Self-love

2 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Self-love \Self`-love`\, n.
     The love of one's self; desire for personal happiness;
     tendency to seek one's own benefit or advantage. --Shak.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul. --Pope.


     [1913 Webster]
  
     Syn: Selfishness.
  
     Usage: {Self-love}, {Selfishness}. The term self-love is used
            in a twofold sense: 1. It denotes that longing for
            good or for well-being which actuates the breasts of
            all, entering into and characterizing every special
            desire. In this sense it has no moral quality, being,
            from the nature of the case, neither good nor evil. 2.
            It is applied to a voluntary regard for the
            gratification of special desires. In this sense it is
            morally good or bad according as these desires are
            conformed to duty or opposed to it. Selfishness is
            always voluntary and always wrong, being that regard
            to our own interests, gratification, etc., which is
            sought or indulged at the expense, and to the injury,
            of others. "So long as self-love does not degenerate
            into selfishness, it is quite compatible with true
            benevolence." --Fleming. "Not only is the phrase
            self-love used as synonymous with the desire of
            happiness, but it is often confounded with the word
            selfishness, which certainly, in strict propriety,
            denotes a very different disposition of mind."
            --Slewart.
            [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  self-love
       n 1: feelings of excessive pride [syn: {amour propre}, {conceit},
             {vanity}]
       2: an exceptional interest in and admiration for yourself [syn:
           {narcism}, {narcissism}]