Very usually, altruism is only the sublimest form of selfishness.

I only appear selfish to a saint.

A selfish person is someone who doesn't think about me.

It often turns out on closer inspection that acts of apparent altruism are really selfishness in disguise.

Service without humility is selfishness and egotism.

It is in fact the height of selfishness to merely consume what others create and to retreat into a shell of limited goals and immediate pleasures.

The only sin is selfishness.

Not selfishness, but precisely the absence of a self. Look at them. The man who cheats and lies, but preserves a respectable front. He knows himself to be dishonest, but others think he’s honest and he derives his self-respect from that, second-hand. The man who takes credit for an achievement which is not his own. He knows himself to be mediocre, but he’s great in the eyes of others.

Selfishness is hypocritical by nature, and seizes on the first decent excuse as a cloak ;

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college.

Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief a forlorn hope it is impossible.

Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.

Rivalry discovers that courtesy overlooks.