Desiring to classify her, Mary bethought her of the convenient term "egoist."
"She's an egoist," she said to herself, and stored that word up to give to Ralph one day when, as it would certainly fall out, they were discussing Miss Hilbery.
Well, anyway, I know that I am a blackguard, a scoundrel, an
egoist, a sluggard.
'The
Egoist' (1879) and 'Diana of the Crossways' (1885) are among his other strongest books.
A thorough egoist, a spendthrift and a miser in one,--that is to say, spending his money solely on himself,--sharp, aggressive, and indiscreet, he did mischief for mischief's sake; above all, he attacked the weak, respected nothing and believed in nothing, neither in France, nor in God, nor in art, nor in the Greeks, nor in the Turks, nor in the monarchy,-- insulting and disparaging everything that he could not comprehend.
The sight of Colleville, a man of real feeling, bound almost indissolubly to Thuillier, the model of an egoist, presented a difficult problem to the mind of an observer.
That's it!" snapped the
egoist. "That's a parable of the general situation in England.
So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an
egoist, and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish.
"Perhaps the rules of morality cannot be absolute," Benassis answered; "though this is a dangerous idea, for it leaves the
egoist free to settle cases of conscience in his own favor.
"But I always understood that those supermen were rather what you may call
egoists."
While an
egoist (someone who always acts to maximize his self-interest) might behave egotistically, or display vanity, he might well not.
As a rational
egoist would put it, human beings live by reason and therefore have the ability to live together as traders, each benefiting by working and collaborating with others.