Cynics, Cynicism
Motivation: Self-Interest
“ . . . wear the label ‘cynic’ proudly, for . . . today it designates those of us who point the finger at human vanity and pride, who recognize that selfishness is the motivation for every human action, who scoff at claims of disinterest or altruism or love, who ask, always, ‘Cui bono?’ In other words, what the world calls a cynic, a dog, I — and, I hope, you, my boy — would call a reasonable human being.”
Denis Diderot, in Lettre à Landois, June 29, 1756, published in Grimm’s Correspondance littéraire, July 1, 1756:
Woe to you if the practice of good is not familiar enough to you, and if you are not sufficiently invested in good deeds to be vain, to compliment yourself on them constantly, to get drunk on this vapor and to become a fanatic. What is a virtuous man? He is a vain man whose vanity is of that type, and nothing more. Everything we do is for ourselves: we seem to be sacrificing ourselves when we are only satisfying ourselves.
See also:
Cynics, Cynicism TG 7
Motivation: Revenge TG 558; Remembering TG 1027
Subscribe to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Share The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy
Watch Well, What Now? This series of short videos continues The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy in the present.
Have you missed an episode or two or several?
You can begin reading at the beginning or you can catch up by visiting the archive or consulting the index to the Topical Guide. The Substack serialization of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to the episodes on the Personal History podcast. Begin at the beginning or scroll through the episodes to find what you’ve missed. The Substack podcast reading of Little Follies begins here; Herb ’n’ Lorna begins here; Reservations Recommended begins here; Where Do You Stop? begins here; What a Piece of Work I Am begins here; At Home with the Glynns begins here; Leaving Small’s Hotel begins here.
You can listen to “My Mother Takes a Tumble” and “Do Clams Bite?” complete and uninterrupted as audiobooks through YouTube.
You can ensure that you never miss a future issue by getting a free subscription. (You can help support the work by choosing a paid subscription instead.)
At Apple Books you can download free eBooks of Little Follies, Herb ’n’ Lorna, Reservations Recommended, Where Do You Stop?, What a Piece of Work I Am, At Home with the Glynns, and Leaving Small’s Hotel.
You can buy hardcover and paperback editions of all the books at Lulu.
You’ll find overviews of the entire work in An Introduction to The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy (a pdf document), The Origin Story (here on substack), Between the Lines (a video, here on Substack), and at Encyclopedia.com.