Richard Dawkins Quotes

We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.

Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.

From this it follows that con-sideration for other persons or for other living beings is very vital for goodness and want of consideration for other people makes human beings selfish, regardless for other people's good.

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

Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish.

I've always been antagonistic to any naïve application of the selfish gene theory to politics. Some people have attempted to suggest that it means we are selfish or we should be selfish.

People are selfish. But they can also be compassionate and generous, and they care about the country. But not when they feel threatened. That’s why this is such a crucial time. We can go in either direction. But if we don’t make a choice soon, it will be too late to turn things around. I think people are willing to make the right choice. But they need leadership. They’re hungry for leadership.

Our minds have been built by selfish genes, but they have been built to be social, trustworthy and cooperative.

We're all born with selfish desires, so we can all relate to those feelings in others. But kindness is something made individually by each person. So it's easy to misunderstand when others are trying to be kind to you.

A gene might be able to assist replicas of itself that are sitting in other bodies. If so, this would appear as individual altruism but it would be brought about by gene selfishness.

We're selfish to some degree, that's not a criticism and it doesn't mean that we are all narcissists. But in any situation our minds naturally evolve to what's in it for me? How does this affect me? Can this benefit me? Can this harm me? Then we might move on from that and have a more altruistic point of view about things but that's almost always our initial response.

That which is selfish is immoral, and that which is unselfish is moral.

A selfish basis would not serve the purpose of taking a man higher and higher along the paths of evolution.

Is this what you have in mind,' I asked the Dalai Lama, 'when you say in teachings that the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the world are the most selfish beings of all, that by cultivating altruism they actually achieve ultimate happiness for themselves?' Yes. That's wise selfish,' he replied. 'Helping others not means we do this at our own expense. Not like this. Buddhas and bodhisattvas, these people very wise. All their lives they only want one thing: to achieve ultimate happiness. How to do this? By cultivating compassion, by cultivating altruism.

I'm trying to teach people not to be selfish. That's the thing. If you have a good thing share it. Of course we're not in a sexual relationship.

It is to the credit of human nature that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates.

You have endless energy only when you are working for the good of the whole - you have to stop working for your little selfish interests. That's the secret of it. In this world you are given as you give.

We must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering.

Individual versus group selection results in a mix of altruism and selfishness, of virtue and sin, among the members of a society. If one colony member devotes its life to service over marriage, the individual is of benefit to the society, even though it does not have personal offspring. A soldier going into battle will benefit his country, but he runs a higher risk of death than one who does not. An altruist benefits the group, but a layabout or coward who saves his own energy and reduces his bodily risk passes the resulting social cost to others.

Altruism is one of the most fundamentally social impulses, and doing things for others without expecting anything in return is core to what makes us human. This is why, from the day Facebook Platform launched in 2007, Causes has been honored to be one of the most popular applications, with over 140 million users.

What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a gene that makes organisms sacrifice themselves for other organisms under the influence of selfish genes.

Pure libertarianism believes that people will be generous and help each other. Well, they won't. I wish it were so, and I live that way.

Altruism has always been one of biology's deep mysteries. Why should any animal, off on its own, specified and labeled by all sorts of signals as its individual self, choose to give up its life in aid of someone else?

All our acts, reasoned and unreasoned, are selfish