"Self-esteem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... twenty letters in my head. I had had to do with a woman like all other women of the kind. I had been poetizing too much. She had treated me like a school-boy, she had used in deceiving me a trick which was insultingly simple. My self-esteem got the upper hand. I must leave this woman without giving her the satisfaction of knowing that she had made me suffer, and this is what I wrote to her in my most elegant handwriting and with tears of rage and sorrow in ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... on his audience. He was learning that one could impress a stupendous crowd and really fail, or strut upon the boards of an empty playhouse and still succeed. He began to realize just what was meant by the term self-esteem—how hard and uncompromising and exacting it was. To disappoint another was a humiliation; to disappoint oneself was a tragedy. And the tragedy became deep in proportion to the ability to be self-searching. There were moments when he closed his eyes ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... himself. He possessed that rarest of all human faculties, the power of a perfectly accurate estimate of himself, uninfluenced by pride, ambition, flattery, or self-interest. Grant was very far from being a modest man, as the word modest is generally understood. His just self-esteem was as far above modesty as it was above flattery. The highest encomiums were accepted for what he believed them to be worth. They did not disturb his equilibrium in the ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... lacking in the deference of other men of her acquaintance, were beyond cavil. But it was quite clear that the only impression her looks or her personality had made upon him was the slight one of having met and forgotten her—hardly flattering to her self-esteem. He was quite free from self-consciousness and at moments wore an air of abstraction which made it seem to Hermia as though he had forgotten her presence. In another atmosphere she had thought him unmannerly; ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... and adultery did not bar David's claim to the title of the man after God's own heart among the Israelites; crimes against men may be expiated, but blasphemy against the gods is an unpardonable sin. Men forgive all injuries but those which touch their self-esteem; and they make their gods after their own likeness, in their own image make ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... river frontage. They have their calls, whistles, signs, rally suddenly from no one knows where, and vanish in the alleys, basements, roofs, and corridors they know so well. Their inordinate vanity is well called the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued a baby from a runaway, and came back ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... appeals largely to the feelings. a. Those feelings of satisfaction resulting from approval, commendation, or praise, or the desire to avoid blame, disaster, or loss of self-esteem. b. Those feelings resulting from the proper and legitimate use of one's powers. c. Those feelings which arise from possession, either ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... or by force, four hundred thousand guns thus pass into the hands of the people in six months.[1313] Not content with this they must have cannon. Brest having demanded two, every town in Brittany does the same thing; their self-esteem is at stake as well as a need of feeling themselves strong.—They lack nothing now to render themselves masters. All authority, all force, every means of constraint and of intimidation is in their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... saber's pride; Fierce eyes beneath a beetling brow; More license than the rules allow; A military stride; Years' use of arbitrary will And right to make or break; Obedience of men who drill And willy nilly foot the bill For authorized mistake; The comfort of the self-esteem Deputed power brings— Are fickler than the shadows seem Less fruitful than the lotus-dream, And all of them have wings When blue eyes, laughing in your own, Make mockery ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... Self-love, a just self-esteem, that powerful lever which sustains us, which elevates us, which compels us to respect in ourselves that nobility of race which we derive from God, what becomes of it in solitude? For Selkirk, vanity itself has lost its power to stimulate. Formerly, ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... did not lack self-esteem, exacted this oath firmly believing that there was not her equal in the world, and so felt assured that the King would never marry again. Be this as it may, at length she died, and never did husband make so much lamentation; the King wept and sobbed day and night, and the punctilious ...
— The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault • Charles Perrault
... horse and sword. Courage came with his gallop, courage and self-esteem, without which no man ever did anything yet. With ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... and self-condemnation that I uttered she silenced me by laying the whole blame upon the anxiety and fatigue to which I had been of late exposed; and when at length she had salved the wound inflicted upon my self-esteem by my recent loss of self-control, she set about the task of coaxing me to yield with at least an apparent good grace to the demands of the men— seeing that we were completely in their power, and could do no otherwise—in order that we might secure such full measure of good treatment from them ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... ever achieved. To conquer an enemy by the sword, is, no doubt, honorable; but still it is nothing in comparison of conquering him by generosity. As arguing both superior virtue and courage, it commands higher admiration from the world, and is reflected on by ourselves with far more self-esteem and applause. And then, sir, only consider how such conduct will gild the future scenes of life. This unfortunate quarrel betwixt us and our countrymen, the tories, is not to last forever. It was only the act of a wicked ministry, attempting, by an unconstitutional tax to enslave ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... and overweening self-esteem may be shown emphatically by the use of such selections ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... conduct of holy men when gifted with them. Take, for instance, Hezekiah, one of the best of the Jewish kings. He, too, had been schooled by occurrences which one might have thought would have beaten down all pride and self-esteem. The king of Assyria had come against him, and seemed prepared to overwhelm him with his hosts; and he had found his God a mighty Deliverer, cutting off in one night of the enemy an hundred fourscore and five thousand men. And again, he had been miraculously recovered from ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... general, or an emperor. Sometimes I was Byron, and then again I was nothing. After having sported upon the pinnacle of human affairs, I discovered that all the mountains, all the real difficulties still remained to be surmounted. The measureless self-esteem which seethed within me, the sublime belief in destiny, which perhaps evolves into genius if a man does not allow his soul to be torn to tatters by contact with business interests, as easily as a sheep leaves its wool on the thorns of the thicket through which it ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... men's pride in ships. "Ships are all right," as my middle-aged, respectable quartermaster said with much conviction and some irony; but they are not exactly what men make them. They have their own nature; they can of themselves minister to our self-esteem by the demand their qualities make upon our skill and their shortcomings upon our hardiness and endurance. Which is the more flattering exaction it is hard to say; but there is the fact that in listening for ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... halts, Dian refused consistently to notice me—when her eyes wandered in my direction she looked either over my head or directly through me. At last I became desperate, and determined to swallow my self-esteem, and again beg her to tell me how I had offended, and how I might make reparation. I made up my mind that I should do this at the next halt. We were approaching another range of mountains at the time, and when we reached them, instead of ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... her eyes, only to be immediately extinguished. "You want to restore my self-esteem," she said, "because you are good and generous. You are sorry for a poor unfortunate girl and want to raise her up again. I understand your generosity, Ivan Ivanovich, but I will ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... for her, knowing he could give her pleasure by leaving us alone. His character exhibited contradictions that were often inexplicable; he was jealous, like all weak beings, but his confidence in his wife's sanctity was boundless. It may have been the sufferings of his own self-esteem, wounded by the superiority of that lofty virtue, which made him so eager to oppose every wish of the poor woman, whom he braved as children brave their masters ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... it insisted upon being somewhat different—hence this feeling which was not all dissatisfaction with his present absurd position. He was, he admitted it, a badly sold man. But did it matter? What had he lost except money and self-esteem? The money did not matter and he was sure that Aunt Caroline, at least, would say that he could spare the self-esteem. Besides, he would recover it in time. His opinion of himself as a man of perspicacity in business had recovered from harder blows than this. There was that ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... to his will or to his ways. He had that great desire to enjoy his full rights, so strong in the minds of weak, ambitious men, and he had told himself that a wife's obedience was one of those rights which he could not abandon without injury to his self-esteem. He had thought about the matter, slowly, as was his wont, and had resolved that he would assert himself. He had asserted himself, and his wife told him to his face that she would go away and leave him. He could detain her legally, but he could not do even ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... prefer themselves to others, that if they preserve for their own country that love which is the fruit of personal interest, at least they will lose that enthusiasm which is the fruit of an exclusive self-esteem." ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... not by this mean to commit myself to the opinion that Cellini is accurate in details or truthful. On the contrary, it is impossible to read his life without feeling that his vanity and self-esteem led him to exaggeration and mis-statement. The value of the biography consists in its picturesqueness, its brilliant and faithful colouring, and its unconscious self-revelation ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... admire their ambition. I admire their blasphemous, consignatory, obscenity attitude of acting as if the Great Creator had concocted the whole glorious Universe for their own playground. Yes," said the chief wearily, "singly they aren't bad traits. Boiled down into the self-esteem of a single race, I don't admire them any more. I'm ...
— Instinct • George Oliver Smith
... awakened to a sense of pleasure impending. It was many months since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her self-esteem had received more than one blow of late. Bowman had attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little Lady" on the road; Magsie had indignantly declined. He had then offered her a poor part in a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet made ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... little book of poems, in the Dublin Magazine, conjectured that the soi-disant three personages were in reality but one, who, endowed with an unduly prominent organ of self-esteem, and consequently impressed with a somewhat weighty notion of his own merits, thought them too vast to be concentrated in a single individual, and accordingly divided himself into three, out of consideration, I ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... people, and the tall jugs and pots in the tray left standing on the library table. It was summer, but a cold rain was falling forbiddingly without. No one else could come, and no one could wish to go. The conditions all favored a just self-esteem, and a sense of providential preference in the accidental assemblage of those people at ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... that you ever want to drive your men, because the lash always leaves its worst soreness under the skin. A hundred men will forgive a blow in the face where one will a blow to his self-esteem. Tell a man the truth about himself and shame the devil if you want to, but you won't shame the man you're trying to reach, because he won't believe you. But if you can start him on the road that will lead him to the truth he's mighty apt to try to reform ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... of poets. I suppose that the entity of the poet may be represented by the number ten; it is certain that a chemist on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it, as Rabelais says, would find it composed of one part interest to nine parts of self-esteem. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... cyberspace for acceptance. That is why they always start groups like TGW, FLT, USA and the like. Structure makes them happy. [...] Warez d00dz will never have a handle like "Pink Daisy" because warez d00dz are insecure. Only someone who is very secure with a good dose of self-esteem can stand up to the cries of fag and girlie-man. More likely you will find warez d00dz with handles like: Doctor Death, Deranged Lunatic, Hellraiser, Mad Prince, Dreamdevil, The Unknown, Renegade Chemist, Terminator, and Twin Turbo. They like to sound badass ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... no idea how absurd he himself appeared. He launched into a tirade designed to make him seem a super-statesman in the eyes of a stranger who did not care what he was. The more he talked himself into a delirium of self-esteem the less his character impressed me. I even ran into the danger of under-estimating him because ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... warmer, gratefuller word—that might justify her to herself. And, instead, she realized for the first time the desert she had herself created, the loneliness she had herself imposed. And with prophetic terror she saw in front of her the daily self-reproach that her self-esteem might not be ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... amiable reflection and one that ministered greatly to his self-content. No cloud stood upon the horizon of his self-esteem nor did shadows darken his glowing hopes. He had promised Richard Gessner to arrest the girl Lois Boriskoff, and arrested she would be before twelve o'clock to-morrow. As for this amiable English lad, so full of fine resolutions, so defiant, so self-willed, it would be a good jest ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... diminution of affection which it often produces. Having settled these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ of self-esteem had been created. ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... look for the sentiment of Pride, or Self-respect, which has been called Self-esteem. It is a sentiment of conscious ability. Its character is dignity, rather than selfishness. We readily perceive that it must be in the upper region, but considerably behind the vertical line, where we place the ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... lay down the law as to what pigments may or may not be employed. The painter who unnecessarily uses fugitive colours must have little love for his craft, and a poor opinion of the value of his work; but, even with the best intentions and the utmost self-esteem, the artist cannot always confine himself to strictly stable pigments. He has no right to use orpiment instead of cadmium yellow, or red lead instead of vermilion, or copper blue instead of cobalt: he has no business to employ indigo when Prussian blue saddened ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... but the fact that she was free; and not so much (she had begun to be aware) that freedom had released her from Tillotson as that it had given her to Gannett. This discovery had not been agreeable to her self-esteem. She had preferred to think that Tillotson had himself embodied all her reasons for leaving him; and those he represented had seemed cogent enough to stand in no need of reinforcement. Yet she had not left him till she met Gannett. It was her love for Gannett that had made life with ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... intolerance guided their efforts. In the present instance, a worse feeling than either of these actuated the leader. He was an impostor in the most determined sense of the term. A man who had in early life lost, through the indulgence of vicious propensities, all sense of rectitude or self-esteem; and who, when ambition was awakened in him, gave himself up to its influence unbridled by any scruple. His father had been a methodist preacher, an enthusiastic man with simple intentions; but whose pernicious ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... think—probably I had not made sufficient impression upon her mind even for casual remembrance—but I recognized her. She was the girl with the dark eyes, whose look of contemptuous indifference had so withered my self-esteem. And her companion was the young chap who, from the tonneau of the automobile that morning, had inquired the ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... nothing more than vanity pleased; wound the vanity, and you destroy the love! Lucy will be forced, after having made so bad a choice of a lover, to make a good one in a husband, in order to recover her self-esteem!" ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... said. "And yesterday he was extremely correct and very full of extreme self-esteem which expressed itself in the exaggerated delicacy with which he talked. But I know him in all his moods. I have known him even playful. I didn't listen to him. I was thinking of something else. Of things that were neither correct nor playful and ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... down to meet the next incurving of the coast, and Siegmund was happy. But the sense of humiliation, which he had got from her the day before, and which had fixed itself, bled him secretly, like a wound. This haemorrhage of self-esteem tortured him to ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... the first days of the war. His ability and great experience entitled him to regard and deference on all questions relating to military operations. No one appreciated his qualities more than the President, unless it was General Scott himself, who with great self-esteem was nevertheless not unconscious that his age and infirmities had impaired his physical energies, and in some respects unfitted him to be the active military