We are selfish when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good for ourselves. We are altruistic when we are exclusively or predominantly concerned with the good of others.
Others
What is the meaning of ‘gossip?’ Doesn’t it originate with sympathy, an interest in one’s neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one’s self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?
Libertarians typically argue that particular obligations, at least under normal circumstances, must be created by consent; they cannot be unilaterally imposed by others.
I am a free man. I do not need to copy Petrarca or Boccaccio. My own genius is enough. Let others worry themselves about style, and so cease to be themselves. Without a master, without a model, without a guide, I go to work and earn my living, my well-being and my fame.
I don’t know how much thought is behind it, but it seems to me highly effective the way that Facebook will let somebody tag a photo with a friend’s name, then others who are a friend of that friend can perhaps immediately see the photo, and the friend, in the meantime, has a chance to wander back and un-tag it.
I’m afraid we live at the mercy of a power, maybe a God, without mercy. And yet we find it, as I have, from others.
America’s freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.
Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.
Those who do wrong very often think others are censuring them, when they are not even thought of.
Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius.