The selfish person lives as if the world were made altogether for him,
and not he for the world, to take in everything and part with nothing.
Unselfish and noble acts are the most radiant epochs in the history of
souls, when wrought in earliest youth, they lie in the memory of age.
Selfishness contracts and narrows our benevolence and causes us, like
serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our
stings to all the world besides. As frost to the bud and blight to the
blossom, even such is self-interest to friendship, for confidence
cannot dwell where selfishness is porter at the gate.
Selfishness is the bone of all life and dwarfs all the better nature
of man. It takes from him that feeling of kindly sympathy for others’
good, which is one of the most pleasing traits of manhood, and in
itself sets up self as the one whose good is to be chiefly sought.
These withering effects are to be seen not only in the high road and
public places of life, but in the nooks and bylanes as well. Not alone
among conquerors and kings, but among the humble and obscure in the
unsanctified lust of wealth.
As heat changes the hitherto brittle metal into the elastic yielding,
yet deadly Damascus blade, so when the demon of avarice finds lodgment
in the heart of men, it changes all his better nature.
It may find him delighted to good and relieving the wants of others;
it leaves him one whose whole energy and power are turned to
advancement of self alone.