E. O. Wilson Quotes

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.

I believe in cooperating for the common good.

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society.

The social organization of work is the most complicated and difficult problem that humanity has ever had to solve. it requires the free participation of all to the joint common work, and, consequently, to a reconditioning) of men that bring them to overcome their selfishness and understand their duty towards themselves and towards the community.

You can't be 100 percent selfish when you're working with somebody else.

Earn your success based on service to others, not at the expense of others.

Ants are good citizens, they place group interests first.

For a solitary animal egoism is a virtue that tends to preserve and improve the species: in any kind of community it becomes a destructive vice.

Without social cohesion, the human race wouldn't be here: We're not formidable enough to survive without the tactics, rules and strategies that allow people to work together.

Charity in the theater begins and ends with those who have a play opening within a week of one's own.

All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone.

You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

I want some colleague to be free to come help me when I say the time has come. That's what I'm fighting for, me. Now that sounds selfish. And if it helps somebody else, so be it.

I think I'm a better collaborator, in seeing the bigger picture and trying to just help that, and not be so self-centered in whatever my task is, which is being an actor.

It's hard to get people to overcome the thought that they have to take care of themselves first. It's hard to get players to give in to the group and become selfless as opposed to selfish.

The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies.

I guess because I'm a liberal I think it's not people's natural instinct to be completely self-interested.

It is ... difficult to induce a number of free beings to co-operate for their mutual benefit.

Join cooperatively with one another, put aside self-interest, and take on service to the public …

The balance between the cooperative and altruistic tendencies and those which are disoperative and egoistic is relatively close. Under many conditions the cooperative forces lose, In the long run, however, the group centered, more altruistic drives are slightly stronger. ... human altruistic drives are as firmly based on an animal ancestry as is man himself.

The major forces in human nature: self interest and caring for others

I've had teammates that are mirror guys. While they want to win, what they're really concerned about is themselves. In a win, they could be upset. In a loss, they could be happy. All that mattered was their own success. Window people, on the other hand, measure success by the contribution they make into the lives of others.

You can put yourself to the purpose of others, and in doing so, you can be better off.

It's not about me. It's about the organization being successful.