Mason Cooley Quotes

Altruism is for those who can't endure their desires. There's a world as ambiguous as a moan, a pleasure moan our earnest neighbors might think a crime. It's where we could live. I'll say I love you, Which will lead, of course, to disappointment, but those words unsaid poison every next moment. I will try to disappoint you better than anyone else has. --Mon Semblable

The hardest work you and I will ever do is to put off our selfishness. It is heavy lifting!

Be more concerned with everybody else than yourself.

I fight for other people better than I fight for myself.

Never forget - happiness ends when selfishness begins.

It's wrong to deprive someone else of a pleasure so that you can enjoy one yourself, but to deprive yourself of a pleasure so that you can add to someone else's enjoyment is an act of humanity by which you always gain more than you lose.

What nobility of feeling! To sacrifice your own pleasure to preserve the comfort of others! It is a thing, I confess, that would never occur to me.

Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.

What is the mark of love for your neighbor? Not to seek what is for your own benefit, but what is for the benefit of the one loved, both in body and in soul.

Selfish— a judgment readily passed by those who have never tested their own power of sacrifice.

Altruism declares that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one's own benefit is evil. Thus the beneficiary of an action is the only criterion of moral value - and so long as that beneficiary is anybody other than oneself, anything goes.

The sole way to save oneself is to save others. Or to struggle to save others -even that is sufficient.

Selfish is easy. It's sharing that takes courage.

Unselfishness is more paying, only people have not the patience to practice it.

Love is something you do for someone else, not something you do for yourself.

The most sublime act is to set another before you.

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

Heroes are people who think more of others than themselves. This is not to say that they don't think of themselves. They do. They certainly do. But they think of others more.

It's always easier to sacrifice when you're not the one who has to do it.

The secret to greatness is in serving everyone else.

I often long to . . . give up my life to love of my neighbour. This is really a temptation.

The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice,' but integrity.

We must want for others, not ourselves alone.

It is a luxury to put our interests first. It is an honor to put the interests of others before our own.