"Selfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... for Turgot, thought him too simple-hearted for a practical statesman, too prone, as noble natures often are, to underrate the selfishness, stupidity, and prejudice that prevail in the world and resist the course of just and rational reform. He described Turgot to Samuel Rogers as an excellent person, very honest and well-meaning, but so unacquainted ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... respect have urged me to include it in the subscription edition at least, and with real reluctance I have consented. It was a pleasure to me to have one piece of work of mine which made no bid for pence or praise; but if that is a kind of selfishness, perhaps unnecessary, since no one may wish to read the verses, I will now free myself from any chance of reproach. This much I will say to soothe away my own compunctions, that the book will only make the bid for popularity or consideration ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... futile little drunkard, eaten up with his own selfishness and vanity, offered his beastliness to the truest and purest woman on this earth. You have seen her, Mr. Gillingham, but you never knew Mark Ablett. Even if he had not been a drunkard, there was no chance for her of happiness with him. I had known him for many years, but ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... our admirable system of government were conscious of the infirmities of their representatives, and in delegating to them the power of legislation they have fenced them around with checks to guard against the effects of hasty action, of error, of combination, and of possible corruption. Error, selfishness, and faction have often sought to rend asunder this web of checks and subject the Government to the control of fanatic and sinister influences, but these efforts have only satisfied the people of the wisdom of the checks which they have ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... The dozen beds of the men's ward were full, and he had been placed in the private ward. He lay now on the narrow bed, sleeping heavily, the white, bright light of the spring morning showing mercilessly the havoc selfishness and reckless self-indulgence had wrought upon a once sufficiently handsome face. The emaciation of his long form was plainly seen through the single ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... 138); the Blacksmith who could handle fire without hurt (vol. v. 271); the Devotee Prince (vol. v. iii) and the whole Tale of Azizah (vol. ii. 298), whose angelic love is set off by the sensuality and selfishness of her more fortunate rivals. A new note of absolutely tragic dignity seems to be struck in the Sweep and the Noble Lady (vol. iv. 125), showing the piquancy of sentiment which can be evolved from the common and the unclean. The pretty conceit of the Lute (vol. v. 244) is afterwards ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... bind up wounds, and wine was brought out for the fugitives. There is no certain account of Charles's interview with Lord Lovat; we do not know whether the cunning old man turned and upbraided the Prince in his misfortune, or whether the instincts of a Highland gentleman overcame for a moment the selfishness of the old chief. Anyway, this was no time to bandy either upbraidings or compliments. Forty minutes of desperate fighting on the field of Culloden that morning had broken for ever the strength of the Jacobite cause. Hundreds lay dead where they fell, hundreds were prisoners ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... beautiful, and your mother's garden was never so lovely. It is pleasant in all these sorrows and trials to see a family so united in affection, and so totally without feelings or objects that partake of selfishness or ill-will. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... nothing so calculated to impair the usefulness of what purports to be a purely benevolent enterprise, as its selfishness. If a widow, or any number of widows, really possess the means of realizing "happy results" with a "limited number of gentlemen," they should either remove the limitation themselves, or make known the secret ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various
... or break in the strata of religion. What was the cause of this flaw? We answer, the evolution, through ghosts, of "animistic" gods who retained the hunger and selfishness of these ancestral spirits whom the lowest savages are not ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... displayed in bettering their condition that is now wasted in the vain and fruitless effort of sending them abroad, their intellectual and moral improvement would be steady and rapid." William Lloyd Garrison was untiring and merciless in flaying the inconsistencies and selfishness of the colonization organization. In an editorial in the Liberator, July 9, 1831, he charged the Society, first, with persecution in compelling free people to emigrate against their will and in discouraging their education at home; second, with falsehood in saying that the Negroes were ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... passed from abstractions into conduct, that civilization is yet so imperfect, and the achievements of the intellect still so limited. Out of the heart, and not out of the head, are the issues of life; and how a mere knowledge of "the laws of phenomena" can regenerate men from selfishness, ferocity, and malignity, can purify and invigorate the will, can even of itself stimulate the intellect to a further investigation of those laws, Mr. Buckle has not shown. Even the theological abuses of which he gives so exaggerated a representation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... their clothes that they had secured, conversing with each other, or playing at cards or draughts. Our entrance appeared to excite little attention; after having raised their eyes to indulge their curiosity, they continued their pursuits. I have often thought what a feeling of selfishness appeared to pervade the whole of them. At the time I was shocked, as I expected immediate sympathy and commiseration; but afterwards I was not surprised. Many of these poor fellows had been months in the prison, and a short confinement will produce that indifference to ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... to do mighty things; and of how he would say to them always, if they sought to bless his name, "Nay, do not thank me,—thank Rubens. Without him, what should I have been?" And these dreams, beautiful, impossible, innocent, free of all selfishness, full of heroical worship, were so closely about him as he went that he was happy,—happy even on this sad anniversary of Alois's saint's day, when he and Patrasche went home by themselves to the little dark hut and the meal of black bread, ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... A silk waist, a satin skirt, some silk stockings—but most of all, a real sure enough piano," she gasped. And then, as though in reproach of her selfishness, "And I could pay off the mortgage on Aunt Tillie's ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... by a faint foreshadowing presentiment. In recent times, the idea of civilization has acquired additional intensity, and has given rise to a desire of extending more widely the relations of national intercourse and of intellectual cultivation; even selfishness begins to learn that by such a course its interests will be better served than by violent and forced isolation. Language more than any other attribute of mankind, binds together the whole human race. By its idiomatic properties ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... when I told him that I had been literally too happy to think of writing, he seemed to take it as a reflection on himself that I could be happy alone. I took him round the garden along the new paths I had had made, and showed him the acacia and lilac glories, and he said that it was the purest selfishness to enjoy myself when neither he nor the offspring were with me, and that the lilacs wanted thoroughly pruning. I tried to appease him by offering him the whole of my salad and toast supper which stood ready at the ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... been secretly stricken with remorse at the monstrous selfishness that lay coiled like a canker in my words. I was really no better than those men ...
