"Disinterestedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of whose character I hear so much from every one; him will I receive and trust." That was the electrifying, vivifying effect of the apparition of such an one as Paul—"a man who had indeed done nothing worthy of bonds or of death"—a man in whose entire disinterestedness and in whose transparent honor the image and superscription of his Master was written so that no one could mistake it. "In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness" is the noblest ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... live—to live—must be his unswerving resolve. He must as little as possible allow himself to be turned aside from it. It may be said that this is the most concentrated form of selfishness,—that it is utterly opposed to our Theosophic professions of benevolence, and disinterestedness, and regard for the good of humanity. Well, viewed in a short-sighted way, it is so. But to do good, as in everything else, a man must have time and materials to work with, and this is a necessary means to the acquirement of powers ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... versatility was a consequence of a particular mental organization, and that, if rigorously analyzed, its causes would be found to resolve themselves into habits of reasoning upon men and things from which courage, generosity, and masculine disinterestedness, were carefully excluded. Patriotism may be pleaded in justification—it is a ready argument, and a common defense; but, ample as its proportions are, it will not cover every thing: besides that, in Talleyrand's case it was a non-existence, for of that holy love of country which the word ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... in my mind I should have some difficulty in explaining. I was full of indulgence for her life, full of admiration for her beauty. The proof of disinterestedness that she gave in not accepting a rich and fashionable young man, ready to waste all his money upon her, excused her in my eyes for all her ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... Forces in the great caverns of evil beneath society; in the hideous degradation, squalor, wretchedness and destitution, vices and crimes that reek and simmer in the darkness in that populace below the people, of great cities. There disinterestedness vanishes, every one howls, searches, gropes, and gnaws for himself. Ideas are ignored, and of progress there is no thought. This populace has two mothers, both of them stepmothers—Ignorance and Misery. Want is their only guide—for the appetite alone they crave satisfaction. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... row, which, however, ceased on the appearance of our stalwart troop; indeed, I think one Birmingham smith, a handsome fellow six feet high, whose vehement disinterestedness would neither allow to eat, drink, or sleep in the house, would have ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... these oppositions so unexpected and so unlooked for merely a reminder of that old bit of wisdom that "there is no guarding against interpretations"? Perhaps more subtle still, they were due to that very super-refinement of disinterestedness which will not justify itself, that it may feel superior to public opinion. Some of our investigations of course had no such untoward results, such as "An Intensive Study of Truancy" undertaken by a resident of Hull-House in connection ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... and cordial acknowledgments are due to you, sir, for the wisdom and decision with which you arrayed the militia to execute the public will, and to them for the disinterestedness and alacrity with which they obeyed ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... an admirer or a spy. He therefore considers his fame as involved in the event of every action. Many of the virtues and vices of youth proceed from this quick sense of reputation. This it is that gives firmness and constancy, fidelity, and disinterestedness, and it is this that kindles resentment for slight injuries, and dictates all the principles ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... must admit that John was weak, he was weak where strong and noble natures may most gracefully be so,—weak through disinterestedness, faith, and the disposition to make the best of the ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... own lord is he. I have no use save for heroes!" This sounds very fair; to Alberich almost too fair. He presses Wotan with further questions. The answers are elusive as oracles, but satisfy Alberich of thus much: that Wotan is himself out of the struggle for the Ring. To point his personal disinterestedness, the god even offers to wake the dragon, that Alberich may warn him of the approaching danger and peradventure receive in token of gratitude—the Ring! We suspect in this Wotan's taste for a joke, unless it be an exhibition of that other trait of the god's, the need to gratify his conscience ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... with a contempt that did justice to my disinterestedness as well as his own. "I had forgotten I had it. No, Thomas, I should never weigh money against the happiness of living with such a woman as your wife appears to be. But her life I might. Carry out your threat; forget to pay John Poindexter the debt we owe him, and the matter will ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... in it without farther demur. He had even noticed in her, during his few hours in Paris, a tendency to reproach herself for her lack of charity, and a desire, almost as fervent as his own, to expiate it by exaggerated recognition of the disinterestedness of her opponents—if opponents they could still be called. This sudden change in her attitude was peculiarly moving to Durham. He knew she would hazard herself lightly enough wherever her heart called her; but that, with the precious freight of her child's future weighing her down, ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... doubt, there was not in France any equal number of persons possessing in an equal degree the qualities necessary for the judicious direction of public affairs; and, just at this moment, these legislators, misled by a childish wish to display their own disinterestedness, deserted the duties which they had half learned, and which nobody else had learned at all, and left their hall to a second crowd of novices, who had still to master the first rudiments of political business. When Barere ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Trantridge two or three years ago to preach on behalf of some missionary society; and I, wretched fellow that I was, insulted him when, in his disinterestedness, he tried to reason with me and show me the way. He did not resent my conduct, he simply said that some day I should receive the first-fruits of the Spirit—that those who came to scoff sometimes remained to pray. There was a strange magic in his words. They sank ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... years Catherine had had time to forget how little she had to thank her aunt for in the season of her misery; she had long ago forgiven Mrs. Penniman for taking too much upon herself. But for a moment this attitude of interposition and disinterestedness, this carrying of messages and redeeming of promises, brought back the sense that her companion was a dangerous woman. She had said she would not be angry; but for an instant she felt sore. "I don't care what you do with ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... refusal will not surprise those, who had an opportunity of knowing and esteeming the patriotism and disinterestedness of that brave ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... courier was sent to summon me home. And, would you believe it? my Lucretia consents to accompany me, on condition that I force no gifts upon her acceptance, but allow her to furnish her house in Munich at her own expense. Did you ever hear of such disinterestedness? Now I am about to give you a proof of my confidence, and tell you the name of my mistress. It is the Countess Canossa. Well!—You are not overjoyed? You do ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... citizens, allow me to invoke in behalf of your deliberations that spirit of conciliation and disinterestedness which is the gift of patriotism. Under an over-ruling and merciful Providence the agency of this spirit has thus far been signalized in the prosperity and glory of our beloved country. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... will fence their fields with mahogany, and, after a decent grace, sup claret to their porridge. It is not wickedness: it is scarce evil; it is only, in its highest power, the sense of isolation and the wise disinterestedness of feeble and poor races. Think how many viking ships had sailed by these islands in the past, how many vikings had landed, and raised turmoil, and broken up the barrows of the dead, and carried off the wines of the living; and blame them, if you are able, for that belief (which may be called ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... spent near two hours upon this theme with our dearest oracle and his other half He is much affected by the idea of any change that may remove us from his daily sight; but, with his unvarying disinterestedness, says he thinks such a place would be fully acquitted by you. If it is of consul here, in London, he is sure you would fill up all its ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... speech that I could scarcely get answers to the questions I put to him. When he had done I was able to limp about pretty nimbly. An Indian when he performs a service of this kind never thinks of a reward. I did not find so much disinterestedness in negro slaves or half-castes. We had to wait two hours for the return of our companions; during part of this time I was left quite alone, Lino having started off into the jungle after a peccary (a kind of wild hog) which had ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... "You did her disinterestedness no more than justice. As some atonement for the personal wrong, and as the speediest and surest means of appeasing her alarm, I made my captive acquainted with the facts. Eudora then heard, also for the first time, the history of her origin. The evidence was irresistible, and ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... noble a model for our age (in which the most inconsiderable and even trifling concerns often create feuds and animosities between brothers and sisters, and disturb the peace of families,) is the generous disinterestedness of Scipio; who, whenever he had an opportunity of serving his relations, thought lightly of bestowing the largest sums upon them! This excellent passage of Polybius had escaped me, by its not being inserted in the folio edition of ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... in this book that he did not give up Christianity; yet he gave up all that made Christianity Christianity. He said in it that he was looking for a "religion which shall combine the tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness that are the glories of the purest Christianity, with that activity of intellect and untiring pursuit of truth." [Footnote: He said once he wished for a religion which should combine the best out of all ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... exquisite viands were laid out on a table in the same arrangement, would be indifferent to the taste, as in ladies' patterns; but surely the one is far more agreeable than the other. Hence observe the disinterestedness of all taste; and hence also a sensual perfection with intellect is occasionally possible without moral feeling. So it may be in music and painting, but not in poetry. How far it is a real preference of the refined to the gross pleasures, is another question, upon the supposition ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... because she is too ill to travel; and besides my aunt will not let her go, and she is afraid of crossing her in any way. I know Aniela too well to suspect her of any calculations. She is the very essence of disinterestedness. But the mother, who would grasp all the world for her only child, doubtless counts upon the chance of a legacy for Aniela. And she is not mistaken either. My aunt, who never quite believed in Kromitzki's millions, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... him all about you—your troubles, your struggles, your disinterestedness and all your history since ever I knew you?" answered Herbert, who was totally unconscious that he had left Major Warfield in ignorance of one very ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... necessity, to get out of the power of a man whom he dreaded,—and his first feeling, after the consummation of the bargain, had been that of relief. But his wife's expostulations awoke his half-slumbering regrets; and Tom's manly disinterestedness increased the unpleasantness of his feelings. It was in vain that he said to himself that he had a right to do it,—that everybody did it,—and that some did it without even the excuse of necessity;—he could not satisfy his own feelings; and that he might not witness the unpleasant ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... charges that have been at various times, with more or less virulence and disinterestedness, brought against the Church of England, that of assuming to itself the divine attribute of searching the secret heart of many has, I believe, never been superadded. It has remained for men very far advanced indeed in spiritual knowledge and perfection, to assert the bold prerogative, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... is worth. I have not been easy since I received it." In fact, he actually returned the note to the bookseller, and left it to him to graduate the payment according to the success of the work. The bookseller, as may well be supposed, soon repaid him in full with many acknowledgments of his disinterestedness. This anecdote has been called in question, we know not on what grounds; we see nothing in it incompatible with the character of Goldsmith, who was very impulsive, and prone ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... which our love, flying forward, builds its nest in the eaves of the universe. If we saw wings growing out upon a young creature, we should be forced to conclude that he was intended some time to fly. It is so with man. By exploring thoughts, disciplinary sacrifices, supernal prayers, holy toils of disinterestedness, he fledges his soul's pinions, lays up treasures in heaven, and at last migrates to the ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... friend, stood by the dummy's grave with him, and, generally speaking, sustained him in his tribulation, a disposition to get the fool out of the way grew strong enough to make its victim doubt her own vouchers for her own absolute disinterestedness. She turned angrily upon her fancies, tore them to tatters, flung them to the winds. One does this, and then the pieces join themselves ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... compelled Prussia to make a decision. Frederick William could no longer wage a sham warfare nor cover hostile intentions by a pretense of disinterestedness. A decision must be taken, and the conduct of General York had indicated what the painful conclusion must be. The convention of Tauroggen had been duly disavowed; but an envoy was at Russian headquarters, and Alexander had entered Prussian ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... they become rivals; and, when pecuniary interests come to be well understood and to have their weight, here is a rivalship, to prevent which from ending in hostility, require more affection and greater disinterestedness than fall to the lot of one out of one hundred families. So many instances have I witnessed of good and amiable families living in harmony, till the hour arrived for dividing property amongst them, and then, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... only American officer who ever thought of making use of his command to increase the fortune. The disinterestedness of those soldiers, during a period of revolution, which facilitates abuses, forms a singular contrast with the reproach of avidity that other governments, who have not shown the same moderation themselves, have thought proper ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... and Romanism became corrupt and vicious with that book in the hands of the priesthood. But dissatisfied as Newman is with the present, he takes a cheerful look upon the future. "The age is ripe," he says, "for something better, for a religion which shall combine the tenderness, humility, and disinterestedness which are the glory of the present Christianity, with that activity of intellect, untiring pursuit of truth, and strict adherence to impartial principle which the schools of modern science embody. When a spiritual church has its senses exercised to discern good and evil, judges of right and wrong ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... this apparent and wholly circumstantial disinterestedness, Balzac loved artistic surroundings, rugs, tapestries and silver ware. He detested mediocrity, and could enjoy nothing short either of glorious poverty, nobly endured in a garret, or wealth and the splendour of a ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... turning over the music-leaves, Verdant privately declared, over a chessboard, to Miss Patty, that Mr. Frank Delaval was the handsomest and most delightful man he had ever met. And when Miss Patty's eyes sparkled at this proof of his truth and disinterestedness, Verdant mistook the ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... tastes of an antiquary and collector. The residue on the sale insured me a modest independence apart from the profits of a profession; and as I had not been legally bound to defray my father's debts, so I obtained that character for disinterestedness and integrity which always in England tends to propitiate the public to the successes achieved by industry or talent. Perhaps, too, any professional ability I might possess was the more readily conceded, because I had cultivated ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... all the north. We shall, thinking of that contingency, take varying views, beyond reconciliation, as to the place of the Iroquois in American history; but we shall all agree, whatever our religious and political predilection, men of Old France and men of New France alike, in applauding the sublime disinterestedness, fearless zeal, and unquestioned devotion to something beyond the self, which have consecrated all that valley of the Lakes and have, in the person of Marquette, the son of Laon, made first claim upon the life of the valley, whose great ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... the welcome I received was most cordial. I chose a populous centre for a temporary residence, and proceeded to look around me. I found the Texans to be a warm-hearted people, much given to hospitality, and willing, with a charming disinterestedness, to admit all new-comers, with capital, to the enormous profits of ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... his wife quizzically, opened his lips to speak, and closed them. Perhaps he thought it would be unwise as well as wrong to disturb the girl's faith in Lady Annesley-Seton's disinterestedness. ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... thing as disinterestedness. You never do anything for anybody, except for what you get out of it for yourself.... ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... affiliation. It sets him at one spring at the very parting of the ways where all the mysteries meet. Nature loves to reveal the most delicate side-lights and the most illuminating glimpses to those who take this attitude. Such disinterestedness ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... too sustained; her morality is too shrill,—too much in staccato; she too seldom subsides into the commonplace. Yet it cannot be denied that she puts things very happily. Remonstrating with Dinah Morris on the undue disinterestedness of her religious notions, "But for the matter o' that," she cries, "if everybody was to do like you, the world must come to a stand-still; for if everybody tried to do without house and home and eating and drinking, and was always talking as we must despise the things o' the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... and independent in manner, who deserted the drawing-rooms of the great for saloons where he could move at his ease. There, also, Diderot would often delight his circle of admirers by the fluency and richness of his conversation, his friends extolling his disinterestedness and honesty, his enemies whispering about his cunning and selfishness. The novelist Duclos, with his keen power of penetrating human character, would move leisurely through the throng, picking up material for his romances; and Mably ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... lady of importance, whose friendship means perdition, yet without whom nothing can be done, and who plays an immense part in the world. The monosyllable which designates her has a vague and extended signification; it means both reward and bribery. Disinterestedness, the virtue of noble minds, being rare in this world, scarcely anything is undertaken without hope of recompense, and what man, toiling solely with a view to recompense, is quite safe from bribery? So Lady Meed is there, beautiful, alluring, perplexing; to get on without her is impossible, and ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... urging. He detailed the romance of his life, without omitting anything, but with many delicate touches for the filial ears of M. Langevin. The Counsellor heard him patiently, with an appearance of perfect disinterestedness. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... Geimard, has provided for the accommodation of travellers with a truly noble disinterestedness. He traversed the whole of Iceland some years ago and left two large tents behind him; one here, and the other in Thingvalla. The one here is particularly appropriate, as travellers are frequently obliged, as stated above, to ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... taken in part payment. They were sent to Castile in two armed galleys. As to Ali Dordux, such favors and honors were heaped upon him by the Spanish sovereigns for his considerate mediation in the surrender that the disinterestedness of his conduct has often been called in question. He was appointed chief justice and alcayde of the (10) mudexares or Moorish subjects, and was presented with twenty houses, one public bakery, and several orchards, vineyards, and tracts of open country. He retired ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... it gets. Give it complete power over a human being, and there are no limits to its cupidity and wrong-doing, but the finite nature of the thing itself. Hence, does it not follow that there can be no disinterestedness, no tender mercies in slavery? Yes, dear Aunt, as we are perfectly sure that there can be no water in the moon, so are we sure, by the same unerring rule of reasoning according to the inductive philosophy, ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... metaphysics was as deep as Ruskin's, and he was impatient of abstractions of any sort. With as great a desire to further the true progress of his time as Carlyle or Ruskin, he joined a greater calmness and disinterestedness. "To be less and less personal in one's desires and workings" he learned to look upon as after all the great matter. Of the lessons that are impressed upon us by his whole life and work rather than by specific teachings, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... disinterestedness, faith, patience, piety, have a beauty celestial and divine, then were our fathers worshippers of the beautiful. If high-mindedness and spotless honor are beautiful things, they had those. What work of art can compare with a lofty and heroic ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... shocked those who possessed this fund. My candor was called anything but truthfulness; they named it sarcasm, cunning, coarseness, or tact, as those were constituted who came in contact with me. Insight into character, frankness, generosity, disinterestedness, were sometimes given me. Veronica alone was uncompromising; she put aside by instinct what baffled or attracted others, and, setting my real value upon me, acted accordingly. I do not accuse her of injustice, but of a fierce harshness which kept us apart for ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... Absolute disinterestedness, the belief in her own spiritual mission, natural genius, and that vast power which then belonged to all energetic members of the monastic orders, enabled her to play this part. She had no advantages to begin with. The daughter of ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... suburbs of Ispahan, under the reign of Abbas the First, there lived a poor, working jeweller. In his neighbourhood he was known by the name of Bebut the Honest. Numberless were the proofs of probity and disinterestedness which had gained for ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 327, August 16, 1828 • Various
... sent in his resignation, and, it is said, died of grief shortly afterward. Ogotai was one of the most humane and amiable of all the Mongol rulers, and Yeliu Chutsai imitated his master. Of the latter the Chinese contemporary writers said "he was distinguished by a rare disinterestedness. Of a very broad intellect, he was able, without injustice and without wronging a single person, to amass vast treasures (D'Ohsson says only of books, maps, and pictures), and to enrich his family, but all his care and labors had for their sole object the advantage and glory ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... fingers, I slowly examined them, and returned them to my friend. 'I can not buy them,' I said. He raised his eyes, he saw my palor and my tears—my tears, gentlemen, for I wept! He smiled, took a hammer, and pulverized the three precious shells. You saw what he did just now. God bless him for his disinterestedness, and his devotion to an old friend! I should die of despair, gentlemen, if, during my life, another possessed a ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... to admit of his entering on any merely factious opposition to the government he had quitted. On the contrary, his conduct after his retirement was distinguished by a moderation and disinterestedness which, as Burke has remarked, "set a seal upon his character." The war with Spain, in which he had urged the cabinet to take the initiative, proved inevitable; but he scorned to use the occasion for "altercation and recrimination," and spoke in support of the government measures ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... eyes, who had an insatiable ambition and a still greater conceit, but who had devised a blundering, innocent, helpless way of conducting himself before a jury that deceived them into believing that his inexperience required their help and his disinterestedness their loyal support. Both of them were apparently fair-minded, honest public servants; both in reality were subtly disingenuous to a degree beyond ordinary comprehension, for years of practise had made them sensitive to every whimsy of emotion and taught them how to play upon the psychology of ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Some liked him and his ways, some liked him not nor his ways either. He wrote of his own deeds and praised them highly, and saw little good in other mankind, though here and there he made an exception. Evident enough are faults of temper. But he had great courage and energy and at times a lofty disinterestedness. ...
— Pioneers of the Old South - A Chronicle of English Colonial Beginnings, Volume 5 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Mary Johnston
... we infer that the prominent traits in her character were strong affections, energy, and disinterestedness. Of a slight and delicate frame and constitution, and a sensibility almost amounting to sensitiveness, she at an early age engaged in duties and made sacrifices scarcely expected from the robust and vigorous. And her exertions ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... "If God were to will to send the souls of the just to hell—so Chrysostom and Clement suggest—souls in the third state would not love Him less[308]." "Mixed love," however, is not a sin: "the greater part of holy souls never reach perfect disinterestedness in this life." We ought to wish for our salvation, because it is God's will that we should do so. Interested love coincides with resignation, disinterested with holy indifference. "St. Francis de Sales says that ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... revolutionary war? What ancient naval victory to that of Trafalgar? Rely upon it, subjects for genius are not wanting; genius itself, steadily and perseveringly directed, is the thing required. But genius and energy alone are not sufficient; COURAGE and disinterestedness are needed more than all. Courage to withstand the assaults of envy, to despise the ridicule of mediocrity—disinterestedness to trample under foot the seductions of ease, and disregard the attractions of opulence. An heroic mind is more wanted in the library or the studio, than ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... obviously needed, he might have persisted in seeing her first and assuring her that he was to be regarded as an ally whatever she decided to do. Her voice as she had said, "I know I can never marry Graham" echoed forlornly in his mind's ear. But a doubt faint and vague as it was, of his own disinterestedness held him back. Graham was young; he was in love with her. That gave him ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... did not relax his efforts to bring about a union of all parties in the North, in opposition to further encroachments of the slave power. In accomplishing this end, his age, the regard in which he was held by all classes of people, his known disinterestedness and independence, fitted him to exert a large influence. The Free Soil movement had led to the formation of a party in Massachusetts, small in numbers, but zealous, active, in earnest, containing many able leaders, eloquent orators, and vigorous writers. They had sent Charles Allen to the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of disinterestedness in Abou Hassan confirmed the esteem the caliph had entertained for him. "I am pleased with your request," said he, "and grant you free access to my person at all times and all hours." At the same time he assigned him an apartment in the palace, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... details of this interview are added others, which somewhat reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel. They rest, however, upon hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly their original signification, some caution must be given before they are credited: yet, even ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... Jones was brave; in enterprise, hardy and original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to disinterestedness, though ambitious of renown and covetous of distinction; in pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections, natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which assailed his reputation, just ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... Athens,' when included in the same programme, require a master hand to provide continuity of interest. To say that Mr Lamond successfully avoided moments that might at times, in these works, have inclined to comparative disinterestedness, would be but a moderate way of expressing the remarkable fascination with which his versatile playing endowed them, but at the same time two of the sonatas given included a similar form of composition, and no ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... halting as this defense was, Douglas gave ample proof of his disinterestedness in advocating a State government for California. "I think, Sir," he said, "that the only issue now presented, is whether you will admit California as a State, or whether you will leave it without government, exposed to all the horrors of anarchy and violence. I have no hope of a Territorial ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Evidently, if Rowland was to take pleasure in hearing about her, it would have to be a highly disinterested pleasure. She answered nothing, and Rowland too, as he walked beside her, was silent; but as he looked along the shadow-woven wood-path, what he was really facing was a level three years of disinterestedness. He ushered them in by talking composed civility until he had brought Miss Garland back to ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will go to El Dorado. I will meet you to-morrow at this hour at the water-gate of the palace. I will come in the Gonzaga barge, and we will flee ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... educator is he who makes his pupils independent of himself. This implies on the teacher's part an ability to lose himself in his work, and a desire for the real growth of the pupil, independent of any personal fame of his own—a disinterestedness which places education on a level with the noblest ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... Tower, was devoted to the popular party,[*] he absolutely despaired of ever escaping the multiplied dangers with which he was every way environed. We might ascribe this step to a noble effort of disinterestedness, not unworthy the great mind of Strafford, if the measure which he advised had not been, in the event, as pernicious to his master, as it was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... disinterestedness was only the result of his despondency. While the crisis lasted, neither Charles nor Henry of France saw their way to a distinct course of action. Charles, on the 20th of July, ignorant of the events in London, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... nationalism as they would be in any other country, but institutions where the student is taught to think freely, and his thoughts are judged by their intelligence, not by their utility to exploiters. The outcome, among the best young men, is a really beautiful intellectual disinterestedness. The discussions which I used to have in my seminar (consisting of students belonging to the Peking Government University) could not have been surpassed anywhere for keenness, candour, and fearlessness. I had the same impression of the Science Society of Nanking, and of all ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... clergymen as were likely to come there; and partly, if not chiefly, because the activity of his nature made such serving a delight to him. The small church, like the school, had been greatly improved since it had come under his hand, and the disinterestedness of his unpaid ministrations was greatly lauded. He was a very busy, and a successful, man, much esteemed by all who knew him. The New College was expected to become a university; Robert Trenholme hoped for this and expected to remain at its ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... is done to his memory by the perversions and misrepresentations of the religious publications. No doubt had his views been different on "religious" subjects, he would have been held up as a model of genius, perseverance, courage, disinterestedness of purpose, and purity of life, by the men who now find him no better name than the "Blasphemer." We hope that those not previously acquainted with the facts of his life, will find in the present sketch sufficient reason to think and speak otherwise of a man ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... alliance concluded between Austria and Japan in Vienna on the afternoon of July 30th. According to this source Japan had pledged herself to support Austria in case the latter was attacked by Russia, while Austria declared her absolute disinterestedness in the Far East. On August 1st the Berliner Tageblatt repeated this legend; but advised its readers to exercise reserve ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... himself, though as his one real fault, that he can take nothing seriously in heaven or earth, Bernard de Vaudricourt, like all M. Feuillet's favourite young men, so often erring or corrupt, is a man of scrupulous "honour." He has already shown disinterestedness in wishing his rich uncle to marry again. His friends at Varaville think so well-mannered a young man more of a Christian than he really is; and, at all events, he will never owe his happiness to a falsehood. If he has great faults, [223] hypocrisy at least is no ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... this very room to tell her of her husband's accident he had never forsaken her. She had not thought that such chivalrous kindness existed in the world, but she was yet young enough and inexperienced enough to believe in it and in its complete disinterestedness; for what return could she ever make for all he had done? And now, was this a crowning service, an offer of brotherly kindness which was almost sublime, or—what was it? She looked at him as if she could see into his soul. "Oh," she said, "I know your ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... it than you do," replied Tom. "I suppose she must, for she certainly could marry richer men than Harry if she wanted to. She has the merit, at least, of disinterestedness." ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... some subscription book, such as used to come in her father's time, but when she opened to him he took off his hat with a great deal of manner, and said "Miss Kilburn?" with so much insinuation of gentle disinterestedness, that it flashed upon her that it ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... there was hardly an excess, either of violence or licentiousness, into which his impetuous temperament did not occasionally precipitate him; but he seems to have had nothing base or malignant in his composition; and that he was as capable of acts of extraordinary generosity and disinterestedness as of excesses of brutal fury or profligacy. Of the courage and strength of will proper to his race, he had his full share, with more than his share of their strength of thew and sinew; and his intellectual powers, both natural and acquired, were also of a high order. He was renowned ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... ultimate consequences of this philosophy of the senses should be drawn by a disciple of Feuerbach, Max Stirner,[1] in whose work, The Individual and His Property, the virtues of egoism are extolled, and contempt is poured upon all disinterestedness and altruism. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... the disinterestedness of their motives, men as well as officers, I was charmed to hear that before sailing from America they had signed a bond not to claim, under any circumstances, the L20,000 reward the British Government ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... a little troubled by the national debt; it seemed to press on him somehow, while his own never did. He exhibited more animation over the affairs of the government than he did over his own,—an evidence at once of his disinterestedness and his patriotism. He had been an old abolitionist, and was strong on the rights of free labor, though he did not care to exercise his privilege much. Of course he had the proper contempt for the poor whites down South. I never saw a person with more correct notions on such a variety ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... with the disinterestedness and generosity of his soul. He thinks himself amply rewarded for all his labors and cares, by the love and prosperity of his fellow-citizens. It is true, no rewards they can bestow can be equal to his merits. But they ought not to suffer those merits to be burdensome ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... his army. A single general action was to decide the fate of England. Five days were to bring Napoleon to London, where he was to perform the part of William the Third; but with more generosity and disinterestedness. He was to call a meeting of the inhabitants, restore them what he calls their rights, and destroy the oligarchical faction. A few months would not, according to his account, have elapsed, ere the two nations, late such determined enemies, would have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... for it is by acts, not by words, that one so simple, true, delicate and retiring, can be known. For me, while some of my friends have thought me exacting, I may say Ossoli has always outgone my expectations in the disinterestedness, the uncompromising bounty, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... opinion of Mr. Sawin, does not deny fun at Cornwallis, his idea of militia glory, a pun of, is uncertain in regard to people of Boston, had never heard of Mr. John P. Robinson, aliquid sufflaminandus, his poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell, is unskilled in Latin, his poetry maligned by some, his disinterestedness, his deep share in commonweal, his claim to the presidency, his mowing, resents being called Whig, opposed to tariff, obstinate, infected with peculiar notions, reports a speech, emulates historians of antiquity, his character sketched from a hostile point of view, a request of his complied ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... lawsuits for various priests of Besancon. At moments he could breathe freely at the thought of his coming triumph. This intense desire, which made him work so many interests and devise so many springs, absorbed the last strength of his terribly overstrung soul. His disinterestedness was lauded, and he took his clients' fees without comment. But this disinterestedness was, in truth, moral usury; he counted on a reward far greater to him than all ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... this interest were not the necessary, eternal, and indestructible mover, to the guidance of which Providence has confided human perfectibility! One would suppose that the utterers of such sentiments must be models of disinterestedness; but does the public not begin to perceive with disgust, that this affected language is the stain of those pages for which it oftenest pays ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... chosen her work as a nurse in a spirit of high disinterestedness; but in the first hours of her bereavement it seemed as though only the personal aim had sustained her. For a while, after this, her sick people became to her mere bundles of disintegrating matter, and she shrank from physical pain with a distaste the deeper ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... other place, if necessary, to accomplish his object. He beset Lady Hilden with the most earnest prayers, and protestations, and entreaties, reminding her that he loved and wooed her before the dawn of her prosperity, and appealed to her for the disinterestedness of his passion. But all in vain. He even besought his father to use his influence with Alice in his favor. Colonel Delany, his objections being all now removed, urged his niece, by her affection, by her compassion, and, finally, after some delicate hesitation, by her gratitude, to accept ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... artificial manners. He denies not the charge; he never trims, nor glosses over, nor would veil, a single part of his conduct. He wrote to serve his patrons, but never himself. I preserve the whole of this noble passage in the note.[265] Wood bears witness to his perfect disinterestedness. He never partook of the prosperity of his patron, nor mixed with any parties, loving the retirement of his private studies; and if he scorned and hated one party, the Presbyterians, it was, says Wood, because his high generous nature detested ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... polemarch, Calimachus, who then had the casting vote, decided for immediate action. Themistocles and Aristides had seconded the advice of Miltiades, to whom the other generals surrendered their days of command—a rare example of patriotic disinterestedness. The Athenians marched at once to Marathon to meet their foes, and were joined by the Plataeans, one thousand warriors, from a little city—the whole armed population, which had a great ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... everything, including himself; and that, whatever else he did, he did not act blindly or in the dark. He was sometimes quite wrong; but his errors were purely patriotic; both in the narrow sense of nationalism and in the larger sense of loyalty and disinterestedness. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... and sat down between them with sewing. Her face expressed a calm disinterestedness now. The young men showed the strain of the situation each according to his nature. Joe glowered and ground his teeth, while Sam's eyes glittered, and the corners of his mouth turned ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... that which, except by Utilitarians, has always been considered to be their only meaning, it is not simply not wrong, it is not simply right, it is among the highest achievements of virtue and morality to sacrifice your own in order to secure another's happiness, and the disinterestedness, and therefore the virtue, is surely the greater, rather than less, if you sacrifice more happiness of your own than you secure to another. So much follows necessarily from what has been said, and something more besides. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... the chieftains by which he was surrounded, the virtues of patriotism, disinterestedness, caution, enterprise and courage exhibited themselves in the highest perfection. As military leaders, Marion was particularly distinguished for enterprise, vigilance and courage; Sumter was his equal in enterprise and courage, ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... illegitimate birth. Love, however, laughed at the obstruction. The Sieur Lebrun hurried to the house of De la Motte; demanded the hand of the lady he loved; and the Demoiselle de Surcourt became his wife. The marriage contract will prove his disinterestedness. The portion he obtained was small; consisting but of eighteen hundred francs a-year. The Sieur Lebrun, secretary of the domains of the Prince de Conti, with two thousand livres a-year, might have looked higher—at all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... recollect Glaucon's definition of the perfectly righteous man?.... How, without being guilty of one unrighteous act, he must labour his life long under the imputation of being utterly unrighteous, in order that his disinterestedness may be thoroughly tested, and by proceeding in such a course, arrive inevitably, as Glaucon says, not only in Athens of old, or in Judaea of old, but, as you yourself will agree, in Christian Alexandria at this moment, at—do you remember, Hypatia?—bonds, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... before, and the Rhodesian Press in full cry against the Government. Sir Gordon Sprigg was stigmatised as a tool of the Bond and as disloyal to the Empire after the fifty years he had worked for it, with rare disinterestedness and great integrity. Nevertheless, the Ministry declared that, as there existed an absolute necessity for finding new resources to liquidate the expenses contingent on the war, it would propose a tax on diamonds and ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... May, when she was thirty years of age. It will be remembered that the king implored her not to enter a convent in her youth, as she desired; and that he obtained her promise to refrain from being a nun till she should be thirty years old. If he had not interfered at first, and if her noble disinterestedness had not caused her to devote herself to her brother and his family when she saw adversity coming upon them, she might have fulfilled a long course of piety and charity, and even been living now. Her life was so innocent, so graced by gentleness and love, that it ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... have been not only a scholar and a gentleman, but a man of gentle disinterestedness, combined with true city patriotism; for in his "Survey of the Town" are nine thickly printed pages of a neglected poem by a neglected ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville
... proof of this, and I state nothing but what came under my own observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. M. Eudel, the director of that department, performed his duty with zeal and disinterestedness. I feel gratified in rendering him this tribute. Enormous quantities of English merchandise and colonial produce were accumulated at Holstein, where they almost all arrived by way of Kiel and Hudsum, and were smuggled ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... America, of the beauty and dignity of class distinctions. In her turn Miss Burgess herself, the hard-working, good-natured woman of fifty who for twenty years had reported the doings of those citizens of Endbury whom she considered the "gentry," had toiled with the utmost disinterestedness to build up a feeling, or, as she called it, a "tone," which, among other things, should exclude her from equality. When she began she was, perhaps, the only person in town who had an unerring instinct for social differences; but, like ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... Putnam, "From the expediency of his youth he grew gradually to a high standard of honor." In the stress of the battle for liberty, when he was reduced to counting his very garments, his luxurious habits slipped from him, and disinterestedness grew upon him. Cromwell was formed when first we saw him; Orange grows before our eyes, as we have watched the blooming of some sacred flower. Orange was no saint. Who so thinks him, thinks amiss. He had manifold faults, as what man has not? But that the growing purpose of his life ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... "You doubt my disinterestedness, Mr. Greatson. Perhaps you are right. I wish the child well, but there is also this fact to be considered. Isobel married to an English gentleman such as, say, yourself, would be no longer a serious rival to my daughter in the affections ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... me there! But I might be like Queen Bess, you know, and prize my kingdom above any man; or, if one came along whom I really wanted to marry, I'd send him to slay dragons and carry off golden apples, to prove his devotion and disinterestedness. Don't cut me off through any mistaken scruples, Uncle Bernard. I'd really make a delightful chatelaine, and I should enjoy it so! No one appreciates the real object of ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... trace in Napoleon. Tho clothed with the power of a god, the thought of consecrating himself to the introduction of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of his race, seems never to have dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a moment's war with self-will and ambition. His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much simplicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent and enters into others' interests with too much ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... qualities as attracting the wonder and reverence of mankind: 1. Disinterestedness; 2. Practical Power; 3. Courage. "I need not show how much it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank. They forgive everything to it. And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which is esteemed becomes the darling of all men."—There are good and ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... of Livy's history was to celebrate the glories of his native country, to which he was devotedly attached. He was a patriot: his sympathy was with Pompey, called forth by the disinterestedness of that great man, and perhaps by his sad end. He delights to put forth his powers in those passages which relate to the affections. He is a biographer quite as much as a historian; he anatomizes the moral nature of his heroes, and shows the motive ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Peyster gave Olivetta a sharp look, as though she questioned the entire disinterestedness of this argument; then she considered an instant; and in the main it was her human instinct to help a struggling fellow being that dictated ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... without the walls of a Convent. He succeeded fully. To deserve admittance into the order of St. Francis was Ambrosio's highest ambition. His Instructors carefully repressed those virtues whose grandeur and disinterestedness were ill-suited to the Cloister. Instead of universal benevolence, He adopted a selfish partiality for his own particular establishment: He was taught to consider compassion for the errors of Others as a crime of the blackest dye: The noble frankness ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... enabled to do so by Sir Charles's action. To him the matter represented the mere carrying out of a bargain; but friends were, as is natural in such a case, remonstrant, and he was accused of "needless self-sacrifice," of "Quixotic conduct," of "self-abnegation," of "your usual disinterestedness in politics," and the bargain was much criticized. A letter from Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, congratulating Sir Charles on the stand he had made, added: "Not that I am altogether satisfied with the result. I had assumed that as a matter of course you would be in the Cabinet. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... instances of like disinterestedness, I doubt, in this tribe. Till now I always held it for gospel, that friendship and physician were incompatible things; and little imagined that a man of medicine, when he had given over his patient to death, would think of any visits but those of ceremony, that he might stand well with the ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... with fears about his life, in case you find him despoiling his own property for the sake of these interlopers, that almost any heir with a little adroitness could stop the spoliation at its outset. But how should your mother, with her ignorance of the world, her disinterestedness, and her religious ideas, know how to manage such an affair? However, I am not able to throw any light on the matter. All that you have done so far has probably given the alarm, and your adversaries ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... so that customary knowledge and scientific knowledge, both of them destined to prepare our action upon things, are of necessity two visions of the same kind, though of unequal precision and reach. It does not follow that science does not practise a certain disinterestedness as far as immediate mechanical utility is concerned; it does not follow that it has no value as knowledge. But it does not set itself genuinely free from the habits contracted in common experience, and to inform ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... James Frederic Prevost, is a most amiable and honourable man. Under the garb of coarse rusticity you will find, if you know him, refinement, wit, a delicate sense of propriety, the most inflexible intrepidity, incorruptible integrity, and disinterestedness. I wish you could know him; but it would be difficult, by reason of his diffidence and great reluctance to mingle with the world. It has been a source of extreme regret and mortification to me that he should be lost to society and to his friends. The case seems almost remediless, for, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... greatest efficiency, all the armies operating between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi should be subject to one commander, and he made this suggestion to the War Department, at the same time testifying his disinterestedness by declining in advance to take the supreme command himself. His suggestion was not immediately adopted. On the 22d of December, 1862, General Grant, whose headquarters were then at Holly Springs, reorganized his army into four corps, the 13th, 15th, 16th, and 17th, commanded ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... her become my wife, and the very next day I will place her in possession of an income of a hundred and fifty thousand francs. But she must marry me first; and this scornful maiden will not grant me her hand unless I can convince her of my love and disinterestedness." ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... benefit from the measure, without in any degree violating our declaration of disinterestedness. We now maintain five regiments of Infantry, and a company of Artillery, at a cost of from five to six lacs a-year. We maintain the Residency and all its establishments at a cost of more than one lac of rupees a- year. All ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... the door and windows closed, (as sometimes happened), he would scream, and hurrah for "Sheneral Shackson," until he gained admittance. One circumstance, which I am sorry to say throws some shade of suspicion upon the pure disinterestedness of his motives, is, that he generally went off at the commencement of fine weather, and returned a little before a storm. This was so uniformly the case, that Max used to prophesy the character of the weather by his movements, and often, when to our ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... and idealism in art has arisen. Art is certainly only a more direct vision of reality. But this purity of perception implies a break with utilitarian convention, an innate and specially localised disinterestedness of sense or consciousness, in short, a certain immateriality of life, which is what has always been called idealism. So that we might say, without in any way playing upon the meaning of the words, that realism is in the work when idealism ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... as to take interest in it. I took great care not to take any part in the debate. I have not as yet got a copy of the Duke of Buckingham's letter. I will follow your advice with regard to any answer to it on my part. I will never forget your disinterestedness in this question of 'honor' and nothing will be more agreeable to me than to act in such a way, whenever the opportunity will offer itself, as to show by reciprocal action my thanks ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... fortunate, too, in the exact moment of his residence: Rome then contained at once, besides himself, the two truest sculptors of the present century, Canova the Venetian, and Thorwaldsen the Dane. Both these great masters were singularly free from jealousy, rivalry, or vanity. In their perfect disinterestedness and simplicity of character they closely resembled Gibson himself. The ardent and pure-minded young Welshman, who kept himself so unspotted from the world in his utter devotion to his chosen art, could not fail to derive an elevated happiness from his daily intercourse ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... she uttered this placid speech, blended as it was with the sweet and calm dignity of virgin pride, touched the heart of her listener, and he continued silent many moments, as if in reverence of her determination. Her sentiments awakened in his own breast those feelings of generosity and disinterestedness which had nearly been smothered in restless ambition and the pride of success. He resumed the discourse, therefore, more mildly, and with a much greater exhibition of deep feeling, and less of ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the stranger. Because he is not rooted in the peculiar attitudes and biased tendencies of the group, he stands apart from all these with the peculiar attitude of the "objective," which does not indicate simply a separation and disinterestedness but is a peculiar composition of nearness and remoteness, concern and indifference. I call attention to the domineering positions of the stranger to the group, as whose archtype appeared that practice of Italian cities of calling their judges from without, because no native was free from ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... patience of the Imperial and Royal Government, in the face of the provocative attitude of Serbia, was inspired by the territorial disinterestedness of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the hope that the Serbian Government would end in spite of everything by appreciating Austria-Hungary's friendship at its true value. By observing a benevolent attitude toward ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... about to sponge on the Johnny Raws. For himself, he said he was a man of honour, quite a gentleman, and insisted upon paying his share of the two bottles of port consumed, of which I certainly had not drunk more than four glasses. Secretly praising my man of honour for his disinterestedness, for I had asked him to take a glass of wine, which he had read as a couple of bottles, I ordered my bill, among the items of which stood conspicuously forth, "Two bottles of ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... boldness of a Napoleon, who could hope to stem the tide that menaces to set in and sweep away the present institutions. If honesty of intention, loyalty to his sovereign, personal courage, attachment to his country, and perfect disinterestedness could secure success, then ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... reaction of defiance set in. What had he done, after all, to need defence and explanation? Both Dresham and Flamel had, in his hearing, declared the publication of the letters to be not only justifiable but obligatory; and if the disinterestedness of Flamel's verdict might be questioned, Dresham's at least represented the impartial view of the man of letters. As to Alexa's words, they were simply the conventional utterance of the "nice" woman on a question already decided for her by other "nice" women. She had said the ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... proceeds to defend the friars against the various charges which have been brought against them. In support of his own opinions, he also cites Fray Manuel del Rio; and he himself praises the public spirit, disinterestedness, and devotion to the interests of the Indians, displayed by the curas, many of whom are friars. He argues that they even show too much patience and lenity toward the natives, who are lazy and indolent in the extreme; and it has been a great mistake to forbid the priests to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... any other cause than to the zeal and ability with which he had been thought to oppose the enemies of religion. The respect with which he was treated, both at home and abroad, was no more than a just tribute to those merits and the excellence of his private character. His probity and disinterestedness, the extreme tenderness with which he acquitted himself of all his domestic duties, his attention to the improvement of his pupils, for whose welfare his solicitude did not cease with their removal from ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... died for—what many a man did die for; and all in pure simplicity of heart—faithful to the Bible, but to the Bible of misinterpretation. They obeyed (often to their own ruin) an order which they had misread. Their sincerity, the disinterestedness of their folly, is evident; and in that degree is evident the opening for Scripture development. Nobody could better obey Scripture as they had understood it. Change in the obedience, there could ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... belied the original inducements to the establishment of civil power. Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active ...
— The Federalist Papers
... note. I would have helped the people to deliver themselves from the bondage of the bandits. They would not have it. I would even have sacrificed my all in trying to save them in spite of themselves. But what is one sane man against a stampeded multitude of maniacs? For confirmation of my disinterestedness, I point to all those weeks and months during which I waged costly warfare on "The Seven," who would gladly have given me more than I now have, could I have been bribed to desist. But, when I was compelled to admit that I had overestimated my fellow men, that ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... in port, which was longer than they expected, Forster met the Swedish botanist Sparman, a pupil of Linnaeus, and engaged him to accompany him, by promising him large pay. It is difficult to praise Forster's disinterestedness under these circumstances too highly. He had no hesitation in admitting a rival, and even paid his expenses, in order to add completeness to the studies in natural history which he wished to make in the countries ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... one more than Jack Borlan. He had never spoken to Mr. Ruger a dozen times in his life, and he could not account for such disinterestedness. However, there was not much time for conjecture, for Mr. Watson had ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... more capable of this aesthetic self-forgetfulness than they will afterwards be; and they need all of it that they can get, so that they may remember it and prize it in later years. In these heaven-sent moments they know what disinterestedness is. They have a test by which they can value all future experience and know the dullness and staleness of worldly success. Therefore it is a sin to check, more than need be, their aesthetic delight" (The ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... bulging with books. When he speaks, it is in a strident peacock voice, and there is an abrupt clumsiness in his gestures, especially in drawing-rooms, where he is ill at ease, liable to trip in the carpet and upset furniture. Complete absence of self-consciousness, perfect disinterestedness, are evident in every tone; it is clear that he is an aristocrat, but it is also clear that he is ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow |
