"Self-assertion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Panhandle manifested a growing tendency toward self-assertion. He ran away from home. Owing to his short legs and scant breath he did not get very far down over the slope. His will and intention were tremendous. Did the dim desert call to the child? His parents had often seen him stand gazing into ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... more self-assertion in her treatment of the Court Godmother, which was characterised ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... and their committal to the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who had been loud in self-assertion now grew ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Europe are not of this class, although it includes the majority. There is a comparatively small number who are as much impressed with the perfection of everything American as the most ardent patriotism could desire. These people go to Europe cased in a triple armor of self-assertion, prepared to poohpooh everything and everybody that may come under their notice, and above all to vindicate under all circumstances their independence as free-born American citizens by giving the world around them the benefit ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... oratory is rotund, and if it were convincing might be impressive; but it fails to some extent in consequence of a certain smack of self-assertion which is unphilosophical. Suppose, now, that we have this matter out in a calm, dispassionate manner, without 'tooth,' or egotism, or prejudice, which tend so powerfully to mar human disputation ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... told you, you remember, that one of his qualities is a strange gentleness. He told me, in that manner of his, that he would take only a minute of my time, and while I sat perfectly tongue-tied before him, as if I were a schoolgirl, this is what he said, without any passionate declaration, or any self-assertion. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... her class, and she was still aware of the unsuitability of her intimacy with Jim Greatorex; but disaster had numbed her once poignant sense of it. She had yielded to his fascination partly through weakness, partly in defiance, partly in the sheer, healthy self-assertion of her suffering will and her frustrated senses. But she had not will enough to defy her father. She credited him with an infinite capacity to crush and wound. And for a day and a half the sight of ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... growth of his militant egoism, there had developed in Godwin Peak an excess of nervous sensibility which threatened to deprive his character of the initiative rightly belonging to it. Self-assertion is the practical complement of self-esteem. To be largely endowed with the latter quality, yet constrained by a coward delicacy to repress it, is to suffer martyrdom at the pleasure of every robust ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... joined his brother at Jena, where Fichte was then expounding his philosophy. It was a system of radical idealism, teaching that the only reality is the absolute Ego, whose self-assertion thus becomes the fundamental law of the world. The Fichtean system had not yet been fully worked out in its metaphysical bearings, but the strong and engaging personality of its author gave it, for a little ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... these and her own thoughts that a gentle tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman the self-assertion and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast to her ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... pleased with me now, sure!" retorted Ethelinda, stung to a blunt self-assertion. "He keered mo' about a good-lookin' road than a good-lookin' gal then. Whenst the squad kem back an' reported the passage full safe for man an' beastis the leader tuk a purse o' money out'n his pocket an' ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... J.A. Picton (The Mystery of Matter, p. 356) puts the matter well: "Mysticism consists in the spiritual realisation of a grander and a boundless unity, that humbles all self-assertion by dissolving it in a wider glory. It does not follow that the sense of individuality is necessarily weakened. But habitual contemplation of the Divine unity impresses men with the feeling that individuality is phenomenal only. Hence the paradox of Mysticism. For apart ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... the balance of effectual public opinion hitherto is to all appearance quite in doubt, but it is also quite unsettled. The first response has been a display of patriotic emotion and national self-assertion. The further, later and presumably more deliberate, expressions of opinion carry a more obvious note of apprehension and less of stubborn or unreflecting national pride. It may be too early to anticipate a material shift of base, to a more neutral, or less ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... and negative reaction from the primary centers of consciousness. From the first great center of sympathy the child is drawn to a lovely oneing with the mother. From the first great center of will comes the independent self-assertion which locates the mother as something outside, something objective. And as a result of this twofold notion, a twofold increase in the child. First, the dynamic establishment of the individual consciousness in the infant: and then the first shadow of a mental conception of ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... produce and preserve the strong man at all hazards. There is a kind of "moralic acid," as Nietzsche styles it, which is corroding the strength of humanity in our modern day. We have discoursed too much of character, too little of power; too much of self-sacrifice and too little of self-assertion; too much of right, too little of might. Conscience not only interferes with success, but also prevents the evolution of a superior type of man, that superman who is not constrained by duty nor limited by law, living his ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... its balance by the events of the day, his mind was full of that sourly savage resistance to the inevitable self-assertion of wealth, so amiably deplored by the prosperous and the rich; so bitterly familiar to the unfortunate and the poor. "The heather-bell costs nothing!" he thought, looking contemptuously at the masses of rare and beautiful flowers that ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... from under the trees into a man-made edifice. It may have a deep indigo background or a dull red—like the shades of moss or like last year's fallen leaves—but over it all is abundantly sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the spring beauties in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. With such flowery guides to mark the way the path to slumberland is followed. Once within the bedroom, the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, and the happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered border ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... that this feeling, if it did not make his task easy would yet take from it some of its difficulty. Emily would be, not exactly cowed, by the prospect of Lady Milborough's dinner, but perhaps a little reduced from her usual self-assertion. He would say a word to her when he was dressing, assuring her that he had not intended to animadvert in the slightest degree ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... illuminating, but every one felt, I think, that he was a cheerful and dependable person. I always felt, when I observed him, that he understood the Russian character far better than any of us. He had none of the self-assertion of the average Englishman and, at the same time, he had his opinions and his preferences. He took every kind of chaff with good-humoured indifference, but I think it was above everything else his tolerance that pleased the Russians. Nothing shocked him, which did not at all mean that ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... upon youthful imaginations and consciences morally pure, here fell upon stone. He who was so much at his ease on the shores of his charming little lake, felt constrained and not at home in the company of pedants. His perpetual self-assertion appeared somewhat fastidious.[1] He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a rolling fire of disputes,[2] an interminable train ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... recognized by a man of apparently equal importance and distinction, who had quietly and unconsciously taken a seat by his side, and the recognition appeared equally unexpected and awkward. The new-comer was the older and more decorous-looking, with an added formality of manner and self-assertion that did not, however, conceal a certain habitual shrewdness of eye and lip. He wore a full beard, but the absence of a moustache left the upper half of his handsome and rather satirical mouth uncovered. His dress was less pronounced than his ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... buoyed up, poor people, by the conviction that by so doing they will prevent the Prussians from entering the town. If one of them ventures to hint at a capitulation, she is set on by her neighbours. Self-assertion, however, carries the day. Jules and Jaques will hereafter quaff many a petit verre to their own heroism; and many a story will they inflict upon their long-suffering friends redounding to their own special glory. ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... was self-assertion. She had not the assurance to intrude, and she contented herself with keeping Cherry on thorns by threatening to go in, and declaring that the whole must be untrue, since Wilmet had not ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... comparisons between different sorts of conditions, and a knowledge which is that of the Life which gives rise to and therefore controls conditions. Only we must remember that the control of conditions is not to be attained by violent self-assertion which is only recognizing them as substantive entities to be battled with, but by conscious unity with that All-creating Spirit which works silently, but surely, on its own lines of ...
— The Dore Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward
... while Mr. Thorold led me on in this fashion. I do not know how far. I do not know what he said or what I answered, except in bits. I know that he made me answer him. I was not capable of the least self-assertion. What startled me at last out of this abstraction, was the sudden fear that we might be observed. I looked up and said something about it. Only to my confusion; for Thorold laughed at me, softly, but how he laughed - at ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... rest—they were all at rest— about that. Their future did not depend now upon Allister's uncertain coming home. It would not be true to say she saw no difficulties in the way; but she saw none to daunt her. Even Dan seemed to have come to himself. He seemed to have forgotten his self-assertion—his "contrariness," as Shenac called it—and was a boy again, noisy and full of fun, but gentle and helpful too. The little ones were well and happy, and getting on well in school, as all the Macivors were ...
— Shenac's Work at Home • Margaret Murray Robertson
... The more urgent the required change, the more intemperate is the vehemence of its promoters. Let no one, then, confound with the principles of this social nonconformity the acerbity and the disagreeable self-assertion of ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... advertisement that he owned every sheep in it, white or black, and to show that there could be no doubt on the matter, he added a general claim to right of property in all mankind and the universe. He did this in the name and on behalf of the church universal, but there was self-assertion in the quiet air with which he pointed out the nature of his title, and then, after sweeping all human thought and will into his strong-box, shut down the lid with a sharp click, and bade ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... of insignificance fell heavily upon her, bearing down her high sufficiency, making her feel that she was a purposeless spectator on the outside of life. She struggled against it, struggled back toward cheer and self-assertion, and in her effort to get back, found herself seeking news of less picturesque moments in ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... et flamboyant automne. Something of the colour and fever of autumn is in all he wrote. Another writer since Cladel, who has probably never heard of him, has made heroes of peasants and vagabonds. But Maxim Gorki makes heroes of them, consciously, with a mental self-assertion, giving them ideas which he has found in Nietzsche. Cladel put into all his people some of his own passionate way of seeing 'scarlet,' to use Barbey d'Aurevilly's epithet: un rural ecarlate. Vehement and voluminous, he overflowed: his whole aim as an artist, as a pupil of Baudelaire, ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... seems like being the first to give in, and actually does foreshadow serious dangers. And yet the time will come when we shall have to face danger for the sake of brotherhood, as we do now for the sake of self-assertion. The orders to avoid friendship with the enemy were, even in these circumstances, not always obeyed. "For months after German and British soldiers in neighbouring trenches fixed up secret treaties by which they fired at fixed targets at stated periods to keep up appearances ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... NICOLA (with dogged self-assertion). Yes, me. Who was it made you give up wearing a couple of pounds of false black hair on your head and reddening your lips and cheeks like any other Bulgarian girl? I did. Who taught you to trim your nails, and keep your hands clean, and ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... always existed in one form or another, extending back continuously to the "witenagemot" of the Anglo-Saxons. During the reign of Henry the name "Parliament" was coming to be more regularly applied to it, its meetings were more frequent and its self-assertion more vigorous. But most important of all, a new class of members was added to it. In 1265, in addition to the nobles and great prelates, the sheriffs were ordered to see that two knights were selected from each of their shires, and two citizens ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... whole-hearted devotion to his art which caused his rare acts of self-assertion, and it was this same devotion, no less than his natural kindliness, that made him ever helpful to younger artists who showed any promise of future worth. Even in his last days of unspeakable suffering he would summon what was left of his old strength to give a word of criticism and advice, ...
— Artist and Public - And Other Essays On Art Subjects • Kenyon Cox
... survives in most men, however right-thinking they may be, and this is one of its methods of self-assertion. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... see that the case need be very different with men. Subserviency never won anybody's respect or love either. Neither does willful opposition, any more. Proper self-respect and a fair share of self-love is more sure of winning admiration, from men or women, than too little self-assertion or too much." ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... he could not see the owner of the voice, that it was "Dick." It was, he thought, a coarse voice, full of intimations of the swaggering self-assertion of the low-class Londoner, who thinks ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... gentle? Among them, at any rate, there was gratitude. She had found an object in life, had splendidly emerged from her old sensations of incompleteness and inferiority. No longer that morbid humility struggling in vain to transform itself into a violent self-assertion. Not since she had become the virtual creatrix of beauty, ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... been more tender than Lopez. Every word and every act, every look and every touch, had been loving. Had she known the world better she might have felt, perhaps, that something was expected where so much was given. Perhaps a rougher manner, with some little touch of marital self-assertion, might be a safer commencement of married life,—safer to the wife as coming from her husband. Arthur Fletcher by this time would have asked her to bring him his slippers, taking infinite pride in having his little behests obeyed by so ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... when he did care, sitting up to demand food with a great deal of his old self-assertion. The doctor looked him over, permitting him to get out of bed and try out his legs. They were exceedingly uncooperative at first, and Ross was glad he had tried to move only from his bunk to ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... right, there," said Mrs. Sillenger. "I think myself that men might be allowed to continue to monopolize the right of impudent self-assertion." ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... unselfishness so completely free from morbidity, so fully capable of deciding a moral question without exaggerating its importance. No eminent person of our time has been so utterly devoid of that disease of self-assertion which is often rampant among the unselfish. She had one most rare and valuable faculty, the faculty of letting things pass—Acts of Parliament and other things. Her predecessors, whether honest men or knaves, ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... writes to the minister at Genoa, "on any subject separated from the immediate object of my command, nor a wish to be employed on any other service. So far the allies," he continues, with no unbecoming self-assertion, "are fortunate, if I may be allowed the expression, in having an officer of this character." He felt this singleness of mind, which is so rare a gift, to be the more important, from his very consciousness ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... victory, and many a flag taken on the field of battle mouldering by degrees into dust on some chapel's wall—but they have not been the flags of England. Till this day I had never seen our own colors in any position but one of self-assertion and independent power. From the tone used by the gentleman who showed them to me, I could gather that he would have passed them by, had he not foreseen that he could not do so without my notice. ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... arises from...a volcanic eruption! ... and the mystery of the red river.. is.. solved!" Here an irrepressible moan of anguish broke through his heroic effort at equanimity;—"It is NOT a phenomenon!".. and a gleam of obstinate self-assertion lit up his poor glazing eyes, "Nothing is phenonmenal! ... only I am not able...to explain. ... I have no time...no time...to analyze.. my ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... type for the Teacher until the right boy comes along; there is no use in the Teacher worrying himself until he does, because of the bully's bluster and bluff. Usually the normal boy will accept him at his face value, and it is only when a lad with self-assertion comes along that the sparks will fly. Then the bully will have to back down or take his medicine. A fight between boys is usually not a good thing, but when it comes to putting the bully in his place it is one of the greatest institutions ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... made, that the interest of the United States in them surpasses that of Great Britain, and dependent upon a natural cause, nearness, which has been admitted always as a reasonable ground for national self-assertion. It is unfortunate, doubtless, for the wishes of British Columbia, and for the communications, commercial and military, depending upon the Canadian Pacific Railway, that the United States lies between them and the South Pacific, and is the state nearest to Hawaii; but, the fact ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... No artist is left behind with equal largeness of poetical conception! If the hand had always obeyed the soul, he would have been a genius of the first order. As it is, he lived on the slope of greatness and could not be steadfast and calm. His life was one long agony of self-assertion. Poor, poor Haydon! See how the world treats those who try too openly for its gratitude! 'Tom Thumb for ever' over the heads ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... fact that, while what has been said above is substantially correct as concerns a large proportion of the people, especially the young men, there is nevertheless a class whose ideal heroes are not military, but moral. Their power arises not through self-assertion, but rather through humility; their influence is due entirely to learning coupled with insight into the great moral issues of life. Such has been the character of not a few of the "moral" teachers. I have recently read a Japanese novel based upon the life of one such ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... from Bradstreet, written in 1753, but without address, in which he declares that he not only planned the siege, but "was the Principal Person in conducting it,"—assertions which may pass for what they are worth, Bradstreet being much given to self-assertion.] Vaughan was born at Portsmouth in 1703, and graduated at Harvard College nineteen years later. His father, also a graduate of Harvard, was for a time lieutenant-governor of New Hampshire. Soon after leaving ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... unwonted gentleness of his mood, and the short-lived remorse with which he spoke of his past faults and follies, necessarily faded away in proportion as he regained that kind of febrile strength which was his normal state of health, and with it the arrogant self-assertion which was ingrained in his character. But it was now more than ever that she became aware of the antagonism between all that constituted his inner life and her own. It was not that he volunteered in her presence the express utterance of those ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thunder; nor, when abetted by Irish massacres and English treasons, was it altogether impotent. If Henry's conceptions of the royal supremacy were something imperious, the papal supremacy was not more modest in its self-assertion; and the language of Paul III. went far to justify the rough measures by which his menaces were parried. If any misgiving had remained in the king's mind on the legitimacy of the course which he had pursued, the last trace of it must have been ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of two civilizations is always a grand sensation to me; it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when he talks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then you get the real British flavor, which ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... "Yehonala is not at all beautiful, though she has a sad, gentle face. She is rather stooped, extremely thin, her face long and sallow, and her teeth very much decayed. Gentle in disposition, she is without self-assertion, and if at any of the audiences we were to greet her she would return the greeting, but would never venture a remark. At the audiences given to the ladies she was always present, but never in the immediate vicinity of either ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... appointed Decorator to the Queen. About three years ago, Miss Faithfull tells us, Miss Robinson came to Manchester, and opened a shop in King Street, and, regardless of that bugbear which terrifies most women—the loss of social status—she put up her own name over the door, and without the least self-assertion quietly entered into competition with the sterner sex. The result has been eminently satisfactory. This year Miss Robinson has exhibited at Saltaire and at Manchester, and next year she proposes to exhibit at Glasgow, and, possibly, at Brussels. At first she had ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... in America, culminating in Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown in October 1781, wearied the nation, and at length the persistent and powerful attacks of the opposition began to tell. "At this time," wrote Burke, in words of manly self-assertion, thirteen years afterwards, "having a momentary lead (1780-1782), so aided and so encouraged, and as a feeble instrument in a mighty hand—I do not say I saved my country—I am sure I did my country important service. There were few indeed at that time that did ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... down there and then to the long letter to 'mamma,' to the outpouring of confidence to the almost unknown friend she had learned to trust. But common-sense and a certain docility, which was strongly developed in her, in spite of her superficial self-assertion and blunt, even abrupt outspokenness, made her yield ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... actions—all furnished the same significant betrayal of a life of incessant fear and restraint; of a disposition full of modest generosities and meek sympathies, which had been crushed down past rousing to self-assertion, past ever seeing the light. There, in that mild, wan face of hers—in those painful startings and hurryings when she moved; in that tremulous, faint utterance when she spoke—there, I could see one of those ghastly heart-tragedies laid open before me, which are acted and ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... Jane's admiring eyes, like a peacock among daws, he now walked serene, a peacock among peacocks. He wore the raiment, frequented the clubs, ate the dinners of the undeservingly rich and the deservingly great. His charm and his self-confidence, which a genius of tact saved from self-assertion, carried him pleasantly through the social world; his sympathetic intelligence dealt largely and strongly with the public affairs under his control. He loved organizing, persuading, casting skilful nets. His appeal for subscriptions was irresistible. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... and thirdly in the Zulu country. The history of this Zululand expansion remains to be told. At present it is interesting to follow the geographical growth of the state which has become so troublesome, and whose self-assertion has increased ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... irritated him that the latter was upon all occasions appealed to, and his advice asked in everything relating to games, and all matters of dispute referred to him. Frank, on the other hand, although he at all times gave way to Johnstone in house matters, was constantly annoyed by his continual self-assertion and his irritation at trifles. They were the only two Sixth town boys at Richards', but there were three Upper 'Shells,' Harris, Travers, and James, and these ranked almost with the Sixth, for the great demarcation of the School was between the Upper and Under 'Shells,' ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... best, loved the young laird; for if he had no lands, neither had he any pride, they said, and was as happy sitting with any old woman, and sharing her tea, as at a lord's table. Nor was he less of a favourite at school, though, being incapable of self-assertion, his inborn consciousness of essential humanity rendering it next to impossible for him to claim anything, some of the bigger boys were less than friendly with him. One point in his conduct was in particular ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... absence of self-assertion—the touch of despair—in words and tone. So it had gone as deep as this! She blamed herself for lack of perception. An ordinary love-affair, about to end in an ordinary way—that was how it had appeared to her. And suddenly it seemed to her she had stumbled ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... they might be wedded in very earnest. He was masterful and possessed self-assurance; but what man can lead and control without these qualities? His self-assurance was less than his self-control, and his instinct for self-assertion had nearly always been counted by a kind heart. It seemed to her that she had never known a man who balanced reason and feeling more judicially, or better preserved a mean ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so startlingly real that it takes rank upon an equal footing of reality with the consciousness of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion, the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering love for others. To some extent this is taking away ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in his existence. Don Paolo imposed respect by his quiet dignity, while Marzio asserted himself by speaking loudly and working himself voluntarily into a state of half-assumed anger. In the contest between quiet force and noisy self-assertion the issue is never doubtful. Marzio lacked real power, and he felt it. He could command attention among the circle of his associates who already sympathised with his views, but in the presence of Paolo he was conscious of struggling against a superior and incomprehensible obstacle, against ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... or following the park in the flat curve of Park Lane, have not the effect of withdrawal and exclusion of the Belgravian mansions; beyond which again there is a world of small dwellings of fainter and fainter self-assertion till they fade into the hopeless plebeian unconsciousness of Pimlico, whose endless streets are without beauty or dignity. Yet beyond this lost realm Chelsea redeems itself in a grace of domestic architecture and an atmosphere of esthetic associations which make it a favorite abode of the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... political issues assumed by his party, Mr. Buchanan could always be found two paces to the rear, but in the hour of triumph he marched proudly in the front rank. He was not gifted with independence or self-assertion. His bearing towards Southern statesmen was derogatory to him as a man of spirit. His tone towards administrations of his own party was so deferential as almost to imply a lack of self-respect. He was not a leader among men. He was always led. He was led ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of human life is the necessity, laid upon every man who comes into the world, of discovering the mean between self-assertion and self-restraint suited to his character and his circumstances. And the eternally tragic aspect of the drama lies in this: that the problem set before us is one the elements of which can be but imperfectly known, and of which even an approximately right solution ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... of the government of the city of New York; and the aggressively dressed and too abundantly jewelled female companions of these men, heavily built, heavy browed, with faces marked in hard lines, and with aggressive eyes schooled to look out upon the world with a necessarily emphatic self-assertion, were of a type that, without special knowledge of American ways, was entirely recognizable. Albeit Miss Lee, having spent much time in the mixed society of various European watering-places, was not by any means an unsophisticated young person, ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... 1 The self-assertion of this and other letters about this time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those not familiar with the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... power of the master over his slaves; the domination of the slave-holding class over the local communities, and the expulsion of their opponents; the control of the government by a united South over a divided North,—these things had bred a self-confidence and self-assertion which would stop at nothing. The slave-holding principle, in full flower, was a principle which recked nothing of legal majorities or governments. Its basis was force, and it would use whatever force ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... extinguish them. At the first glance she did not appear beautiful, but as you gazed at her she became more and more perturbing, till she conquered you and inspired you with passionate admiration. It should be said though that she shrank from all self-assertion, comporting herself with much modesty, ever keeping in the background, striving to hide her lustre, invariably clad in black and unadorned by a single jewel, although she was the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... express the hope to Germany that her methods of self-assertion be such as will not hinder mutual discussions by arousing British public opinion ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... of the local thirst for knowledge, and the determination to get it in one way or another. So with the self-assertion without which a Scot ceases to be a Scot, he had fastened upon those winter months with Julian Wemyss to fill in the lacunes of Dominie McAll's instruction. A good good deal of classics, daily readings in the French and German tongues, conversation after the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Nazir, who could not understand a word of it. And from first to last throughout that interview, and subsequently to the point where Jimgrim out-maneuvered and out-played him, he relied on the German philosophy of self-assertion that teaches how to get and keep the upper hand by making yourself believe in your own super-intelligence and then speaking, acting, making plans in logical accord with that belief. It works finely until somebody spoils the whole thing ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... will bring his usual iron rule to bear upon this new element in the household, else her impertinent self-assertion will be unendurable. Will you be ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the Spanish character is probably derived in its germ from the Gothic blood of their ancestors. Their intense self-assertion has been, in the Northern races, modified by the progress of intelligence and the restraints of municipal law into a spirit of sturdy self-respect and a disinclination to submit to wrong. The Goths of Spain have unfortunately never gone through this civilizing process. Their ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... tapping at the door passed unheard, or translated itself into the remembrance of far-off woodpeckers. When at last it asserted itself more distinctly, she started up with a flushed cheek and opened the door. On the threshold stood a woman, the self-assertion and audacity of whose dress were in singular contrast ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of pre-eminent force. Aggression becomes the accredited form of action, and booty serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. As accepted at this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of self-assertion is contest; and useful articles or services obtained by seizure or compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest. Therefore, by contrast, the obtaining of goods by other methods than seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... human race, individual by individual, are separated one from the other by differences more or less minute, and wherever two human beings are placed together one must inevitably begin to assert mastery over the other. The method of self-assertion may be that of the athlete, or that of the intriguer, or that of the clear-sighted over the purblind, or that of the subtle over the simple; it matters not, the effort for mastery may be made either roughly or gently, or subtly, or even clownishly, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... Difficulties of the conception II. It is impossible III. It is a sign of degradation IV. It is needless V. It is irrational VI. Its frequency VII. Definition VIII. Its rationality IX. Distinguished from culture X. Its self-assertion XI. Its incalculability XII. ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... intention; but as her sobs subsided she felt more the hurt of the treatment she had received. And this hurt stirred within her a self-assertion that was becoming a more prominent characteristic of Ruth every day. Why should she relapse into tears because her chum had done a cruel thing? Hurt as she was, why should she give The Fox the satisfaction of ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson
... him into a consciously critical frame of mind. The time which he spent in intellectual diversion may have diminished to some extent his practical efficiency previous to the gathering crisis. It certainly made him less inclined to the aggressive self-assertion which a successful political career demanded. But when the crisis came, when the minds of Northern patriots were stirred by the ugly alternative offered to them by the South, and when Lincoln was by the course of events restored to active participation ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Boehme, "supposes that hell is far from us. But it is near us. Every one carries it in himself."[66] Many of our vices, in fact, are simply savage qualities—and some are even savage virtues—in their old age. Thus in an organized society the acquisitiveness and self-assertion proper to a vigorous primitive dependent on his own powers survive as the sins of envy and covetousness, and are seen operating in the dishonesty of the burglar, the greed and egotism of the profiteer: and, on the highest levels, the great spiritual sin of ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... inner man rather than his family. Apparently his deep interest in spiritual physics, rather than metaphysics, gave a kind of hypnotic mellifluous effect to his voice when he sang his oracles; a manner something of a cross between an inside pompous self-assertion and an outside serious benevolence. But he was sincere and kindly intentioned in his eagerness to extend what he could of the better influence of the philosophic world as he saw it. In fact, there is a strong didactic ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... have forgotten how to bite. He has been known to let a smaller dog draw blood from him without making the least attempt to use his own teeth in retaliation. He appeared to have lost the instinct of self-assertion, and walked abroad protected solely, but sufficiently, by his vast size and ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... should have been a remedy for that sort of thing. And yet there is no remedy. Behind this minute instance of life's hazards Heyst sees the power of blind destiny. Besides, Heyst in his fine detachment had lost the habit asserting himself. I don't mean the courage of self-assertion, either moral or physical, but the mere way of it, the trick of the thing, the readiness of mind and the turn of the hand that come without reflection and lead the man to excellence in life, in art, in crime, in virtue, and, for the matter of that, even in love. Thinking is the great enemy ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... with him about the teacher's behavior in putting him back. No boy's father and mother agreed with him on this point; every boy returned in just the same way; but somehow the insult had been wiped out by the mere act of self-assertion, and a boy kept his standing in the world as he could never have done if he had not left school when he was ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... the South of the Main. But in spite of this military and commercial approximation, the progress towards union was neither so rapid nor so smooth as the patriots of the North could desire. There was much in the harshness and self-assertion of the Prussian character that repelled the less disciplined communities of the South. Ultramontanism was strong in Bavaria; and throughout the minor States the most advanced of the Liberals were opposed to a closer union with Berlin, from dislike of its absolutist traditions ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... scarcely willing to admit the fact that our own prejudices and lack of self-assertion are largely responsible for our separation from the women who move the world by their intelligent progressiveness. If we would join these women in good works, we should at least meet them halfway by ridding ourselves ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... existence of these questions or else asserts that, as insoluble, they are also negligible problems. To all such stupid moralizing it prefers the click of the castanets! The law, then, of this naturalism always and everywhere is the law of rebellion, of ruthless self-assertion, of whim and impulse, of ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... can do the least justice to Mrs. Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? I mentally questioned this modern ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... that some of these ebullitions have bordered closely on what we may be forgiven for describing as indecorum. But the motive was undoubtedly a generous instinct of self-assertion. Ever since the days of CAIN, the first great self-expressionist, there have always been richly-organised natures to whom even fratricide is preferable to the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... always had a pretty strong will of her own; and here, where she virtually had the control of everything, her tendency to self-assertion had been considerably developed. The force and decision with which she gave her opinion about everything seemed to Madam Garvloit sometimes (although she said nothing) rather like a reversing of their relative positions; and on days when she was in a captious humour—and those were her days of ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... lines, Lady Janet addressed it, as usual, to "Miss Grace Roseberry." She was just rising to ring the bell, when the maid appeared with a message from the boudoir. The woman's tones and looks showed plainly that she had been made the object of Grace's insolent self-assertion as ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... human,' he says, when wondering how he might appear to others. He could not bear that his birthday should be even noticed, though he did not, like Swift, commemorate it by a remorseful ceremonial. He shrank from every kind of self-assertion; and in matters outside his own province often showed to men of abilities very inferior to his own a deference which to those who did not know him might pass for affectation. The life of a recluse had strong attractions for him. He was profoundly convinced that the happiest of all lives was ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... I quite agree with you about everything except about Silberbach. That is what I cannot get over. You have not enough self-assertion, my dear. I am certain Silberbach is some freak of Herr von Walden's—most unpractical man. Why, I really am not at all sure that you will get anything ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... feeling." And whatever fame, or charm, or life-inspiring gift he has had as a speculative thinker, is the vibration of the interest he excited then, the propulsion into years which clouded his early promise of that first buoyant, irresistible, self-assertion. So great is even the indirect power of a sincere effort towards the ideal life, of even a temporary escape of the ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... expenses, and made him an allowance; but either Silas had grown lazy, or he understood his position better than poor Austin, or he distrusted his powers, or possibly he really is in ill-health; but he objected his religious scruples. Your poor papa thought self-assertion possible, where an injured man has right to rely upon, but he had been very long out of the world, and the theory won't do. Nothing is harder than to get a person who has once been effectually slurred, received again. Silas, I think, was right. I ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... the transition is obvious and direct. Be the explanation what it may, the whole atmosphere of this school is evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the smaller affairs of social life. The general bearing of the Utopian children ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... the company. Had we been told he was there, we might have expected that sooner or later he would join in the conversation. He would have had a place in our minds. We may assume that in the minds of the company around Johnson he had no place. He sat forgotten, overlooked; so that his self-assertion startled every one just as on Boswell's page it startles us. In Johnson's massive and magnetic presence only some very remarkable man, such as Mr. Burke, was sharply distinguishable from the rest. Others ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... could possibly replace the old. The thing which happened was inevitable. The amazing demand for her book was exactly in inverse proportion to its popularity amongst her sex. The crusade against men was well! Admittedly they were a bad lot, and needed to be told of it. A little self-assertion on behalf of his superior was a thing to be encouraged and applauded. But a crusade against marriage! Berenice must be a most abandoned, as well as a most immoral, woman! No one who even hinted at the doctrine of love without ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... step out of the vehicle, with the airy grace and confidence of one who regards each new abiding-place as a scene of coming pleasures and conquests, and who feels sure every glance toward her is one of admiration. There were eyes, however, that noted disapprovingly her jaunty self-assurance and self-assertion, and when she met those eyes her complacency seemed disturbed at once, for she flushed and promptly turned her back upon them. In fact, from the time she had first seen Van Berg's frowning face it ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... nature was exceedingly frank, even defiant, and from pride, perhaps, rather than principle, she scorned no baseness so heartily as duplicity. Therefore she hesitated now and changed colour, looking guilty and confused, but taking refuge, as usual, in self-assertion. ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... upon, years of love and struggle and discontent. By turning his hand to many things, Fenwick had just managed to keep the wolf from the door. He had worked hard, but without much success; and what had been an ordinary good opinion of himself had stiffened into a bitter self-assertion. He knew very well that he was regarded as a conceited, quarrelsome fellow, and rather gloried in it. The world, he considered, had so far treated him ill; he would at any rate keep ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... spoken last. During her grandfather's zealous pronouncement her slender uprightness had remained statue-like and motionless, but in her deep eyes all the powerful life forces that until lately had slept dormant now surged into their new consciousness and invincible self-assertion. ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... laid their restraint on Buckley Simmons, her present companion. His immobile face, with its heavy, good features and slow-kindling comprehension, was at all times expressive of loud self-assertion, insatiable curiosity, facile confidence; from his clean shaven lips fell always satisfied comment, pronouncement, impatient opinion. If Hollidew was the richest man in Greenstream Valentine Simmons was a close second. Indeed, one might be found as wealthy ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... of his power was that of a despot. He was doing great things for ministers, and took care that they should know it. He was proud of his self-assertion, proud of being rude. Great men, and great ladies too, who wished for his acquaintance, had to make the first advances. He caused Lady Burlington to burst into tears by rudely ordering her to sing. 'She should sing ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... decrees of heaven, if needful. But it is important to note that this characteristic in Japan is undergoing rapid change. The spirit of absolute submission, so characteristic of the common people of Old Japan, is passing away and self-assertion is taking its place. Education and developing intelligence are driving out the fear of fate. Had our estimate of the Japanese race character been based wholly on the history of Old Japan, it might have been easy to conclude that the spirit of submission ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... family, like every other element of human life, is susceptible of progress, and from epoch to epoch its tendencies and aspirations are enlarged, although its duties can never be abrogated and its obligations can never be cancelled. It is impossible to bring about the higher development by any self-assertion or breaking away of the individual will. The new growth in the plant swelling against the sheath, which at the same time imprisons and protects it, must still be the truest type of progress. The family in its entirety must be carried out ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... here and there formed into fancy rooms, with rustic seats and tables under the over-hanging boughs; and when she reflected that all this was hers to enjoy for many years, and perhaps for her life-time, she felt the first stirring of that pride, and satisfaction, and self-assertion which was to grow upon her so rapidly and transform her from the plain, unpretentious woman who had washed, and ironed, and baked, and mended in the small house in Langley into the arrogant, haughty lady of ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... deprecating and timid were the tones, that almost without an effort of the imagination she could picture the little man's blushes and his half-sidling method of delivery. At this supreme moment his littleness and lack of self-assertion jarred on her mood. "What're you doin' there? ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... young women of modern fiction, who puzzle their parents by insisting on "living their own life." She is only a faint shadow, however, of the type so familiar to-day in the pages of Ibsen, Bjornson, and other writers. Their heroines would regard Elena as timid and conventional, for with all her self-assertion, she still believes in God and marriage, two ideas that to our contemporary emancipated females are the symbols ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know—pianner and all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!" And her blue eyes flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in defiant vanity and self-assertion. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... charity, it generally begins and ends abroad; and those who cultivate the gentle art are seldom given to morbid introspection. Our prodigious ignorance about ourselves has not been blissful. Mistaking self-assertion for self-knowledge, we have presented the pathetic spectacle of a people casting the blame for their shortcomings on another people, yet bearing the consequences themselves. The national habit of living in the past seems to give us a present ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... charm lies in the fact that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as a pebble tossed in the waters, smooth, burnished, and (to outward ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... life our personality moves in a narrow circle of immediate self-interest. And therefore our feelings and events, within that short range, become prominent subjects for ourselves. In their vehement self-assertion they ignore their unity with the All. They rise up like obstructions and obscure their own background. But art gives our personality the disinterested freedom of the eternal, there to find it in its true perspective. ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... I could hardly believe my eyes, expecting to find in him something of the fire, enthusiasm, and dogmatism of his book, and seeing only a gentleman of the most gentle type, blonde, refined, and with as little self-assertion or dogmatic tone as was possible consistently with the holding of his own opinions; suggesting views rather than asserting them, and as if he had not himself come to a conclusion on the subject of conversation. A delightful and to me ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... with interest, he saw the change of expression as her eyes turned from Eve to him, and noticed a colder tone in her voice as she addressed him directly. The observation moved him to self-assertion. ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston |
