Individual Interests Quotes

Well first of all, tell me, is there some society you know of that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course, none of us are greedy, it’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way. The only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you’re talking about, the only cases in recorded history, are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worse off, worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.

… markets don't look after social needs. Markets are designed to allow individuals to look after their private needs and to pursue profit. It's really a great invention and I wouldn't under-estimate the value of that, but they're not designed to take care of social needs.

The values that East Asian culture upholds, such as the primacy of group interests over individual interests, support the total group effort necessary to develop rapidly.

According to Marx, socialism is the first stage of communism and it covers a very long historical period in which we must practise the principle "to each according to his work" and combine the interests of the state, the collective and the individual, for only thus can we arouse people's enthusiasm for labour and develop socialist production.

You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity.

The Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism [which] denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual.

No universal selfishness can bring social good to all.

The Republican Party has been captured by a bunch of extremists … People who maintain that markets will take care of everything, that you leave it to the markets and the markets know best. Therefore, you need no government, no interference with business. Let everybody pursue his own interests. And that will serve the common interest. Now, there is a good foundation for this. But it's a half-truth.

Despite advances achieved through objective scientific investigation, and the breaking down of long-standing fears and superstitions, the world is still not a reasonable place. Many attempts to make it so have failed because of selfish individual and national interests.

Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for me. I should infinitely prefer a book.

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

The great axioms of political science are deduced from the knowledge of the true political interests of all States: in these general interests lies the security for their existence, while the individual interests,—to which the daily or transitory political movements occasionally lend a great importance, and the promotion of which constitutes political wisdom in the eyes of a restless and short-sighted policy,—possess only a relative and secondary worth.

Either the happiness of the many or the predominance of the few must be sacrificed

Race drivers are fiercely competitive animals, and there is often a conflict between what is right for the team and what is right for the individual.

The modern civilized State has been developed by the antagonism between individual and social interests, which has transformed primitive Society into Civilization.

I will never blame a fighter if he doesn't fight me because he takes care of his own interest first, and prioritize the interests of his family first, that's completely normal.

Luxury and excessive refinement are sure forerunners of the decadence of states, because when all individuals seek their own interests they neglect the public weal.

I decided at 10 I wanted to be in a band; everyone else wanted to play football.

We live in a world where people are really hungry for information, and they're not hungry for information on subjects that they're not interested in.

How can there ever possibly be a conflict between my private interests and the public good?

Our relationship finally ended when he took to waking me up in the wee hours o the morning when he would go surfing. He thought it might be fun to have me come watch. "Fun for who?" I wanted to ask. i had never asked him to come to Happy Hour and watch me drink.

The sentiment that is very inappropriately named equality is fresh, strong, alert, precisely because it is not, in fact, a sentiment of equality and is not related to any abstraction, as a few naive "intellectuals" still believe; but because it is related to the direct interests of individuals who are bent on escaping certain inequalities not in their favour, and setting up new inequalities that will be in their favour, this latter being their chief concern.

Self-preservation and self-denial: the basis of all political economy.

No right of preference exists in favor of person, property, or business. Personal claims and ambitions must yield in favor of whatever best serves the general welfare.

If development is the new name for peace, war and preparations for war are the major enemy of the healthy development of peoples. If we take the common good of all humanity as our norm, instead of individual greed, peace would be possible.