"Public-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such difficulties in those states and cities where they had the majority. In New York City, for instance, the local Democratic organization, known as Tammany Hall, passed under the sway of a group of politicians headed by "Boss" Tweed. He plundered the city treasury until public-spirited citizens, supported by Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic leader of the state, rose in revolt, drove the ringleader from power, and sent him to jail. In Philadelphia, the local Republican bosses were guilty of offenses as odious as those committed ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... incorporated in 1786 by act of the Virginia Assembly and the trustees were to be chosen by those gentlemen who had contributed five or more dollars for the use of the academy, thirteen fit and able men to serve beginning in 1788. In the meantime, Washington, Dr. Brown, and twelve other generous public-spirited citizens were appointed by law as trustees until the annual elections should begin. The letter asking Washington to serve ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... the public, and with so total a disregard to his private interest, that in his old age he was himself supported by a pension of somewhat more than a hundred pounds a year, raised for him at the solicitation of Sir Sampson Gideon and Dr. Brocklesby, by the voluntary subscriptions of public-spirited persons, at the head of whom was the Prince of Wales. On application being made to this venerable and good old man, to know whether a subscription being opened for his benefit would not offend him, he gave this noble ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... in a strange household as his clerical brethren, smiling John Foster of Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton. Mr. Emerson says, "He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all men.—His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt. His friends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and his tongue. In his ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... Wellington, Lord and Lady Westminster, and Lord and Lady Wilton. Her Majesty was to try a mode of travelling new to her. She had arrived at the Bridgewater Canal, one of the greatest feats of engineering in the last century, constructed by the public-spirited, eccentric Duke of Bridgewater, and Brindley the engineer. The Queen went on board a covered barge drawn by four horses. She describes the motion as gliding along "in a most noiseless and dream-like manner, amidst the cheers ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... A Public-Spirited Citizen who had failed miserably in trying to secure a National political convention for his city suffered acutely from dejection. While in that frame of mind he leaned thoughtlessly against a druggist's show-window, ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... health, never being tired, willing to listen to others, able to decide quickly, and world-wide in his interests, Henry Ford is one of the twentieth century's greatest public-spirited business men. No better illustration can be found than the fact that although Mr. Ford did not believe in war and was a man of peace, yet when the United States entered the World War, he hastened to Washington, offered his great factory to the government to make war supplies, ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... was carried without further debate, and some of the best and most public-spirited men in Roma were put into the vacant places. At last Gertrude had a city council which was in full sympathy with her, and ready to further every good ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... this is something we're all interested in, and I think everybody ought to have a fair show. I jedge from the defendant's testimony that he HAS got a set of the dishes, and I also jedge, from my experience and three years' dealings with him, that he's too public-spirited to keep 'em, provided he's paid four times what they're worth. Now my idea is this; Rogers will bring those dishes down here tomorrer and we'll put 'em on exhibition in the hotel parlor. Next day we'll have an auction and sell 'em to the highest cash bidder. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a dubious or unfavorable aspect, immediately to materialize in print on some subject entirely unrelated, preferably an announcement on behalf of one of the charitable or civic organizations which he officially headed. Thus he shone forth as a useful, serviceable, and public-spirited citizen, against whom (such was the inference which the newspaper reader was expected to draw) only malignancy could allege anything injurious. In this instance his offering upon the altar of publicity, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... their bodies they pitch into the gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the Harrison Avenue district,—in my day there were none,—and such as there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more thorough: he ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... acknowledges the liberal assistance afforded him by the Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection of eagles and owls presented by ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... was to hurt the doctor in his most tender vanity. It was one of his most fervid beliefs that he had selected a growing town, conspicuous for its enterprise. In his young manhood he had meant to do fine things. He was public-spirited, charitable, a death-fighter of courage and persistence. Though not a religious man, he had one holy passion, that of the physician. He respected himself and loved his wife, but he had from boyhood confused the ideas of masculinity and tyranny. He believed that women needed discipline, ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... wondering whether it would be safe to ask farther. I will, therefore, tell you at once that one of my reasons for leaving Mr. Brander's employment was that I did not like his way of doing business, nor did I like the man himself. The general opinion of him was that he was a public-spirited and kind-hearted man. I can only say that our opinion of him in the office was a very different one. He was a hard man, and frequently when pretending to be most lenient to tenants on the estates to which he was agent, or to men on whose lands ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... while ago in a New England city where the grade crossings had just been abolished, and where the railroad wound its way on a huge yellow sandbank through the most beautiful part of the town, a prominent, public-spirited citizen wrote a letter to the President of the Company suggesting that the railroad (for a comparatively small sum, which he mentioned) plant its sandbanks with trees and shrubs. A letter came the next day saying that the railroad was unwilling to do it. He might quite justifiably ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... it," she said, "seeing he has put so much money on that opery house already. He's done a lot for this town that nobody else would ever have thought of doin'. Mr Skinner's a very public-spirited citizen, and to think he made it all out of sellin' meat! It must be a good business. I guess you'll have to excuse me now, Colonel Guthrie, I've ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... hack, same's they been doin' f'r years. They might want to do it, but they're a-scared the people won't stand f'r it. From what little I hear, the feelin's strong that they got to put up some young progressive public-spirited man of the reformer type. Now s'posin' the friends of a certain fine young man, sittin' not a hundred miles from this table, had it in their minds to bring him forward f'r the nomination. This young man might say he wasn't ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... last visit, a very handsome hotel has been completed adjoining the Exchange, of which building it forms indeed a part; it is to be conducted after the manner of the Mansion-house at Philadelphia. This is the work of two or three public-spirited men, and the benevolence of their design merits the thanks of the travelling community; for the more such hotels are multiplied, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... with the black mittens, for making me laugh so this morning! I take her to be a kind of public-spirited Mrs. Sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. God bless you both, my dear friends, in this Christmas and New Year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to Gad's ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... Putney continued, ignoring the laugh of the others at Annie's sally: "You'll find Hatboro' pretty exciting, after Rome, for a while, I suppose. But you'll get used to it. It's got more of the modern improvements, I'm told, and it's more public-spirited—more snap to it. I'm told that there's more enterprise in Hatboro', more real crowd in South Hatboro' alone, than there is in the Quirinal and ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor demand ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... expected as they grow up to take on by easy stages the characteristics of adulthood. At the end of the process it is expected that they will be able to do the things that adults do; to think as they think; to bear adult responsibilities; to be efficient in work; to be thoughtful public-spirited citizens; and the like. The individual who reaches this level of attainment is educated, even though he may never have attended school. The one who falls below this level is not truly educated, even though he may have ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... crime under the Federal statutes, was being flagrantly practised in the State. This allegation was supported by a voluminous brief, giving names and dates and particular instances of barbarity. The colonel was not without some quiet support in this movement; there were several public-spirited men in the county, including his able lieutenant Caxton, Dr. Price and old General Thornton, none of whom were under any obligation to Fetters, and who all acknowledged that something ought to be done to purge the State of a ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... the Frenchmen had gone, the Towers completed their settling in and making themselves comfortable in the vacated quarters. The greatest care was taken to avoid any man showing a British cap or uniform. "Snapper" Brown, urged by the public-spirited 'Enery Irving, exhausted himself in playing the "Marseillaise" at the fullest pitch of his lungs and mouth-organ. His artistic soul revolted at last at the repetition, but since the only other French tune that was suggested was ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... action of such motives may be legitimately assumed by utilitarians. He is, therefore, not an 'egoistic' utilitarian. He thinks, as he says in a letter referring to his book, that he is 'as humane and public-spirited as his neighbours.' A man must be a wretched being who does not care more for many things outside his household than for his own immediate pains and pleasures. Had he been called upon to risk health or life for ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... that my landlord host was accustomed to make a circuit of his village once or twice a week in order to see how things were going with his tenants. Public-spirited landlords were working for their people by means of co-operation, lectures and prizes, the distribution of leaflets and the giving of from 2-1/2 to 7-1/2 per cent. discount in rent when good rice was produced. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... to make the gratification of his personal animosities seem due to public-spirited indignation have been generally exposed. Beside the overwhelming desire to spite Theobald for his presumption in publishing "Shakespeare Restored" the aggrieved poet was actuated by numerous petty grudges against the inhabitants ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... supervision of its distinguished originator, it is no matter of wonder that all Europe was aroused to attention; and that Swiss and German, Scotch and English, alike pressed forward to this promised land. Appeals were made by the trustees to the liberal, the philanthropic, the public-spirited, the humane, the patriotic, the Christian, to aid in this design of mercy, closing their arguments with the noble thought: "To consult the welfare of mankind, regardless of any private views, is the perfection of virtue, as the accomplishing and consciousness ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock he was giving to the constitution of ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... is accompanied with a monetary compensation, are after all, very closely akin to the men who waited until bounties were offered before they would take service in connection with the Civil War; while, on the other hand, the men who are truly public-spirited, take pleasure in serving the public and are liberal beyond the requirement of ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... along the Whitlow road, with oak boughs ornamenting the horses' heads; and, to quote the account of this interesting scene which was sent to the Rotherby Guardian, 'loud cheers immediately testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, with the public-spirited exertions of their fellow-townsmen.' Bill Powers, whose bloodshot eyes, bent hat, and protuberant altitude, marked him out as the natural leader of the assemblage, undertook to interpret the common sentiment ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... but it's an auld house; it was aye the Leddy's jointure-house in the Croftangry folk's time. But Mr. Treddles has fitted it up for the convenience of the country, poor man, he was a public-spirited man when he ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... extraordinary mineral resources, our almost undisputed control of one of the great staples of the world, the year 1876 found us a prostrate people almost beyond precedent. To this breach came several thoughtful, public-spirited, eloquent men of the newspaper guild. It was our good fortune that in Dawson of the "Charleston News and Courier," in Major Burke, Page M. Baker, and Colonel Nicholson of New Orleans; in Major Belo of Galveston; ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... be wrong to suppose that I do not consider it a wise and indeed public-spirited idea in every way," said the Reverend Henry after some reflection, "but it is a little difficult, you know. It depends so much upon how one sleeps and what one feels like, and what sort of morning it is, and the letters that ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... land, Eden itself, behold, it is open unto thee, its sons welcome thee as brother.... Thou hast but to apply thy heart to wisdom and knowledge, become a public-spirited people, and ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... puzzled. He was a public-spirited man, whose heart and pocket were open to people in real trouble, but for prayers he had never been asked before, and, was entirely destitute of them. He felt relieved when one of his customers—a leaden-visaged man, with bulbous nose and a bad temper—advanced toward the wounded man, raised ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... which destines him to do nothing but what is honorable, and to [20] abhor whatever is base or unworthy; hence we find him ever the same,—at all times the trusty friend, the affec- tionate relative, the conscientious man of business, the pious worker, the public-spirited citizen. ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... upon them views of alien growth, but by a rational training of their inherited faculties. Whatever might serve to promote intelligence and culture was to be nurtured: schools, seminaries, academies, were to be erected, literary aspirations fostered, and all public-spirited enterprises aided; on the other hand, the rising generation was to be induced to devote itself to arts, trades, agriculture, and the applied sciences; finally, the strong inclination to commerce on the part of Jews was to be curbed, and the tone and conditions of Jewish ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... think that corporate business enterprise may at times, if left unhampered, lead to over-powerful monopolies. But the evil workings of all these things had before the war been peaceful, if insidious. They might rouse apprehension in the minds of far-sighted and public-spirited observers, but there had been no general fear that any of them would overthrow the Republic and lead to a violent destruction of society as now constituted and mayhap ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... Stover," they urged. "You're a public-spirited man, as you've shown. Do it for your neighbors' sake if not for your own. You want the county rid ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... worse than ever this year," sighed Dr. Helen, "and, really, I think they are harder to bear when we all know that a little public-spirited co-operation would rid us of them. Can't you get the people who draw books at the new library to agree to sprinkle the ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... United States," I cried in a loud, public-spirited voice, at which the C.P.O. choked and turned dangerously red. It seems that not only was I not quite right, but that I couldn't ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... by the help of aristocratic factions; to purchase recognition by the grant of larger and larger privileges; and for the sake of power to strip themselves of the resources which alone could give their power any meaning. But good government in the Middle Ages was only another name for a public-spirited and powerful monarchy. Such monarchies existed in the western states; they rested upon the shoulders of a middle class of small landowners and wealthy merchants, too weak to defend themselves in a state of nature, a war of all against all, but collectively strong ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... any thing was capable of shaking it but a strong popular enthusiasm, seldom known to exist but in a good cause. A vote given in opposition to those influences was therefore, in general, an honest, a public-spirited vote; but in any case, and by whatever motive dictated, it was almost sure to be a good vote, for it was a vote against the monster evil, the overruling influence of oligarchy. Could the voter at that time have been enabled, with safety to himself, to ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... called wrestling, but which in reality amounted to a lively round of punching each other black and blue. Both small boys were considerably upset at being stopped in this entirely novel diversion, and declared that Rupert was neither public-spirited nor sporting to put a veto upon it; but he was firm, and threatened to send one of them to bed if they did not desist, and so they had been forced ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... made at its foundation have triumphed. Its faculty, numbering over one hundred and, fifty; its students, numbering but little short of two thousand; its noble buildings and equipment; the munificent gifts, now amounting to millions of dollars, which it has received from public-spirited men and women; the evidences of public confidence on all sides; and, above all, the adoption of its cardinal principles and main features by various institutions of learning in other States, show this abundantly. But there has been a triumph ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... asked Nat, sitting up in his eagerness to know what happened to those wretches who disobeyed this most peculiar, but public-spirited school-ma'am. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... other evening, over my after-dinner coffee, with a high-minded and public-spirited gentleman, who not long ago represented our country at a European court, he advanced two theories which struck me as being well worth repeating, and which seemed to account to a certain extent ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... began to practice it in the town and county of Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man. Everything that he ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... influence on opinion. For instance, I have bought for my own exclusive gratification, the cottage in which I am writing, near the lake-beach on which I used to play when I was seven years old. Were I a public-spirited scientific person, or a benevolently pious one, I should doubtless, instead, be surveying the geographical relations of the Mountains of the Moon, or translating the Athanasian Creed into Tartar-Chinese. But I hate ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... public-spirited M. Charles who had contributed largely to the cost of this experiment came in a day or two to seek his balloon he found nothing but some shreds of cloth, and some lively legends of the prowess of the peasants in demolishing ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... the nation, its hopes of 1830 restored, should feel it its duty to keep its promise,—and it would keep it, for the word of the nation is, like that of God, sacred,—if, I say, the nation, reconciled by this act with the public-spirited monarchy, should bear to the foot of the throne its cheers and its vows, and should at that solemn moment choose me to speak in its name, the following would be the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... taste for Miss Burgess' conversation, admiring greatly her whole-hearted devotion to Endbury's social welfare. She had once said of her to Dr. Melton, "There is what I call a public-spirited woman." He had answered, "I envy Flora Burgess with the fierce embittered envy I feel for a cow"—an ambiguous compliment which Mrs. Emery had resented on behalf of her ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... of last century, some important steps were taken to improve the general condition of things. A few public-spirited landowners led the way, and formed themselves into a society for carrying out improvements in agriculture. They granted long leases of farms as a stimulus to the most skilled and industrious, and found it to their interest to give the farmer a more permanent interest in his improvements ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... the Revolution and of a Revolutionary sire was Carleton's father born. When he grew to manhood he was "tall in stature, kind-hearted, genial, public-spirited, benevolent, ever ready to relieve suffering and to help on every good cause. He was an intense lover of liberty and was always true to his convictions." He fell in love with Hannah, the daughter of Deacon Eliphalet Kilborn, of Boscawen, and the couple lived ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... politics except when the highest offices are passed around. Now, how's this for a scheme? Organize a loyal band and call it—well, say the Purified Political Privateers, the Sanctified Kidnappers, the People's Progressive and Public-spirited Press Gang. Go around and grab the Great and the Good who insist on minding their private business and who are letting the country be gobbled up—just go and grab 'em right up by the scruff of the neck and fling them into politics head over heels. They would sputter and froth and flop for a little ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... you," said Dick. "When Father was talking last night, he said if our citizens were public-spirited, they'd form a Village Improvement Society, and fix up the streets and beautify the park and the common, and keep their lawns ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... the cheer of dawn in New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty and righteousness above ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... christening of the Prince of Wales—we at once, and in the most liberal manner, give the child his title—has been generally scouted, save and except by a few public-spirited oil and tallow-merchants. It has been thought better to give away legs of mutton on the occasion, than to waste any of the sheep in candles. This proposition—it is known—has our heartiest concurrence. Here, however, comes in the wisdom of our dear ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, December 18, 1841 • Various
... in the box among those honorable men, the gentlemen of the jury? Is he in that great crowd of intelligent, public-spirited citizens who make the bone and sinew of this our fair city? Is he on the honored bench dispensing justice, and making the intricacies of the law straight? No, gentlemen; he has no part in our triumph. He is there, in the prisoners' pen, an outlaw, a convicted murderer, ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... hence the town hall is scarcely needed save for some itinerant Thespians, an occasional public meeting, or as a storehouse of rubbish. It begins to fall into decay, and the decayed town is not rich enough, or public-spirited enough, to prop its weakened timbers. For the sake of the safety of the public it has ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... rarely fell in with one richer in table-talk, or better supplied with topics in life and letters. In his death, he manifested the strength of his religious faith, and resigned his spirit with a benignant composure. But I am forbidden to enlarge on the many excellences and services of the public-spirited John Pintard. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... chairman of the committee of arrangements, "this evening, fellow-citizens, there will be a grand display of fireworks on the village green, superintended by the inventor and manufacturer, our public-spirited townsman, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... of such a result being contemplated as possible; it allowed of an enlarged market for Spike only through the enlargement of his neighbours' market, and the Possible is always the ultimate master of our efforts and desires. Spike was obliged to contemplate a general benefit, and thus became public-spirited in spite of himself. Or rather, the nature of things transmuted his active egoism into a demand for a public benefit. Certainly if Spike had been born a marquis he could not have had the same chance of being useful as a political element. But he might have had the same appearance, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... effusively. "You're a sharp man. You ain't a-goin' to be taken in by any of them paupers' rigmarole. I always said, Squire Pope, that you was the right man in the right place, and that the town was lucky to have so intelligent and public-spirited a citizen fillin' her most ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... were requested by a very public-spirited individual to mention once more the want of three nails, for bonnets in the entry. Also, to say that the air from the broken pane of glass on the east side of the room, is very unpleasant to ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... from the fictitious stuff of this rumor was spawned a veritable inspiration. Several of our most public-spirited citizens seemed ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... justly proud of their Public Schools, and of the system of education under which they are conducted, but yet the history of these schools, until within a few years, was one of struggle against parsimony and prejudice. It was only by persistent efforts on the part of a few public-spirited citizens, who believed that money spent in educating the masses is the best investment that can possibly be made, that the Public School system of Cleveland has attained its present excellence, and the miserable make-shift school buildings, in which the children of the city were ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... organizations. He has been prominently connected with many of the business ventures of the colored people in the District of Columbia for the past ten years, and is ranked as a broad-minded, solid, public-spirited citizen—a grand object lesson for what is best and most progressive in the community. He has invested his earnings judiciously, so that today he has a competency seldom attained by a man of his years. The success gained, the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... want energy and interest, and are now forgotten. He also produced a few dramas, which had little success. He is best remembered by his beautiful ballad, Hosier's Ghost, beginning "As near Portobello lying." G. had the reputation of a useful and public-spirited citizen. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... Some of our public-spirited men of wealth cannot do better than to look in this direction as a field in which to make their mark upon the uplift of their race and their time. There is a far greater demand for this class of benevolent ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... the knowledge comprised in her bosom, France possesses great natural advantages; but the effect which they might have produced on her industry, has been counteracted by the errors of her old government, and the calamities attendant on the revolution. Some public-spirited men, thinking the moment favourable for restoring to them all their influence, have lately met; and from this union has ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and in all cases established on a strictly religious basis and placed under the protection of a Saint, or of the Holy Trinity. The regulation and protection of trade interests, generally aiming at monopoly and the exclusion of outsiders, were later developments. But without doubt they were public-spirited bodies according to their lights, maintaining schools (as at Stratford-on-Avon) hospitals and almshouses, and giving freely on all occasions of public importance. By pageants too, they contributed ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... by the principle of population, because in the highest possible state of the subjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawless and unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sighted and public-spirited, they will shew themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that ever was offered to the world, or ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... contest; but I let him have a final tweak after seeing the announcement of his splendid and public-spirited action to help on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... logging there fifty years from now. And when the railroad people come to you for a right of way, my boy, give it to them. Don't charge them a cent. It has always been my policy to encourage the development of this county, and I want you to be a forward-looking, public-spirited citizen. That's why I'm sending you East to college. You've been born and raised in this town, and you must see more of the world. You mustn't be narrow or provincial, because I'm saving up for you, my son, a great many responsibilities, ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... delighted to patronise native industries," said Norton the First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns its Emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, it is ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... way they built those storm-shelters. But that would be in the public interest, and if the Kwanns weren't public-spirited enough to do the work, they'd be made to—at about half what planters like Sanders are paying them now. But don't you realize that profit is sordid and dishonest and selfish? Not at all like drawing a ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... As Field said of himself, Chicago liked music "limited"; and its liking was generally limited to light or comic opera and the entertainments of the Apollo Club, until Theodore Thomas, with admirable perseverance, aided by the pocket-books of public-spirited citizens rather than by enthusiastic music-lovers, succeeded in cultivating the study and love of music up to a standard above that of any other American city, with the possible exception ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... the struggle for existence because of his sensitiveness to public opinion in his species nor on account of an interest in being well thought of by the community of dogs at large which would lead him to behave in a public-spirited or moral manner. At the same time, the dog in his relation to man shows as keen a sensitiveness to man's opinion and treatment as does man himself. The attention which the master pays to one dog will almost break the heart of a dog not receiving it. A neglected dog ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... University, at which time beautiful tributes were paid to him by his colleagues and friends. A committee of the citizens of Baltimore was appointed to raise a fund for the sustenance and education of the poet's family. They were aided in this by admirers of Lanier and public-spirited citizens throughout the country. Meantime his fame was growing, the publication of his poems in 1884 ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... impossible, isn't he?" she said, laughing. "But they say he's very kindly, and well-meaning, and public-spirited, and that ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... distinguished authors of the age. The presentation of books to the public required at this time what might be called the endowment of literature, and endowment which was supplied by the liberality of wealthy patrons possessed of literary appreciation or public-spirited ambition, or of both. As Symonds expresses it, "Great literary undertakings involved in that century the substantial assistance of wealthy men, whose liberality was rewarded by a notice in the colophon or in the title-page." The formal ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... sir, when public-spirited citizens everywhere go in strongly for athletics in the High Schools, as they did in the town where Holmes and I received ...
— Dick Prescotts's Fourth Year at West Point - Ready to Drop the Gray for Shoulder Straps • H. Irving Hancock
... the posters announcing the various numbers on the standards at each side of the stage. These posters had been designed and painted by Beatrice Alden and Frances Marlton, who, with Mabel Ashe, Constance Fuller and several other public-spirited seniors, had generously offered their services. As both Beatrice and Frances possessed considerable skill with the brush they turned out extremely decorative posters, which were afterward sold to various admiring students for souvenirs of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... have purchased their peerages. But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; and adventurers whom he ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Lawrence was upright, prudent, far-seeing, sagacious, and courageous; as a citizen, he was patriotic, public-spirited, and devoted; and as a man, he was a sincere, earnest, Christian husband, father, and friend. Viewed in any light, his character affords one of the most perfect models to be found in our history. He was the Christian gentleman in all things, even in the minutest detail of his ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... narrated contributed thoroughly to disgrace the Catholic and royalist party. The revolution had left society dissolved, full of bloodthirsty and false men. But though the Protestants had their share of such villains, they also had the one consistent and public-spirited element in the kingdom, namely Knox and his immediate followers. Moray was a man rather above the average respectability and he confirmed the triumph of Protestantism in the Lowlands in the few short years preceding his assassination ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home is to be founded in Camden Town (it seems she was born there), and to be called Lady ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered, "respecting the Duke o' Argyle and the name o' Campbell. He's a worthy public-spirited nobleman, and a credit to the country, and a friend and benefactor to the trade ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... ethics of the young soldiers? Why take the pains to urge that it was vain to lecture and march abstract virtues into them, so long as the "champion boodler" of the town was the man whom the boys recognized as a loyal and kindhearted friend, the public-spirited citizen, whom their fathers enthusiastically voted for, and their mothers called "the friend of the poor." As long as the actual and tangible success is thus embodied, marching whether in kindergartens or brigades, ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... consequence they became disorderly and mutinous. Two or three prominent creoles, who were devoted adherents of the American cause, made loans of silver to the Virginian Government, as represented by Clark, thereby helping him materially in the prosecution of his campaign. Chief among these public-spirited patriots were Francis Vigo, and the priest Gibault, both of them already honorably mentioned. Vigo advanced nearly nine thousand dollars in specie,—piastres or Spanish milled dollars,—receiving in return ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... citizen fitted to deal with all public affairs, but he was consistently public-spirited and endowed with unflagging interest. He was public-spirited enough in the township, where he knew everybody and was interested in everybody's business. The idea of enough for the township turned easily into the idea of enough for any purpose, for as we have noted, quantitative ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... He was known as the friend of Dr. Johnson, Jonas Hanway, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. Among his acquaintance, indeed, were most of the literary, and eminent professional, and public-spirited men of the times. At court, also, he was well known, and had the esteem of his majesty (George III.), with whom he frequently conversed. His friends were numerous also, in both houses of the legislature. As to himself, he was much noted for his learning, but most of all for the ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my uncles were) by an Esquire, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him, and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style, just four years to a day before ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... Sir Thomas, that such a building was very desirable; but that I scarcely expected that any one would be found public-spirited enough to erect it at his ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... India, and returned not until after his father's funeral; and over his grave, in the old church-yard of Chelsea, a stone and sculptured brass record his name and age and parentage, together with that of his aged and more distinguished sire. This stone, too, was placed by the above-mentioned public-spirited societies, (unto both which the writer has the honour to belong) at the same time as the monument, stated by Faulkner, to the ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... jailer took good care that he should hear what good times they were having and laughing at him for being caught. Indeed, he liked it so little that he gave the whole plot away—at least what he called the whole. This landed four more of his friends in the same honest and public-spirited occupation which he was himself pursuing; though all escaped shortly afterwards by paying fines to the Government which aggregated some eight hundred dollars—which sum was largely paid ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... "Wa-wa-wa", and the piping of the fish-hawk, are sounds which can never be forgotten by any one who has sailed on the rivers north of 20 Deg. south. If we step on shore, the 'Charadrius caruncula', a species of plover, a most plaguy sort of "public-spirited individual", follows you, flying overhead, and is most persevering in its attempts to give fair warning to all the animals within hearing to flee from the approaching danger. The alarm-note, "tinc-tinc-tinc", of another variety of the same family ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... be the Nestor of the bench and the peerage; there is his great opponent, Robertson the historian's grand-nephew, Brougham, a tyrant of freedom, an illustrious Jack-of-all-trades, the most impassioned, most public-spirited, most egotistical of men. He was a contradiction to himself as well as to his neighbours. His strongly-marked face, with its shaggy brows, high cheek-bones, aggressive nose, mouth drooping at the corners, had not lost its mobility. He was restless and ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... that body, in the country to which they belong as well as in this; and it cannot be doubted that the charge is, to a considerable extent, well founded. But it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion of the body, which consists of independent and public-spirited men, who have an influential weight in the councils of the nation. Hence it is (the present reign not excepted) that the sense of that body is often seen to control the inclinations of the monarch, both with regard to men and to measures. Though ...
— The Federalist Papers
... head, as the only remedy for the evils by which it is afflicted. The pamphlet is written merely in a speculative form, inculcating no sanguinary measures, or sudden revolution; but the consequences are likely to be most disastrous to the fearless and public-spirited author. Even those who most question his prudence in taking this step, agree that in this, as well as in every other political action of his life, he has acted from thorough conviction and from motives of the purest patriotism, unalloyed by one personal feeling; ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... frequently changing policies regulated from the outside under the influence of the greater and lesser lights and exigencies of State and municipal organization, the New York Hospital has its self-perpetuating body of Governors chosen from the most public-spirited and thoughtful representatives of our people. Bloomingdale thus has always had a remarkable Board of Governors, who, from contact with the General Hospital and with this special division, are in an unusual position to see the practical aspects of the great change ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdes y Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man than the king. Don Bartolome, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... the moral forces that attacked it. The French nation was in fact better than its government, more honest and more generous. The country priests were more self-devoted than the bishops who ruled over them; the poorer nobles were more public-spirited and more moral than the favored nobility of the court; the citizens of the Third Estate conducted their private business more honorably than the administration conducted ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... the thermometer had recorded a hundred and twenty in the shade, spirits ran high. The subalterns—for whose exuberant fooling Honor had a very tender tolerance—had 'chorussed' themselves hoarse and thirsty; and were receiving the reward of the public-spirited out of long misty tumblers, that fizzed and bubbled. Peters had forgotten his shyness in a discussion with Norton on the vexed question of cholera infection, and the probable futility of quarantine; while Mrs Peters, listening anxiously, made inconsequent darts into the argument, ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... showed himself a generous victor, and the men saved from the enemy's ships owed their lives to him. Five years later the returned hero, now become Lord Heathfield, sat to Reynolds for his portrait, ordered by a wealthy admirer—the public-spirited Alderman Boydell. The picture shows the brave old soldier as he took his stand in command of Gibraltar. Some one has said that it tells the whole story ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... letter written by Mr. Adams to Her Majesty's Secretary, there had come into the county with the settlers from the West Indies a learned, public-spirited layman named Charles Griffin, who, seeing the crying need of the people, had established by 1705 a school on Symons Creek, for the children of the settlers ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... directors it was the custom of the Greek nobility to strip and exhibit themselves naked to the artists in various attitudes, that they might have an opportunity of studying fine form. Accordingly those public-spirited men, the directors, have determined to adopt the plan, and are all practising like mad to prepare themselves for the ensuing exhibition, when they are to be ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... become so numerous that they would be driven out of the towns into the country and would be scuttling over the moors, downs and woods like black beetles in kitchens in the night. They were better than she had been, these children; more public-spirited and more in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... ruined years ago by the villainy of one man. That's a lie! The village ruined the man.... Never looked at it that way; did you? Andrew Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any other human being ever did. He was the one public-spirited man in the place.... Do you know who built your church, young man? I see you don't. Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from your whining, hypocritical church members. Every Tom, Dick and Harry, for miles about; ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... Baltimore," organized a little later, were other of these early school societies, though neither became so famous as the Public School Society of New York. The schools of the city of Washington were started by subscription, in 1804, and for some time were in part supported by subscriptions from public-spirited citizens. [4] This society did an important work in accustoming the people of the capital city to the provision of some form ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... 24, 1612) Salisbury died. From this date James passed from government by a minister, who, whatever may have been his faults, was laborious, public-spirited, and a statesman, into his own keeping and into the hands of favourites, who cared only for themselves. With Cecil ceased the traditions of the days of Elizabeth and Burghley, in many ways evil ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... bodies of land in the hold of a great nobleman who had contrived a title in them by the simple device of enclosing the people's commons. It was a wrong, but there was no one of the wronged who was brave enough or rich enough to dispute it through the broken law, and no witness public-spirited enough to come to their aid. Such things make us think patiently, almost proudly, of our national foible of graft, which may really be of feudal origin. Doubtless the aggression was attacked in the press, but we all ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... women bore children; and another veteran resident said that commonly more than a quarter of the babies died within the first nine days, of "jaw-fall," and nearly another fourth before they passed their second year.[16] At least one public-spirited planter advocated in 1801 the heroic measure of closing the slave trade in order to raise the price of labor and coerce the planters into saving it both by improving their apparatus and by diminishing the death rate.[17] But his fellows ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... against usury can protect those who know enough to apply it, but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies like these have been organized successfully in Boston and Buffalo ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... archaeology. Similarly the utmost care should be taken to exclude from the direction of the Ministry any representatives of Victorianism, Hanoverism, or the fetish-worship of reticence or restraint. But no time should be lost. The duty of the State is clear. It only needs some public-spirited and respected Member of Parliament, such as Lieutenant-Commander KENWORTHY or Colonel JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, to promote the legislative measures necessary to secure a supply of really nutritious mental ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 12, 1920 • Various
... the blonde dulness of Germans; the cold quiet of Scandinavians —fire under ice—were aspects that he identified, and that gave him abundant suggestion for the personal histories he constructed, and for the more public-spirited reveries in which he dealt with the future economy of our heterogeneous commonwealth. It must be owned that he did not take much trouble about this; what these poor people were thinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, suffering; ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
