Egoism Quotes

Once the egoism has gone (stopped), all the worldly ‘matter’ of the body-complex [pudgal] are renounced! Where there is egoism, there is my-ness and where there is my-ness, there is a hidden egoism. When ‘Knowledge of the Self’ is attained, egoism and my-ness goes away. Only the dramatic (discharge) ‘egoism’ and ‘my-ness’ will remain.

Shine your soul with the same egoless humility as the rainbow and no matter where you go in this world or the next, love will find you, attend you, and bless you.

Leaders don’t hide good news from their followers. As long as they discover knowledge, they share knowledge. They leave part of them with people they meet; hence they are hardly missed when they are gone.

Someone who is said to have a big ego is thought to be full of themselves, to lack the ability to listen, to always rush to be at the top of the tree and to think their own ideas are the best.

Don't feed your ego with my soul.

Egoism holds, therefore, is that each man's happiness is the sole good--that a number of different things are each of them the only good thing there is--an absolute contradiction! No more complete and thorough refutation of any theory could be desired.

Many people suffer great miseries but if you ask them in front of others, 'you went through great difficulty, didn't you?', then they will respond, 'no, no I didn't have any suffering'. Then they feel happy. So what kind of ‘egoism’ should one do? During times of sorrow, one should do the ‘egoism’ of happiness such that 'no one is happier than I!' People in general do the ‘egoism’ of sorrow at the time of happiness.

There is only one power which can from within undermine egoism at the root, and really does undermine it, namely love, and chiefly sexual love. The falsehood and evil of egoism consists in the exclusive acknowledgement of absolute significance for oneself and in the denial of it for others. Reason shows us that this is unfounded and unjust, but simply by the facts love directly abrogates such an unjust relation, compelling us not by abstract consciousness, but by an internal emotion and the will of life to recognize for ourselves the absolute significance of another. Recognizing in love the truth of another, not abstractly, but essentially, transferring in deed the centre of our life beyond the limits of our empirical personality, we by so doing reveal and realize our own real truth, our own absolute significance, which consists just in our capacity to transcend the borders of our factual phenomenal being, in our capacity to live not only in ourselves, but also in another.

She enjoyed her own pain by this egoism of suffering, if I may so express it. This aggravation of suffering and this rebelling in it I could understand; it is the enjoyment of man, of the insulted and injured, oppressed by destiny, and smarting under the sense of its injustice.

The ‘one’ who does no ‘egoism’, the worldly life ends for him!

I was transformed the dayMy ego shattered,And all the superficial, materialThings that matteredTo me before,Suddenly ceasedTo matter.

As many numbers of people as are there, there are that many varieties of egoisms.

Every action (‘doing’) causes bondage. ‘Doing’ is not needed for Liberation. For liberation, ‘action’ of Knowledge is required. Action of ignorance [of the self] is bondage. Action done with egoism is known as ignorant-action and the action done without egoism is known as knowledge-action.

This is not suitable for me”- to say this is indeed madness, it is nothing but egoism. To say ‘will not suit’ is an offense.

People who are depressed at the thought that all our motives are selfish are [confused]. They have mixed up ultimate causation (why something evolved by natural selection) with proximate causation (how the entity works here and now). [A] good way to understand the logic of natural selection is to imagine that genes are agents with selfish motives. [T]he genes have metaphorical motives — making copies of themselves — and the organisms they design have real motives. But they are not the same motives. Sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is wire unselfish motives into a human brain — heartfelt, unstinting, deep-in-the-marrow unselfishness. The love of children (who carry one's genes into posterity), a faithful spouse (whose genetic fate is identical to one's own), and friends and allies (who trust you if you're trustworthy) can be bottomless and unimpeachable as far as we humans are concerned (proximate level), even if it is metaphorically self-serving as far as the genes are concerned (ultimate level). Combine this with the common misconception that the genes are a kind of essence or core of the person, and you get a mongrel of Dawkins and Freud: the idea that the metaphorical motives of the genes are the deep, unconscious, ulterior motives of the person. That is an error.

Egoism devours all the energy, and in addition it makes one suffer.

In reality, the outer instruments (hands, feet, eyes, etc) are not the hindrance (for liberation); it is the inner instrument (mind, intellect, chit and ego) that is obstructive.

One’ is not a doer in this world. Where he believes that he is the doer, there is ‘charging’ (of karma). When one tastes egoistic pride of, “I did this samayik, I did these activities”, he will ‘charge’ (karma). The taste of egoistic pride is very sweet.

The men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss.

Politicians look for interests not people

Knowledge of all living beings of the entire world is in only one Soul. But the knowledge that sees the ego and everything, as objects to be known (gneya); only that knowledge is called as the ‘Knowledge’. However, that is partial Knowledge but only from that moment it is regarded as real applied focused awareness. Where there is Knowledge, the focused applied awareness may be partial or complete.

There isn’t a parallel of latitude but thinks it would have been the equator if it had had its rights.

The ego dies and the ego lives, but people say that ‘I died’. That which takes birth and dies is the ego, and the Soul is in the same place (is always intact). Even Pudgal (the atoms that were charged; which are being discharged in the form of mind, body, speech) is in the same place. The issue is only of the ego in the middle.

The one whose egoism is gone, he becomes God. One is a mortal (jivatma) as long as there is egoism and if his egoism goes away, he becomes the eternal Absolute Supreme Soul (Paramatma).

Egoism of the ignorant stage (ignorance of the true self) is considered live egoism. It becomes lifeless after attaining knowledge of the Self. If one takes the side of this lifeless egoism that, “I am not like that”- it will become alive again. Lifeless egoism is to be disposed off; it is not to be protected.

As long as the egoism is alive, ‘my-ness’ remains within the self.

Perhaps what I am about to say will appear strange to you gentlemen, socialists, progressives, humanitarians as you are, but I never worry about my neighbor, I never try to protect society which does not protect me -- indeed, I might add, which generally takes no heed of me except to do me harm -- and, since I hold them low in my esteem and remain neutral towards them, I believe that society and my neighbor are in my debt.

In order to make the egoism non-existent [zero], the Gnani Purush [the enlightened one] establishes the awareness of the Pure Soul within.

The weak are dominated by their ego, the wise dominate their ego, and the intelligent are in a constant struggle against their ego.

When I was a student, there wasn't a single thing we did that was unrelated to others. It was all for the Emperor, or parents, or the country, or society—everything was other-centered, which means that all educated men were hypocrites. When society changed, this hypocrisy ceased to work, and as a result, self-centeredness was gradually imported into thought and action, and egoism became enormously over-developed. Instead of the old hypocrites, now all we've got are out-and-out rogues. Do you see what I mean by that?

Conflicting egos destroy many relationships. Lasting, stable marriages are a true treasure because they demand that both parties adjust to the constant cellular flux of their partner as they metaphase through changing seasons of life.

Where the world comes in my way - and it comes in my way everywhere - I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but - my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. We have only one relation to each other, that of usableness, of utility, of use. We owe each other nothing, for what I seem to owe you I owe at most to myself. If I show you a cheery air in order to cheer you likewise, then your cheeriness is of consequence to me, and my air serves my wish; to a thousand others, whom I do not aim to cheer, I do not show it.

ego promenades, flounces, pushes in unwanted places, trips, stands on others, whereas a sense of destiny grounds - you just do what you do

It’s easy to count other people’s mistakes. Make your own if you can.

But self-abasement is just inverted egoism. Anyone who acts with genuine humility will be as far from humiliation as from arrogance.

It is only man's egoism that wants to keep woman like some buried treasure.

Shyness is just egoism out of its depth.

Failure to recognize one's own absolute significance is equivalent to a denial of human worth; this is a basic error and the origin of all unbelief. If one is so faint-hearted that he is powerless even to believe in himself, how can he believe in anything else? The basic falsehood and evil of egoism lie not in this absolute self-consciousness and self-evaluation of the subject, but in the fact that, ascribing to himself in all justice an absolute significance, he unjustly refuses to others this same significance. Recognizing himself as a centre of life (which as a matter of fact he is), he relegates others to the circumference of his own being and leaves them only an external and relative value.

We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It is the price we pay for these times of ours.

What spreads the stench of bad conduct? It is the egoism and other ‘flaws’.

To run the worldly life, Egoism is not required. To bind [karma] for the next life, Egoism is required. If one doesn’t want the bondage for the next life, then also it is possible to conduct the worldly life without egoism. Entire worldly life is in the ‘discharge’ form. So it will continue to ‘discharge’ by itself.

Egoism and Money [Goddess of wealth; Lakshmi] are very much at odds [have great enmity]. There should be just enough egoism to accomplish one’s work. Beyond that, any expanded egoism and money have great enmity. Money (Lakshmi) stays away from it.

You'll make bundle of blunders if you consider yourself too clever to look at anothers work.

If one has egoism without my-ness, he will go to moksha; all this entrapment is there because of egoism with my-ness!

Where there is ‘egoism’, there is no God. Where there is God, there is no ‘egoism’.

An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pierglass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, the candle is the egoism of any party now absent.

If we break someone’s ego, then we can’t be happy. Egoism is his life!

She was a wicked thing sometimes. All full of want. As if the shape of the world depended on her mood. As if she were important.

One creates ownership and then does egoism towards it, that is why suffering arises. No one is a boss/owner of anyone. Whose things and whose goods? However many fishes one catches from the sea, they are his. After he catches them, he gives rise to its ownership, he creates a liability for it.

No egoism is so insufferable as the Christian with regard to his soul.

Whatever one knows, he knows on the basis of his egoism. The ‘Gnani’ [The enlightened one], who doesn’t know how to do anything; has no egoism whatsoever.

The point that I think myself to be so terribly clever is the precise point at which I am beginning to think myself to be god-like, which causes me to become God-less.

It is not possible to know ‘Who am I?’ by ‘doing’. ‘Doing’ (anything), requires egoism, and where there is egoism, ‘Who am I’ cannot be known.

Passion makes you good, but pride stops you to get better.

The worldly life runs easily due to the egoism which is the by-production of the worldly life. By increasing the egoism there, one has incurred endless worries.

Come clean about your true nature before the day the body ceases. Hard not to cling to duality as the excuse, but every brain is manifesting duality as if it is some internal feature projected outward for the attention of others.

Worry is the greatest seed [cause] for the worldly life because worrying is the greatest egoism. If the egoism leaves, then worries will go away.

The mind that does inner intentions (bhaav-mann) is the ‘charge’ mind. The mind that is getting exhausted (dravya-mann) is the ‘discharge’ mind. Bhaav-mann creates the worldly life. Dravya-mann brings an end to the worldly life. When egoism goes away, bhaav-mann vanishes.

It is through the filter of our ego that we give meaning to everything we see, touch, hear, taste and feel.

What does the world teach you? It teaches you (to do) egoism. Then, from that egoism, arise many many phases!