Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.
Even wisdom has to yield to self-interest.
Many of these [big political] donors are my friends. Those people are not like charities ... They Want. These are total tough cookies. When they give millions and millions of dollars, they're not doing it for the good of the American Cancer Society. They're doing it for themselves.
Bureaucrats serve their own interests first.
They regard as just whatever they believe to be advantageous.
The common class of mankind are actuated by no nobler principle than that of self-interest; this and this alone determines all adventurers in privateers: the owners, as well as those whom they employ.
There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth.
Men will always be powerfully influenced in their Opinions and Actions by what appears to be their particular Interest.
I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people.
Conservatives are unashamed by self-interest and feel comfortable exercising power on their own behalf.
What most men call their conscience is imaginary virtue switching left or right according to self-interest.
Everybody has an agenda.
The problem is, of course, that these interest groups are all asking for changes, but their enthusiasm for change rapidly disappears when it affects the core of their own interests.
People don't change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.
Many American pundits and foreign policy experts love to depict themselves as crusaders for human rights, but it almost always takes the form of condemning other governments, never their own.
Groups break up because they never got across what they wanted to do personally, and they have creative differences, and egos start to clash.
I think most people act in their self-interest.