commander. It was his misfortune that he prided himself more if possible on his civil and political knowledge and his administrative ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... worked in an insurance office and belonged to the Socialist Party. She was a "swell dresser," and Peter would have been glad to have something like that to show off to McGivney and the rest of Guffey's men; but with the best efforts of his self-esteem, Peter could not imagine himself persuading Miss Standish to look at him. There was a Miss Yankovich, one of the real Reds, who trained with the I. W. W.; but she was a Jewess, with sharp, black eyes that clearly indicated a temper, and frightened Peter. Also, he had a suspicion that she was ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... through so much as Miss Fennimore. Each hour of her attendance on Bertha stamped the sense of her own failure, and of the fallacies to which her life had been dedicated. The sincerity, honour, and modesty that she had inculcated, had been founded on self-esteem alone; and when they had proved inadequate to prevent their breach, their outraged relics had prompted the victim to despair and die. Intellectual development and reasoning powers had not availed one moment against inclination and self-will, and only survived in the involuntary murmurs of a disordered ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of her doubts whether the Queen would receive her, adding, 'I care little about it. I had much rather she would settle half Sir William's pension on me,'"—a remark which showed more philosophy than self-esteem. ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... that she must have cut him deeply in a man's tenderest spot—his self-esteem. But just how well she had gauged the look and possibilities of Mr. Andrew Bush, ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... population of London alone. On this melancholy theme he had spoken with the eloquence of true feeling, and had produced a strong impression, even on those members of the audience who were most resolutely opposed to the opinions which he advocated. Without any undue exercise of self-esteem, he could look back on the close of his lecture with the conviction that he had really done justice to himself and to his cause. The retrospect of the public discussion that had followed failed to give him the same pleasure. His warm temper, his vehemently sincere belief in the truth of his own convictions, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... which is sometimes slow in acting, but which never slumbers or forgets. "It proceeds according to eternal laws, unmoved by human pride and ambition. As the Greek poet of old said, it permits the tyrant, in his boundless self-esteem, to climb higher and higher, and to gain greater honour and might, until he arrives at the appointed height, and then falls down into the ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... had been an indulgence of self-esteem had now become the habit of a disease; and in the course of a few months the restless poet began to make his old discovery, that he was not sufficiently cared for. The prince had no leisure to attend to him; the nobility did not "yield him the first place," or at least (he adds) they did not allow ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... favors from railroad managers and in return do their bidding, however humiliating this may be. The shipper, realizing that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, all self-esteem in his efforts to propitiate an overbearing master. He is intimidated to such an extent that he never speaks openly of existing abuses, lest he lose the special rates which have been given him, or, if he is not a participant of such ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... at her a moment, smiling sadly. Then, with pardonable self-esteem when we think of what manner of man it was with whom he now compared himself, "Surely," said he, "it is better to become the prey of ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... that, from the operation of a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius, which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... get the advantage of him. But he sometimes found more than his match. Some thought it not a very hard matter to "pull the wool over his eyes." The question has more than once been asked, "Is it possible that he can be so befogged?" Why not? He is an old man, between seventy and eighty, of great self-esteem, perhaps entering his dotage. If such a man be placed in so responsible a position, what may ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... look so long at a gigantic monument? I do not wonder. The secret of self-esteem seems to lie in regarding our inferiors; therefor let us talk of this frog. I have heard his chorus a thousand times in the dark. His is one of the songs of the night. Just watch him in the meadow pool. ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... or two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she thought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them. She became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive righteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact that the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her companions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to betray her agitation, while to decline their ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... been recorded by you in such a manner would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, when "all the world and his wife," as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my self-esteem—I allude to the Quarterly Review of the Third Canto of "Childe Harold," which Murray told me was written by you—and, indeed, I should have known it without his information, as there could not ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... contempt she deserved, but, alas! he could not: she clung there like a burr not to be dislodged saving by possession or a beating—two shuddering alternatives—for she had become detestably dear to him. His senses and his self-esteem conspired to heave her to a pedestal where his eye strained upwards in bewilderment—that she who was below him could be above him! This was astounding: she must be pulled from her eminence and stamped back to her native depths by his own ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... our republic is recognized as a promising fellow, bright, magnetic, shifty, well forward in the neologies of society, business, and politics, a born leader in a small way, and as ambitious as poverty and a brimming self-esteem could make him. From his humble law-office window he had seen Phyllis pass along the street in the old Sommerton carriage, and had fallen in love as promptly as possible with her plump, lissome ...
