EGOISM • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Egoism

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/ˈigoʊˌɪzəm/ Listen

Egoism

noun

(ethics) the theory that the pursuit of your own welfare in the basis of morality.

Concern for your own interests and welfare. Synonyms: egocentrism, self-centeredness, self-concern, self-interest. Antonym: altruism.

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"Egoism" Quotes from Famous Books

... their properties which are also correlated to each other. And of the three qualities, which are gradually characterised by each, in order of priority is consciousness which is called the mind. The seventh is intelligence and after that comes egoism; and then the five senses, then the soul, then the moral qualities called sattwa, rajas and tamas. These seventeen are said to be the unknown or incomprehensible qualities. I have described all this to thee, what else ...

— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... when my works are developed, you will realise that it required many an hour to think out and write so many things; then you will absolve me for all that has displeased you, and you will pardon, not the egoism of the man (for he has none), but the egoism of the thinker ...

— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet

... confession of her long and passionate desire to be beautiful. The story ended with the lonely and terrible surrender of her religion. He was profoundly interested. Once or twice he was appalled. Did he take this woman, he must assume responsibility for every part of her. She was so wholly without egoism that she would give herself up without reservation and expect him to guide her. That would be all very well with the ordinary woman; but with a nature of high ideals, and possibly of transcendent passions,—was he equal to the task? But in his present mood the prospect fascinated him. One ...

— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... inspirations, and gives a sharp ring to the laughter. Their table-talk was full of bitter irony which turns a jest into a sneer; it told of the exhaustion of souls given over to themselves; of lives with no end in view but the satisfaction of self—of egoism induced by these times of peace in which we live. I can think of nothing like it save a pamphlet against mankind at large which Diderot was afraid to publish, a book that bares man's breast simply to expose the plague-sores upon it. We listened to just such a pamphlet as Rameau's Nephew, spoken ...

— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac

... lonely tragic third, become, as the other two, one of an indivisible trinity. Such unions of natures of especial grace have been born under like conditions of fated intercourse, and they have been unions of a strange beauty, the more blest by the sense of a conquest over love's one unworthiness, its egoism. As the egoisme a deux is finer than an egoism of one, so this egoisme a trois, if you will, is again finer by ...

— The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.] • Richard Le Gallienne

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