C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Self-interest
As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.
Lucan.
Self-interest is the most ingenious and persuasive of all the agents that deceive our consciences, while by means of it our unhappy and stubborn prejudices operate in their greatest force.
Bryant.
For the world is only governed by self-interest.
Schiller.
The virtues are lost in self-interest, as rivers in the sea.
La Rochefoucauld.