The community is a fictitious body, composed of the individual personswhoare considered asconstituting as it were its members.The interest of the community then, Bentley is what? The sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.

-Bentham,Jeremy
  An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch.1.

I envy you if you're able to sustain a uniform degree of interest throughout Ulysses.People are always saying they do. People also claim to be clairvoyant and to levitate.

-Bowles, Paul Frederick
  Letter to Millicent Dillon,1  Jul.

The casehas, insome respects, beennot entirelydevoid of interest.

-Doyle, SirArthur Conan
  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,'A Case of Identity'.

Youth, beauty, graceful action seldom fail: But common interest always will prevail: And pity never ceases to be shown To him, who makes the people's wrongs his own.

-Dryden,John
Absalom and  Achitophel, pt.1, l.723^6.

  In the sphere of natural investigation, as in poetry and painting, the delineation of that which appeals most strongly to the imagination, derives its collective interest from the vivid truthfulness with which the individual features are portrayed.

-Hume, David
^62  Kosmos (translated as Cosmos,1897).

Sex is engaging in the first rounds but what sustains interest in the long run is power.

-Jiang Qing or  Chiang Ch'ing
c.1970  Quoted in Ross Merrill Mao (1993), ch.10.

Among the calamities of War may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.

-Johnson, Samuel known as Dr Johnson
  In The Idler, no.31,11 Nov.

It is not a correct deduction from the Principles of Economics that enlightened self-interest always operates in the public interest† Experience does not show that individuals when they make up a social unit are always less clear-sighted than when they act separately.

-Keynes (of Tilton),John Maynard, 1st Baron
Essays in Persuasion.

   I have no interest in anything but genius, so please sit down.

-Langner, Lawrence
To Tennessee Williams. Recalled in Williams Memoirs (1975).

The patent system†added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.

-Lincoln, Abraham
  Collected in Roy B Basler (ed) Collected Works (1953).

The public interest may be presumed to be what men would choose if they saw clearly, thought rationally, acted disinterestedly and benevolently.

-Lippmann,Walter
  The Public Philosophy, ch.4.

O bom era ter uma intelige"  ncia e na‹  o entender. Era uma be"  n c° a‹  o estranha como a de ter loucura sem ser doida. Era um desinteresse manso em rela c° a‹  o a'  s coisas ditas do intelecto, uma do c° ura de estupidez. What was good was to have intelligence and yet not understand. It was a strange blessing like experiencing madness without being mad. It was a gentle lack of interest with respect to the so-called things of the intellect, a sweet stupidity.

-Lispector, Clarice
  Uma  Aprendizagem ou O Livro dos Prazeres, 'Luminesce"  ncia' (translated as  An  Apprenticeship or TheBook of Delights,1986).

It was unhealthyand unsafe, and of no interest whatever. 'But what,' I said,'about thetigers ?' 'Tigers, perhaps,' he replied pityingly,'but no culture.'

-Maclean, Sir Fitzroy Hew
  Of Lenkoran,  Azerbaijan, in discussion with an  Armenian official. Eastern  Approaches.

In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. Theyare generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that theyalready have.

-More, SirThomas
  Utopia (English translation1556), bk.1.

  All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad, or peculiar.

-Paley, Grace ne¤  e  Goodside
  In D L Fitzpatrick (ed) Contemporary Novelists.

Observation is always selective. It needs a chosen object, a definite task, an interest, a point of view, a problem.

-Popper, Sir Karl Raimund
  Conjectures and Refutations (published1963), ch.1.

Information, freefrominterestorprejudice, freefromthe vanity of the writer or the influence of a Government, is as necessary to the human mind as pure air and water to the human body.

-Rees-Mogg,William Rees-Mogg, Baron
  Christian Science Monitor, 22 Sep.

It isnot fromthebenevolence ofthebutcher, thebrewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.2.

Every individual†intends only his own gain, and he is in this as in many other cases led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention† By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the publick good.

-Smith, Adam
  An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of theWealth of Nations, bk.4, ch.3.

   It is the business of a statesman to judge of the expediency of different schemes of economy, and by degrees to model the minds of his subjects so as to induce them from the allurement of private interest to concur in the execution of his plan.

-Steuart (later Denham), SirJames
  Inquiry into the Principles of Political Oeconomy.