Isaac Rosenberg Quotes

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas; that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own by accepting them.

Nature... is nothing but the inner voice of self-interest.

There are points in your life, especially if you have creative ambitions, where selfishness is necessary.

Everything comes out of what works for me.

The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is 'mine,' and it is not a general one, but is - 'unique,' as I am unique. Nothing is more to me than myself!

But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals.

The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves.

I didn't do this for other people; I did this for me. I fought for this right for me - does that sound selfish?

People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives.

People know things and have a remarkable capacity to act in their individual immediate interests all the time.

Man exists for his own sake, and not to add a laborer to the State.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?

Politically, economically and philosophically the motive of self-interest not only is but must...and ought to be the mainspring of human conduct...

I know what I do and what it means to me and where its sources lie, and that's mine. It still is mine.

Deciding to not attach ourselves to something that doesn't appropriately represent us is extremely powerful.

Nature governs man by no principle more fixed than that which leads him to pursue his interest.

Even if there are people around to help you, you don't suffer with an audience; you don't triumph with an audience.

I don't fight for anybody else besides myself and my family, so therefore I win.

When you've worked as hard as I have to form your identity, the last thing you want is to blur where you end and someone else begins.

My loyalty is to myself, actually. I don't know if it's to my readers.

You have to live through things. You can't have other people telling you to do that and do this. It's important to live through things.

We don't believe other people's experiences can tell us all that much about our own. I think this is an illusion of uniqueness.

I don't believe I am influencing anybody but myself.

Everybody is determined by his own experience.