— Southern Lights and Shadows • Edited by William Dean Howells & Henry Mills Alden
... the memory of words, which to them have no meanings, if, indeed, the writers themselves had any to express by them; a fact we regard as questionable, at best. There is hardly a teacher of grammar, whose self-esteem is not enormous, who will not confess himself ignorant on many of the important principles of language; that he has never understood, and could never explain them. He finds no difficulty in repeating what the books say, but if called upon to express an opinion of his own, he has none to give. ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... unformulated regret enveloped him in the shadow of its melancholy, an intangible, formless sorrow at the swift passage of youth, the inevitable lapse of time. A mounting anger at Buckley possessed him ... she had been in his, Gordon Makimmon's, care. The anger touched his pride, his self-esteem, and grew cold, deliberate: he watched with a contracted jaw for ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... honour he was doing him in wooing his daughter. And if the devil wishes to enter easily a man or a woman, he finds no door so wide and so easy of access as the door of wounded vanity and wounded self-esteem. ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was! people said: one of those men improved by success: just to the defrauding of himself: saw the true worth of everybody, the very lowest: hadn't one spark of self-esteem: despised all humbug and show, one could see, though he never said it: when he was a boy, he was moody, with passionate likes and dislikes; but success had improved him, vastly. So Holmes was popular, though the beggars shunned him, and the lazy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... to London, wrote more novels, and saved a fortune for his descendants, who promptly spent it. Evidently it was a family trait. More and more he lived on his nerves, grew imperious, exacting, till he separated from his wife and made wreck of domestic happiness. The self-esteem of which he made comedy in his novels was for him a tragedy. Also he resumed the public readings, with their false glory and nervous wear and tear, which finally brought him ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... such a world of longing in her eyes that the skipper, despite a somewhat large share of self-esteem, was almost startled. ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... mother and sister were so unlike the vulgar average of mankind—that rapacious multitude, whom nothing animates but a chance of gain, with whom nothing weighs but a commercial argument. A new tenderness stirred within him, and resolutely he stamped under foot the impulses of self-esteem, of self-indulgence, which made his life ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... possible. One or two distant relations, whom Constance scarcely knew and who would probably not visit her again until she too was dead, came—and went. And lo! the affair was over. The simple celerity of the funeral would have satisfied even Samuel, whose tremendous self-esteem hid itself so effectually behind such externals that nobody had ever fully perceived it. Not even Constance quite knew Samuel's secret opinion of Samuel. Constance was aware that he had a ridiculous side, that his greatest lack had been a lack of spectacular dignity. Even in the coffin, where ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... may perhaps have here a most questionable 'gift,' most evilly conditioned ... It is known that artists are over-sensitive—well, it is also known that this is not the case with people of good conscience and well-founded self-esteem ... You see, Lisaveta, at the bottom of my soul—translated into the intellectual—I have all the suspicion of the artist type with which each one of my honorable forefathers up yonder in that cramped city would have encountered any charlatan or adventurous ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... scoundrel was not a little flattered at his imaginary conquest. He debated, therefore, in his self-complacent reveries, whether he should take prompt advantage of the weakness of his victim, or pique her by the malice of suspense. He chose the latter tactique, and, with a happy self-esteem, reserved the transports of his confession to reward the longings and agitations of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him by formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the world to halt; when ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... blindness; but they admit enough about others to allow of their own emulation and advance; whereas the barbarian, in his own estimate, is perfect already; and what is perfect cannot be improved. Hence he cherishes in his heart a self-esteem of a very peculiar kind, and a special contempt of others. He views foreigners, either as simply unworthy of his attention, or as objects of his legitimate dominion. Thus, too, he justifies his sloth, and places ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... no: Caroline lacks intellect, she is dull, she can neither joke nor reason, sometimes she has little tact. You are frightened. You find yourself forever obliged to lead this darling through the thorny paths, where you must perforce leave your self-esteem in tatters. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... isn't it?" repeated Edward Hines, full of self-esteem. "I can't make out the women at all; they're always giving me presents. Look at that picture-frame. I got that from a girl I had only seen three times—and it's ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... adherents, was bound to succeed in bestowing his bird in the fire-place. It was a genuine battle, although they abstained from striking one another, and there was no anger in it. But they pushed and squeezed one another with such violence, and there was so much self-esteem at stake in that conflict of muscular strength, that the results might be more serious than they seemed to be amid the laughter and the singing. The poor old hemp-beater, who fought like a lion, ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... please don't think that I live in a constant state of criticism with a correspondingly dangerous increase of self-esteem. I really am working hard. I sometimes wonder if the preparation of a "good" theological college is the best preparation for the priesthood. But so long as bishops demand the knowledge they do, it is obvious that this form of preparation will continue. There again though, I daresay if ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... stimulus and support of instructors, or will do any thing at all, if left to themselves. And fewer still (though such great minds are to be found), who will not, from such unassisted attempts, contract a self-reliance and a self-esteem, which are not only moral evils, but serious hindrances to the attainment of truth. And next to none, perhaps, or none, who will not be reminded from time to time of the disadvantage under which they lie, by their imperfect grounding, by the breaks, deficiencies, and irregularities ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... showed herself a kind Cassandra. His haste, she replied, would ruin his cause. He had to deal with Philistines. The father was a man of no small self-esteem—he had been the honored tutor of Maximilian II., and was now in high favor at the Bavarian court, even controlling university and artistic appointments. A Socialist would be especially distasteful to him. Twenty years ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... self-esteem caused Undine to protest. "It wouldn't have made any difference. His wife would never have given ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... reached France, Napoleon Bonaparte was in power and the envoys were able to make an acceptable settlement of the questions at issue between the two countries. The event came too late to be of service to Adams in his campaign for reelection, but it was intensely gratifying to his self-esteem. ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... furniture. Any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up Danes can judge whether the hazing and horse-play on a Danish man-of-war was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case of congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. It is recorded of him ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... ground, believed that he could soon replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum he might advance to Randal, out of the wealth which Randal's prompt information might bestow on Levy's client, the count; and secondly, Randal's self-esteem was immense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary independence on the instant, to free him from the slow drudgery of the Bar, or from a precarious reliance on Audley Egerton, as a politician out of ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... His self-esteem was at a very low ebb when Bob, dismissed from the infirmary, returned to his old quarters. Van was seldom depressed—so seldom, in fact, that the sight aroused in his chum nothing but an anxiety lest he be ill. Surely nothing but sickness could cause ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency of self-esteem. ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... that remorse is the least permanent of sentiments. But then Westray might not yet wish to forget. He had run full counter to his principles. It might be that he was resolved to take the consequences, and wear them like a hair-shirt, as the only means of recovering his self-esteem. No; whatever penance, voluntary or involuntary, Westray might undergo, Lord Blandamer could only look on in silence. His object had been gained. If Westray felt it necessary to pay the price, he must be let pay it. Lord Blandamer could neither inquire nor remonstrate. He could offer ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... as you reach the outer air—which will be in about a second—run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... nature of a home-thrust, and Moggs, rather conscience-stricken, was dumb-founded and appalled. Moggs was very cold, and therefore, for the time being, deficient in his usual pride and self-esteem, leaving himself more pervious to the assault of reproach from without and within, than he would have been in a more genial state of the atmosphere. No man is courageous when he is thoroughly chilled; and it had become painfully evident that this was not a momentary ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... a proper self-esteem and its cultivation should become a part of our earliest education. It doesn't grow anywhere except within ourselves and will never be handed to us on a silver platter. If we fail to find it when we are young it will have small chance of obtaining a ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... sentiments, and the train of conduct which such sentiments inspire, we must provide ourselves with the soil in which such things grow, and engage in the species of husbandry by which they are matured; in other words, we must be no strangers to self-esteem and self-complacency. ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... his position in Roman politics, and of the view that the Optimates would take of the necessity of retaining him, that to see himself treated like a fraudulent or unsuccessful provincial governor, of no importance to anyone but himself, was a bitter blow to his self-esteem. The actual loss was immense. His only means were now the amount of money he had been able to take with him, or was able to borrow. All was gone except such property as his wife retained in her ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... with his mixtures of nonchalance, condescension and, above all, his ebullient self-esteem that flowed over on to everyone to the point of deluging them. When he went away, it was with such a warm invitation to call upon him the next week that Kirtley could not but accept. Besides, here was opened up a novel and ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... otherwise be merry, and the hand of that careless arm soft on his pistol, lest Don Ruz should abruptly dislike him too much; for Luis contrived a tone for his small-talk that would have disconcerted the most sluggish, sweet to his own mischievous ears, healing to his galled self-esteem. "Good-night, Don Ruz. Good-night, Lolita. Perhaps I shall come to-morrow, manana ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... combinations are found eminently successful. Having obtained from every confederate a pledge, in some shape or other, that he will give them his support, thenceforwards they bring the passions of shame and self-esteem to bear upon each member's personal perseverance. Not only they keep alive and continually refresh in his thoughts the general purpose, which else might fade; but they also point the action of public contempt and ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... troops were intrusted to regular officers. These disappointments could usually be traced to very plain causes. The men selected were sometimes men whose West-Point career would hardly bear minute investigation,—or who had in civil pursuits forgotten all they had learned at the Academy, except self-esteem,—or who had been confined to the duties of some special department, as quartermasters or paymasters, and were really fitted for nothing else,—or who had served their country by resigning their commissions, if not by holding them,—or who had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Afghan politics." On the whole, it may be said that Lyall passed through this supreme test in a manner which would not have been possible to any man unless endowed not merely with great abilities, but with the highest degree of moral courage and honesty of purpose. He preserved his own self-esteem, and by his unswerving honesty and loyalty gained that of the partisans on both ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... come again to the eastern horizon, he stood all night with hands uplift to heaven, neither soothed with sleep nor conquered by fatigue. But in toils so great, and so great a magnitude of deeds, and multitude of miracles, his self-esteem is as moderate as if he were in dignity the least of all men. Beside his modesty, he is easy of access of speech, and gracious, and answers every man who speaks to him, whether he be handicraftsman, beggar, or rustic. And from the bounteous God he has received also the gift of teaching, ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... Eyre Arms; and it was the fascination of his presence which made her answer at random to her cousin's questions about the last volume of the Laureate's, which she had been lately reading. Even Mr. Pallinson, obtuse as he was apt to be when called upon to comprehend any fact derogatory to his own self-esteem, was fain to confess to himself that this evening's efforts were futile, and that this dark-faced stranger was the favourite for those matrimonial stakes he had entered himself to run for. He looked at Mr. Saltram with a critical eye many times ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... improve it, unconsciously assisted their operations. Society is so constituted that it requires no little talent and no slight energy to repel the intimacy even of those whose acquaintance is evidently not desirable; and there are many people in this world mixing, apparently, with great spirit and self-esteem in its concerns, who really owe their constant appearance and occasional influence in circles of consideration to no other qualities than their own callous impudence, and the indolence and the irresolution of their victims. They, who at the same time have no delicacy and no shame, count ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... themselves, so that, when they became men, they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... It is not fair that he should be expected to spend money in providing comforts for any man, much less for a man who carelessly neglects to provide them for himself. His sense of propriety is shocked, for Sopkin has taken possession without asking leave. His self-esteem is hurt, for, although Sopkin knows it is his chair, he sits there doggedly, "like a big brute as he is," and does not seem to care what Tomlin thinks or how he looks. Besides, there is thrust upon Tomlin the disagreeable necessity of claiming his own, and that, too, in a gentlemanly ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... complain too much; he simply and unaffectedly went. It might be imagined that the situation was a trying one for Priscilla. Not so! Priscilla had experienced marriage with Toby and had found it wanting. She was content to be relieved of Toby. She had her house and her money and her self-esteem, and also tranquillity. She accepted the solution, and devoted her days to the ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... them was a gaunt, harsh-featured man, of the middle ago, with an air of corresponding arrogance and assumption. The other, who was still more elderly, was a thick-set and rather portly personage, of that quiet, reserved, and somewhat haughty demeanor, which usually belongs to men of much self-esteem, and of an unyielding, opinionated disposition. The ladies were both young, and in the full bloom of maidenly beauty. But their native characters, like those of their male companions, seemed to be very strongly contrasted. The one seated on the left was fair, extremely fair, indeed; and her golden ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... end,—yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically suppose in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... become for her an unconscious business. After several years of it she evolved into a flushed, nervous victim of her own technique. She managed, however, to preserve her self-esteem by looking upon the perversion of her normal sexual instincts into a species of verbal nymphomania as an indication of a superior soul state. Radical books excited her mind as ordinarily her body might have been excited by radical caresses. Amateur theatricals, publicity work for charitable organizations, ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... toward a pupil indicates a high degree of respect, the pupil's respect for himself is in danger of being weakened. A sarcastic attitude is even worse than a dogmatic one; beyond doubt, the proper self-esteem of many a young person has been permanently undermined by his teacher's sharp tongue; sarcasm ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... to set up. In connection with the rebellion, we had to deal with Mr. Davis more in his character as a soldier than a statesman. Mr. Davis was undoubtedly an able soldier. He was the head and front, the very life and soul of the men in the South. Born to those qualities of pride, self-esteem, and self-will, all of which produce confidence in the possessor, he grew up feeling himself superior, as he was, to the ordinary men of his age. He inherited at the same time great fixedness of purpose and determination; ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... fully to appreciate how long it was that she had rested there, moveless upon that secluded marble seat, spellbound in the preoccupation of those thoughts, at once long and sweet with the comfort of a solaced self-esteem, for which she had to thank the author of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... free from any desire to be admired, or love of being thought much of, as he was from love of commanding for the sake of being obeyed. The great temptations to missionaries among savage people, as it seems, are to self-esteem, from a comparison of themselves with their European advantages and the natives among whom they live; and to a domineering temper, because they find an obedience ready, and it is delightful to be obeyed. Bishop Patteson's natural disposition was averse to either, and the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... subtler and more elegant tongues. It is the powerful language of resistance—it is the dialect of common sense. It is the speech of the proud and melancholy races, and of all who aspire. It is the chosen tongue to express growth, faith, self-esteem, freedom, justice, equality, friendliness, amplitude, prudence, decision, and courage. It is the medium that shall ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... its object is the conservation of the human race, the happiness of the individual, the peace of mankind; its recompences are affection, esteem, and glory; or in their default, contentment of mind, with merited self-esteem, of which no power will ever be able to deprive virtuous mortals; its punishments, are hatred, contempt, and indignation; which society always reserves for those who outrage its interests; from which even the most powerful ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... point out to his countrymen the danger to be apprehended from factions and ill-balanced forms of government. In these essays he maintained that as the great spring of human activity, especially as related to public life, was self-esteem, manifested in the love of superiority and the desire of distinction, applause, and admiration, it was important in a popular government to provide for the moderate gratification of all of them. He therefore advocated a liberal use of titles and ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... David mightily. I shall have to tell him. He hasn't much self-esteem—it will do him good. I wonder why he likes me better than other girls," mused Polly. "There's Patricia—ever so much prettier than I am, and Leonora—right in the house—sweet as can be and delighted with his least attention. But no, he likes ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... not only because he was on better terms with Philip than himself could hope to be, but because he understood him better. John knew that there were two tender spots in that moody King, and he knew which was the tenderer, pardieu! So Conrad's gross finger, guided by John's, probed the raw of Philip's self-esteem, and found a rankling wound, very proud flesh. Oh, intolerable affront to the House of Capet, that a tall Angevin robber should take up and throw away a daughter of France, and then whistle you to a war ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... and only from the publick, is he to await a confirmation of his claim, and a final justification of self-esteem; but the publick is not easily persuaded to favour an author. If mankind were left to judge for themselves, it is reasonable to imagine, that of such writings, at least, as describe the movements of the human ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... that seemed quite dead in his heart. No more reading aloud now, of which he had been so fond; no more recitals of interesting or humorous scenes in office or street; no more wise opinions upon public events: all the boy's boyish conceit and self-esteem, germs in a strong character of worthy self— respect, seemed crushed out of him. Patient, humble, silent, one could hardly recognize in this Teddy Ginniss that other Teddy, whose cheery voice, frequent laugh, positive opinions and wishes, and good-humored self-satisfaction, had ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... St. John's to ship for the ice with the sealing fleet. Pausing on the crest of Black Cliff to survey the crossing to Scalawag Run, he came to a conclusion in relation to Peggy Lacey's letter that was not at all flattering to his self-esteem. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... Contrary, that in the Words Dishonour Shame, Ignominy, and whatever is dishonourable, there is an Intention, or Something imply'd, to displease and mortify those it concerns, on Account of that same Passion of Self-liking, and an Endeavour to lessen, contradict or destroy Self-Esteem, which is that good Opinion which Man has of himself ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... added, seeing my desperate plight, and relenting a little. "Say nothing to him of the tender passion, for he has lately been crossed in love, and is very sore about it. A certain Mistress Cary, to whom he was paying court, hath rejected him, and wounded him as much in his self-esteem as in his love, which, I fancy, was not great, but which, on that account, he is anxious to have appear even greater, as is ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... calmness, which deceived superficial observers. While incapable of taking offence herself, if she thought that she had inadvertently given even apparent cause of it to others, she never hesitated to ask pardon in the most humble manner even of the youngest Sister. No trace of self-reliance or self-esteem was ever seen in her. She was always ready to receive the suggestions and profit of the opinions even of those far inferior to her in every respect. It is recorded that when, consummated in virtue and experience, she was nearing ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... a man who is rendering up his final sigh; he could hardly utter the words of his response. His tone of voice gave the Prince the first consolation which his wounded pride had found during the interview, and this slight satisfaction helped him to a phrase which was comforting to his self-esteem:— ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner |
