"Unselfish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seems the master painted a group and gave Leonardo the task of drawing in one figure. Leonardo painted in an angel—an angel whose grace and subtle beauty stand out, even today, like a ray of light. The story runs that good old Verrocchio wept on first seeing it—wept unselfish tears of joy, touched with a very human pathos—his pupil had far surpassed him, and never again did Verrocchio attempt ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... "ruthless" in the way in which she pushed on one side any who seemed to her to be delaying or obstructing the fulfilment of her project. There was, however, never any selfish motive prompting her; the end was always a noble one, for she had an unselfish, generous nature. An intimate friend, well qualified to judge, herself at ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... different reasons. Lee was thinking that for Melissy's sake he should have made a friend of the man he hated, since it was on the cards that within a few days she might be in his power. The girl's feeling, too, was unselfish. She could not forget the deep hunger for friendship that had shone in the man's eyes. He was alone in the world, a strong man surrounded by enemies who would probably destroy him in the end. There was stirring in her heart a sweet womanly pity and sympathy for the enemy whose proffer ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... emoluments were showered by a grateful country on the men who thus held the land through those years of want and war, and saved an empire for the Union? What practical recognition was there of these brave and unselfish men who daily risked their lives and faced the stealth and cruelty lurking in the wilderness ways? There is meager eloquence in the records. Here, for instance, is a letter from George Rogers Clark to the Governor of Virginia, ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... herself the control of the Home Department, and, between the two, they ruled their vassal right royally. After some months' acquaintance they became the greatest friends; on Royston's side it was one of the few quite pure and unselfish feelings he had ever cherished toward one of her sex not nearly akin to him in blood. He always seemed to look on her as a very nice, but rather spoiled child, to be humored and petted to any amount, but very seldom to be reasoned ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... done everything, my lad," cried the doctor warmly. "I have said nothing, but I have not been blind. I have watched the brave, unselfish way in which you have tried to help and encourage the others; but you have not done yet. Poor Lowe has taken to his bunk quite helpless, and there is hardly a man ready to stir. We two have to take ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... 17, 1912) there is a leading article called "The Great Issue." You can read there that "the composite judgment is always safer and wiser and stronger and more unselfish than the judgment of any one individual mind. The people have been betrayed by their representatives again and again. The real danger to democracy lies not in the ignorance or want of patriotism of the people, but in the corrupting influence ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... might be truly said "clarum et venerabile nomen"—exercised on all with whom he was connected. If indeed he had a fault, it was that his standard of action was so high, his nature so absolutely above the littleness of ordinary life, that he attributed to inferior men far purer and more unselfish objects than those that really moved them. "Vixit enim tanquam in Platonis politeia, non ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... she was still the conqueror of Nature and the mistress of the sky. There is surely something divine in man himself that he should rise so superior to the limitations which Creation seemed to impose—rise, too, by such unselfish, heroic devotion as this air-conquest has shown. Talk of human degeneration! When has such a story as this been written in ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... diverse situations of his after life." The deep piety and the varied culture of his mother "made her admirably qualified to be the depository of the ardent thoughts and aspirations of his boyhood." At Oxford, where he completed his education after leaving Eton, he showed that unselfish spirit and consideration for the feelings of others which were the recognized traits of his character in after life. Conscious of the unsatisfactory state of the family's fortunes, he laboured strenuously even in college to relieve his father ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... vociferous plaudits, had they received and adopted another Resolution, wherein they declared "That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish patriotism and the unswerving fidelity to the Constitution and the principles of American Liberty, with which Abraham Lincoln has discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidential Office; that we approve ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... more, in a voice half choked with profound emotion, "I don't know how to thank you enough for all you've done for me. You've behaved to me like a brother—like a brother indeed. It makes me ashamed to think, when I see how unselfish, and good, and kind you've been—ashamed to think I once distrusted you. You've been an angel to me all through. Without you, I don't know how I could ever have lived on through this journey at all. And I can't bear to feel now I may ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... fair to do credit to the school in the peculiar branch of learning for which it was famous. But he was not popular among his schoolfellows. He was wayward, though, to a certain degree, generous and unselfish; he was reserved but gentle, except when the tremendous bursts of passion (similar in character to those of ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... theoretic faculty as concerned with vital beauty, is charity. 90 Sec. 3. Only with respect to plants, less affection than sympathy. 91 Sec. 4. Which is proportioned to the appearance of energy in the plants. 92 Sec. 5. This sympathy is unselfish, and does not regard utility. 93 Sec. 6. Especially with respect to animals. 94 Sec. 7. And it is destroyed by evidences of mechanism. 95 Sec. 8. The second perfection of the theoretic faculty as concerned with life ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... self-interest and desire for recompense which so often passes among men as charity, vs. 32-34, he pointed to the perfect example of God and intimated that his mercy should incline us to kindly judgments of our fellows, assuring us of the boundless liberality with which our Father will reward our unselfish love. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... every day. And, Nan, it must be plain hell for Hank to see that. Why, Billy wouldn't tempt Hank or make him suffer torment knowingly for a million dollars. And yet he does it every day of his life because he's ignorant, doesn't know any bigger, finer, more unselfish way of helping Hank. No, Nan, you can't make me believe our Green Valley men are a mean lot, meaner than others. They just don't know and when once they realize, why, they'll put an end to ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... friends. And she's perfectly beautiful, Aunt Izzie. Her hands are just as white as snow, and no bigger than that. She's got the littlest waist of any girl in school, and she's real sweet, and so self-denying and unselfish! I don't believe she has a bit good times at home, either. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... married life awaited them, more particularly after the battle of Actium, when "peace and the republic were restored." One thing only was wanting to complete their perfect felicity—they had no children. It was this that caused Turia to make a proposal to her husband which, coming from a truly unselfish woman, and seen in the light of Roman ideas of married life, is far from unnatural; but to us it must seem astonishing, and it filled Lucretius with horror. She urged that he should divorce her, and take another wife in the hope of a son and heir. If there is nothing very surprising ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... her, "that I am a less pious Christian than you are; that you, my noble young sister, are a more innocent and unselfish maiden than the ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... likely to render to society, it would first of all feed them. Then the combatants would be cared for, irrespective of the courage or the intelligence which each had displayed, and thousands of men and women would outvie each other in unselfish devotion ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... poet of Stratford-on-Avon. I do not speak of the poet only, and of his art, so perfect because so artless; I think of the man with his large, warm heart, with his sympathy for all that is genuine, unselfish, beautiful, and good; with his contempt for all that is petty, mean, vulgar, and false. It is from his plays that our young men in Germany form their first ideas of England and the English nation, and in ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... far higher summit than have the most gifted intellects who, while apprehending the beauty of goodness, fail to express that beauty in their daily lives. John Ruskin's life has been at once earnest, pure, and unselfish. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... continually, off and on, trying his hardest to think of some Sunday lesson to give his child. Many of those that knew the boy, regarded him as a sort of idiot, drawing the conclusion from Gibbie's practical honesty and his too evident love for his kind: it was incredible that a child should be poor, unselfish, loving, and not deficient in intellect! His father knew him better, yet he often quieted his conscience in regard to his education, with the reflection that not much could be done for him. Still, every now and then he would think perhaps he ought to do something: who could tell ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... fellows. Don't forget the team that has helped us all season, the team that doesn't get into the limelight. And don't forget the coach, who has worked just as hard, perhaps a good deal harder, to develop that team than I've worked. I'm going to ask you to show your appreciation of the unselfish devotion of Coach Boutelle and one of the finest second teams ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... our political future. Essentially teachers,—I might add, they were publicists as well as professors. Observers and students, they actively followed the course of developing thought in Europe as in this country. Exact in their processes, philosophical and scientific in their methods, unselfish in their devotion, they were broad of view. It is for them to realize in a future not remote the University ideal pictured, and correctly pictured, from this stage by one who here preceded me a short six months ago. They, constituting the University, are the "hope of the State ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... unselfish, Pete!" She moved a chip along the ground with her foot, but Pete failed to notice ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt
... dinner. Her gayety was refreshing, and I did not wonder at John's admiration. My spirits rose, too, and I astonished Leonora at the table with my chat; she had never seen me except when quiet. I fell into one of those unselfish, unasking moods which are the glory of youth: I felt that the pure heaven of love was in the depths of my being; my soul shone like a star in its atmosphere; my heart throbbed, and I cried softly to it,—"Live! live! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... distractions and pleasures of town life which Mr. Calvert engaged in, he still felt those secret pangs of bitter disappointment and the fever of unsatisfied desire, but he was both too unselfish and too proud to show what he suffered. There are some of us who keep our dark thoughts and secret, hopeless longings in the background, as the maimed and diseased beggars are kept off the streets in Paris, and only let them come from their hiding-places at long intervals, ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... such a time as it could be put on a paying basis. Unmarried women who accept friendly loans from men stand in dangerous places. With all good women, heart-whole gratitude and a friendship that seems unselfish ripen easily into love. They did so here. Perhaps, in a warm, ardent temperament, sore grief and biting disappointment and crouching want obscure the judgment and give a show of reason to actions that ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... as he lived. I learned to understand the limitations of his powers and the points in which he fell short of being a great commander; but as I knew him better I estimated more and more highly his sincerity and truthfulness, his unselfish generosity, and his devoted patriotism. In everything which makes up an honorable and lovable personal character he had no superior. I shall have occasion to speak frequently of his peculiarities and his special traits, but shall never have need to say a word in ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... has a heart . . . He spoke, Dumont, that proud noble spoke, of the advantages to our beloved Charles; and in my father's heart a voice arose, louder than thunder. Dumont, was I unselfish? The voice said no; the voice, Dumont, up ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson
... but enough has been quoted at present to show Sarah Grimke's strong, earnest, impressionable nature, and the effects upon it of the teachings of the old theology, mingled with the narrow Southern ideas of usefulness and woman's sphere. Endowed with a superior intellect, with a most benevolent and unselfish disposition, with a cheerful, loving nature, she desired above all things to be an active, useful member of society. But every noble impulse was strangled at its birth by the iron bands of a religion that taught the crucifixion of every natural feeling as the ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... time she was confined to her chamber, Mrs. Waddel kept up a constant lamentation, declaring that the reputation of her lodgings would be lost for ever, if Mrs. Lyndsay should die of the cholera. Yet, to do the good creature justice, she waited upon her, and nursed her with most unselfish kindness; making gallons of gruel, which the invalid scarcely tasted, and recommending remedies which, if adopted, would have been certain to kill the patient, for whose life she most ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... one Great Power would France require an extension of frontier. Its interests lay in the preservation of the equilibrium of Europe, and in the maintenance of the Italian Kingdom. These had already been secured by arrangements which would not require France to draw the sword; a watchful but unselfish neutrality was the policy which its Government had determined to pursue. Napoleon had in fact lost all control over events, and all chance of gaining the Rhenish Provinces, from the time when he permitted ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... cousin won her way, and how far her more adventitious advantages threw into the shade her own real exertions for the pleasure of those around her. Not that the exertions had been prompted by a desire for praise; but she was not yet unselfish enough to be satisfied that they had gained the desired end, although not fully appreciated by those for whom they had been made. The difference between the cousins was, that Lucy liked approbation, when she did what was right for its own sake, while Stella's conduct was chiefly ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... who had been representing "honest taxpayers" and "innocent owners" of corrupt stock and bonds all his life understood perfectly. "It's hardly human to be as unselfish as you and I are, Davy," said he. "Well, I'll go in and do a little telephoning. You go ahead and draw up your statement and get it to the papers—and see Hugo." He rose, stood leaning on his cane, all bent and shrivelled and dry. "I reckon Judge Lansing'll be expecting ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... very glad my little girl is unselfish enough to desire to do so," he responded. He passed a hand tenderly over her golden curls as he spoke, and kissed her again and again with warmth ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... things I like best about the Camp Fire," said Bessie, thoughtfully. "Everyone in it seems to be unselfish and to think about helping others, and yet there isn't someone to preach to you all the time—they just do it themselves, and make you see that it's the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls on the March - Bessie King's Test of Friendship • Jane L. Stewart
... of life is to fill our days with sunshine. In so doing we shall find that the "little graces" are those which will lend us the most help. Tiny favors extended, words of encouragement, courtesies of all sorts, unselfish work carried out in an open manner, true friendships and love, a hearty laugh, a sincere appreciation of the other fellow's struggle to keep his head above water, the conscientious carrying out of all tasks assigned us—these ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... that makes the others possible, is the hereditary and acquired prejudice, bias, bigotry and ignorance within themselves. The struggle of the Reformation was for religious freedom. This struggle was by no means always unselfish and consistent. Protestants as well as Roman Catholics used force to crush those that would not submit to their creeds. Both in Europe and in America men's bodies were tortured and destroyed with the hope ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... gladly she would change places with Christie, who was sitting there as quietly as if no change of time or place could make her unhappy. For her discontent with herself had by no means passed away. It had rather deepened as her study of the Bible became more earnest, and the strong, pure, unselfish life of which she had now and then caught glimpses seemed more than ever beyond her power to attain. When she tried most, it seemed to her that she failed most; and the disgust which she felt on account of her daily failures had been gradually deepening into a sense ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... his pen trace one angry word. On the contrary, he summoned his whole energies to the task of harmonising the jarring elements around him. His inspiration rose to that unearthly height, whereon guidance becomes prophecy. Great, strong and unselfish convictions, entertained holily and uttered sincerely, are assurances of new creations, pledges of the destiny to which they tend. In this spirit, spoke and sang Thomas Davis during a time of bitterness and dissension. ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... brought made lovely gifts for the girls, and the little curios and souvenirs were all right for the boys, but there were so many friends, and her relatives beside, that she soon realised she would have little left for herself. And, though unselfish, she did want to retain some mementos ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... by every one; they saved much trouble from coming upon him and lightened what did come. And no blight could have withered that perennial fountain of jollity, drollery, and light-heartedness. But these were only the ornaments of a stanchly loyal and honorable nature, and a lovable and unselfish soul. One of his friends writes of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... patients, interested in getting them out, desirous to procure wool to knit socks for some of them. Never since she has been under my observation have I heard her in her joyous period utter any but charitable opinions."[163] And later, Dr. Dumas says of all such joyous conditions that "unselfish sentiments and tender emotions are the only affective states to be found in them. The subject's mind is closed against envy, hatred, and vindictiveness, and wholly transformed into ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... she wrote to Philip, in one of her occasional letters, that you never told me more about this delightful family, and scarcely mentioned Alice who is the life of it, just the noblest girl, unselfish, knows how to do so many things, with lots of talent, with a dry humor, and an odd way of looking at things, and yet quiet and even serious often—one of your "capable" New England girls. We shall be great friends. It had never occurred to Philip that there was any thing extraordinary ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Miss Tempest kept down all her feelings, with a vague sense that to show them would be to waste her substance: it was the one shape that the yet lingering selfishness of a very unselfish person took. Thus she kept him at a distance, and he stayed at a distance, she on her part wondering that he did not open out to her more, but neither doubting that all was right between them. Nothing, indeed, was wrong—only they might ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... still harder by unreasonable harshness. This trait in her character had roused her uncle's anxiety and, in after-years, her treatment of her inferiors had been such that he could not number her among the excellent of her sex. Therefore he was the more joyfully surprised by the loyal, unselfish love with which she devoted herself to the service of the Queen. Cleopatra had gratified Charmian's wish to have her niece for an assistant; and Iras, who had never been a loving daughter to her own faithful mother, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Oriental it is! Yet how different is the life of these simple country folks from that of the Persian capital! Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... Christianity contained all the ideals of antiquity, and that the speculative conception of ecclesiastical Christianity was the only true and right one. His character was pure, his life blameless; in his work he was not only unwearied, but also unselfish. There have been few Fathers of the Church whose life-story leaves such an impression of purity behind it as that of Origen. The atmosphere which he breathed as a Christian and as a philosopher was dangerous; but his mind remained sound, and even his feeling for truth scarcely ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... in order to the attainment of accurate conclusions respecting the essence of the beautiful, is nothing more than earnest, loving, and unselfish attention to our impressions of it, by which those which are shallow, false, or peculiar to times and temperaments, may be distinguished from those that are eternal. And this dwelling upon, and fond contemplation ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... of one who will hold his own in life; his word had the ring of truth. Of his generosity she had innumerable proofs, and it contrasted nobly with the selfishness of young men as she knew them; she appreciated it all the more because her own frequent desire to be unselfish was so fruitless. Of awakening tenderness towards him she knew nothing, but she gave him smiles and words which might mean little or much, just for the pleasure of completing a conquest. Nor did she, in truth, then regard it as impossible that, sooner or later, she might become ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... at her nature, to traverse, by whatever avenue, any piece of her property. It was clear, on the other hand, that Mrs. Lowder was keeping her wealth as for purposes, imaginations, ambitions, that would figure as large, as honourably unselfish, on the day they should take effect. She would impose her will, but her will would be only that a person or two shouldn't lose a benefit by not submitting if they could be made to submit. To Milly, as so much younger, such far views couldn't be imputed: ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... weeks—while you were letting me write as I did, while you were letting me conceive you and your action as I did, you had this on your mind? You never gave me a hint; you let me plead; you let me regard you as wrapped up in the unselfish end; you sent me those letters of his—those most ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a brainy man of fair education," began Amory slowly, "that is, when he marries he becomes, nine times out of ten, a conservative as far as existing social conditions are concerned. He may be unselfish, kind-hearted, even just in his own way, but his first job is to provide and to hold fast. His wife shoos him on, from ten thousand a year to twenty thousand a year, on and on, in an enclosed treadmill that hasn't any windows. He's ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... break my heart. I'd rather you should scorn, or even hate me, for the sorrow I have brought. Such unselfish kindness will kill me," Alice sobbed, for never had she been so touched as by this insight into the real character of ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... "She must be unselfish and agreeable," she said, forgetting her momentary prejudice, "particularly when the other doesn't seem to appreciate her society very highly. I fancy that one isn't very diverting. I wonder why they ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... them came down into the valley again. Through suffering they had grown strong and unselfish. They gave their best trees to the people and their fairest to the children ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke
... looks and spirits had both improved from the moment of this eclaircissement. A load was plainly removed from her mind. Let us hope that her comfort and elation were perfectly unselfish. At all events, her heart sang with a quiet joy, and her good humour was unbounded. So she stood up, holding Lord Dunoran's hand in hers, and putting her white arm round her niece's neck, she kissed her again and again, very ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... with all energies concentrated on one aim,—to spread the gospel in China. The hour came when he was ready to start out with noble enthusiasm for his chosen work, to consecrate himself and his life to his unselfish ambition. Then word came from China that the "opium war" would make it folly to attempt to enter the country. Disappointment and failure did not long daunt him; he offered himself as missionary to ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... applying the word "heroic" to any deeds, however charitable, however toilsome, however dangerous, performed for the sake of what certain French ladies, I am told, call "faire son salut"—saving one's soul in the world to come. I do not mean to judge. Other and quite unselfish motives may be, and doubtless often are, mixed up with that selfish one: womanly pity and tenderness; love for, and desire to imitate, a certain Incarnate ideal of self-sacrifice, who is at once human and divine. But that motive of saving the soul, which ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... wanted at home on business of some sort," Damaris replied, as she felt a little lamely. She was displeased, worried by Henrietta. It was difficult to choose her words. "He has been away for a long time, you see. I think he has been beautifully unselfish in giving up so much of his ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... constantly hear as accounting for Mr. McKinley's great success that he was obedient and affectionate as a son, patriotic and faithful as a soldier, honest and upright as a citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous, unselfish, moral, and clean in every relation of life. He never thought of those things as too weak ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... She was a nice girl and he was fond of her. The other was a dog's life. And he was not unselfish about it. She could not belong to him. He did not want her to belong to ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... still among a thousand shadows. Your beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. The important thing is to know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a temporary test, perhaps, but never ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... to reveal her new intrigue to her husband, and then he would help her to sue for his forgiveness. It was a part of the inconsistency of his religious convictions; in his human passion he was perfectly unselfish, and had already forgiven her the offense against himself. He ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... him. The picture of the small village dreaming its unselfish life on the mountain-tops, clean, wholesome, simple, searching vigorously for its God, and training hundreds of boys in the grand way, rose up in his mind with all the power of an obsession. He felt once more the old mystical enthusiasm, deeper than the sea ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... corrected, for it is a great fault, if not worse. The letter just received pleases me much, for I find in it a high tone of moral rectitude, a noble feeling of devotion to your husband's calling, an unselfish determination to fulfil your destiny, an abnegation of domestic comfort, a latent feeling of ambition tempered with resignation, such as becomes a woman, that do you the highest honour.... I think the crisis we are going through in England very alarming ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... calls his "dark days"—when his courage sinks, and he gets cranky and sarcastic; but they don't come as often as at first. And we all make allowances, for we know there isn't one of us that in his place would be as unselfish and helpful. We go to him with everything,—even papa has got in the way of sitting and talking with Fee; anyway, it seems as if papa were more with us now than he used to be, and he's ever so much nicer,—more like other people's fathers ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... this hypothesis. Would Roger, my pattern of courtesy—Roger, who shrinks from hurting the meanest beggar's feelings—would he, in such plain terms, have deplored and wished undone our marriage, if it were only suffering to himself that it had entailed? Has his unselfish chivalry gone the way of Algy's brotherly love? Impossible! the more I think of it, the more unlikely it seems—the more certain it appears to me that I must look elsewhere for the cause of the alteration that has so ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of fifteen, wild as an antelope, and as full of fun and frolic as any one of her pet kittens. Their mother was an invalid, seldom able to leave her couch;—not a fretful invalid, you must understand, but a sweet, gentle, unselfish woman, who bore her pain and weakness without a murmur, so that those she loved might be spared pain on her account. Mr. Goldthwaite often said that Mrs. Keane's life was the best sermon he had ever come across; and I think he was right. ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... reputation; but my disinterestedness was so well known that, whatever may be said to the contrary, I can assert that during the whole time my favor with the Emperor continued, I on no occasion used it to render any other but unselfish services, and often I refused to support a demand for the sole reason that the petition had been accompanied by offers of money, which were often of very considerable amount. Allow me to cite one example among many others of the same nature. I received one day an offer of the sum of four ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... always thought Lucille the dearest and most unselfish angel in the world, but never had the fact come home to him so forcibly as now. He ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... altogether unselfish as this sentiment really was, it was obviously to the general interest that they should become acquainted, and if possible establish friendly relations, with any human inhabitant who might be sharing their own strange destiny in being rolled away upon a new planet into ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... absolutely. I've tried to be honest with you each time, tried to be of service; and still you've disregarded. It's been the same to-night, the old, old story. I've been dead in earnest, tried to be unselfish, and still you question and doubt and insist." A second the voice halted, the speaker glancing down, not analytically or whimsically, as usual, but of a sudden icy cold. "You insist now, against my request, and once more I'm going to humor ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... woman, of highly-strung nervous temperament, though placid in outward appearance and manners, unselfish even to self-effacement where her kindred were concerned, but wary and suspicious beyond the pale of relationship or love; a zealous religionist, but narrow and bigoted in the extreme. In his heart of hearts Ebben Owens also hated the Church. Dissent ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... the ball would seem a travesty on enjoyment, rather than real pleasure, and now he perceived its force. He also noticed that many were better than he had supposed, and were trying, in a blundering but persevering way, to obey their consciences. He saw some unselfish thoughts and acts. Many things that he had attributed to irresolution or inconsistency, he perceived were in reality self-sacrifice. He went on in frantic disquiet, distance no longer being of consequence, and in his roaming chanced to pass through the graveyard in ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... last to know that her passion for David Drennen had been as the passion of the moth for the candle. A new love came into her heart, rising to her throat, choking her; a love that was meek and devoted, that was now as much a part of her as were her hands and feet; an emotion that was the most unselfish, the most worthy and womanly she had ever felt. She had followed Kootanie George; she had at last come up with him; and now, George's back to her, she sat at ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... he exclaimed, "thou art not of earth—thou art an angel! The unselfish grandeur of thy soul ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... for the two forms of advancement do not necessarily go together, and when a man is born with psychic powers it is simply the result of efforts made during a previous incarnation, which may have been of the noblest and most unselfish character, or on the other hand may have been ignorant and ill-directed or even entirely unworthy. Such an one will usually be perfectly conscious when out of the body, but for want of proper training is liable to be greatly deceived as to what he sees. He will often be able to range ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... I'm beginning to think there's a good deal of an obstacle in blood. I find difficulty, much difficulty, Sir, in giving the youngest child true ideas of absolute freedom and unselfish heroism." ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... verses Vidya and Avidya are used in something the same sense as "faith" and "works" in the Christian Bible; neither alone can lead to the ultimate goal, but when taken together they carry one to the Highest. Work done with unselfish motive purifies the mind and enables man to perceive his undying nature. From this he gains inevitably a knowledge of God, because the Soul and God are one and inseparable; and when he knows himself to be one with the Supreme and Indestructible ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... once more, he turned toward the entrance; his thoughts again with the strong, kindly presence of the man who had just left him. He wondered why he had never realized the vast, unselfish human force in Gard. "What an indomitable soul," he said softly. "I ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... brave, gentle, unselfish, able everywhere! Jondo, who had kept my toddling feet from stumbling, who had taught me to ride and swim and shoot, who had made me wise in plains lore, and manly and clean among the rough and vulgar things of the Missouri frontier. Jondo, whose big, cool hand had touched ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... well that it should end that day, in all its pristine sweetness, unsullied by a single bitter moment, undimmed by the cloud of a single disillusion or disappointment. Whatever chanced to them in later years, they could at least cherish this one memory of a pure, unselfish affection, young and unstained and almost without thought of sex, come and gone on the very threshold of their lives. This was the end, they both understood. They were glad that it was to be so. They did not even speak again of writing to ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... wretched story they had to tell of lives thrown away through carelessness and negligence, unredeemed, as far as their story went, by any heroism or unselfish courage. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... who never had a thought that was not mean and base—whose every action is a fraud and whose every utterance is a lie; do you know that these are as much superior to you as the sun is to the rush-light, you honourable, brave-hearted, unselfish brute? ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... it is supposed that he died, leaving Mary a widow. On Jesus, as the eldest son, the care of the mother now rested. Knowing the deep love of his heart and his wondrous gentleness, it is easy for us to understand with what unselfish devotion he cared for his mother after she was widowed. He had learned the carpenter's trade; and day after day, early and late, he wrought with his hands to provide for her wants. Very sacred must have been ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... it," he went on. "She was as innocent as a flower. Was it possible she could suspect what sort of a man he was? It has given her such a blow in her ideal that I doubt if she will ever recover. It seems as if she could not believe again in genuine, unselfish love." ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... not in itself sinful, but the possession of wealth is a corollary to selfishness. He who is unselfish will spurn wealth. The individual who accumulates beyond his needs sins against Heaven when he locks up his goods in strong boxes. The act of hoarding deprives some creature of his just portion, for God has planned there should be sufficient for all who make the effort, and a ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness: gentle and forgiving thoughts crystallize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances: loving and unselfish thoughts crystallize into habits of self-forgetfulness for others, which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... leave the king and go on a pilgrimage. Tell him that you are an old man now, and should be permitted to travel in foreign countries for a time. Then the gossip will cease, when they see that you are unselfish. And when you are gone, the king will bear his own burdens. And thus his levity will gradually disappear. And when you come back, you can assume ...
— Twenty-two Goblins • Unknown
... have more valiantly faced poverty than Elizabeth Delavie, had she alone been concerned. Cavalier and Jacobite blood was in her veins, and her unselfish character had been trained by a staunch and self-devoted mother. But her father's age and Eugene's youth made her waver. She might work her fingers to the bone, and live on oatmeal, to give her father the comforts he required; but to have Eugene brought down from his natural ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... death; but it means also the exercise of all that is finest in our natures—patriotism, heroism, the dedication of ourselves to a great cause. I should have been proud to have you in France, Theo. However, there is much a boy can do here and now. He can begin being a loyal unselfish citizen, and training himself to bear his part when he shall be older. Get your education first. Prepare yourself to be of value to humanity so that when your time to help comes it may find ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... while Hope Wayne listened with her ears to him, with her eyes she listened to Lawrence Newt. His simple, unselfish, and therefore unconscious urbanity—his genial, kindly humor—and the soft, manly earnestness of his face, were not unheeded—how could they be?—by her. Since the day the will was read he had been a faithful friend and counselor. ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... be able to understand that, in order to obtain the supremest pleasure from an act of thoughtfulness to his wife, he must be wholly unselfish and give it to her, in her line, and the way she wants it—and the way he knows she wants it, if he would only stop to think. I know a man who hates to go out in the evening, but who occasionally, in order to do something particularly ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... impelling faculties behind it, and all that moderates, checks, and enlightens before it. Thus the occipital development makes a powerful, domineering, conquering character, as the frontal makes a passive, unselfish, yielding one. ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887 - Volume 1, Number 2 • Various
... You went away to endure all that misery alone, so that it should not distress me? How wonderfully unselfish you have always ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... of you, Morton! Molly and I can't complain with such a man to look after us, can we? But look at this. I have only a few pennies left, and I was wondering what we should do for milk for baby. Now, if we can all be unselfish, and let you sell this goose to Mrs. Norris or Miss Prue, it will buy milk for some time yet. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... according to the rules of the convent he governed with the same wisdom that he governed a city, and he died in the faith of the primitive apostles. His piety was monastic, but his spirit was progressive, sympathizing with liberty, advocating public morality. He was unselfish, disinterested, and true to his Church, his conscience, and his cause,—a noble specimen both of a man and Christian, whose deeds and example form part of the inheritance of an admiring posterity. We pity his closing days, after such a career of power and influence; but we may as well compassionate ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... present friendliness, was very fast becoming a New Yorker like the rest: making his way and climbing his climb, and wanting no climbers who had to be carried. "Ethel Lanier, the first thing you know you'll be dropped like a hot potato," she thought. "There's nothing unselfish about this man. Don't make him feel he has you on his hands." And she would grow studiously abstract and detached in her talk about the town. But it kept cropping up in spite of her, this ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... Robert Southey, and, as he and Coleridge married sisters, you may claim a distant relationship with him. His personal character was beautiful and unselfish, and his dwelling at Keswick was the home that for ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... won my heart about him was the femininely delicate consideration and unselfish devotion of his nature, the charm there was about his manner and conversation, which revealed itself in everything he did, from the way in which he placed his hat upon his head, to the way in which he ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... brief time of such passion the very highest and finest emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into play. In that time more than at any other hour in life do men become unselfish, unselfish at least toward one human being. Not only unselfishness but self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the period. The young man in love is not merely willing to give away everything that he possesses to the person beloved; he wishes to suffer pain, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... to drill his men in the twilight. He would have been up and drilling at dawn if he could have gotten them together. He inspired them with his quiet enthusiasm, held them by personal magnetism, and by unselfish patriotism kindled in the breast of each of his fifty followers a desire to do something for his country. Gradually the railroad, so dear to him, slipped back to second place in the affairs of the earth. His country was first. To be sure, there was no shirking of responsibility at the ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... suffer. Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad, they become equally frivolous. The case against the governing class of modern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, you may call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. The case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men, they ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Mr. Lincoln's unselfish magnanimity is the central marvel of the whole affair. His reply ended the argument. Mr. Seward doubtless saw at once how completely he had put himself in the President's power. Apparently, neither of the men ever again alluded ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... unselfish as she is whose capacity is entirely different. She is a quiet, reserved, thoughtful girl, who always speaks slowly. She is just and good-tempered, and is ready to give her time and money when she sees she can be of use. But her thoughts move in other channels. ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... me and I'll show you," he answered and he led her to the window opposite to Miss Burton, where she sat at the piano. "There," he said, "is the miracle,—a gifted, magnetic, unselfish woman devoting herself wholly to the enjoyment of others. She has created more sunshine this dismal day than we have had in the house since I've been here. Is not ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... out for money; after rebuking him from the beginning she had stabbed him to the heart for a price. It was always he, Wiley, who thought of nothing but money; who was the liar, the miser, the thief. Everything that he did, no matter how unselfish, was imputed to his love of money; and yet it had remained for Virginia, the censorious and virtuous, to violate her trust for gain. It was not for revenge that she had withheld the payment and snatched ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... signs, while the inward and spiritual grace is the God-given love that makes the union of heart and soul: and it is precisely because I take this view of marriage that I consider the legal and physical union should be dissolved whenever the spiritual union of unselfish, divine love and affection has ceased. It seems to me that the sacramental view of marriage compels us to say that those who continue the legal or physical union when the spiritual union has ceased, are—to quote again from the Prayer Book ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... said, "unselfish to the very end," and then he described to Amaryllis how he actually had died, and of his last words, and ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... uncle," said Valmai, between her sobs, "he was not unprepared. There never was a kinder soul, a more unselfish man, nor a more generous. Oh, you don't know how good he was to the poor, how kind and gentle to every one who suffered! Oh, God has him in ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... France." The sovereigns of Europe treated him with esteem and confidence. A rare example of a statesman, who, without great actions or superior abilities, had, by the uprightness of his character and the unselfish tenor of his life, achieved such universal and undisputed respect! Although the Duke de Richelieu had only been engaged in foreign affairs, he was better calculated than has been said, not so much to direct effectively as to preside ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... neither brothers nor cousins to go to the war, they had picked lint and made bandages and trudged with subscription papers and scrimped for weeks to have money to spend at the patriotic fairs. In consequence they were deeply respected, so respected that it was simply impossible to refuse their unselfish offering of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... a well-meant letter, Ptolemy," I said, "and I know that your motive was unselfish, but it is very poor policy to meddle in other people's affairs. Meddlers are mischief makers in spite of their good intentions. I am very glad it did not fall ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... heart, such a fine soul. You are so generous, so unselfish, so chivalrous. I have always felt that about you—that you are one of the few really chivalrous men I have ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... had "constant fierce wrangles," forcing them to reason out their thoughts and to explain their prepossessions; and I hear from Miss Gaskell that they used to wonder how he could throw all the ardour of his character into the smallest matters, and to admire his unselfish devotion to his parents. Of one of these wrangles I have found a record most characteristic of the man. Fleeming had been laying down his doctrine that the end justifies the means, and that it is quite right "to boast of your six men-servants to a burglar, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by those who would shift the whole burden of taxation onto land that they are animated by the most unselfish motives, whereas their opponents are defending their selfish interests alone. Yet a common Single Tax appeal to the large manufacturer and the small house-owner takes the form of a computation demonstrating that those classes would gain more through the reduction in the burden on improvements ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and he had never seen a young lady before who made such a decided impression upon him. Of course the reason for this was that she was so dutiful and devoted to her sick father, for not every young and beautiful maiden would have been so entirely unselfish as she was. The commander could not help looking at her till he made her blush by the intensity of his gaze, and after all, it is possible that Christy was as human as other young men of his age. He had never been so affected before, and he ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... have seemed to ourselves most impressive, we have only been pretentious; that riches are only a talisman against poverty; that influence comes mostly to people who do not pursue it, and do not even know they possess it; and that the real rewards of life have fallen to simple-minded and unselfish people who have not sought them. I fear I have not quoted the essay quite accurately. I had a wonderful memory, once. It fails—it fails. But it is very prettily put, in the book, and of course it is ...
— Old Valentines - A Love Story • Munson Aldrich Havens
... cook's sunny face would dream that she had any sorrow hidden in her heart; but it was so. Her dearly loved and only brother had gone away to sea, many years before, and from that day to this Mary had never heard a word of him. But so unselfish was she, that she would not allow her trouble to shadow any one else ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... public career. As a speaker he is decidedly prosy, with a hesitating utterance, a monotonous voice, and an uninteresting manner. Yet he is always heard with respectful attention by the House, in consideration of his valuable public services, his intrinsic good sense, and his unselfish patriotism. On the question at issue, he took ground midway between Lord ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... poetic thought, or of appreciating the points of an argument, unless it were upon some such subject as the merits of a new dress or the seasoning of a pudding. But he quickly checked the rising discontent, for Fanny was so pure in heart, and so unselfish in disposition, that it was impossible not to respect as well as to love her. In short, Philip Hayforth was a fortunate man, and what is more surprising, knew himself to be so. And when, after twenty years of married life, he saw his faithful, gentle Fanny laid in her grave, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... to be the sort of man the flag now typifies, The kind of man we really want the flag to symbolize; The loyal brother to a trust, The big, unselfish soul and just, The friend of every man oppressed, The strong support of all that's best, The sturdy chap the banner's meant, ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made in the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly noble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish, modest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields—a nature fine and beautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... surrounded him hardly less than in his essays or the events of his career; while Mr. Proctor's long acquaintance with Lamb becomes the setting to a more careful picture than we have yet had of his singularly great and unselfish life; and we behold, not a study of the man in this or that mood only, but a portrait in which his whole character is seen. The sweetest and gentlest of hosts, moving among his guests and charming all hearers with his stammered, inimitable pleasantry; the clerk at his desk at the India ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... get sick so you couldn't go with us, and he particularly told us about a lot of things he wanted us to buy to make things easy on the way. After he leaves us and goes back to California we're in your charge, I know; but just now you're in ours, you dear, unselfish darling; and we're going to run you. Oh, we're going to run you to beat the band!" laughed Leslie, and jumped down from her perch to hug and squeeze the breath out of ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... indelicate question, under the circumstances A certain furtive expression in Mr. Zant's fine dark eyes seemed to imply that it had been put with a purpose. Was it possible that he suspected Mr. Rayburn's interest in his sister-in-law to be inspired by any motive which was not perfectly unselfish and perfectly pure? To arrive at such a conclusion as this might be to judge hastily and cruelly of a man who was perhaps only guilty of a want of delicacy of feeling. Mr. Rayburn honestly did his best to assume the charitable point of ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... more clearly crystallized than in a meeting of this committee, and to them is due the thanks of the Commission, as well as the thanks of the educational forces of the State of New York for their unselfish efforts and wise counsel, which in so large a way was responsible for the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... That unselfish Morten envious? It was true he had not celebrated Pelle's victory with a flourish of trumpets, but had preferred to be his conscience! That was really at the bottom of it. He had intoxicated himself in the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... matters by some shrewd deal with the manipulators at Hoffmeyer's, or by marrying number nine. You will do it honestly—I mean the marrying; for you will convince him that you love, so far as love is in you, and you will convince yourself that marriage, the end of it all, is unselfish, though prosaic. You will accept resignation with an occasional sigh, feeling that you have gone far, perhaps as far as you can go. I trust that solution will not come quickly, however, because I cannot regard it ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... will speedily be arrested, and that better days are in store for her long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... unselfish protest against the increase in the price of coal. Although it would justify them in demanding a further increase in their present inadequate wage they did not believe it was necessary or, at any rate, urgent. Sir ROBERT HORNE assured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... Volsinians, were we to place all power in the hands of slaveholders, who then would own some millions of white bondmen, far inferior in every manly quality to those dark-faced chattels from among whom the Union has recruited some of its bravest and most unselfish champions. But there is no ground, none whatever, for believing that the Rebels would cease to be Rebels, if there should be a Democratic restoration effected. Not even the election of Mr. Buchanan to a second Presidential term would ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... gaining any profit by writing or publishing a book upon such a subject, for example, as mountain warfare in England, because not a dozen British officers would have the sense to buy such a book, and yet the British army is continually getting into scrapes in mountain districts. A few unselfish men like Major Peech find time to write an essay or so, and that is all. On the other hand, I find no less than five works in French on this subject in MM. Chapelet & Cie.'s list alone. On guerilla warfare ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... mind had been lost to the Church of England, but the men whom he and his companions had helped to form were the leaders among the tutors, and the youths who were growing up under them were forming plans of life, which many have nobly carried out, of unselfish duty and devotion in ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... elevate and purify his motives, as well as sedulously cherish the conviction, assuredly a true one, that in this world there is no such thing as effort thrown away; that in all labor there is profit; that all sincere exertion, in a righteous and unselfish cause, is necessarily followed, in spite of all appearance to the contrary, by an appropriate and proportionate success; that no bread cast upon the waters can be wholly lost; that no seed planted in the ground can fail to quicken in due time ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... sleep with the feet towards the engine if you prefer to have the feet crushed, or with the head towards the engine, if you think it best to have the head crushed. In making this decision try to be as unselfish as possible. If indifferent, sleep crosswise with the head ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... kindly, plebeian sheep-dog proved an admirable foster-mother, diligent, thorough, and forgetful of nothing, not even of her own needs and well-being, though it was evident that these were served from quite unselfish motives, and obliged to take a secondary place in all her thoughts. It was particularly well for Finn that the sheep-dog proved so sterling a soul; for, though he naturally knew and cared nothing about it all, Finn received less attention during the next few days from the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... so much of the abler literature of our time is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the finer sentiments ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... fun of me," she said, shaking a gloved finger at him. "I don't claim to be a bit more unselfish than the next one. But ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... Nikky was not altogether unselfish. He would visit the roof again, where for terrible, wonderful moments he had held Hedwig in his arms. On a pilgrimage, indeed, like that of the Crown Prince to Etzel, Nikky ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... might die for us after a manner faithful to the prophetic type, is to be the Hebrew disciple's example of patience when he too is rejected. Such rejection is only to unite him the more closely to the Christ as his way to God, his Mediator for all the praise and all the unselfish service which is to fill ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... to be happy, and I thought she could make you so. You do not understand how unselfish a woman's love can be. Then, if Miss Forrester can take my place here, ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... contact with higher minds, and her tastes after a time became more in accordance with those of her husband. She learned to passionately admire the outward world, in which he took such great delight, and to admire his poetry and that of his friends. She was of a kindly, cheery, generous nature, very unselfish in her dealings with her family, and highly beloved by her friends. She was the finest example of thrift and frugality to be found in her neighborhood, and is said to have exerted a decidedly beneficial influence upon all her poorer neighbors. She did not give ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... streaking her face in hot rivulets as she sat in her saddle, struck inactive by the great admiration, the boundless pride, that this unselfish deed woke in her. She never had, in her life of joyousness, experienced such a high ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden
... for the first time, how fond my wife was of coffee, which, in Europe, had always been her favourite breakfast. There would certainly be in the ship some bags, which I might have brought away; but I had never thought of it, and my unselfish wife, not seeing it, had never named it, except once wishing we had some to plant in the garden. Now that there was a probability of obtaining it, she confessed that coffee and bread were the only luxuries she regretted. I promised to try and cultivate it in our ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... short, if by ever so little, of the best that has been done; she might thus have gratified some tastes that were incapable of appreciating Raphael. But this could be done only by lowering the standard of art to the comprehension of the spectator. She chose the better and loftier and more unselfish part, laying her individual hopes, her fame, her prospects of enduring remembrance, at the feet of those great departed ones whom she so loved and venerated; and therefore the world was the richer for this ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rather demands, humaneness. I believe that a system of profit sharing can be devised which will bring management and labour into a sensible partnership. Selfishness on the part of capital is as bad as selfishness on the part of labour. Both must be unselfish, both must think of the general community, and both must work hard. The two chief enemies of mankind are ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... Dead—"earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of the dead through our Lord Jesus Christ." And in this sad way ended the earthly career of one, of whom it can safely be said that for unselfish goodness of heart, and earnest devotion to the noble work he had undertaken, none of the commendations of his friends can exceed the reality. The grave in which his body rests is about a hundred yards ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the past days of trust and happiness, and her woman's fancy once more invested the selfish villain she had reclaimed with those attributes which had enchained her wilful and wayward affections. The unselfish devotion which had marked her conduct to the swindler and convict was, indeed, her one redeeming virtue; and perhaps she felt dimly—poor woman—that it were better for her to cling to that, if she lost all the world beside. Her wish for vengeance melted under ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... her brother, and her unselfish devotion to his interests, is a precedent unparalleled in French history until the time of Madame de Sevigne. In all her letters we find the same tenderness, gentleness, passion, inexhaustible emotion, sympathy, and compassion ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... hang, imprison, sink, burn and destroy them in the name of law and order. And this shews their fundamental sanity and rightmindedness; for a sufficient income is indispensable to the practice of virtue; and the man who will let any unselfish consideration stand between him and its attainment is a weakling, a dupe and a predestined slave. If I could convince our impecunious mobs of this, the world would be reformed before the end of the week; for the sluggards who are content to be wealthy without working and the dastards ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold, unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the possibility of its having been planned and ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... be regarded as conclusive, but they are entitled to the most careful and respectful consideration, and cannot be reversed with safety unless the argument therefor is unanswerable and the motive which suggests the argument altogether patriotic and unselfish. The familiar rule laid down by Lord Coke is as pertinent to-day as when first announced: "Great regard ought, in construing a law, to be paid to the construction which the sages, who lived about the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine |
