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