What's the difference between selfish and thoughtless?

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.

Thoughtless


Definition:

  • (adv.) Lacking thought; careless; inconsiderate; rash; as, a thoughtless person, or act.
  • (adv.) Giddy; gay; dissipated.
  • (adv.) Deficient in reasoning power; stupid; dull.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The few who enjoy themselves thoughtlessly, going against the green Glastonbury ethos , spoil it for the many.
  • (2) Maybe this is symptomatic of how the possibilities of social media have just made our friendships shallower, an economy of “likes” and thoughtless “adds”.
  • (3) The poor take up of hearing aids stems partly from the somewhat thoughtless and ill-informed public attitude to hearing impairment and partly from weaknesses in service provision.
  • (4) Moreover, are schoolchildren thoughtlessly taunting each other with slang such as: "That's just straight"?
  • (5) It is the England that then prime minister John Major vowed would never vanish in a famous 1993 speech: “Long shadows on county grounds, warm beer, invincible green suburbs, dog lovers and pools fillers and – as George Orwell said – ‘old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist’.” Major was mining Orwell’s wartime essay The Lion and the Unicorn, whose tone was one of reassurance – the national culture will survive, despite everything: “The gentleness, the hypocrisy, the thoughtlessness, the reverence for law and the hatred of uniforms will remain, along with the suet puddings and the misty skies.” Orwell and Major were both asserting the strength of a national culture at times when Britishness – for both men basically Englishness – was felt to be under threat from outside dangers (war, integration into Europe).
  • (6) In excerpts of these videos I am shown making a series of glib, thoughtless and sometimes downright insulting comments”, Gruber told the committee.
  • (7) Of course, that does not make it OK. At best these were the thoughtless actions of immature young men.
  • (8) Bullying does happen, but often it's thoughtless rather than vindictive.
  • (9) The story in the US is about bad clinics doing awful things, of violence against providers, and of women who are ignorant, thoughtless and irresponsible.” Recruited as part of the first batch of legal abortion counsellors in Texas, Glenna joined Curtis at his first clinic, the Fairmount Center in Dallas, in 1974.
  • (10) It provides an extraordinary biophysical basis for traditional psychology, including trans-personal experiences down to the ultimate state of thoughtless consciousness.
  • (11) He was dismissed from his teaching post for thoughtlessly informing his boys that the universe was (contra Genesis) millions of years old.
  • (12) The anamnesis confirms the frequently thoughtless prescription of phenacetin-containing medicaments and emphasizes their sequelae.
  • (13) Thoughtlessly, I stood up, as I used to in Lahore when the national anthem was played, only to be greeted with a uniform chant from the row behind: "Sit down, you fascist!"
  • (14) Gras describes Cameron's proposal as "thoughtless", "probably suggested by [some spin doctor] probably came from some focus group", and that the British prime minister "didn't think through the consequences".
  • (15) Health experts and women's rights campaigners were also angered, saying he had thoughtlessly resurrected a highly sensitive debate that none of the main parties wants to reopen.
  • (16) "I am deeply sorry and greatly regret the upset and distress that my juvenile and thoughtless remarks on the Russell Brand show have caused," Ross said.
  • (17) The family is outraged that rather than comfort a sister coming to the aid of her dying brother, the officers instead manhandled and tackled her, cuffed her and thoughtlessly tossed her in the back of a patrol car.” Another lawyer for the family, Walter Madison, told NOMG: “This has to be the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen.” On 22 November the siblings were playing at a local park, Tamir with his replica handgun.
  • (18) He tells me to empty my mind of all thoughts, but this is easier said than done, and I start pondering the impossibility of thoughtlessness.
  • (19) These are not Luddites or fogeys, they are not enemies of business or of the new, but they share simple shock at the thoughtlessness with which change on this scale is happening.
  • (20) Instead of persisting with thoughtless pay caps and encouraging divisive bidding wars for a share of 1% the government should be engaging in a positive discussion about the setting of public sector pay,” said the FDA’s assistant general secretary, Naomi Cooke.