self-interest is a masked urge to self-destruction.

He who serves the public best, makes the highest profits.

Everything turns out to be valuable that one does for one’s self without thought of profit.

The virtuous man is driven by responsibility, the non-virtuous man is driven by profit.

We always think of our own profit, but not in connection to others.

The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing... love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.

The selfless love that we give to others, to the point of being willing to sacrifice our lives for them, is all the proof I need that human beings are not mere animals of self-interest. We carry within us a divine spark, and if we chose to recognize it, our lives have dignity, meaning, hope.

The greatest joys in life are found not only in what we do and feel, but also in our quiet hopes and labors for others.

We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.

Everyone knows that where there is something that is capable of giving profit, then exploited it will be.

Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to do that's got some dignity to it! Risk your souls! Risk them in good causes; then if you lose them, why should you care? Reform!

Time itself is created through deeds of true kindness.

It is these undeniable qualities of human love and compassion and self-sacrifice that give me hope for the future. We are, indeed, often cruel and evil. Nobody can deny this. We gang up on each one another, we torture each other, with words as well as deeds, we fight, we kill. But we are also capable of the most noble, generous, and heroic behavior.

Pure philanthropy is very well in its way but philanthropy plus five percent is a good deal better.

To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. . . . For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.

Everything vanishes round me and good works rise from me of their own accord.

Whoever has really sacrificed anything, knows that he wanted and got something in return.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

Charity is a flower not naturally of earthly growth, and it needs manuring with a promise of profit.

What you do for yourself is one thing. What you do for others is something else entirely.

Self sacrifice is the real miracle out of which all the reported miracles grow.