What's the difference between avarice and selfish?

Avarice


Definition:

  • (n.) An excessive or inordinate desire of gain; greediness after wealth; covetousness; cupidity.
  • (n.) An inordinate desire for some supposed good.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The tragedy of Latin American health planning has been that the wisdom of their approach, which seeks to concern health consumers first rather than cater to the avarice of health producers as is done in the U.S., has not been matchable by the level of technological and political sophistication needed to bring it off.
  • (2) Under the cover of this administration’s constant cloud of chaos – some deliberately generated by Trump, much of it foisted upon him by his incompetence and avarice – this shared agenda is being pursued with methodical and unblinking focus.
  • (3) We didn’t want to do the manufacturing ourselves: we wanted a business to take on the idea, make the bikes, and bring us riches beyond the dreams of avarice.
  • (4) Combination of sclerotherapy with portal antihypertensive medication might become the treatment of choice until eradication of varices has been achieved; thereafter either continued medication or repeated endoscopy will maintain an avariceal state and effective prevention of recurrent variceal bleeding.
  • (5) He was the perfect 80s movie star, an emblem of American avarice, beloved of all the housewives.
  • (6) He display- ed no signs of personal avarice; he cut his presidential salary when he came to power, and lopped off a further third of it as a regular donation to a children's fund.
  • (7) Three hours of sexual and pharmacological excess, wanton debauchery, unfathomable avarice, gleeful misogyny, extreme narcotic brinksmanship, malfeasance and lawless behaviour is a lot to take, and some have complained of the film's relentlessness, which, if understood in formal terms, I think may be one of its main aims.
  • (8) You’re more likely to die at weekends because of junior doctors’ avarice and indolence.
  • (9) "We can see the results: the government cronies get rich – some beyond their wildest dreams of avarice – while the people stay poor."
  • (10) We could ascribe all of these investments to some kind of misplaced avarice.
  • (11) I am a Bollinger Bolshevik, apparently, because I believe I should have a final say in what my tickets cost, in order to manage audience expectation of the work itself, to control perceptions of my own apparent avarice and to make sure that money that is spent on me by punters reflects the cost savings I and the venue have cut corners to make, and the public subsidies the venue may have received, all of which are designed to make entry to the show viable, so that all sorts of people can come along and think I am shit together.
  • (12) We can see the results: the government cronies get rich – some beyond their wildest dreams of avarice – while the people stay poor."
  • (13) Quite the opposite is true.” FSG has been stung by accusations of avarice and protests that threaten Klopp’s ideal of unity between fans and the club.
  • (14) The flower of English football is being eaten by canker worms of money and avarice.
  • (15) On transparency, he slams countries - such as in Africa - who: rip off hard working people and plunder natural resources... Government officials get rich, some beyond their wildest dreams of avarice.
  • (16) Yesterday it was the Barclays board, avatars of avarice overseeing rewards beyond any conceivable fair share – a 10% rise in bonuses despite a 32% fall in profits.
  • (17) Even the star of the Hunger Games, Jennifer Lawrence, chose to publicly tut at her own employer’s avarice (“I think it’s too soon.
  • (18) Now his emotions spewed, they shot out: fear, anxiety, worry, power, thirst, hunger, lust, avarice, hubris … He's feeling everything and he's alive.
  • (19) A s a parable of avarice, it is surely much older than the internet that has recently given it a new lease of life.
  • (20) When all the outlandish trappings of an extraordinary event have begun to fade and gather dust in the memory, when we have grown vague about the wheeling and dealing involved, about how ethnic pride and financial avarice became ardent bedmates, when we scarcely smile at the remembered sight of Bundini Brown planting a kiss and a “Float like a butterfly” biro on President Mobutu or the more appealing but equally unlikely spectacle of an attractive young black woman breast-feeding her baby in the third row ringside, where accommodation cost $250 a place without mention of meals – when that distant day comes, what will remain utterly undiminished is the excitement of Muhammad Ali’s performance.

Selfish


Definition:

  • (a.) Caring supremely or unduly for one's self; regarding one's own comfort, advantage, etc., in disregard, or at the expense, of those of others.
  • (a.) Believing or teaching that the chief motives of human action are derived from love of self.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) A series of hierarchical multiple regressions revealed the effects of Surgency, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Intellect on evoking upset in spouses through condescension (e.g., treating spouse as stupid or inferior), possessiveness (demanding too much time and attention), abuse (slapping spouse), unfaithfulness (having sex with others), inconsiderateness (leaving toilet seat up), moodiness (crying a lot), alcohol abuse (drinking too much alcohol), emotional constriction (hiding emotions to act tough), and self-centeredness (acting selfishly).
  • (2) They have been selfish, thinking of what they can achieve with gas.
  • (3) For a while yesterday, Hazel Blears's selfishly-timed resignation with her rude "rock the boat" brooch send shudders of revulsion through some in the party.
  • (4) A second level of concerted evolution occurs within the functional L1 sequences in a pattern that did not meet our expectations for selfish DNA.
  • (5) Not only did it make every grocery-store run a guilt trip; it made me feel selfish for caring more about birds in the present than about people in the future.
  • (6) Back in 1999 Chris Sidoti, then-head of the Australian Human Rights Commission, called the baby boomers “the most selfish generation in history”.
  • (7) It said Clinton's "cheap shots" had a hidden agenda to discredit China's engagement with Africa and "drive a wedge between China and Africa for the US selfish gain."
  • (8) We propose that REP sequences may be a prokaryotic equivalent of 'selfish DNA' and that gene conversion may play a role in the evolution and maintenance of REP sequences.
  • (9) Although angry when talking about the regime, his campaign grew from selfish motives.
  • (10) After The Arbor's success, said Barnard, the women who would become The Selfish Giant's executive producers, Lizzie Francke at the BFI and Katherine Butler from Film4, "were fantastic about saying, 'What do you want to do next?
  • (11) None of them is British, though there is great anticipation about The Selfish Giant, Clio Barnard's second feature, which premieres in the Directors' Fortnight .
  • (12) Further, it is selfish to suggest that Americans should feel some sort of responsibility for their fellow citizens.
  • (13) In an ideal world, such findings might be interpreted as smart women making smart choices, but instead it seems that this research is just adding fuel to the argument that women who don't have children, regardless of the reason, are not just selfish losers but dumb ones as well.
  • (14) Denial is absurdly selfish (and yet the best selfishness is yet to come).
  • (15) Jeremy Clarkson faced further censure on Saturday after describing people who killed themselves by jumping under trains as "selfish".
  • (16) A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations.
  • (17) In fact, Wilson's arguments are more fundamental and persuasive than Snow's; works on evolution, like Sociobiology and Dawkins's The Selfish Gene, have been absorbed into western cultural life as neatly as any neo-Darwinist could have predicted.
  • (18) Sometimes the athletes are so selfish they won't give up their own stuff to help others."
  • (19) Her newspaper profiles over the years are peppered with self-deprecating references to her sporting ruthlessness: her constant mentions of her selfishness and egotism; her win-at-all-costs, only-gold-medals-matter mentality; or the time she flung her helmet at her boyfriend in frustration after losing a race.
  • (20) This has been encouraged by the press' standard strike narrative: these selfish bastards are striking, this is bad, and it will affect you in this awful unacceptable way of maybe making you slightly late for work.