Self-Interest
As for those who are engaged in government service, they should perform their duties with the utmost fidelity, trustworthiness, rectitude, uprightness, integrity and high-mindedness. Let them not tarnish their good repute by pursuing personal interests, nor, for the sake of transient worldly benefits, make themselves objects of public odium and outcasts of the Threshold of Grandeur.
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 342
If they accept office, their motive is to render service to the whole of humanity, not to seek their own self-interest; and their object is to vindicate the cause of truth, not to give themselves over to self-indulgence and base ingratitude.
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 342
Consider how much solidarity makes for life as compared to the fighting for self interest which destroys it.
- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Divine Philosophy, p. 187
Quote of the Day
Istiqlal 8 Mashiyyat 182 B.E.
There is a case recorded where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote to a Western believer who had sought His advice. She was told that she should remain faithful and forbearing towards her husband but, should his cruelty become unendurable, she should leave him to himself and live separately from him, as this was better and more acceptable.
From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer – 22 July, 1987