Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

In a culture where profit has become the true God, self-sacrifice can seem incomprehensible rather than noble.

If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs do for the sake of our church : it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.

Mankind deserves sacrifice - but not of mankind.

There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up.

There are things that are more important than my personal happiness.

I tried self-sacrifice a couple of times in my youth.

Doing the right thing for someone else occasionally means doing something that feels wrong to you.

[Altruism] is a moral system which holds that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the sole justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, value and virtue. This is the moral base of collectivism, of all dictatorships.

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

Our German language has a word which in a magnificent way denotes conduct based on this spirit: doing one's duty [Pflichterfüllung]-which means serving the community instead of contenting oneself. We have a word for the basic disposition which underlies conduct of this kind in contrast to egoism and selfishness-idealism. By 'idealism' we mean only the ability of the individual to sacrifice himself for the whole, for his fellow men.

Most of us would do more for our babies than we have ever been willing to do for anyone, even ourselves.

I'd rather have happiness than money. People ask for it. Sometimes when I don't have it. I make other people's problems my problem because they want me to; they ask me to.

In everyday things the law of sacrifice takes the form of positive duty.

Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

How can you regret helping a suffering patient?

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

There is no moral authority like that of sacrifice.

And it is this sense that some of us have to contribute to the culture, to the society in ways that may hurt financially, so what? We do it because we are born to do it, we feel we have no other choice and so be it.

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

For the greater good, I thought I should be a spiritual leader for people for some reason.

I am willing to make any part of my life public, if it will help others.

Heroes represent the best of ourselves, respecting that we are human beings. A hero can be anyone from Gandhi to your classroom teacher, anyone who can show courage when faced with a problem. A hero is someone who is willing to help others in his or her best capacity.

A lot of people, some of them close to me as well, have said that I sacrificed myself by doing what I did in bringing Terry on board. I didn't see it that way.

You have tremendous flexibility in defining both the greater good and the greater community. If you don't succeed in this, then you will continue to pull that heavy wagon up the mountain, and despite the fact that you are pulling it, it will somehow run over your own foot.

It seems that the world considers whoever gets benefit is the virtuous one