"Self-denial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give him the comforts he demanded as his right, but who, as soon as things went wrong, and he saw nothing but misery in the future, left for his own country—there to sit in judgment on our peasant-nation. How I long for the gift of being able to express myself, to give a true account of the self-denial of our burghers and of the misery that we endured! How my heart bleeds when I think of the great sorrow that has come upon my ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... Anael's and Djabal's, in "The Return of the Druses," respectively to religion and unscrupulous ambition modified by patriotism: in Chiappino's, in "A Soul's Tragedy," to purely sordid ambition: in Luria's, to noble steadfastness: and in Constance's, in "In a Balcony," to self-denial. Of these plays, "The Return of the Druses" seems to me the most picturesque, "Luria" the most noble and dignified, and "In a Balcony" the most potentially a great dramatic success. The last is in a sense a fragment, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... live according to nature came to be considered as the end for which man was created, and which the best men were bound to compass. To live according to nature was to rise above the disorderly habits and gross indulgences of the vulgar to higher laws of action which nothing but self-denial and self-command would enable the aspirant to observe. It is notorious that this proposition—live according to nature—was the sum of the tenets of the famous Stoic philosophy. Now on the subjugation of Greece that philosophy made instantaneous progress in Roman ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... private house, and here Mrs. Inchbald lodged, probably, after the death of her sister, for whose support she practised such noble and generous self-denial. Mrs. Inchbald's income was now 172L a year, and we are told that she now went to reside in a boarding-house, where she enjoyed more of the comforts of life. Phillips, the publisher, offered her a thousand pounds for her Memoirs, ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... altar of God. His activity and zeal bore down all opposition; and under his rule the order of Jesuits began to exist, and grew rapidly to the full measure of his gigantic powers. With what vehemence, with what policy, with what exact discipline, with what dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with what forgetfulness of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stubborn devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and versatility in the choice of means, the Jesuits fought the battle of their Church, is written in every page of the annals of Europe during several ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... — N. disinterestedness &c adj.; generosity; liberality, liberalism; altruism; benevolence &c 906; elevation, loftiness of purpose, exaltation, magnanimity; chivalry, chivalrous spirit; heroism, sublimity. self-denial, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, self-immolation, self-control &c (resolution) 604; stoicism, devotion, martyrdom, suttee. labor of love. V. be disinterested &c adj.; make a sacrifice, lay one's head on the block; put oneself ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... restoration to health was celebrated with great rejoicing. From that window Sandwich, surnamed the Slop-pail, was wont to dispense charity in the shape of such sack as he found himself reluctantly unable to consume. Such self-denial surprised even his most devoted adherents, until it was discovered that the bishop had no idea that he was pouring libations into the street, but, with some hazy intention of conserving the remains of his ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... sadness. And in the midst of the winter, when his life runs lowest and he is reminded of the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should be condemned to this fashion of the smiling face. Noble disappointment, noble self-denial, are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maim; another to maim yourself and stay without. And the kingdom of heaven is of the childlike, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the point of his black beard, and being dressed as a monk in a long, shabby, black robe I recognised at once he was one of those fakirs we have all over Russia, one of those self-sacrificing bogus "holy" men who wander from town to town obsessed by religious mania, full of fictitious self-denial, ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... speak of his books, which none ever did or can commend too much; but I decline them, and hasten to an account of his Christian behaviour and death at Bourne; in which place he continued his customary rules of mortification and self-denial; was much in fasting, frequent in meditation and prayers, enjoying those blessed returns, which only men of strict lives feel and know, and of which men of loose and godless lives cannot be made sensible; for spiritual ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... correct, and Shelton, placing some garments in the bath-room, invited his visitor to make himself at home. While the latter, then, was doing this, Shelton enjoyed the luxuries of self-denial, hunting up things he did not want, and laying them in two portmanteaus. This done, he waited for his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... body was robust, inured to labour, and capable of undergoing the severest hardships. His stomach bore, without difficulty, the coarsest and most ungrateful food. Indeed, temperance in him was scarcely a virtue; so great was the indifference with which be submitted to every kind of self-denial. The qualities of his mind were of the same hardy, vigorous kind with those of his body. His understanding was strong and perspicuous. His judgment, in whatever related to the services he was engaged in, quick and sure. His designs were bold and manly; and both in the conception, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... all, she tended the young sufferer carefully until midnight, and then went down-stairs secretly to perform a little act of self-denial, by giving up an engagement she had made for the morrow. While writing to renounce it, she felt, with a renewed sense of vague apprehension, how keen a pleasure it was she thus resigned—a whole long day in the forest with her pet ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... fret yourself to no manner of purpose. I have travelled with oeconomists in England, who declared they would rather give away a crown than allow themselves to be cheated of a farthing. This is a good maxim, but requires a great share of resolution and self-denial to put it in practice. In one excursion of about two hundred miles my fellow-traveller was in a passion, and of consequence very bad company from one end of the journey to the other. He was incessantly scolding either at landlords, ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... great sages of India, who, for the first time in history, formulated the true principles of freedom and devoted themselves to the holy quest of truth and the final assessment and discovery of the ultimate spiritual essence of man through their concrete lives, critical thought, dominant will and self-denial. ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... nervousness, and a calmer, more equable mood seemed to have come over him, as his state of health daily improved. But the nameless shadow of a hidden grief seemed to hang over him. For his wants he needed but little; self-denial and sacrifice had grown to be a second nature to him, his one earthly wish seeming to be to have a house where he and Carmen could live alone together; but as regards others, he was open-handed and generous to help wherever it was needed. ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... love—was carrying me—faster and faster—spite of all I'd said. Said! What are words beside such love as ours? What would be my affection for dad and mother beside my love for you? Would your loyalty and your dear self-denial continue to help me when they only make me love you ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... execution. Still for some time I did not like to say anything more on the subject, and the kind creatures began to hope that I had given up my wishes to their remonstrances. Had they from the first taught me the important lessons of self-denial and obedience, they might have found that I was willing to do so; but I had no idea of sacrificing my own wishes to those of others, and I still held firmly to my resolution of leaving home ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... creates a multitude of evils. The mere existence of conscience, that faculty of which people prate so much nowadays, and are so ignorantly proud, is a sign of our imperfect development. It must be merged in instinct before we become fine. Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress, and self-sacrifice a survival of the mutilation of the savage, part of that old worship of pain which is so terrible a factor in the history of the world, and which even now makes its victims day by day, ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... rich, if he ain't. As we, that's the Captain and me, were walking away, the Captain said to one of the officers of the Fifty-fourth who'd been listening to the talk, 'It's easy for that man to preach self-denial for a principle. He's rich, I've heard. It don't hurt him any; but it's rather selfish to hold some of the rest up to his standard; and I presume that such a man as he has no end of ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... is beautiful, and it is a piece of self-denial to close the shutter, light my lamp, and write in my journal. Peace of mind came yesterday, positive happiness to-day, neither of which I can analyze. I only know I have not been so thoroughly content since ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... he answered, in a low, ashamed voice; and he withdrew his glass,—for which effort of self-denial he was rewarded by one of those eloquent looks of gratitude which some women can give, and which are only understood by those whom ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... ambition, without considering that they could not punish him without degrading the throne of which he is the occupant, and that the principle involved in his impunity was of more consequence in its great and permanent results than any success of theirs. But it would have required more virtue, self-denial, wisdom, and philosophy than falls to the lot of any public man individually in these days to have embraced all these considerations, and it would have been a miracle if a great mob of men calling themselves a party could have been made to act under the influence of such moral restraints. ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... It is merely the carrying out of a religious idea that is as old as history and as widespread as the globe, and is closely akin to the motive which to-day, in our own centres of enlightened civilization, prompts acts of self-denial and penance by many thousands of intelligent cultivated people. And yet we are horrified at hearing described the ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... slightest wishes, whom we desire to crown with every possible happiness, and whom, if we are to be guided by a worldly code of honor, we must drive to despair? What strength would it not require? What a renunciation of happiness? what self-denial? and even what ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... The theme of praise: a hermit would not miss Canonization for the self-same cause, And wherefore blame gaunt wealth's austerities? Because, you 'll say, nought calls for such a trial;— Then there 's more merit in his self-denial. ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... then met Vishnu on his way along the sky. And Narayana was gratified at that act of self-denial on the part of Garuda. And that deity, knowing no deterioration, said unto the ranger of the skies, 'O, I am inclined to grant thee a boon.' The ranger of the skies thereupon said, 'I shall stay above thee.' And he again spake unto Narayana these words, 'I shall be immortal and free from ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... consideration, either individually or collectively, but for the great object of forcing home upon the convictions of the people the fact that at the very foundation of the wealth and prosperity of every nation lies the intelligence, the skill, the honesty, and the self-denial of its sons. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... the other Queens were very jealous that the youngest amongst them should by forethought and self-denial have saved her baby's life, they could say nothing; for, as the young mother had told them, they received their full share. And though at first they disliked the handsome little boy, he soon proved so useful to ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... as well, and to this work Major Whistler gave a large part of his time from 1834 to 1837. The making of these engines illustrated those features in his character which then and ever after were of the utmost value to those he served. It showed the self-denial with which he excluded any novelties of his own, the caution with which he admitted those of others, and the judgment which he exercised in selecting and combining the most meritorious of existing arrangements. The preference which he showed ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various
... differently. The man who makes his own imagined good his ruling aim does many things which he would not defend on the ground of right; the man who determines always to do right sometimes performs acts of reputed and conscious self-denial ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... one part of my life which gives me more intense satisfaction than another, it is my friendship of more than forty years' standing with Susan B. Anthony. Ours has been a friendship of hard work and self-denial.... Emerson says, "It is better to be a thorn in the side of your friend than his echo." If this add weight and stability to friendship, then ours will endure forever, for we have indeed been thorns in the side of each other. Sub rosa, dear friends, I have had no peace ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... marrying a miser's granddaughter,' said the other. 'So nice to know that some wretched old idiot has scraped and hoarded through a lifetime of deprivation and self-denial, in order that one may spend his money when he is ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... This self-denial was not wholly unrewarded. The Levant was a larger ship, affording much better accommodation to the midshipmen; and Mr. Saumarez, having been nearly three years at sea, became of some consequence with his messmates. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... interest by another, and uses, to direct the passions, the very same instrument which excites them. The principle of interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous, but it disciplines a number of citizens in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command; and, if it does not lead men straight ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... seemed to expand, as it were, beneath the happy influence she felt was shed around her, and who was delighted and too pure in spirit for any other thought than that of love to find an entrance either to her mind or her heart. Acknowledging this touching self-denial by the fixity of his attention, the king showed La Valliere how much he appreciated its delicacy. When the list was finished, the different faces of those who had been omitted or forgotten fully expressed their disappointment. Malicorne was ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... business. I begin to feel it weighty, and you know how much I dislike the publicity you packed off to me in that confounded silver box; I could not bring myself to say anything civil about it in my last letter, and you ought to give me credit for great self-denial in not taking this opportunity of telling you my own story at the Secretary's office, as nothing but the embarrassment it might give you upon the sudden, prevented me. Once more, I tell you I cannot ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... really become a nun? Had she taken this step in consequence of the loss of her parents? Poor Maria! she would not permit me alone to suffer the deprivations of a prison; she too would seclude herself from the world. May God grant her patience and self-denial, far beyond what I have evinced; for often I know will that angel, in her solitary cell, turn her thoughts and her prayers towards me. Alas, it may be, she will impose on herself some rigid penance, in the hope that God may alleviate the sufferings of her ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... to Orham and looked up the land. It was a strip along the shore, almost worthless, and unsalable at present. The taxes had been regularly paid each year by Mary Thomas, who had sent money orders from Concord. The self-denial represented by these orders ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Mr Dombey, passing this compliment with august self-denial, 'are not quite agreed upon some points. We do not appear to understand each other yet' Mrs Dombey ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of American life is to be fulfilled—not merely by a maximum amount of economic freedom, but by a certain measure of discipline; not merely by the abundant satisfaction of individual desires, but by a large measure of individual subordination and self-denial. And this necessity of subordinating the satisfaction of individual desires to the fulfillment of a national purpose is attached particularly to the absorbing occupation of the American people,—the occupation, viz.: of accumulating wealth. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... dine with colored gentlemen, which we accepted as often as our engagements would permit. On such occasions we generally met a company of gentlemen and ladies of superior social and intellectual accomplishments. We must say, that it is a great self-denial to refrain from a description of some of the animated, and we must add splendid, parties of colored people which we attended. The conversation on these occasions mostly turned on the political and civil disabilities ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... physical health. This does not mean the maximum of nourishment, combined with stimulants to compel a jaded appetite: on the contrary, artistic efficiency demands super-cleanliness and a tolerably rigid self-denial. Girth is no measure of artistic ability. But the body, sound or otherwise, is the instrument through which we play life's little tune, just as the pianist plays through his pianoforte. But when we have closed the pianoforte nobody supposes that we have extinguished the artist, ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... entered the fort; but he was well known to the poor inhabitants without, by repeated acts of charity and kindness, though he sedulously shunned all social intercourse, and was remarked for the austere discipline, and rigid self-denial to which ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... will begin with telling you how I was overjoyed when I heard that the Army, under the working of God's holy Spirit, as I thought, and still hope well, had been so far wrought to Christian humility and self-denial as to confess in public their backsliding from the good Old Cause, and to show the fruits of their repentance in the righteousness of their restoring the old famous Parliament which they had without just authority dissolved: I call it the famous Parliament, though not ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... was responsible for such a state of riot and bloodshed as had never yet disgraced the religious history of the world. Many of the more earnest among them, shocked and scandalized, slipped away to the Libyan Desert, or to the solitude of Pontus, there to await in self-denial and prayer that second coming which was supposed to be at hand. Even in the deserts they could not escape the echo of the distant strife, and the hermits themselves scowled fiercely from their dens at passing travellers who might be contaminated ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first law of nature, and I fear it is in vain to expect that persons not under the influence of religious principles will risk their lives, or submit to much self-denial, for the sake of alleviating the miseries of others. The reason given for this separation was, that it was impossible to procure food for so large a number, and that they would be more likely to obtain sustenance when divided. The party who thus proceeded in advance encountered the most terrible ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... unpleasantness she should even then complain of it in such a way as not to irritate the men. If she guides her conduct on principles such as these, even her very words, her very demeanor, may in all probability increase his sympathy and consideration for her. One's self-denial and the restraint which one imposes upon one's self, often depend on the way in which another behaves to us. The woman who is too indifferent and too forgiving is also inconsiderate. Remember 'the unmoored boat floats about.' ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... second time the Master asked the people what they went forth into the wilderness to behold; and by his question implied that John was no Sybarite clothed in soft raiment, and feasting in luxury, but a strong, pure soul, that had learnt the secret of self-denial and self-control. Too many of us are inclined to put on the soft raiment of self-indulgence and luxury. We are the slaves of fashion, or we are perpetually considering what we shall eat, what we shall drink, and with ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... solemnity. Slowly bending, body and soul, she communed with her own heart and was still, until it burned within her, and the supplication came. When she rose from her knees, she was resigned in all things to God's will, no matter what self-denial it involved; and she was not unhappy. For, O believe this truth, the saddest thing under the sky is a soul incapable of sadness! Most blessed are those souls who are capable of lodging so great a guest as Sorrow, who know how to regret, and how to ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... dissevered from her by an impassable gulf. She thought of his few words of love,—so few that she remembered every word that he had then spoken, and thought of them with a singular mixture of pain and pleasure. And now she heard of his noble self-denial with a thrill which was in no degree enhanced by the fact that she, or even Herbert, was to be the gainer by it. She rejoiced at his nobility, merely because it was a joy to her to know that he was so noble. And yet all through this she was true to Herbert. Another work-a-day world had come ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... Gazebee's proposition opened a door by which her point might be gained. "Well," said she, at last, with infinite self-denial, "if you think it is for Mr Gresham's advantage, and if he chooses to ask Dr Thorne, I will not refuse to ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... been, and the official was not the enemy of the citizen, but his somewhat despotic guardian and protector. Shall I say all? The most consoling class to me in Germany to-day are the Social Democrats. They have independence of spirit, self-denial, character, and idealism. Their ideals are not my ideals—far from it—but what does that matter? It is relief enough to find people who have any ideals at all, and who are ready to suffer and die for them. I fear that not till this ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... Persia would have given ample employment for the greater part of the day to any monarch who was determined not only to reign, but to govern. Among the Persian sovereigns there seems to have been a few who had sufficient energy and self-denial to devote themselves habitually to the serious duties of their office. Generally, however, the cares of government were devolved upon some favorite adviser, a relative, or a eunuch, who was entrusted by the monarch with the entire conduct of affairs, in order that he might give ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... passion to flag, the Creole seemed at times touched with his attentions, and flattered by the terrible domination she exercised over him. Then, supposing that by proofs of his devotion and self-denial he could make her forget age and ugliness, she delighted to paint in glowing colors his reward when he should ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... there was no noble way out of the difficulty. He felt this the more painfully because, before sitting down to think of his sermon, he had immersed himself, to use his own words, in the fountain-head of self-sacrificing enthusiasm. And now he could not show his flock that there was any trace of self-denial in his conduct. It was apparent that his acceptance of the call made a great sermon an utter impossibility. He must say as little about the main point as possible, glide quickly, in fact, over the thin ice. But ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... aspect of monastic establishments in which the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other devotional music; and in which the worship of Mammon or Moloch is conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant rising to his Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and expiating the frivolities into which he may be beguiled in the course of the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers. But, with every allowance that can be made for these conscientious and romantic persons, the fact remains the same, that by far the ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... reductionist feel quite so virtuous as when for the first time, perhaps in decades, he can stand straight up and look straight down and behold the tips of his toes. His virtue is all the more pleasant to him because it recalls a reformation on his part and because it has called for self-denial. I started to say that it had called for mortification of the flesh, but I shan't. Despite the contrary opinions of the early fathers of the church, I hold that the mortification of the flesh is really based upon the flesh itself, where there is too much of it for beauty and grace, not merely ...
— One Third Off • Irvin S. Cobb
... father of a most respectable family, comprising Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope, Charity and many other goodly sons ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... and his books took its place. But it was far different with Charles; he had felt interest in religious questions for their own sake; and when he had deprived himself of the pursuit of them it had been a self-denial. Now, then, when they seemed forced on him again, Sheffield could not help him, where he most wanted ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... a money mania—in one instance it feeds the clergy on fat salaries, so that they might proclaim the virtue of self-denial, sobriety and prudence; in another instance it builds Sunday schools for young numbskulls and political aspirants who pretend to listen to the commonplace discourse about our Father in Heaven who gives every true Christian an opportunity to make money; rather would these milk-sops appreciate ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... idea, and might easily be carried out. It requires nothing but a little self-denial, with the conviction of the necessity of doing something, if the downward tendency is to be ever checked short of civil war, and a revolution that is to let in despotism in its more direct form; despotism, in the indirect, is fast appearing among ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... present state is almost as interesting as the touched proof itself; interesting, however, only as a warning to all artists never to lose hold of their first conception. They may tire even of what is exquisitely right, as they work it out, and their only safety is in the self-denial of calm completion. ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... Just previous to that celestial interview, Jesus had announced to them his own painful doom, and had swept away their conceit of Messianic glories involved with earthly pomp and dominion, by his declaration of the self-denial, the shame, and the suffering, which lay in the path of those who really espoused his cause and entered into his kingdom. They needed such a revelation as this, then, upon the Mount of Transfiguration, ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... memories, which I cannot counsel you to forget, abandon the enterprise you are undertaking and seek in some other way the welfare of your countrymen. The enterprise needs another man, because to make it a success zeal and money alone are not sufficient; in our country are required also self-denial, tenacity of purpose, and faith, for the soil is not ready, it is only sown ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... at all! 70 Beyond his wish he walks secure; [11] But pass a mile—and then for trial,— Then for the pride of self-denial; If he resist that tempting door, Which with such friendly voice will call; 75 If he resist those casement panes, And that bright gleam which thence will fall Upon his Leaders' bells and manes, Inviting him with cheerful lure: For still, though all be dark elsewhere, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... cafes do an immense business; it is the harvest of their year. People who can hardly afford three meals a day pinch themselves and suffer much self-denial that they may have money to spend in carnival week. The public masquerade balls, which then take place, allure all classes. The celebrations of the occasion culminate in a grand public masquerade ball given in the Tacon Theatre. The floor of the ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... case is being made against the polar sledging ration. On the whole, it was found to be excellent and the best that experience had been able to devise. Entering the polar zones, one must not be over-fastidious, but take it as a matter of course that there will be self-denial and deprivation ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... life of self-denial, True obedience and the cross, We may pass the fiery trial, Which does separate the dross. If we bear our crosses boldly, Watch and ev'ry evil shun, We shall find a body ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... was the spirit of the apostles. They took much notice of the poor, and charged Paul and Barnabas, when going forth on their mission, especially to remember them. What else, I ask, is a missionary spirit, but to be willing to labor with self-denial and perseverance to elevate and save the low and the vile? Natural men, in the pride of their hearts, are inclined to look down upon the wretched—to regard them with that kind of loathing and disgust which disinclines them to make sacrifices in their behalf. This ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... of the men who worked under him could not come to any satisfying conclusion. All they knew was that he worked harder than any common miner, that his reserve was unbroken, and his life one continual self-denial. There were thirty men in all who worked for him, and by them all he was respected and feared rather than liked. There was a chilling reserve wrapped about him, an utter absence of ingenuousness and frankness of character, that prevented any affection growing up amongst the ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross
... Tom's chair. The platform people scampered like mice from the centre. Some huddled together in the corners, others slipped out at the rear. The committee congratulated themselves on having had the self-denial to exclude ladies. Mr. Gladstone's satellites hurried the old man off and into his carriage, though the fight promised to become Homeric. Grodman stood at the side of the platform secretly more amused than ever, concerning himself no more with Denzil Cantercot, who was already strengthening ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... crowd," the rule was certainly wide of the mark in this case. The girls were bound by a tie even stronger than friendship, and that tie was the law of the camp-fire. The latter had taught them many brave lessons in the game of life, lessons in self-denial, in sympathy and loyalty, and they were ever anxious to prove that they had learned ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... say "Thank God" when they get what they want; as if it amused God to plague them, and was a vast piece of self-denial on His part to give them what they liked. But I, who am a simple person, thank God when He hurts me, because I don't think he likes it any more than I do; but I can't praise Him, because—I don't understand why—I ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... pupils were taught several useful arts, of which their less favored mothers knew little or nothing; among which were knitting and sewing, and these branches many of the mothers were eager to learn from their children. Moreover they were taught industry, self-denial, benevolence, and the preciousness of time. The boys' seminary was reorganized in the following spring, under the superintendence of Mr. Stoddard; who received a number of promising boys into his family as an experiment, with the understanding ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... colonel was concerned. Elizabeth was right in saying her father was longing to know the Challoners. The old man's fancy had been mightily taken by the girls; but for Hammond, for his boy's sake, he was capable of any amount of self-denial. Once he was sorely tempted to give in. When turning the corner of the Braidwood Road, not far from his own house, he came suddenly upon his daughter, who was standing on ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... myself from numerous kind invitations by the ball-committee to be introduced to a partner and join in the dances. The fact was that I greatly wished to make a thorough physiognomical study of the ball-room, and I know that my readers will applaud my self-denial in not dancing, since it enables me to tell them how ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... it. Few more splendid monuments of practical charity have been reared than the amelioration of the social state of our canal population—an achievement which has mainly been brought about by Mr. Smith's indomitable perseverance and self-denial. A few years ago we were accustomed to speak of the dwellers in these floating hovels as beings who dragged out a degraded existence in a far-off land. We were gloomily told that they could not be reached. Orators at ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... therefore, practice self-denial; let them conquer their animal inclinations; let them refuse to be enslaved by luxury and pleasure; let them practice virtue, and grow daily into high and ever higher virtue, until at last they grow into the Divine, and enter into both the practice and ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... indubitably certain, will be infinitely more advanced by fostering her infant commerce, than by any augmentation of territories which the policy or arms of her sovereign can accomplish. But he will always require much self-denial to avoid intermeddling with the concerns of other nations, and to restrict his labours to the improvement of his own ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... should not feel an interest in what might be Mabel's opinion; but he had too much of the innate and true feeling of a gentleman to ask to hear what another had said of him. Muir, however, was not to be foiled by this self-denial and self-respect; for, believing he had a man of great truth and simplicity to deal with, he determined to practise on his credulity, as one means of getting rid of his rivalry. He therefore pursued the subject, as soon as he perceived that his companion's self-denial was stronger ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... any tropical country whether under their own or European rule. This is to be accounted for in part by the peculiar conditions which protected the natives from ruthless exploitation. Yet the monks contributed an essential part to this result. Coming from among the common people, used to poverty and self-denial, their duties led them into intimate relations with the natives and they were naturally fitted to adapt the foreign religion and morals to practical use. So, too, in later times, when they came to possess rich livings, and their pious zeal, in general, relaxed as their revenues increased, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to the wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute to all that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent favor? But for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at times, the self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough to sit on the sidewalk with a half-dozen children round her blowing bubbles, or to romp in any garden, or in the street, playing Puss-in-the-ring; yet this only made her more popular. Jansen's ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... with constancy, moderation, and wonderful tact, Livia fulfilled her mission. She succeeded in resolving into the admirable harmony of a long existence that contradiction between the liberty conceded to her sex and the self-denial demanded of it by man as a duty. She was assuredly one of the most perfect models of that lady of high society whom the Romans in all the years of their long and tempestuous history never ceased to admire. Even and serene, completely mistress ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... of the Circuit Court of the First Circuit at the death of Judge Shepley, which he very much desired to accept. But the President, although placing this office at his disposal, was exceedingly unwilling to lose his service in the Cabinet; and General Devens, with his customary self-denial, yielded to the desire of his chief. He was again appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in 1881, and held that office until ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... judgment and a self-denial rare among men, the colonel answered the boy's greeting with another gentle hand-clasp, and a beneficent smile, and turned and marched proudly and gratefully back down the long aisle, stopping here and there to greet some sick soldier who had given him a friendly look ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... opportunities for culture, except such as he made for himself, he rose by his ambition, and was the builder of his own fortune. There is a strong lesson pointed out by the graphic history of his career. It teaches to the young uncompromising duty in every relation of life—self-denial ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... interest, but not before evoking a real love and gratitude in Darsie's heart. How thankful the girl was to remember that she had been able to cheer the last year of that lonely life, to recall every loving word and action, every tiny scrap of self-denial on her own part which had repaid in some small way the great gift to herself. Thankful and grateful she would be to the end of her life, but she was not, and had not even pretended to be, sorry that ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... a Call upon Mankind to value and esteem those who set a moderate Price upon their own Merit; and Self-denial is frequently attended with unexpected Blessings, which in the End abundantly recompense such Losses as the Modest seem to suffer in the ordinary Occurrences of Life. The Curious tell us, a Determination in our Favour or to our Disadvantage is made upon our first Appearance, even ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... between Civilis and William the Silent, two heroes of ancient German stock, who had learned the arts of war and peace in the service of a foreign and haughty world-empire. Determination, concentration of purpose, constancy in calamity, elasticity almost preternatural, self-denial, consummate craft in political combinations, personal fortitude, and passionate patriotism, were the heroic elements in both. The ambition of each was subordinate to the cause which he served. Both refused the crown, although each, perhaps, contemplated, in the sequel, a Batavian realm ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... contemporary wrong. But all this is mere selfishness, and does not involve the slightest regard to, or consideration of, the interest of those by whose numbers we would fain swell the circle of our flatterers, and by whose authority we would gladly support our presently disputed claims. The idea of self-denial for the sake of posterity, of practising present economy for the sake of debtors yet unborn, of planting forests that our descendants may live under their shade, or of raising cities for future nations to inhabit, never, I suppose, efficiently takes place among publicly recognized motives ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... difficulties, which might have been possibly worsted by a less just and a less kind-hearted man, Mr. Brock said a cautious word or two at parting, and (with more confidence in Midwinter's discretion and self-denial than he quite liked to acknowledge, even to himself) left Allan free ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... he allow her any special sum for her private needs; but he made her a tolerably liberal weekly allowance, from which she had to pay everything except house-rent and taxes, an arrangement which I cannot believe a good one, as it will inevitably lead some conscientious wives to self-denial severer than necessary, and on the other hand will tempt the vulgar nature to make a purse for herself by mean savings off everybody else. It was especially distasteful to Mrs. Dempster to have to set down every little article of personal requirement that she bought. It would probably have ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... was really magnanimous. She might profit by it in the end, but Ben would be the first beneficiary. It was an act of self-denial, for she was giving up a definite and certain ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... an idle custom, and too often enslaves its votaries; and even if it does not become a dominant habit, it certainly teaches no lesson of self-denial. A Christian man needs not to seek relief in any such way. It is said to be very soothing when a man is in any trouble or anxiety; if so, in this respect it may be said to be next door to the beer-barrel, or to the use of spirits. If one man may soothe his ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... side of the house, and especially by his friend and disciple, Charles Fox; but on the ministerial side of the house a profound and ominous silence prevailed. As Fox observed, it was evident there was not sufficient virtue in the house, or rather self-denial, to carry such a plan ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... keeping up to the work and duty that every day required; not doing their duty by fits and by starts, but in a fervent spirit they served the Lord. So again it is said of Abraham, that his work was to walk before God in a way of faith and self-denial, which he with diligence performed. And therefore the Holy Ghost saith, he 'died in a good old age' (Gen 25:8); thereby insinuating that he made both ends meet[8] together, the end of his work with the end of his days, and so came to his grave, 'in ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Ireland's glorious youth were being corrupted and perverted. The cry of "Up the Mollies!" became the watchword of the new movement and the creed of selfishness and sectarianism supplanted the evangel of self-denial and self-sacrifice. It was a time when clear-sighted and earnest men almost lost hope, if they did not lose faith. To be held in subjection by the tyranny of a stronger power was a calamity of destiny to be resisted, but that the people should themselves bind the chains of a more sordid ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... vague and indeterminate prejudice with serious doubts how far persons infected in this particular manner could have any real capacity for affairs. Sir Robert Peel must, I think, have exercised much self-denial when he put me in his cabinet in 1843.' The movement that began in 1833 had by the opening of the next decade revealed startling tendencies, and its first stage was now slowly but unmistakeably passing into the second. Mr. Gladstone has told us[182] how he stood at this hour of crisis; ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the unfortunate transgressor, and exposes his folly to the world, with little less precision than certain vices signify their presence by a tobacco-tainted breath, beer-bloated body, rum-emblazoned nose, and kindred manifestations. They coddle themselves instead of practicing self-denial, and appear to think that the chief end of life is ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce |
