"Disinterested" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... minister of kindness and hope. Skilled in the ways of her double blood, she was my discreet counsellor in many a peril; and, tender as a well-bred dame of civilized lands, she was ever disposed to promote my happiness by disinterested offices. But, when we came to number the survivors of the ruin, ESTHER was nowhere to be found, nor could I ever trace, among the scattered fragments, the slightest relic of the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... over a period of several long months, and he was sufficiently cynical, owing to his short experience of life, to realize that the surgeon, who worked over him so constantly and solicitously, was not solely and entirely disinterested in his efforts to make him well. Grammont had no life to return to, that was the trouble. Everyone knew it. The surgeon knew it, and the orderlies knew it, and his comrades in the adjoining beds knew it—he had absolutely no future before ...
— The Backwash of War - The Human Wreckage of the Battlefield as Witnessed by an - American Hospital Nurse • Ellen N. La Motte
... leave to suggest that the persons who are candidates for office in the interest of a corrupt Ring, and the few newspapers which live and move and have their being by and in that Ring, are hardly the disinterested and unselfish counsellors that they claim to be. It is safer to go outside of the charmed circle, and ascertain what is advised by Republicans whose honesty is as great as their integrity, who were Republicans when Democracy was in the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... however, are not much to the purpose. For those even, according to whom life has lost most in this way, do not consider the loss a very important, still less a fatal one. The good is still to be an aim for us, and our devotion to it will be more valuable because it will be quite disinterested. Thus Dr. Tyndall informs us that though he has now rejected the religion of his earlier years, yet granting him proper health of body, there is 'no spiritual experience,' such as he then knew, 'no resolve of duty, no word of mercy, no act of self-renouncement, no solemnity of thought, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... public duties, honourable and just in private life; a lover and a follower of science; indefatigable and dauntless in his pursuits; a steady friend, an entertaining companion; charitable, kind-hearted, disinterested, and sincere—the task is equally difficult to find adequate expressions of praise or of regret. In him the king lost one of his most valuable officers, and his regiment one of its most efficient members. Beloved as he was, the news ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... wish to know, O royal sage, whether any fault is incurred by one who from interested or disinterested friendship imparts instructions unto a person belonging to a low order of birth! O grandsire, I desire to hear this, expounded to me in detail. The course of duty is exceedingly subtile. Men are often seen to be stupefied in ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... In case of any alleged violation of any of these rules, the senior officer of the room shall appoint a Court[7] to consist of thirteen disinterested officers, who shall fairly try and determine the matter, and in case of conviction the offender's rations shall be stopped, or the commander of the prison be requested to confine the offender in a cell according to the sentence of the Court; and it shall ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... among persons of bold and sanguine dispositions. Robespierre was a vain, envious, and suspicious man, with a hard heart, weak nerves, and a gloomy temper. But we cannot with truth deny that he was, in the vulgar sense of the word, disinterested, that his private life was correct, or that he was sincerely zealous for his own system of politics and morals. He, therefore, naturally finds admirers among honest but moody and bitter democrats. If no class has taken the reputation of Barere under its patronage, the reason is plain: Barere ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... strongly accented such faults are tolerated. Gluck's theme impressed itself on the memory, so that he dealt a terrific blow to the purity of prosody. We gradually became so disinterested in this that by Auber's time scarcely any attention was paid to it. Finally, Offenbach appeared. He was a German by birth and his musical ideas naturally rhymed with German in direct contradiction to the French words to which they applied. This constant bungling passed for originality. Sometimes ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... to her aid in conquering it. She succeeded in a large degree; but at the same time resolved to make it her business to reconcile Lorenzo Bezan to her he loved, if such a thing were possible; and thus to enjoy the consciousness of having performed at least one disinterested act for him whom she too had loved, as we have seen, most sincerely and ...
— The Heart's Secret - The Fortunes of a Soldier, A Story of Love and the Low Latitudes • Maturin Murray
... operations were again renewed by voting "to erect a meeting-house in the centre of the town, or in the nearest convenientest place thereto, to accommodate the inhabitants thereof for divine worship." Three disinterested individuals, Joseph Stearns and David Kilburn of Lunenburg, and Benjamin Kimball of Harvard, were chosen by ballot as a committee to discover that much-to-be-desired spot, "the nearest convenientest place to the centre." They found the centre to be a little less than a quarter of a ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, February, 1886. - The Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 2, February, 1886. • Various
... of glory, until it is consummated by that of having written a book. Napoleon closed his career with the quill, and his successor was hardly on his throne, before he began to publish. The principal officers of the Empire, and emigres without number, have fairly set to work as so many disinterested historians, and even a lady, who, by way of abbreviation, is called "The Widow of the Grand Army," is giving us regularly volumes, whose eccentricities and periodicity, as the astronomers say, can be reduced to known laws, by the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... when a drunken man attracted his attention, and he assisted actively in an effort to convince the drunken man that the Mayor's office was the ferry to Weehawken. It was while engaged in giving these disinterested assurances that he felt himself lifted off his feet by a steady pull at his ears, and looking up he ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... a la Cato Minor, but this man unconsciously was the antique Roman they laboriously went about to be. Others have filled places more conspicuous, few have made the place they filled so conspicuous by an exact and disinterested ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... strewers of flowers and leaves, &c., to a pretty spot by the sea-side, where he had lately made a tobacco-plantation, and which, he remarked, "would be scarce worth the plucking, as he had not been able to attend to it of late;—however, he hoped his venerable and disinterested friend and spiritual comforter, the priest, would accept the crop, such as it was, as a slight testimony of his eternal gratitude." Hereupon the crowd clapped their hands with delight, the singers shouted, the drummers thumped, and the dancers vaulted their admiration ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... cares and labors, turn to the time when thought shall people their solitude as with the presence of angels. They hear heavenly voices asking, Why stay ye on the earth, unless to grow? Vanity, frivolity, and fickleness die within them; and they grow to be humble and courageous, disinterested and laborious, strong and persevering. The cultivation of their higher nature becomes the law of their life; and the sense of duty, "stern daughter of the voice of God," which of all motives that ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... defence. It is precisely on this principle that in the end property will protect itself as against the popular inroads which are inevitable, should the present tendencies receive no check. Calm, disinterested, and judicious legislation is a thing not to be hoped for. It never occurs in any state of society except under the pressure of great events; and this for the very simple reason that men, acting in factions, are never calm, judicious, ...
— New York • James Fenimore Cooper
... keeping you when you want to be off to Amy. Never mind Mr. Ready-to-halt; I shall wait till my father comes back. If you want the letter put off you had better give some hopes of—Oh! he is gone, and disinterested advice it is of mine, for what is to become of me without Amy remains to be proved. Laura, poor thing, looks like Patience on a monument. I wonder whether Philip's disgrace has anything to do with it. Hum! If mamma's old idea was right, the captain has been more like moth and candle ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... over his thoughts. It is difficult even to express the simplicity and directness of purpose that adorned him. Some few might be found in the history of mankind, and some one at least among his own friends, equally disinterested and scornful, even to severe personal sacrifices, of every baser motive. But no one, I believe, ever joined this noble but passive virtue to equal active endeavours for the benefit of his friends and mankind in general, and to equal power to produce the advantages he desired. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... by Fannie Hurst (Cosmopolitan Magazine). The artistic qualities in Miss Hurst's work which have commended themselves to such disinterested critics as Mr. Howells are revealed once more in this story, in which Miss Hurst accepts the shoddiness of background which characterizes her literary types, and reveals the fine human current that runs ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... which fall between people who have been estranged fell between them, during which he looked from her to the room, and all about him, and back to her, while she regarded him with that disinterested kindness. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... than in all the undeviating course of the Hyde-Lodge studies; she had improved her French at one table d'hote, her German at another; she had caught some new trick of style in every concert-room, some fresh combination of costume on every racecourse; and, being really grateful for Charlotte's disinterested affection, she brought all her accomplishments to bear to please her friend and her ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... dormant in Manyuema. Appetite returned, and instead of the spare, tasteless, two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a demonstrative turn; as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be, but this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity. Mr. Stanley ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... alarmingly depressing upon the value of the shares. In a few days, they fell 50 per cent. below par, with few buyers even at that. At this juncture, it was discovered that one of the directors was actively bearing the market; but the discovery was not made before that disinterested personage, who had previously disposed of the whole of his original allotment at a handsome premium, had secured above 10,000 new shares at a cost of about half their upset value. A colleague openly accused him ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... the act of a Pomeranian grenadier! How rare are such examples! Be thy name and mine ever united! Live thou while the memory of me shall live! Never did my acquaintance with the great bring to my knowledge a soul so noble, so disinterested! ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... before I left Brussels. I think, however long I live, I shall not forget what the parting with Monsieur Heger cost me. It grieved me so much to grieve him who has been so true, kind, disinterested a friend.... Haworth seems such a lonely quiet spot, buried away from the world. I no longer regard myself as young, indeed, I shall soon be twenty-eight; and it seems as if I ought to be working, and braving the rough realities of the ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... on his part, did not perceive how soon the conversation, which was at first disinterested, was turning to a business transaction,—"there is, doubtless, a part of your fortune your father ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Thornton, and his own father. He estimated most highly, not perhaps more highly than they deserved, the value of the services rendered by them in awakening the conscience of the nation. In their persistent and disinterested labours he recognised a manifestation of the great social force of Christianity. But a belief that Christianity is useful, and even that it is true, may consist with a profound conviction of the ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... essential distinction in his love of the truth for the truth's sake. He looks first to the intrinsic reasonableness of any proposition; tends to judge both men and movements not by traditional or personal values, but by a detached and disinterested appraisal of their inherent worth. He is often a dogmatist, but this fault is not peculiar to him, he shares it with the rest of mankind. He is sometimes a literalist and sometimes a slave to logic, more concerned with combating the ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... him far. They were impelled by a driving force which distinguishes the successful man from the muddler and without which the finest mental powers are as useless as a complicated machine disconnected from its driving-wheel. They were directed by a lofty and disinterested enthusiasm, without which the most talented man is a mere self-seeker, useless or dangerous to society. The faculties and qualities which made Huxley great as a zooelogist were practically those which he applied to the general questions of biological theory, to the problems of education and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... working-men upon grounds which are economically perfectly correct, but for that very reason partially mistaken, and for the working-man's understanding totally without effect. The very zeal of the bourgeoisie shows that it is not disinterested in the matter; and apart from the indirect loss involved in a turnout, the state of the case is such that whatever goes into the pockets of the manufacturers comes of necessity out of those of the worker. So that even if the working-men did not ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... his opinion in matters of importance was, I believe, his characteristic in many other ways in his intercourse with those towards whom he stood in various relations. He was always prompt, clear, decided, and disinterested. He entered into their pursuits, though dissimilar to his own; he took an interest in their objects; he adapted himself to their dispositions and tastes; he brought a strong and calm good sense to bear upon their present ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... arguments, in which weapons he always placed his chief trust. So at present, whatever was the motive which induced privy councilors to open their ears to what Franklin had to say, after they had heard him they could not easily decide against him. Nor had those of them who were personally disinterested any great inducement to do so, since, though some of them may have disliked him, none of them had any great liking for his noble opponent. So they set aside the report ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... middle of a campaign merely because they have an uncomfortable feeling that the rules of the game require re-stating and possibly re-casting. But the winning or losing of elections does not exhaust the whole political duty of a nation, and perhaps there never has been a time in which the disinterested examination of political principles has been more urgently required. Hitherto the main stimulus to political speculation has been provided by wars and revolutions, by the fight of the Greek States against the Persians, and their disastrous struggle for supremacy among themselves, or by the ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... Rules of Reason and Sense, must have something so inexpressibly Graceful in his Words and Actions, that every Circumstance must become him. The Change of Persons or Things around him do not at all alter his Situation, but he looks disinterested in the Occurrences with which others are distracted, because the greatest Purpose of his Life is to maintain an Indifference both to it and all its Enjoyments. In a word, to be a Fine Gentleman, is to be a Generous and a Brave Man. What can make a Man so much in constant Good-humour and Shine, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... to make some capital for the Northern troops, in their estimate, by pointing out that it was a disinterested thing in these men from the free States, to come down there and fight, that the slaves might be free. But they were apt keenly to reply, that many of the white soldiers disavowed this object, and said that that was not the object of the war, nor even likely to ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... during this year of hard work and little result that he renewed an acquaintance with James Madison, Jr., afterward fourth President of the United States, and Gouverneur Morris, one of the most brilliant and disinterested young men in the country, now associated with Robert Morris in the Department of Finance. With the last the acquaintance ripened into a lifelong and intimate friendship; with Madison the friendship was equally ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... letter to his brother just before taking his degree, Agassiz says: "I am now determined to pursue medicine and natural history side by side. Thank you, with all my heart, for your disinterested offer, but I shall not need it, for I am going on well with my publisher, M. Cotta, of Stuttgart. I have great hope that he will accept my works, since he has desired that they should be forwarded to him for examination. I have sent him the whole, and ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... feel) a fear lest you should not be able to fix a character, volatile and light, like your lover's; yet when I recollect his warmth of heart and high sense, and your beauty, gentleness, charms of conversation, and purely disinterested love for one whose great worldly advantages might so easily bias or adulterate affection, I own that I have no dread for your future fate, no feeling that can at all darken the brightness of anticipation. Thank you, dearest, for the delicate kindness with which you allude to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... come to the ordinary type, i.e. where a figure appears. The following tale illustrates a point we have already alluded to, namely, that the apparition is sometimes seen by a disinterested person, and not by those whom one would naturally expect should see it. A lady writes as follows: "At Island Magee is the Knowehead Lonan, a long, hilly, narrow road, bordered on either side by high thorn-hedges and fields. Twenty years ago, when I was a young girl, I used ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... have smiled so grimly as I did then. How could I explain my precious pursuit of the eumoirous to a French Procureur-general? How could I put before him the point of view of a semi-disembodied spirit? I replied with lame lack of originality that my actions proceeded from disinterested friendship. "You are a pure altruist then?" said he. "Very pure," said I. . . . It was only the facts of the scabbard of the knife having been found attached to the dwarf's person beneath his clothes, and of certain rambling menaces occurring in his Sultan papers that saved us from the ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... certain that be will oppose me. If he should become ambitious he will venture anything. And yet, you recollect in what a lukewarm way he acted on the 18th Fructidor, when I sent him to second Augereau. This devil of a fellow is not to be seduced. He is disinterested and clever. But; after all, we have but just arrived, and ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... vessels from every harbor, and reenforced the admiral. The earls of Oxford, Northumberland, and Cumberland, Sir Thomas Cecil, Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Vavasor, Sir Thomas Gerrard, Sir Charles Blount, with many others, distinguished themselves by this generous and disinterested service of their country. The English fleet, after the conjunction of those ships, amounted to a hundred and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... geometers of old patiently explored the properties of the triangle, the circle, and the ellipse, simply for pure love of truth, they laid the corner-stones for the arts of the architect, the engineer, and the navigator. In like manner it was the disinterested work of investigation conducted by Ampere, Faraday, Henry and their compeers, in ascertaining the laws of electricity which made possible the telegraph, the telephone, the dynamo, and the electric furnace. The vital relations between ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... on John's earnings. A baby was born, and then the husband took the young mother to a beautiful house, and told her he was John Harmon, that the house was their house, that he was the possessor of [pounds]100,000 through the disinterested conduct of their "mutual friend," Mr. Boffin; and the young couple lived happily with Mr. and Mrs. Boffin, in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... brave deed in one sense," said Valentine. "You have proved yourself generous and disinterested. Heaven grant that you ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Perhaps this last product of my brain may have been quite a poetical performance. Never mind! I do not repent of what I have done; I am glad that Ellen should know at last that I have loved her silently and hopelessly. If that is not disinterested, what is?" he ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... all you have gained? Have you cured any of your faults? Can you command your temper any better? Are you any more disinterested? Are you more careful about the truth—in short, are you a ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... fashion at this moment," was the contemptuous retort, "I will own that there is no love lost between us. Stay," as Zoe was about to leave the room, "let me give you a piece of disinterested advice. Learn to control your quick temper, and show yourself more amiable, or you may find one of these days, when it is too late, that you have lost your ...
— Elsie's Kith and Kin • Martha Finley
... studying the sciences. Amongst a multitude of men you will find a selfish, mercantile, and trading taste for the discoveries of the mind, which must not be confounded with that disinterested passion which is kindled in the heart of the few. A desire to utilize knowledge is one thing; the pure desire to know is another. I do not doubt that in a few minds and far between, an ardent, inexhaustible love of truth springs up, self-supported, and living in ceaseless fruition without ever attaining ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... to its pinnacle, and establish his power upon victory. In his idea everything was to be sacrificed to the personal glory of his successes. He conceived a project of attack by crossing the Rhine. Moreau, modest and disinterested, accepted the general plan of the war, and subordinated his operations to those of the First Consul; in his military capacity independent and resolute, he persisted in passing the Rhine at his pleasure. Bonaparte was enraged. "Moreau would not seek to understand me," cried ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... benevolent zeal, under the impression at once of the immensity of the evil, so defying the feebleness of their remedial means and efforts, and of its noisome quality. At times, the rudeness of the subjects, and perhaps the ungracious reception and thankless requital of their disinterested labors, aggravating the general feeling of the miserableness (so to express it) of seeing so much misery, have lent seduction to the temptations to ease and self-indulgence. Why should they, just they of all men, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... that," said Marie, springing up and throwing herself into her lover's arms. "Indeed, indeed, it was not of that I thought. Though we should never marry, yet were you to fall, your memory should be the same to me as that of a husband. I could never forget your love—your disinterested love—there is no treasure on this side the grave which I so value. It is the pride of my solitary hours, and the happiness of the few happy thoughts I have. The world would be nothing to me without you. When you are away, I pray to God to bring you back ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... Disinterested patriot, he would receive no pay for his military services. Refusing gifts, he was glad to guide the benefaction of a grateful state to educate the children of his fallen braves in the institution at Lexington which yet bears his name. Without any of the blemishes that mark the tyrant, ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... cannot do better than consult your mother, aunt, or other discreet relative that has your welfare at heart, from whom you may reasonably expect the best and most disinterested advice; and this it will be well for you to be guided by. Women of mature years can judge far better than you whether a man is likely to make a good husband. You should likewise quietly and cautiously make your own observations ...
— The Ladies Book of Useful Information - Compiled from many sources • Anonymous
... speedily discovered the immense mistake made by the Germans in resting their hopes upon France. It was indeed a strange delusion to suppose the vain and greedy Frenchman capable of being inspired with disinterested love for all mankind, and it was indeed a severe irony, that, after such repeated and cruel experience, after having for centuries seen the French ever in the guise of robbers and pillagers, and after breathing ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... any acquaintance between the two men. The writer describes how he and Prospero had set out in the world together, and how for a long time they had assisted each other, till his friend had been lately raised to wealth by a lucky project. 'I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy.' Prospero reproached him with his neglect to visit him at his new house. When however he went to see him, he found that his friend's impatience 'arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of queen Anne, he was concerned in vindicating the memory of king William, and on all occasions shewed a disinterested zeal in the service of his country. He first projected the equivalent, which was given to the Scots, in order to promote the Union between the nations; and without which it had never been effected. And as his lordship first moved for appointing commissioners ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... protection over the South African Republic could alone secure unity of purpose and trade, as well as open out a prospect of peace and prosperity. In these words of Shepstone's proclamation we see in all its repulsive nakedness the hypocrisy which openly masqueraded in the guise of the disinterested and pitiful Samaritan, while its true and secret object was to inflict a fatal ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... had been under the sweet illusion that disinterested affection must eventually win for itself a way to union; but old Mr. Raincliffe had spoken seriously to them, and altogether forbade their further meeting until Robert had spoken to his father. He went home that very night, and, nerved to a sort of ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... had intrusted his own case, giving him the fullest details, and leaving in his possession for safe keeping the proofs which were soon to play so important a part; and Mr. Sutherland, the attorney retained by Scott, had been present at the inquest, apparently as a disinterested spectator, but, in reality, one of the most intensely interested ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... Zorzi had not been disinterested, and so far as justice was concerned he was quite ready to believe that the Dalmatian had done all the things of which he was accused. The fact was not of the slightest importance in the situation. It was much more to the point that in the complicated ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford
... hitherto attended and acted in their office, and still continue so to do, without any intention, hope, or desire, of receiving any other reward in this life, but the pleasure which results from a consciousness of having done good.—So satisfied are they of their own DISINTERESTED motives and conduct in this regard, that they can safely appeal to the Omniscient Being for their sincerity in ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... what will become of the poor people? [Bravo.] Let us prohibit foreign wood. I am not speaking for myself, for you could not make a tooth-pick out of all the wood I own. I am, therefore, perfectly disinterested. [Good, good.] But here is Pierre, who has a park, and he will keep our fellow-citizens from freezing. They will no longer be in a state of dependence on the charcoal dealers of the Yonne. Have you ever thought of the risk we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of these foreign forests should ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... once, I've found a disinterested female in a coaxing mood," replied this modern Diogenes. He came from behind the counter, pretending to believe her, and started ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... you!" said Cora, with the nearest approach to a sneer that ever she made. "I have heard all you have to say, Mrs. Stillwater, and now I have to reply—First, that I give you no credit for any respect or affection that you may profess for Mr. Rockharrt, or for disinterested motives in marrying ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... party has made and solicitude for the complete justification of the trust the people have reposed in us constrain me to remind those with whom I am to cooperate that we can succeed in doing the work which has been especially set before us only by the most sincere, harmonious, and disinterested effort. Even if insuperable obstacles and opposition prevent the consummation of our task, we shall hardly be excused; and if failure can be traced to our fault or neglect we may be sure the people will hold us to a ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... pang without the palm. So strongly do all the instincts of the Prussian drive against liberty, that he would rather oppress other people's subjects than think of anybody going without the benefits of oppression. He is a sort of disinterested despot. He is as disinterested as the devil who is ready to do ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... Except the pay of a couple of hundred men, who spend their money in the country, England has neither directly nor indirectly made a shilling out of it, and I don't believe you will find in history a more successful and more disinterested bit ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... reasonable pretext. If nations never had any personal interests involved, there would, of course, be no more war. In this respect the people of the United States are not ahead of the other parts of the civilized world. Disinterested parties have been in favor of ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of the world at large, have recommended her for such friendship. She knew—the reader may possibly know—that nothing had ever been purer, nothing more disinterested than her friendship. But she knew also,—no one knew better,—that the judgment of men and women does not always run parallel with facts. She entertained, too, a conviction in regard to herself, that hard words and hard judgments were to be expected from the world,—were to ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... years of labour, a portion of them in the archives of those countries whose history forms the object of my study, will not have been entirely in vain; and that the lovers of human progress, the believers in the capacity of nations for self-government and self-improvement, and the admirers of disinterested human genius and virtue, may find encouragement for their views in the detailed history of an heroic people in its most eventful period, and in the life and death of the great man whose name and fame are identical with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stimulating to new trials in order to recover, if possible; but, steadily, the tide, for all these little eddies of success, bore him downwards, and losses increased from single dollars to fives, and from fives to tens, his pleasant friend, Bland, supplying whatever he wanted in the most disinterested way, until an aggregate loss of nearly a hundred and fifty ...
— After a Shadow, and Other Stories • T. S. Arthur
... although not governed by the will, do themselves greatly influence the will. All acts of will produced entirely by pure affection for another are disinterested.... So soon as the affections move towards an object, the will is proportionally influenced to please and benefit that object, or, if a superior being, to obey ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... cried de Sigognac, in much agitation, "that she always absolutely refused me, though she knew that I was perfectly disinterested." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... like an overture to a permanent and disinterested friendship," said Kent, brightening up; and Abe, who was gathering himself up for a spring to catch Fortner's rifle, ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... off Bangkok. The forts at the mouth of the Menam fired upon the gunboats, whereupon the French instituted a blockade of the Siamese capital and at the same time enormously increased their demands. England, which had long professed to be a disinterested friend of the Siamese, shrugged her shoulders whereupon they yielded to the threat of a French invasion and ceded to France the eastern marches of the kingdom. Meanwhile the frontier between Siam and the new British possessions in Burmah had been settled amicably, though, as might ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... which he pursued for its advancement, defence, and prosperity. I was, however, surprised to learn that no biography had been published of the man who projected an undertaking of such magnitude and importance; engaged in it on principles the most benevolent and disinterested; persevered till its accomplishment, under circumstances exceedingly arduous, and often discouraging; and lived to see "a few become a thousand," and a weak one "the flourishing part ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... who knew the Sweet Girl said it was too Bad and that some one ought to go to her and warn her. After the Old Ladies and the Elders had talked the Matter over on the side, it was decided that Jasper was It. He was known to be kind and disinterested and was accustomed to dealing out Good Advice. Anything that he said would go a long Way to head off ...
— People You Know • George Ade
... the flavour even of canaries is trivial and insignificant by comparison." During the period of dinner—which consisted of eggs and green herbs of the field—this person allowed the contemplation to grow within him, and inspired by a most pleasant and disinterested ambition to carry out the expressed wishes of the one who had spoken, he determined that the matter should be unobtrusively arranged despite the mercenary opposition of ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... would otherwise seem long to their brooding mates on the nests, and the hum of insects, my fancy began to create a future for the fair stranger—a future, rest assured, that did not leave the dreamer a calm and disinterested observer. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... him in possession of that range of intellect, that grasp of mind, from which the discoveries of Newton sprang? It is mental power that I look for: if you can demonstrate the increase of that, I will give up the field. Energy—independence—individuality—disinterested virtue—active benevolence—self-oblivion—universal philanthropy—these are the qualities I desire to find, and of which I contend that every succeeding age produces fewer examples. I repeat it; there is scarcely such a thing to be found as a single individual man; a few ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... displayed by the Duc at the prospect of his marriage, which caused him to suspect that even at that time the Duc was in love with his wife. The Comte de Chabannes as usual made every effort to act as peacemaker, hoping in this way to show the Princess that his devotion to her was sincere and disinterested. He could not resist asking her what effect the sight of the Duc de Guise had produced. She replied that she had been somewhat upset and embarrassed at the memory of the feelings she had once displayed ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... them, but because her heart was capable of love —of love, pure, devoted, unchangeable, springing from being beloved, and because her feelings were sensitive as the quivering aspen, which trembles at the rustling of an insect's wing. Amongst her suitors there might have been some who were disinterested; but the meanness and sordid objects of many caused her to regard all with suspicion, and there was none among the number to whose voice her bosom responded as the needle turns to the magnet, and frequently from a cause as inexplicable. ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... crimes. For their ambitions, who shall search the human heart, or say what their superiors in Europe may, or perhaps may not, have had in view? When all is said and done, and now their work is over, and all they worked for lost (as happens usually with the efforts of disinterested men), what crime so terrible can men commit as to stand up for near upon two centuries against that slavery which disgraced every American possession of the Spanish* crown? Nothing is bad enough for those who dare to speak the truth, ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... precepts of the religion are; how pure, how benevolent, how disinterested a conduct they enjoin; and that this purity and benevolence are extended to the very thoughts and affections. We are not, perhaps, at liberty to take for granted that the lives of the preachers of Christianity were ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... seductive, and I am young and passionate; and if these lovely women have no respect for my dignity as a married man, how then should I have it, who married for duty, not for love? But there is one whom I respect for disinterestedness and fidelity! Do you not know who alone is disinterested and faithful?—who has never seen in me the prince, the future king—only the beloved one, the man—one who has never wavered, never counted the cost?—that you are, Wilhelmine Enke, therefore we are inseparable, and you have not to fear that I can ever forsake you, even if I am sometimes entangled ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... he's no trouble to your mother. As for the two boys, I know nothing about them, one way or the other. But you, as you are a girl, and the only one not provided for, why, I shall show a little kindness in your direction. It's wholly disinterested and quixotic, I know," added Mrs. Chatterton, with a sweeping gaze at the walls and ceilings, "for me to give myself a thought about you or your future. And I shall never receive so much as a thank you for it. But I've passed all my life in thinking ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... indulgence. His ease, his leisure, his opulence, are debts due to his country, which he must ever stand ready to discharge. He should be a man at all points; simple, frank, courteous, intelligent, accomplished, and informed; upright, intrepid, and disinterested; one that can mingle among freemen; that can cope with statesmen; that can champion his country and its rights, either at home or abroad. In a country like England, where there is such free and unbounded scope for the exertion of intellect, and where opinion ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... and sick men," to use her Majesty's tender phrases, kiss her shadow as it falls on them. The Emperor Napoleon does not make war to employ his armies, or to consolidate his power; he does so for the sake of an "idea," more or less generous and disinterested. The soul of mankind would revolt at the blunt, naked truth; and the taciturn emperor knows this, as he knows most things. This imperial hypocrisy, like every other hypocrisy, is a homage which vice pays to virtue. ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... path, though he had not the courage to pursue it. In a letter to his brother Henry respecting the career of his son, Goldsmith wrote: "Teach, my dear sir, to your son, thrift and economy. Let his poor wandering uncle's example be placed before his eyes. I had learned from books to be disinterested and generous before I was taught from experience the necessity of being prudent. I had contracted the habits and notions of a philosopher, while I was exposing myself to the insidious approaches of cunning; and often by being, even ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... further evidenced by his abundant curly reddish hair, and his thick-set features and the sultry gleam upon them. Had not Cardillac been known throughout all Paris, as one of the most honest and honourable of men, disinterested, frank, without any reserve, always ready to help, the very peculiar appearance of his eyes, which were small, deep-set, green, and glittering, might have drawn upon him the suspicion of ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... "Most disinterested of you. Thank you: I will fail or succeed on my own merits, not on your recommendation. You must not say a word to her about ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... men seemed well mated. "I can recall only one fact of the debates," says Mrs. William Crotty, of Seneca, Illinois, "that I felt so sorry for Lincoln when Douglas was speaking, and then to my surprise I felt so sorry for Douglas when Lincoln replied." The disinterested to whom it was an intellectual game, felt the power and charm of both men. Partisans had each reason enough to cheer. It was afterwards, as the debates were talked over by auditors as they lingered at the country store or were grouped on the fence in the evening, or when they were ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... always shown.—Mrs. Malaprop, I am your most respectful admirer, and shall be proud to add affectionate nephew.—I need not tell my Lydia, that she sees her faithful Beverley, who, knowing the singular generosity of her temper, assumed that name and station, which has proved a test of the most disinterested love, which he now hopes to enjoy in ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... given to somebody, to raise. The mother was but a feeble woman; it would be a task for her to obtain her own living, they thought; and so, kind, generous souls, with that peculiar readiness with which disinterested friends console or advise the unfortunate, "the neighbors" became very eloquent and argumentative. But though the mother's hands were weak, her heart was strong, and her love for her ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the past we derive instructive lessons for the future. Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... in France not more than two out of twenty of the inhabitants were left alive. Two queens, one bishop, and great numbers of other distinguished persons fell a sacrifice to it, and more than five hundred a day died in the Hotel-Dieu, under the faithful care of the religious women, whose disinterested courage, in this age of horror, displayed the most beautiful traits ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... be loved for myself alone. I will change my name, and hie me to pastures new, and all the affection that is then lavished upon me will be pure and disinterested." ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile
... had three proposals of marriage, and on each occasion my aunt pressed me to accept the offer. I refused to do so, unless I were allowed time and opportunity to make the most exhaustive inquiries as to my disinterested lover's antecedents. My heart not being touched, I was able to do so dispassionately, and in each case I discovered something dishonourable in their characters. One I found was on the brink of pecuniary ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... was impossible for Mr. Spreckels to look at matters from a disinterested standpoint, and the minister should have grasped this fact, instead of sending as facts to his Government statements that were merely the views of ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 55, November 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... from Rose Hill, that a convict who had been employed to strike the sting ray, with another, on the flats, having gone on shore, engaged in some quarrel with the natives, who took all his clothes from him, severely wounded, and would inevitably have killed him, but for the humane, friendly, and disinterested interference of one of their own women, who happened to be present. This accident, and many others of the same nature, could not have happened, had the orders which he had received, not to land upon any account, been ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... dumb with astonishment before this act of self-sacrifice on the part of Jonah, for which his previous history left us quite unprepared. Who would have thought him capable of such disinterested conduct? His self-abnegation was assuredly heroic, and may even be called sublime. No doubt the captain and crew of the ship were as much astonished as we are, and their opinion of Jonah went up several hundred per cent. They resolved to make a last supreme ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... this misery. I had no strength to reveal the terrible secret: I became selfish and ungenerous; for when I breathed to your innocent ear the vows of everlasting affection, when you repaid my profession with undisguised, pure, and disinterested love, even at that time, my hand, my faith, were ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio |
