Cesare Beccaria Quotes

To be interested in the public good we must be disinterested, that is, not interested in goods in which our personal selves are wrapped up.

Human beings place their desires ahead of the collective good.

Everyone living under the social contract we call democracy has a duty to act responsibly, to obey the laws, and to abandon certain types of self-interested behaviors that conflict with the general good.

A coldly rationalist individualist can deny that he has any obligation to make sacrifices for the future.

We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.

Liberals worry that what's best for the individual might not be better for the public at large. But that philosophy assumes something vicious about each and every one of us. It assumes we only care about ourselves.

Everyone thinks chiefly of his own, hardly ever of the public interest.

When fear, especially a fear for one’s own well-being, clouds decisions on public policy, the public ends up falling into a solipsistic trap – each individual is so concerned with his or her own particular future, that one fails to consider the best interests of the community as a whole.

The leader is supposed to represent the community, the public good. He's supposed to be the focal point and the guide and the inspiration, and to represent a concern for the public good. The trouble is, the tragic problem is, very often, when you are a leader and pursue the public good, it may be at the expense of your private interests in a very drastic way

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

Upon the principles of reason, the good of many is preferable to the good of a few or of one; a lasting good is to be preferred before a temporary, the public before the private.

I try to persuade people to act in ways that are not only in their own interest, but in the interest of society at large.

Man is essentially a selfish creature. The differences in the degree with which this developed are infinite.

There's no such thing as altruism.

Some of us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than an aberration of the human spirit.

Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism.

It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good.

Every forward is selfish, and any forward who tells you he is not selfish is a liar.

I think that in today's world, by nature, we are all self-centered. And that often leads to selfishness.

If you talk to most businessmen, they'll say that what they do is for the public good, but you know they're just greedy, and consumers are just consuming for the sake of their own greed.

If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.

Glory, built on selfish principles, is shame and guilt.

Every man is to be considered in two capacities, the private and public; as designed to pursue his own interest, and likewise to contribute to the good of others.

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.

Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.