Selfishness Sentence Examples

The selfishness of the three directors threw away this golden opportunity.

It is not easy to see how Washington survived the year 1775; the colonial poverty, the exasperating annoyances, the outspoken criticism of those who demanded active operations, the personal and party dissensions in Congress, the selfishness or stupidity which cropped out again and again among some of the most patriotic of his coadjutors were enough to have broken down most men.

But Miranda's desire - that all the South American colonies should form a federal republic - awoke the selfishness of provincial administrations, and the cause was believed to be hateful to heaven owing to a great earthquake on the 26th of March 1812.

It protests against contemporary industrial selfishness, and against the organization of industry on the Darwinian principle of struggle for existence.

Some had heard of his great learning, and others had heard of his selfishness and cruelty.

At a later stage in his reign he was guilty of an act of even grosser selfishness; for after the War of the Polish Succession, in which he supported the claims of Augustus III.,elector of Saxony,he yielded Lorraine to Stanislaus Leszczynski, whose claims had been defended by France, and through whom France ultimately secured this beautiful German province.

It is perhaps easy to understand how, in the crisis of 1640, when the ethico-political system of Hobbes first took written shape, a peace-loving philosopher should regard the claims of individual conscience as essentially anarchical, and dangerous to social well-being; but however strong might be men's yearning for order, a view of social duty, in which the only fixed positions were selfishness everywhere and unlimited power somewhere, could not but appear offensively paradoxical.

Suicide, and all other forms of selfishness, are highly reprehensible.

The gross selfishness of the Spartans, herein exemplified, was emphasized by their capture of the Theban citadel, and, after their expulsion, by the raid upon Attica in time of peace by the Spartan Sphodrias, and his immunity from punishment at Sparta (summer of 378 B.C.).

Their mutual jealousies, combined with the prestige of the empire, and possibly with the selfishness of the pope, who had secured his own position, and was not likely to foster a national spirit that would have threatened the ecclesiastical supremacy, deprived the Italians of the only great opportunity they ever had of forming themselves into a powerful nation.

It abounds in error as to matters of fact, contradicts human experience, reason and morals, and is one tissue of folly, deceit, enthusiasm, selfishness and crime.

His prestige and his good qualities, carefully fostered by Seneca, made him popular, while his childish vanity, ungovernable selfishness and savage temper were as yet unsuspected.

Pure selfishness was the basis of his policy both in domestic and foreign affairs.

Such analysis had been already attempted by Hobbes, and the result he came to was that man naturally is adapted only for a life of selfishness, - his end is the procuring of pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

A certain balance had to be struck in most cases between the greed and selfishness of the class of landowners and the necessary requirements and human aspirations of the subjects.

But he is best vindicated from the charges of selfishness and cowardice by the thoughts and meditations contained in his private diaries and papers, where the purity and honour of his motives are clearly seen.

Until you took an innocent human and condemned her to near-death for your selfishness.

As well as creative love, we see destructive, grasping selfishness.

But most of the time our anger is rooted in selfishness, our thoughts are evil, even murderous.

Taylor's theology was distinctively infra-lapsarian; it disagreed with Samuel Hopkins and Emmons in rejecting the theory of "divine efficiency" and in arguing that man can choose the right "even if he won't" - distinguishing like Edwards between natural ability and moral inability; it distinguished sensibility or susceptibility as something different from will or understanding, without moral qualities, to which the appeal for right choice may be made; and it made selflove (a term borrowed from Dugald Stewart, connoting the innocent love of happiness and distinct from selfishness) the particular feeling appealed to by the influences of the law and gospel.

Yet it may be doubted whether any such division can be safely assumed; and it may suffice to repeat that no domestic tragedy has ever taught with more effective simplicity and thrilling truthfulness the homely double lesson of the folly of selfishness and the mad rashness of crime.

But the cynical expressions of such a man are not to be taken too literally; and the mere fact that he lived and died in the esteem of many friends suffices to show that the theoretical selfishness which he sometimes professed cannot have been consistently and at all times carried into practice.

Neither of the heroines has any but the rudiments of a moral sense; but Roxana, both in her original transgression and in her subsequent conduct, is actuated merely by avarice and selfishness - vices which are peculiarly offensive in connexion with her other failing, and which make her thoroughly repulsive.

Buckle has the idea that the two principal works of Smith, the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, are mutually complementary parts of one great scheme, in which human nature is intended to be dealt with as a whole - the former exhibiting the operation of the benevolent feelings, the latter of what, by a singular nomenclature, inadmissible since Butler wrote, he calls "the passion of selfishness."

Meanwhile the " Popish Plot," the creation of a band of impostors encouraged by Shaftesbury and the most violent and unscrupulous of the extreme Protestant party in order to exclude James from the throne, had thrown the whole country into a panic. Charles's conduct in this conjuncture was highly characteristic and was marked by his usual cynical selfishness.

Kinney is able to use Greg's shortcomings to derive most of the humor and jokes from the series, and his line drawings illustrate the funny side of Greg's selfishness and greed.

It may suffice to repeat that no domestic tragedy has ever taught with more effective simplicity and thrilling truthfulness the homely double lesson of the folly of selfishness and the mad rashness of crime.

He had a vision of a political economy based not on selfishness but on love, not on desire but on self-denial.

There is only one answer; the principal cause of this complete and irretrievable collapse is to be sought for in the folly, egotism and selfishness of the Polish gentry, whose insane dislike of all discipline, including even the salutary discipline of regular government, converted Poland into something very like a primitive tribal community at the very time when every European statesman, including the more enlightened of the Poles themselves, clearly recognized that the political future belonged to the strongly centralized monarchies, which were everywhere rising on the ruins of feudalism.

In these stories Strindberg's fanatic hatred of womankind already makes its appearance, the disasters of the principal figures being precipitated by the selfishness and immorality of the women.

His ambition might be interpreted as selfishness, but certainly showed no coldness of heart.

Such examples as existed of even semi-federal union were very loose in structure, and the selfishness of the component units was the predominant feature.

The social and political decrepitude of Italy, where patriotism was unknown, and only selfishness survived of all the motives that rouse men to action, found its representative and exponent in Guicciardini.

On the banks of the Susquehanna was to be founded a brotherly community, where selfishness was to be extinguished, and the virtues were to reign supreme.

His selfishness, his cruelty, his ingratitude, his fierce hatred of criticism and opposition, his sensuality, had yet to be discovered by his subjects.

The king was generally loathed, not so much for his viceswhich would have been, in this case as in others, condoned in a more popular monarchbut for the notorious meanness and selfishness of his character.

Yet through the obstinacy and selfishness of John the Good, France, in stress of suffering, was gradually realizing herself.

But during the atrocious holocausts formidable states had grown up around France, observing her and threatening her; and on the other hand, as on the morrow of the Hundred Years War, the lassitude of the country, the lack of political feeling on the part of the upper classes and their selfishness, led to a fresh abdication of the nations rights.

How far the extraordinary corruption of private morals which has gained for the restoration period so unenviable a notoriety was owing to the king's own example of flagrant debauchery, how far to the natural reaction from an artificial Puritanism, is uncertain, but it is incontestable that Charles's cynical selfishness was the chief cause of the degradation of public life which marks his reign, and of the disgraceful and unscrupulous betrayal of the national interests which raised France to a threatening predominance and imperilled the very existence of Britain for generations.

You might want to check out different Bible versus where outbursts of anger are listed with other sinful behaviors like quarreling, jealousy, and selfishness.

It's rude and shows immaturity and selfishness.

He puts far greater stress than his predecessors upon the sympathetic pleasures, and thus quite avoids that appearance of mean prudential selfishness that is such a depressing feature in Paley and Bentham.

Nay, it is greatly overrated; and it is our selfishness which overrates it.

He understood that political materialism, selfishness and corruption in federal administration afford the strongest possible argument for those who advocate strengthening the independent power of the separate states at the expense of nationalism.

In the main he was right; but he forgot too much the provocation they had received, the usurpations and selfishness of the governing family, and the unpatriotic character of the king.

Her ideal was a narrow and unworthy one, and was pursued with a calculating selfishness and a total disregard for the rights of others, which robbed it of the moral worth it might otherwise have possessed.

He means this - that he is no mere ecstatic enthusiast or "dervish," whose primary aim is to keep up the warlike spirit of the people, taking for granted that Yahweh is on the people's side, and that he is perfectly free from the taint of selfishness, not having to support himself by his prophesying.