— Aftermath • James Lane Allen
... Pyrenees". This is the kind of calculation which the missionaries in our own day are only too well accustomed to hear from the lips of barbarous potentates like those of Uganda and Fiji. A conversion thus effected brings no honour to any church, and the utter selfishness and even profanity of the transaction disgusts the devout souls of every communion. Still the conversion of Clovis was not in its essence and origin a hypocritical scheme for obtaining the support of the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... of view of society as a whole, it is waste that any one who has had such a long and arduous training as that required for the medical profession should not use it in service to the community. There is a form of selfishness not sufficiently recognised, which consists not in acquiring goods but in acquiring knowledge without rendering it again in service to one's ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... he wouldn't come," he thought. "And then I daresay this sort of thing wears off." "This sort of thing" being that uneasy, painful feeling, something like selfishness—one wishes almost that the thing would stop—it is getting more and more beyond what is possible— "If it goes on much longer I shan't be able to cope with it—but if some one else were seeing it at the same time—Bonamy is stuffed ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... manly and fine—certain phases of it were heroic—and I hate to see it all pass, but some of us began to realize that it was not all poetry. The plain truth is my companions for over twenty years were lawless ruffians, and the cattle business as we practiced it in those days was founded on selfishness and defended at the mouth of the pistol. We were all pensioners on Uncle Sam, and fighting to keep the other fellow off from having a share of his bounty. It was all wasteful, half-savage. We didn't want settlement, we ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... matter I seek counsel," exclaimed Standish suddenly as he turned to face his friend. "Last night, Master Winslow standing between the graves of his wife and mine, read me a lecture upon the duty unwived men owe to the community. He says it is naught but selfishness to let our private griefs rule our lives, that we are bound to seek new mates and raise up children to carry on the work we have begun. Nor can we doubt his own patriotism, or the honesty of his counsels, for already he has spoken to the widow of William White, and his own wife ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... that you should in any form have been the apologist of a system so full of deadly poison to all holiness and benevolence as slavery, the concocted essence of fraud, selfishness, and cold hearted tyranny, and the fruitful parent of unnumbered evils, both to the oppressor and the oppressed, THE ONE THOUSANDTH PART OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN BROUGHT ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... world all wants money. Selfishness could not thrive without money. I will give you all the money that you ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... pride, there seems to me nothing surprisingly characteristic in any nation. Given its history, everything appears natural; each people's wealth and misery seem in direct proportion to its freedom and its prejudices, and in consequence, in proportion to the self-sacrifice or selfishness ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... heavier often, than the sacrifices made on the field of battle. Death is popularly considered the maximum of punishment in war, but it is not; reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life, as the selfishness of man has demonstrated in more than one ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free from selfishness." ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... an intelligent system of shoeing, would be impossible, because the vast aggregate of foot diseases would be so abated that horses, sound in general health but creeping upon disabled hoofs, could not be found in droves, as at present, and the speculator in equine misfortune would better serve his selfishness by buying young horses and keeping them sound by a ...
— Rational Horse-Shoeing • John E. Russell
... be, everything he cared for on earth, to go into hell, and likely never come back? Why? Why must he? There seemed to be plenty who wanted to fight—why not let them? It was the old slacker's argument; the man was ashamed as he caught himself using it; he had the grace to see its selfishness and cowardice. Yet his soul was in revolt as he drove his body to the recruiting office, and the thoughts that filled him were not of the joy of giving but of the pain of giving up. With that he stood on the steps of the building and here was Charlie ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... separated, they were counted and carefully looked over by both foremen and men, and were open to the inspection of all who cared to look. Everything was passing very pleasantly, and the cutting of the extra twenty-five began. Then my selfishness was weighed in the balance and found to be full weight. I had ridden over a hundred of the best of them, but when any one appealed to me, even my own dear brother, I was as dumb as an oyster about a horse. Tolleston, especially, cursed, raved, and importuned me to help him get a good private ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... design of the epistle Jude himself gives in explicit terms (verses 3, 4). It is to guard believers against the seductions of false teachers, corrupt in practice as well as doctrine; whose selfishness, sensuality, and avarice; whose vain-glorious, abusive, and schismatic spirit, he describes in vivid language, denouncing upon them at the same time the awful judgment of God. The apostolic portraiture has not yet become antiquated in the ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... to grow here in my cell, and which will help me to beguile those long weary hours when I cannot see you. I confess to you I have very little hope for the latter one, and I look beforehand on this unfortunate bulb as sacrificed to my selfishness. However, the sun sometimes visits me. I will, besides, try to convert everything into an artificial help, even the heat and the ashes of my pipe, and lastly, we, or rather you, will keep in reserve the third sucker as our ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... technical knowledge a marvellous intuition of the beautiful, and his treasures are for him pride, bliss, and life. There is no show in this case, no desire for show, no ambition of the despicable shoddy-genteel sort—a more than powerful creation of fiction. A strikingly opposite career of selfishness is suggested by the fairly well-known story of Don Vincente, the friar bookseller of Barcelona, who, in order to obtain a volume which a rival bookseller, Paxtot, had secured at an auction, set fire one night to Paxtot's ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... the sufferings, the privations, the efforts, the difficulties of others. If we ourselves live in fulness of content, it is well to be reminded that thousands of our fellow-creatures undergo a different lot; it is well to have sleepy sympathies excited, and lethargic selfishness shaken up. If, on the other hand, we be contending with the special grief,—the intimate trial,—the peculiar bitterness with which God has seen fit to mingle our own cup of existence,—it is very good to know that our overcast lot is not singular; it stills the repining word and thought,—it rouses ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of women, they will have none of it. For example, there can be no doubt that one may see from time to time the pseudo-intellectual woman. She affects an interest in literature, attends lectures on Browning and Emerson, shows an academic interest in slum work, and presents, on the whole, a selfishness or an egotism which repels. There never has been a revolution in society, however beneficial eventually, which did not bring at least some evil in its train. I cannot do better in this connection than to ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... Like the still line of lustre, soft, severe, From the high-riding, ocean-swaying sphere, Athwart the wandering wilderness of waves. Is there not human soul-light which so laves Earth's lesser spirits with its chastening beam, That passion's bale-fire and the lurid gleam Of sordid selfishness know strange eclipse? Such purging lustre his, whose eloquent lips Lie silent now. Great soul, great Englishman! Whom narrowing bounds of creed, or caste, or clan, Exclude not from world-praise and all men's love. Fine spirit, which the strain of ardent ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., August 23, 1890. • Various
... to be spoken of in plain terms. Mrs. Lessingham often wondered with a smile what the truth really was; she saw no reason for making conjectures of a disagreeable kind, but it was pretty clear to her that selfishness, idleness, and vanity were at the root of Mrs. Denyer's character, and in a measure explained the ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... desire that you have the Holy Gospel, aforenamed, still preached more and more, and hope that by God's Word many things, of which the poor man now complains, may be done away. But it seems to us, that selfishness yet prevails, and is little willing to relieve the common man, and that there are several preachers, who, after beginning to preach the Holy Gospel, now deceive themselves. Since then we learn, that Our Lords have banished several preachers from their territory,[2] ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... at this time was little more than fifteen years old, 'by the advice of his council, to manage and improve the business of the West, and provide reinforcements for the army.' The Prince's council had no easy task, for they were harassed by several causes. Lord Goring's jealousy and selfishness were a great hindrance; in consequence of a petition regarding the violence of his horse, the Prince, says Clarendon, 'writ many earnest letters to the Lord Goring.' Another great difficulty to be grappled with here was a fierce quarrel between ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... many years, had once been the Dean's curate. It was true that he had been a failure as a curate, but that made the Dean the more anxious to be kind now to his memory, he—Mr. Jones—having just died of general bad-temper and selfishness. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... to conceive the selfishness of his motives, which was more than he intended; but I acceded to the proposal, for I was almost as averse to giving as to receiving pain: beside I was a stranger, and he would be my conductor. The note to his lordship was accordingly written, a messenger dispatched with it, and while ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and that brotherly charity should now lead us to a saner view of constitutional politics; or a saner view of politics to a more comprehensive charity. The other cause of this falsification springs out of a selfishness which has less claim to any indulgence—viz. the timidity with which the English Whigs of former days and the party to whom They [4] succeeded, constantly shrank from acknowledging any alliance with the great men of the Long Parliament ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... child's turn," he said it to himself, forming the words with his lips. At that moment he was freed entirely from the selfishness of age, and warm with a generous and noble sympathy with youth, its aspirations, its strivings, its winged hopes. He got up from his chair. He had a longing to go to Vere and tell her all he was feeling, a longing to pour into her—as just then he could have poured it—inspiration molten in a ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... rebuked him. This was selfishness; this was putting his own feelings before hers—a thing he had sworn never to do. Perhaps she needed him—perhaps she had wondered why he had not come to offer her such poor service as might be in his power. He turned and went down through the orchard lane, taking the old field-path across ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... happy in having overtaken him; for it is most certain they had no intention of encumbering themselves with our unfortunate family. I say encumber, for it is evident that four children, one of whom was yet at the breast, were very indifferent beings to people who were actuated by a selfishness without all parallel. When we were seated in the long boat, my father dismissed the sailors with the yawl, telling them he would ever gratefully remember their services. They speedily departed, but little satisfied with the good action they had ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... darling, in my selfishness; but you ought to go and get the latest tidings. Frank, it is your duty to be there when your father reaches this weary city. He ought not to be looking in vain for one of those he loves. You must go at once. Do you hear ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... was true affection. But this woman would struggle hard, fight to the bitter end, before she would quit the position which was so dear to her. She spoke of her wrongs. What were her wrongs? In his intense selfishness, nurtured by the eternal flattery which was the very air he breathed, he could not see that the fifteen years of her life which he had absorbed, or the loss of the husband whom he had supplanted, gave her any claim upon him. In his view he had raised her to the highest position which a subject could ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... chair at these words, and with vehemence exclaimed, "I see it! That hypocrite Loftus is at the bottom of it! He followed me into the theatre; he must have seen you, and his cursed selfishness was alarmed. Yes; it is no foreign traitor! it must be he! He would not allow me to return that way. When I said I would, he told me a thousand lies about the carriages coming round; and I, believing him, went out by another door. I will tax him of ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... learn how to make money, and all we can do with the money WHEN made, is to build houses to live in, eat as much as we want and more, and breed children to whom we leave all the stuff we have earned, and who either waste it or add to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are absolutely useless,—they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere. Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born—and at once, all who are merely Bodies leap ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... and it was a piece of selfishness in me to ask this. I have not danced since coming back from the Cheyenne, and yet—I could not go without one. Shall ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... uniformity of a growth which should never mount more than two feet above the earth. The equality of this politician would forbid any to rise above him instead of inviting all to rise up to him. It is the equality of fear and of selfishness, and not the equality of courage and philanthropy. And brotherhood, too, must be invoked— fraternity as we may better call it in the jargon of the school. Such politicians tell one much of fraternity, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... my servant is dear to me who is free from enmity, the friend of all nature, merciful, exempt from all pride and selfishness, the same in pain and in pleasure, patient of wrong, contented, constantly devout, of subdued passions and firm resolves, and whose mind and understanding are fixed ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... tended for her, while she could sleep all night, and every night; that it had become a passion with Lady Carse to obtain this house, and that anyone was an enemy who denied her the only thing she could enjoy. These pleas Annie listened to in silence, and then to reproaches on her selfishness, her obstinacy, her malice and cruelty. When both her visitors had exhausted their arguments, she turned to Lady Carse, and intimated that now they had all spoken their minds on this subject, she wished to be alone in her own house. Then she turned to Mr Ruthven, and told him that whatever ...
— The Billow and the Rock • Harriet Martineau
... trouble can be compared with it? To find him dead, without a word, a parting sign!" She sighs heavily. "The bitterest sting of all lies in the fact that but for my own selfishness I might have seen him again. Had I returned home as I promised at the end of the month I should have met my brother living; but instead I lingered on, enjoying myself,"—with a shudder,—"while he was slowly breaking ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... would rather have been separated; the other, David Bonham, he was very glad to see. Between Bonham and Verner the contrast was very great; for the former, though of excellent family, was the most unpretending fellow possible, free from pride, vanity, and selfishness, and kind-hearted, generous, good-tempered, and the merriest of the merry. The first A.B. who volunteered for the "Blanche," when he knew Mr Pearce had been appointed to her, was Dick Rogers, an old friend of his father's, with whom he had served man and boy the ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... expensive, though, in fact, Ireland, as we know now, was showing a handsome profit at the time, whereas Canada was costing a quarter of a million a year. For the rest, the pride of power tempered a sort of fatalistic apathy. In the case of Ireland the element of pure selfishness was stronger, because the immense vested interests, lay and clerical, in Irish land were strongly represented. The proximity of Ireland, too, rendered coercion more obvious and easy. Otherwise, her case was the same as that of Canada. "The Canadas are endeavouring to escape from us, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... proper settings. Hamsun was sixty when he wrote "Growth of the Soil." It is the first work in which he celebrates the life of the open country for its own sake, and not merely as a contrast to the artificiality and selfishness of the cities. It was written, too, after he had definitely withdrawn himself from the gathering places of the writers and the artists to give an equal share of his time and attention to the tilling of the soil that was at last his own. It is the harvest ...
— Pan • Knut Hamsun
... you feared for the safety of your friend, reading, as you thought you did, the terrible selfishness of ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... neutral according to Kao, the nature of man at birth is positively evil. He supports this view by the following arguments. From his earliest years, man is actuated by a love of gain for his own personal enjoyment. His conduct is distinguished by selfishness and combativeness. He becomes a slave to envy, hatred, and other passions. The restraint of law, and the influence and guidance of teachers, are absolutely necessary to good government and the well-being of social life. Just as wood must be subjected to ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... guardianship of the State. As children were troublesome and noisy, the practice of giving them up to public officers to be brought up in vast nurseries regulated on the strictest scientific principles became the general rule, and was soon regarded as a duty; what was at first almost openly avowed selfishness soon justifying and glorifying itself on the ground that the children were better off under the care of those whose undivided attention was given to them, and in establishments where everything was regulated with sole regard to their welfare, than they could be at home. No law compels ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... up the receiver, Daniel sat for a moment in the booth, undecided whether to pursue Jennie further by wire. He was inclined to feel miffed that she was not demurely waiting for him. Then his sense of fair play got the better of his selfishness, and he reflected that after all she was doing only what he had called her up to say he was going to do. He lifted ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump
... Where selfishness and unchecked passions stray As ruling motives sole, To reach a tinselled goal, There crouches ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... Trudy's shallow nature and shrewd selfishness she was as fond of Mary as she was capable of being fond of any one. Besides, it was more comfortable to be a member of the Faithful household for nine dollars a week and be allowed hot cakes and sirup a la kimono on Sunday morning; to have Gaylord Vondeplosshe, her friend, ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... our destiny for us out of our own deeds, but by every other person with whom we come in contact. Our fellows check off daily against us so much vitality, so much magnanimity, so much idleness, cruelty, spite, goodness, selfishness, meanness, or loving-kindness. Life holds a record of our every deed, and from no least responsibility can we make our escape. We are the prisoners of events which we ourselves have ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Amsterdam trams, I was scarcely prepared for the emotions which began to seethe in the tonneau the moment the car was started and the chauffeur had sprung to his place at my feet. According to my idea, there's no courage in reckless driving, but selfishness and other less agreeable qualities; still, we did not exactly dawdle as we left the Amstel, to swing out into the tide of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... force their way to the front during a long period of peace. Selfishness and intrigue run riot, and luxury obliterates idealism. Money acquires an excessive and unjustifiable power, and character does not ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... dear old woman to whom he owed all his happiness, and she slowly gave up hope of ever seeing him again. He might quite easily have flown to her cottage and cheered her with his presence; but he was so wrapped up in his love for Patala that everything else went out of his head. This selfishness on his part presently got him into serious trouble, for he became careless about making himself invisible when he flew up to the princess' window. So that one night he was discovered by a guardian of the palace. The matter was at once reported to the king, who could not at first believe ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... says: "If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it;" and we know that virtue kindles at the touch of this joy. "Selfishness, rudeness, and similar weedy growths of school-life or of street-independence cannot grow in such an atmosphere. For joy is as foreign to tumult and destruction, to harshness and selfish disregard of others, as the serene, vernal sky with its refreshing breezes is foreign to ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... to exact tribute from them to the extent of commanding every ounce of exertion of which their bodies were capable. It was here, Gloria, that society began to form itself wrongly, and the result is the miserable travesty of to-day. Selfishness became the keynote, and to physical and mental strength was conceded everything that is desirable in life. Later, this mockery of justice, was partly recognized, and it was acknowledged to be wrong for the physically strong to despoil and destroy the physically weak. Even so, the ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... repeated these words, because he approved of them. The poison of selfishness began anew to work within him; and the words of Verkhoffsky, which he looked on as treacherous, poured like oil on flame. "Hypocrite!" said he to himself; "your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... but how he ever expects to get his load of selfishness into heaven, is more than I ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... honour; he has frequently told me he did not understand the theological conception of sin. He had eaten of our salt and was our servant; thus he would readily have died for us; but he prayed pardon if we asked him to believe in us. "Conduct," he said once, "is the outcome of selfishness limited by self-conceit." It was his way so to put things as to strip them of friendly, decent covering; had he said self-interest limited by self-respect, the axiom would have been more accepted and less quoted. A superficial person used to exclaim to me, "And yet he ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... insisted on succeeding me: as soon as my continued silence had assured him the rope was long enough, Gautier, for that was his name, had forgot his former arguments, and shown himself so extremely forward, that Laclas had given way. It was like the fellow, who had no harm in him beyond an instinctive selfishness. But he was like to have paid pretty dearly for the privilege. Do as I would, I could not keep the rope as I could have wished it; and he ended at last by falling on me from a height of several yards, so that we both rolled together on the ground. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and selfishness more than their honour. To take information about us to the English they must return here again, and so I hold them in ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... has always been necessary in the world, my friend," said the Professor calmly; "Either in the shape of a deity or a king. A wood and straw Nonentity is better than an incarnated fleshly Selfishness. Will you give me supper before ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... been naught for twoscore years. But the tide of memory was at its flow within her brain; and because the Past is Past it touches us. This man had loved her once, after his own scornful manner, when he was young, and before power and selfishness had made him stone. He had been the father of her only son, and ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... it is pure selfishness," returned the good woman, "for until she came to us the old home had been dreadfully dull—the result, my dear, of your going away. And now tell me your story, and all about yourself, for I'm anxious to hear what brought ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... was no one but Morris who understood it. Margaret reproached herself bitterly for her selfishness—for her loss of the power of self-control. Hester's remorse, however greater in degree, was of its usual kind, strong and brief. She repeated, as she had done before, that she made her husband wretched—that she should never have another ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... little fault should be found with the way in which money was provided for it. That Pitt's subsidies were sometimes unwise may be conceded; that his coalitions disappointed him is certain. He had to contend with selfishness and deceit in the rulers of Europe, and laboured with ability and courage to keep them steadfast to the common cause, again and again taking up his task, undismayed by failures which are not to be laid to his charge. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... their birthright. The husband of her early womanhood might have been spared if only they could have nursed him back to health under the cool shade of those grand old trees instead of languishing in the hot city. Help this man? This incarnation of cruel selfishness? Not she;—his boy should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. How could she lift a voice to save him! "His boy?" Ah, through her tender mother's heart there darted a pain all unwonted. Her own noble, ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... has been that set on having a house for his wife, that he has just lost the wife while he was saving the siller for the house. I have told him, and better told him to bring Sophy here; but nothing but having her all to himself will he hear tell of. It is pure, wicked selfishness in the lad! He simply cannot thole her to give look or word to any one but himself. Perfect scand'lous selfishness! That is where all the trouble ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... Maryland was due to her desire for the national good, to selfishness in wishing a share of the national spoils of war, or to animosity toward Virginia dating from their ancient boundary dispute, the result may well be pronounced the most important step toward union since the appointment of ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... radical, and while his principles were absolute, and his opinions uncompromising, his nature was singularly generous and humane. Charity was not to him a duty, but a delight; and the benevolence, which, in most good men, has some touch of vanity or selfishness, always seemed in him pure, unconscious and disinterested. His life was long and happy, and useful to his fellow-men. He had been married for fifty-seven years, and none of the many friends of James and Lucretia Mott, need be told how much that union meant, nor what sorrow comes with ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... hooted out of the lowest society for the indifference, rudeness, and disrespect toward women, which form the rule rather than the exception among the polished nations of Europe. I have seen more absolute selfishness, coarseness, and innate vulgarity under the guise of elegant manners, since my arrival on this side of the water, than I ever saw in California under any guise whatever. If that be civilization, I do not want to see it prevail in our country. It would ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... She understood. Frances had always been her favourite granddaughter, but she had never been blind, clear-sighted old lady that she was, to the little leaven of easy-going selfishness in the girl's nature. She was pleased to see that Frances had conquered ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... family. But Jane's disposition was very different from her sister Louisa's; she had no strength of character, and was easily led by those about her. The greatest fault in her disposition was thought by her family to be indolence; but Miss Wyllys sometimes wished that she had less selfishness, and more frankness. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... dreaming distance, its atmosphere of the far off come near, chastened by journeying, fine with the unfamiliar, its solemn changes towards the impenetrable night, was too large a thing and fraught with too much tender and lovable invention to be worshipped in any selfishness. It made her feel as if she could gladly be a martyr for unseen human beings, as if sacrifice would be an easy thing if made for those to whom such beauty would appeal. Brotherhood rose up and cried in her, as it surely sang in the sunset, in the mountains, the palm groves ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... are associated with the earlier and least selfish period of our existence. Immersed in business, which, if it sharpen the edge of intellect, leaves the heart barren; toiling after material wealth or power, and struggling with fortune for existence; seeing selfishness reflected all around us from the hard and glittering surface of society as from a cold and polished mirror; it would go hard with man in adversity, perhaps still more in prosperity, if some resource were not ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... love which had so suddenly sprung up between himself and his designs. In his interest for the brother of Ione, he had been forced, too, a little while, to suspend his interest in Ione herself. His pride and his selfishness were aroused and alarmed at the sudden change which had come over the spirit of the youth. He trembled lest he himself should lose a docile pupil, and Isis an enthusiastic servant. Apaecides had ceased to seek or to consult him. He was rarely to be found; he turned sullenly from the Egyptian—nay, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... task, and him! She was a singularly honest woman, but she must play the siren; must allure this scoundrel to forgetfulness, with a hurried and yet elude the very familiarity her manner invited. She knew her part, the heartless enticing coquette, compounded half of passion and half of selfishness. It was a hateful thing to do, this sacrifice of her personal reticence, of the individual abstraction in which she wrapped herself as a cloak, in order to hint at a possibility of some intimacy of feeling between them. She shrank from ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... did thus and thus, obeying inner weakness, calling it all the time strength. And do I not know that I, too, made myself a shadow going after shadows? My own make of selfishness, arrogance, and hatred.... Let us do better, you and I!" He mended the fire. "By understanding the past may be altered. Already it is altered with you and me.... I was here the other day. I stayed a long time. There seemed two boys in the cave and ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston
... the steward, to scuttle the ship and have done with it. I have my doubts regarding this. Mr. Robert is inclined to flippancy at times. It wasn't seasickness; and after all is said and done, it is putting it harshly to call this man a villain. I recant. True villainy is always based upon selfishness. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... easily conceive how his education and situation should lead him to entertain such ideas; but they are hardly such as entitle him to read lectures on human society. That, at the end, Trissotin should be ignominiously made to commit an act of low selfishness is odious; for we know that a learned man then alive was satirized under this character, and that his name was very slightly disguised. The vanity of an author is, on the whole, a preservative against ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... and proud that my songs had called the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of property in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to all this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioning conviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may be understood how it came to pass that my imagination filled ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... will be rather a prominent figure on my canvas, I may as well here give the reader a slight preparatory sketch of that gentleman. He was about fifty-two years old; a great tyrant in his little way; a compound of ignorance, selfishness, cant, and conceit. He knew nothing on earth except the price of his goods, and how to make the most of his business. He was of middle size, with a tendency to corpulence; and almost invariably wore a black coat and waistcoat, a white neck handkerchief very primly ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... are in black has been so little known to me since my childhood, was so old and infirm, and so entirely cheerful, resigned, and even desirous of leaving this world, that few, even of those who knew and loved him better than I did, could, without selfishness, lament his release. Mr. Twiss, the father of my cousin Horace, is dead lately; and it is of him that I speak. He has unfortunately left three daughters, who, though doing well for themselves in the world, will now feel a sad void in the circle ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and easy-going than their male companions. The women of the nobility are often less educated than their plebeian sisters, and for the most part lead a very narrow and petty existence, which produces little but vanity and selfishness and discontent. There are exceptions, however, and here and there may be seen a gentlewoman who has studied and travelled, and made herself not only a social but also an ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... in battle, they beggared themselves for him in times of peace; our women sold their jewels for the King, our men gave him their lives, and in all of these centuries the story of their loyalty, of their devotion, has had but one sequel, and has met with but one reward,—ingratitude and selfishness and treachery. You know how I have served you, Louis. You know that I gave up my fortune and my home to go into exile with you, and I did that gladly. But I did more than that. I did more than any king or any man has the right to expect of any other man. I served your idle purposes ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis
... had been made from the 'Genius Loci' the year after its success in the Academy—the pang from which he suffered would seem to show that he still loved her, as indeed he had always loved her, through all the careless selfishness of his behaviour. But, again, there were many months when she dropped altogether—or seemed to drop—out of his mind and memory, when he was entirely absorbed in the only interests she had left him—his art, his quarrels, and his relation to ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... inward ferment was in ceaseless activity; and the effect of the situation on the character of the ruler was generally of the most sinister kind. Absolute power, with its temptations to luxury and unbridled selfishness, and the perils to which he was exposed from enemies and conspirators, turned him almost inevitably into a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. Well for him if he could trust his nearest relations! But where all was illegitimate, there could be no regular ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... most lives spring from disappointed ambitions, covetousness, or from love of praise, fear of man, or similar things; but when this life of selfishness is crucified, and a man is alive only unto God, none can deprive him of that which he most values. Whilst others may be saying, 'We know thy poverty', he hears the Lord say, 'But thou art rich'. Christ has been ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... while every stone of the pile of Oldenhurst and every tree in its leafy park might have been eloquent with the story of vanity, selfishness, and unequal justice, it had been left to the infinite mercy of Nature to seal their lips with a spell of beauty that left mankind equally dumb; earth, air, and moisture had entered into a gentle conspiracy to soften, mellow, ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... for the maiden, and sorrowfully for me. Yet, when she reproached herself for her selfishness in robbing me of my sweetheart, I had not the heart to show her all I felt. In sooth, this maiden needed a friend and comforter sorely; and how was she to fare on that long troublesome journey with no comrade but a rough man, and perchance a half-witted poet? For the poet, ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... himself that he should be able to do such a thing, and at the same time angered by the colossal selfishness of the Indian, Smoke gave the signal. Nor was Cultus George any less astounded when he felt the noose tighten with a jerk and swing him off the floor. His stolidity broke on the instant. On his face, in quick succession, appeared surprise, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... impoverished, while freely to relinquish is to be enriched. Yet here is the grand discovery of the spiritual life; and once this discovery made, in order that the spiritual life may attain its object, it only remains to find the strength to put it into practice. Selfishness is wrong, no doubt, but it is not only wrong, it is ignorant, for it looks for happiness where it is not; and it is unhappy, for it wanders from the paths ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... in the church uttered 'Amen,' except Mr Walcot's. He was struggling with his sobs. Unexpected and excessive as were the tokens of his grief, Hester could not but respect it. It was so much better than gross selfishness and carelessness, that she could pity and almost honour it. She felt that Mr Walcot was as far superior to the quacks who were making a market of the credulity of the suffering people, as her husband, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... popular he would have accepted and backed. But he said, "Io non voglio perdere gli uomini perle femminelle."[38] If the Black party furnished types for the grosser or fiercer forms of wickedness in the poet's hell, the White party surely were the originals of that picture of stupid and cowardly selfishness, in the miserable crowd who moan and are buffeted in the vestibule of the Pit, mingled with the angels who dared neither to rebel nor be faithful, but "were for themselves"; and whoever it may be who is singled out in the setta dei cattivi, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... two pages lie comments with severity on the selfishness and shortsightedness of the Peelites in reference to this matter. Now, the reflection thus cast on the foresight and disinterestedness of the Peelite leaders is in no wise warranted by the facts. What really occurred at the formation of the Cabinet of December 1852 was, ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... Canitaurs both should fail to tell me, whom they claimed to respect as kinsman redeemer and whose decisions would seal their fate for good or ill, that there were other survivors from the Great Wars. I was also shocked by their selfishness, for while they fought pettily amongst themselves over how they would change their lands for the better, a seemingly important question about past and future, they completely ignored the sufferings of other ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... unconnected with moral selfishness, though it often unconsciously does its work. Were it otherwise, I should have passed over in silence this aspect, comprehensive though it is, of Mr. Browning's character. He was capable of the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... capable of any number of things we might not understand, if he condescended to tell us about them—which he would never attempt. He has a remote, brilliantly stored, cynical mind. He owns that he is of an inhuman selfishness. I haven't a suggestion to make, but it sets one searching through the purlieus of one's mind for ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... duty has brought an heretofore unexperienced peace of mind. For myself I was never happier than I am at present; there's a novel zip added to life by the daily risks and the knowledge that at last you're doing something into which no trace of selfishness enters. One can only die once; the chief concern that matters is how and not when you die. I don't pity the weary men who have attained eternal leisure in the corruption of our shell-furrowed battles; they "went West" in their supreme moment. The men ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... them of the necessity of secrecy was superfluous, for the selfishness of human nature never had a better illustration than they afforded. The lucky recipients of the invitations stole away without a word of farewell, circumspectly disappearing, generally at night, ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... thinks most likely to damage the character of any one he dislikes, is repeated over and over again in hope that the iteration will at last be taken for proof, such as the perfidy of Charles I, the profligacy and selfishness of Charles II, the cold and cruel stupidity of James, the baseness of Churchill, the indecent violence of Rochester, the contemptible subserviency of his brother, Clarendon, and so on through a whole dictionary of abuse on every one whom he takes or mistakes ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... and is said to give much good advice ... the lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called mwisichana, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... would have to do without a maid. And all this means that she would have virtually to renounce her caste, to give up the society of her equals, who demand a certain scale of appearances, and to live among pariahs or to live in isolation. Don't you think a man would be a monster of selfishness ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... together had in a measure subsided, and enlistments went on slowly. After a month's exertions, only five thousand names were enrolled; and Washington, lamenting the dearth of public spirit, almost despaired. Alluding to the selfishness exhibited in camp, he says: "Such stock-jobbing and fertility in all low arts, to obtain advantages of one kind and another, I never saw before, and pray God I may never ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... respect for the feelings of others usually originates in selfishness, and issues in hardness and repulsiveness of manner. It may not proceed from malignity so much as from want of sympathy and want of delicacy—a want of that perception of, and attention to, those little and apparently trifling things by which pleasure is given or pain occasioned ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... passion to account, beforehand, might, by exerting her will, manage to control herself tolerably, even while under their influence; and I did not wish to 'frighten' her husband, as she said, and multiply his annoyances for the purpose of serving her selfishness. Therefore I said nothing when I met the master coming towards the parlour; but I took the liberty of turning back to listen whether they would resume their quarrel together. He ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... not now, my child, can I enter upon the long, sorrowful, shameful story—a story of pride, despotism and cruelty on one side; of passion, wilfulness and recklessness on the other; of selfishness, sin and ruin on all sides! Daughter, in almost every tale of sin and suffering you will find that there has always been sin on one side and suffering on the other; but in this story all sinned ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... of unreasoning anger surged over him, but with it there was pity, too; pity for the narrowness of her life and her mind, pity for her very selfishness. And for the first time in his life he felt a shamefaced pity for himself. He shook himself violently. When a ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the physical laws of our being result in hereditary and acquired disease encumbrances, we must expect reactions which may become either disease crises or healing crises. Likewise, so long as ignorance, selfishness and self-indulgence continue to create evil in other domains of life, we must expect there also the occurrence of crises, of reaction and revolution. When knowledge, self-control and altruism become the sole motives ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... To repine against the nature of things, and against the great fundamental law of all society, because, in consequence of my own want of foresight, it happens to bear heavily on me, would be the basest and most absurd selfishness. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... campaign began in real earnest—a life of pleasure, a life of utter selfishness and self-indulgence, which would go far to pervert the strongest mind, tarnish the purest nature. To dress and be admired—that was what Lesbia's life meant from morning till night. She had no higher or nobler aim. Even on Sunday mornings at the fashionable church, where ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... own child. Often would she lament to me that Julia gave no promise of future excellence of mind or character; that in her she never expected to find the sympathy, the responsive tenderness, that characterised our intimacy, and which shed such a charm over every detail of life. The selfishness inherent in the human heart, superadded to the exclusive nature of a passionate attachment, made me listen to these forebodings with a secret satisfaction, laying, meanwhile, the flattering unction to my soul, that nothing but the purest spirit ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... had to walk twenty miles in a day in shoes that were almost soleless. The arrangement usually was for the members of one circle to supply him with the money that would take him to the next town; and though he saw many instances of abject cowardice and hideous selfishness at this period—especially when the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act left the liberty, and to some extent, the life of every man at the disposal of the police. He also witnessed many proofs of heroic courage ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... without punishment; would not immorality and unrighteousness increase rather than diminish? Few events rouse and elevate the patriotism and public spirit of a nation so much as a just and patriotic war. It raises the tone of public morality, and destroys the sordid selfishness and degrading submissiveness which so often result from a long-protracted peace. Such was the Dutch war of independence against the Spaniards; such the German war against the aggressions of Louis XIV., and the French war against the coalition of 1792. But without looking abroad ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... appetites, disguised under the appearance of pious zeal. And besides the strange corruptions engendered by this spirit, it eluded and loosened all the ties of morality, and gave entire scope, and even sanction, to the selfishness and ambition which naturally adhere ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... antediluvian, without discovering any ennui or disgust; though his greatest merit towards you is, that he is not one of those old fools who fancy they are in love in their dotage. I have no such vagary; though I am not sorry that some folks think I am so absurd, since it frets their selfishness. The Mackinsys, Onslows, Miss Pelham, and Madame de Cambis have dined here; and to-morrow I shall have the flamptonians and other Richmondists. I must repeat it; keep in mind that both of you are delicate, and not strong. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... often!—blessed and brightened,' said the Cricket; 'the hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which has been, through her, the Altar of your Home; on which you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, or care, and offered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fragrance than the richest incense that is burnt before the richest shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world!—Upon ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... dame I ever knew." He essayed to take the hand that was twisted in the folds of her cloak, but she drew it away from him in a fury. And the eagerness in his eyes betrayed the insincerity of his attempt at consolation; she saw it—the naked selfishness of his ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... this fatal tendency, or to encourage it from a notion that it weans men from political passions and thus wards off revolutions, they might eventually produce the evil they seek to avoid, and a time might come when the inordinate passions of a few men, aided by the unintelligent selfishness or the pusillanimity of the greater number, would ultimately compel society to pass through strange vicissitudes. In democratic communities revolutions are seldom desired except by a minority; but a minority may sometimes effect them. I do not assert that democratic ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... made him strangely popular. The people, though they detested his conduct, thought him "every inch a King." Lord Shaftesbury, noting in his diary for the 19th of May 1849 the attempt of Hamilton upon the Queen's life, writes:—"The profligate George IV. passed through a life of selfishness and sin without a single proved attempt to take it. This mild and virtuous young woman has four times already been ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... who professed to care for me; but I was thirsting for deeper draughts of love than any which they had to offer; and I said to myself that if I were to die, not one of them would remember me for more than a week. This was not selfishness, for I longed to prove my devotion as well as to receive that of another. How this ideal haunted me! It made me restless and anxious at the sight of every new face, wondering whether at last I had found that for which I ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... took place in his office between him and his son was one which left its visible stamp on the older man, and for a time appeared to have had an effect even on the younger, with all his insolence and impervious selfishness. When Aaron Wickersham unlocked his private door and allowed his son and heir to go out, the clerks in the outer office knew by the young man's face, quite as well as by the rumbles of thunder which had come through the ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... and quick understanding of others' needs and thoughts and feelings; absolutely sincere, of a constant and even temper, and a cheerfulness that never failed—the result of her splendid health; without caprice, without a spark of vanity, without selfishness of any kind—generous, open-handed, charitable to a fault; always taking the large and generous view of everything and everybody; a little impulsive perhaps, but not often having to regret her impulses; of unwearied devotion to her husband, and capable ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... kindling diamond fringes on every dew-beaded chestnut leaf and oak-bough, and silvering the misty mantle which enveloped Lookout. A moment longer that pure-hearted Tennessee child stood watching the gorgeous spectacle, drinking draughts of joy, which mingled no drop of sin or selfishness in its crystal waves; for she had grown up alone with nature—utterly ignorant of the roar and strife, the burning hate and cunning intrigue of the great world of men and women, where, "like an Egyptian pitcher ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... swing. A light, vaguely swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and see him! The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on him, for he could still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others, realising that what he wanted, though much, was not quite ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at the entrance of the saloon and assigned a seat to each person upon the examination of a ticket presented. His office was not a pleasant one. There were the usual grumblers and malcontents, but he preserved his good nature amid all the fault-finding and selfishness; and the Judge had the good fortune to secure five places at the Captain's table, which was significant ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... fidelity vexed the unfaithful husband, who seemed to bid her do wrong by stigmatizing her virtue as insensibility. Augustine tried in vain to abdicate her reason, to yield to her husband's caprices and whims, to devote herself to the selfishness of his vanity. Her sacrifices bore no fruit. Perhaps they had both let the moment slip when souls may meet in comprehension. One day the young wife's too sensitive heart received one of those blows which so strain the bonds of feeling ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... this abbreviated history, is only the echo of another fabulist. The legend of the Cigale and the cold welcome of the Ant is as old as selfishness: as old as the world. The children of Athens, going to school with their baskets of rush-work stuffed with figs and olives, were already repeating the story under their breath, as a lesson to be repeated to the teacher. "In winter," they used to say, "the Ants were putting their ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... selfishness left the centre and rear to be crushed by equal numbers and far superior fighting power. But it was no easy victory. Outmatched as they were, Frenchmen and Spaniards fought with desperate courage and heroic determination. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Selfishness and cowardice make some men slaves. Above all, ungodliness makes men slaves. For when men do not fear and obey God, they are sure to obey their own lusts and passions, and become slaves to them. They become ready to sell themselves soul and body for money, or pleasure, or food. And their fleshly ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley
... changes which were going on in public opinion, and the gradual softening of the harsher features of slavery under their influence. The non-importation agreement throughout the Colonies, by which America was trying to thwart the commercial selfishness of her rapacious Mother, had rendered the provincial viceroys peculiarly sensitive to the slightest manifestation of a disposition to approach the sacred precincts of those prerogatives by which King and Parliament assumed to bind their distant dependencies: and the 'spirit of non-importation' ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... himself autocrat, and the same old vicious round has recommenced. Where in all this is liberty? There has been no liberty at all, save where a state has known how to break out, once for all, from this delusive round; to set barriers to selfishness, cupidity, envy, and lust, in all classes, from highest to lowest, by laws and institutions; and to create great organs of civil life which can eliminate, as far as possible, arbitrary and personal elements from the adjustment of interests ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... he became conscious of the selfishness of thus giving way to his feelings while Sabella was still in such urgent need ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... unbalanced man. He was magnetic, his geniality was really heart-warming, yet he was perfectly cold- blooded in his selfishness. He was cool and calculating, but interference roused him to an almost insane pitch of passion. Fickle in most things, he was uncompromising in his hatreds. O'Neil's generosity in affording sanctuary ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... been long foreseen. The selfishness and blindness of the Portuguese monarchs and their supporters had been such as to make rebellion inevitable, and its ultimate success certain. Mr. William Archer, the noted English journalist, who was sent post-haste to watch the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... duty; to the desire of money before either love or happiness; to uselessness at home, dissatisfaction with the monotony of ordinary life, and horror of all useful work; in a word, to the worst forms of luxury and selfishness, to the most fatal effects arising from want of high principle and ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... troubled in conscience at the great care that he was devoting to his pupil, since he knew that at the bottom there was a certain selfishness, as it was very agreeable to him not to have Hirsko, the Fool, sleep any more in the boy's room. Hirsko kept long vigils; he never closed an eye until he could see the bottom of his pitcher. Now, ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... We had left the French maid behind. I don't know that any woman ever went to her lover under stranger circumstances or in greater perturbation of spirit than did this girl, behind whom lay a generation of selfishness and unrestraint. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... of the next. Lest some may fancy I do not believe this,—thinking that if I did I could not so have acted,—let me say there is no moral restraining power in fear. Fear is essentially selfish, and selfishness is at the bottom of all crimes, my own among the rest. I leave behind me none who will mourn me, and have but one satisfaction, viz.: the knowledge that I shall be regarded as an artist in crime. I take this occasion to bid the public an ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... certain honesty and frankness in the evil that argued a saner morality? There are more merchants today, surer deliveries, and wider well-being, but are there not, also, bigger thieves, deeper injustice, and more calloused selfishness in well-being? Be that as it may,—certainly the nicer sense of honor that has risen ever and again in groups of forward-thinking men has been curiously and broadly blunted. Consider our chiefest industry,—fighting. Laboriously ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... that, but,—why, what am I thinking of! Of course I must materialize him. Oh, Hawkins, selfishness is the bottom trait in human nature; I was only thinking that now, with the usurper's heir out of the way. But you'll forgive that momentary weakness, and forget it. Don't ever remember it against me that Mulberry ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... engenders the "home-feeling" and the "home-sickness," and is the moral net-work of the home-existence and economy. It is stronger than death; it rises superior to adversity, and towers in sublime beauty above the niggardly selfishness of the world. Misfortune cannot suppress it; enmity cannot alienate it; temptation cannot enslave it. It is the guardian angel of the nursery and the sick-bed; it gives an affectionate concord to the partnership of home-life and interest. Circumstances cannot modify it; it ever remains the ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... My selfishness was rebuked by what poor Aggie said. She rejoiced over the escape of one who was merely her fellow-bondman, while his own sister was only thinking what his good fortune might cost her children. I knelt and prayed God to forgive me; and I thanked him from my heart, that one of my family ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... it was sustained by the practised ingenuity and great skill of Mr. O'Hea, who, to do him justice, seemed deeply to feel the hopelessness and shamefulness of the task that was assigned him. But no other argument could prevail, and this appeal to the fears or selfishness of its wealthiest members was had recourse to in consequence of the utter poverty of reason and argument, which could otherwise be presented against the principle of the address. But such an obligation led to a ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... cultivate more land and raise larger crops, his ditches had to be longer, often having branches. Soon neighbors came in and settled above and below him. They too used of the stream; there was no law to control selfishness, so there were disagreements and bitter quarrels over the water. Lawsuits followed and sometimes even fighting and murders. The remedy for this state of things was found to be in a company ditch, flume, or reservoir, with the use of ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... it was done. He wouldn't say anything he oughtn't to. But he'd let you think it. It was just his awful selfishness. He thought there was an off chance of poor Lucy being a sort of nervous invalid, and he wouldn't risk the bother of it. But as for their engagement, there never was any. That was another of the things he let you think. I suppose he cared for Lucy as much as he could care for anybody; but ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... street, or block of houses, is evidently implied in the word neighbor. It clearly involves a reciprocity of good feelings. Mere proximity in space cannot effect this. It requires another kind of nearness—the nearness of similar affections; and these must, necessarily, be unselfish; for in selfishness there is no reciprocity. Under this view, could you consider yourself the neighbor of such ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... and fight this thing like men," he cries, in that deep, din- conquering voice that has served the Ingerfields in good stead on many a steel-swept field, on many a storm-struck sea; "there must be no cowardly selfishness, no faint-hearted despair. If we've got to die we'll die; but please God we'll live. Anyhow, we will stick together, and help each other. I mean to stop here with you, and do what I can for you. None of ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... entertainment from witnessing her manoeuvres. But he was under no delusion regarding her. He considered her quite the most selfish woman of his acquaintance, though also one of the most superficially attractive. Hers was a cold, not a hot selfishness, refined to a sort of exquisiteness and never for an instant fleshly or gross. But that selfishness, in its singleness of purpose, made her curiously powerful, curiously capable of influencing persons of larger and finer spirit than herself—witness her ascendency over Charles Verity during ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... meet," he clearly says to us, "remind you that if you desire to be My disciple and to win a place in My kingdom, you must fling off selfishness, and put in its place the spirit of service and tenderness." "He that would be first must be servant of all." "You must humble ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival |
