"Self-reliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... power of observation and the counterpoise it offered to hasty generalizations, as well as in the confidence which learnt to reject untenable fictions, whether produced by luxuriant imagination or by a priori speculations, on the similar ground of self-reliant sense-perception."(3) ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... brought up as you have been, crawling miserably about in the sloughs of poverty. Because I have seen the weaknesses of human nature and know that they exist in me—yes, and in you, for all your standing there so strong and arrogant and self-reliant. It is easy to talk of misery when one does not understand it. It is easy to be the martyr of an hour or a day. But to drag into a sordid and squalid martyrdom the woman one loves—well, the man does not live who would do it, if he knew what I know, had seen what I have seen. No, love ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... latest manner, both as regards style and feeling, and also as regards the method of execution by assistants, shows him to have been upon the verge of intellectual decline. While deploring Michelangelo's impracticability—that solitary, self-reliant, and exacting temperament which made him reject collaboration, and which doomed so much of his best work to incompleteness—we must remember that to the very end of his long life he produced nothing (except perhaps in architecture) which does not bear the seal and ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... did not readily accept progress beyond that to which he had been bred up; and in border lands like these, an unfavourable medium made much difference to the clearness of the sight. Clement's contempt for what had satisfied his father annoyed him: and his mind was self-reliant, his soul accustomed to find its requirements met by the system around him, and his character averse to intermeddling, so that it was against the grain with him that spiritual guidance should be sought outside the family, or, at any rate, outside ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lightly, yet with a certain under-meaning. As, however, Maurice Guest, on whom her words made a sympathetic impression, as of something strong and self-reliant—as he did not respond to it, she fell back on directness, and asked him what he had been doing when she met him, both on this day and the ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... transferred his allegiance to Buxtehude; from this he gradually developed courage and self-reliance until he fearlessly trusted himself in deep water, heedless of danger. And it is this fearless, self-reliant and self-sufficient quality that marks the work of every exceptional man in every line of art. "Here's to the man who dares," said Disraeli. All strong men begin by worshiping at a shrine, and if they continue ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... character of our rugged friend should suffer,) Jo entertained a most profound belief in the immense advantage of muscular strength and vigour in general, and of his own prowess in particular. Although not quite so gigantic a man as his captain, he was nearly so, and, being a bold self-reliant fellow, he felt persuaded in his own mind that he could thrash him, if need were. In fact, Jo was convinced that there was no living creature under the sun, human or otherwise, that walked upon two legs, that he could not pommel to death with more ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... olive pallor of a young peach. The independent stride was distinguishingly American. Ah, the charm of these women who are my countrywomen! They come, they go, alone, unattended, courageous without being bold, self-reliant without being rude; inimitable. In what an amiable frame of mind Nature must have been on the day she cast these molds! But I proceed. The young woman's chin was tilted, and Warburton could tell by the dilated nostrils that she ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... The self-contained, self-reliant young woman almost broke down when Mrs. Wallace took her in charge and hurried her to her room. They seemed to know all about her and to take her arrival as an ordinary occurrence and a very welcome one. Sucatash, of course, ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing," were astonished and delighted to find that a fresh sensation, a new pleasure, was in reserve for them in the uprising of an author, capable of depicting with accurate and Titanic power the strong, self-reliant, racy, and individual characters which were not, after all, extinct species, but lingered still in existence in the North. They thought that there was some exaggeration mixed with the peculiar ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... to you for your kindness to my mother," said Harry formally—no Joanna this time, no name at all. "I never saw my mother take so much to any one," he continued eagerly; "she is naturally a self-reliant, reserved woman; but she ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... first impulse would have been to evacuate the spot there and then, so that even if I were followed, my start would be a good one. But the last few days had changed me much. From being absolutely self-reliant, I had grown to be curiously dependent again. I shrank from taking a flight alone. And, moreover, there was another thing that held me back: I could not bear to rush away so suddenly from my companion. It seemed to me that if I deserted her then, I should never see that ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... life before you, away from friends, among all sorts of characters,—some good, it may be, many bad or indifferent, but no one probably on whom you may rely. You will be placed in difficult, often in dangerous situations, when you'll have only yourself, or Him who orders all things, to trust to. Be self-reliant; ever strive to do your duty; and don't be after troubling yourself about the consequences. You will be engaged in scenes of warfare and bloodshed. I have taken part in many such, and I know their horrors. War is a stern necessity. May you never love it for itself; but ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Jasmin was loyal, single-minded, self-reliant, patient, temperate, and utterly unselfish. He made all manner of sacrifices during his efforts in the cause of charity. Nothing was allowed to stand in the way of his missions on behalf of the poor. In his journey of fifty days in 1854, he went from Orthez—the country of Gaston ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... Hugh and Mrs. Gordon read Mr. Grant's letter at Kuryong, the train deposited at Tarrong a self-reliant young lady of about twenty, accompanied by nearly a truck-full of luggage—solid leather portmanteaux, canvas-covered bags, iron boxes, and so on—which produced a great sensation among the rustics. She was handsome enough to be called ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... did mention it, explaining that the only person really in fault was that odious destroyer of the peace of families, Colonel Osborne, of whom Lady Milborough, on that occasion, said some very severe things indeed. Poor dear Mrs. Trevelyan was foolish, obstinate, and self-reliant;—but as innocent as the babe unborn. That things would come right before long no one who knew the affair,—and she knew it from beginning to end,—could for a moment doubt. The real victim would be that sweetest of all girls, Nora Rowley. Mr. Glascock innocently asked why Nora Rowley should ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... ear first caught the step. Jenny's swifter feelings had sounded the depths of hope, of joy, of despair, before he entered the room. Jenny's pale face was the only one that met his, self-possessed and self-reliant, when he stood before them. An angry flush suffused even the pink roots of Rance's beard as he rose to his feet. An ominous fire sprang into Ridgeway's eyes, and a spasm of hate and scorn passed over the lower part ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... man; thin, of moderate height, with sharp grey eyes, a face clean shorn with the exception of a small whisker, with wiry, strong dark hair, which was already beginning to show a tinge of grey;—the very opposite in appearance to his late friend Sir Florian Eustace. He was quick, ready-witted, self-reliant, and not over scrupulous in the outward things of the world. He was desirous of doing his duty to others, but he was specially desirous that others should do their duty to him. He intended to get on in the world, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... bold-spirited; daring, audacious; fearless, dauntless, dreadless^, aweless; undaunted, unappalled, undismayed, unawed, unblanched, unabashed, unalarmed, unflinching, unshrinking^, unblanching^, unapprehensive; confident, self-reliant; bold as a lion, bold as brass. enterprising, adventurous; venturous, venturesome; dashing, chivalrous; soldierly &c (warlike) 722; heroic. fierce, savage; pugnacious &c (bellicose) 720. strong-minded, hardy, doughty; firm &c (stable) 150; determined &c (resolved) 604; dogged, indomitable &c ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... father wrote home from the Halifax station, covering a period of about twelve months from July 1817, I set out here as giving better than any comment of my own an account of his life and experiences in Nova Scotia at that time. They present a self-reliant character, and the young midshipman who was so early recognised by his superior officers as efficient and capable was found worthy of a small, but most important, command soon after joining this station. His father, ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... submitting herself to the task of repelling his advances. Where he was concerned, she feared her own weakness—she, who had endured the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go hang, that he would think for himself and take his happiness where he found it. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... lives, our liberty, and our happiness. It must be borne in mind that this nation is great not simply from the number of States it has held in union, but from its creative genius. We are told that this is the best expression of a republican form of government. It is so because it is self-sustaining, self-reliant, and therefore may be self-governing. The stern, smooth-faced Puritan fled from religious persecution in the Old World to find room for an idea in the New; and the planting of one religious idea has yielded a rich harvest of sects, each ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... The stockmen had confidence in him. He was direct, he was fearless; he was a good talker, sure of his ground, and, in the language of the Bad Lands, "he didn't take backwater from any one." He was self-reliant and he minded his own business; he was honest and he had no axe to grind. The ranchmen no doubt felt that in view of these qualities you might forget a man's youth and forgive his spectacles. They evidently did ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... America, whose extension of its federal system over a vast territory suggested what Brazil with its provinces might accomplish in the southern continent. Hence the vast majority of intelligent Brazilians felt that they had become self-reliant enough to establish a republic without fear of lapsing into the unfortunate experiences of ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... a child. "Elizabeth—Elizabeth!" but there was no response; only a sleepy bird stirred in the shrubbery. In spite of his great intimacy with the Kestons and his very real friendship, Malcolm did not confide in either of them. He was undemonstrative and self-reliant by nature, and, as he said himself afterwards, "There are some things that a man ought to keep to himself." But neither Amias nor ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... and there was much fun and laughter, as well as serious talk, among the four. Margaret was quickly accepted as a friend, and proved a delightful companion. Her wavy, jet-black hair, the only color in the world that could hold its own with Dorothy's auburn glory, framed features self-reliant and strong, yet of womanly softness; and in this genial atmosphere her quick tongue had a delicate wit and a facility of expression that delighted all three. Dorothy, after the manner of Southern women, became the hostess of this odd "party," as she styled it, and unconsciously ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... there suddenly came forward from the doorway of a tent on the outskirts of the crowd a stalwart woman, with a strong face and a self-reliant manner. She was still young, but her slightly pockmarked countenance showed the wear and tear of sorrow of some kind. She had, indeed, lost her husband and her father in the Montenegrin wars. Hastening forward to Fleda she reached out ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stamina, efficiency, executive power, consideration, kindliness, cheerfulness, self-reliance, good temper, good manners, tact, promptness, obedience, helpfulness, and cooperation. Camping has as good an effect on a boy's character as it has upon his health. It teaches him to be self-reliant, to look after his own wants, and not to be abnormally self-centered. It is marvellous how much more tidy and considerate a boy becomes after he has had a season in camp, looking after himself and his own belongings, as well as sharing in keeping his tent neat and clean, and having his part ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... questions of humane sentiment and the supreme interests of social legislation, I always felt in my intercourse with Lord Shaftesbury that it would have been impossible for him to act for long together in subordination to, or even in concert with, any political leader. Resolute, self-reliant, inflexible; hating compromise; never turning aside by a hair's-breadth from the path of duty; incapable of flattering high or low; dreading leaps in the dark, but dreading more than anything else the sacrifice of principle to party—he was essentially the type of politician who ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... picturing a free, industrious, self-reliant people swarming on the land that he has won from the sea and made fit for human uses. In the ecstasy of altruistic emotion he exclaims: "Such a throng I would fain see, standing with a free people on a free soil; I might say ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... his neighborhood, and asked a few questions. Everybody spoke well of the doctor, which, of course, might mean much or little, and I was fortunate enough to see him with his wife in a motor. He looked like a doctor, a forceful and self-reliant man, not one to lose his head or give himself away. He would be likely to carry through any enterprise he set his mind to. His wife, without being beautiful, was attractive, the kind of woman you begin to call pretty after you have known her a ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... These two self-reliant boys are living peaceably in their cabin on the Cuyahoga when an Indian warrior is found dead in the woods nearby. The Seneca accuses John of witchcraft. This means death at the stake if he is captured. ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... purpose never to give up the fight for perfection; which of these states would better facilitate the action of the Holy Spirit in the present Providence of God; and which of them would tend to produce a type of character fitted to evangelize a nation of independent and self-reliant men and women? ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... a rule, caring little for general society and devoted to his profession, the want in his life, the blank in his wifeless and childless home, was not to him what it would have been to a more impulsive, less self-reliant nature. If sometimes he instituted an involuntary comparison between his contracted hoped and interests as contrasted with those of other men, books, his work, his studies, soon consoled him. He hardly ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... there could be no better human stuff in the world than the quiet, sunburnt, disciplined men and officers he had met.... And our little army, too, must be gathering to-night, the little army that had been chastened and reborn in South Africa, that he was convinced was individually more gallant and self-reliant and capable than any other army in the world. He would have sneered or protested if he had heard another Englishman say that, but in his heart he held ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Jesus has shed the oil of His benediction on the poor in spirit. It is the men who form the exact antithesis to these characters who are addressed here. The 'stout-hearted' are those who, being untouched in conscience and ignorant of their sin, are self-reliant and almost defiant before God. That temper is branded here, though, of course, there is a sense in which a stout heart is a priceless possession, but that sort of stoutness of heart is best secured by the contrite of heart. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... many women faint. From her earliest youth she had always been the kind of person to whom every one instinctively turns in an emergency. When Mr. Stevenson was ill she understood what he wanted by the merest gesture, and was always calm, reassuring, and self-reliant, never breaking down until after the crisis was past. She was a most delightful nurse otherwise, too, for when her children were sick in bed she entertained them with cheerful stories to divert their minds, and when they were convalescent made ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... at his disposal a race capable of being the skirmish line of his march of civilization to wrest a continent from the wilderness. As trappers, hunters, and guides; as fishermen and slayers of whale and seal; as the light horseman, quick, brave, self-sustaining, and self-reliant, the Indian was capable of valuable services to a people who offered him but two alternatives—extinction, or a ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... protected them or enabled them to move westward. Colonists fresh from the old world, no matter how thrifty, steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their own on the frontier; they had to settle where they were protected from the Indians by a living barrier of bold and self-reliant American borderers.[45] The west would never have been settled save for the fierce courage and the eager desire to brave danger so characteristic of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of doing your chosen work to the very best of your ability, and do not for an instant doubt your own capabilities. Perhaps they may be dwarfed and enfeebled by years of morbid thought; but if you persist in a self-respecting and self-reliant and God-trusting course of thinking your powers will ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... was a man in many ways if he had but little need of a razor. Seeing other boys so seldom and being thrown so much with men had made him rather old for his years and more than ordinarily capable and self-reliant. He loved horses and was clever in managing them, breaking in many a colt that had tried the patience and courage of his elders. But his day dream for the past twelve months had been college. He had confided all his hopes and fears to Chicken Little. The love between the two was very ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... truth. But the case is very different with teachers of the common branches concerned in our present remarks. On these points the teacher ought to have a certainty and a readiness of knowledge, so as to be thoroughly self-reliant before the class. Teaching is like fighting. Self-reliance is ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... annoyances in reality is a different thing, and Elizabeth's sprang up from causes quite unforeseen, and from people whom she had never remembered. She had a calm, proud, self-reliant nature, but such natures are specially wounded by small stings; and Elizabeth brought home with her from her necessary daily investigations many a sore heart, and many a throbbing, nervous headache. All the spirit of her fathers was in her. She met insult and wrong with all their ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... part of the body being put into action by it Horse exercise is splendid for a girl; it improves the figure amazingly—it is most exhilarating and amusing; moreover, it gives her courage and makes her self-reliant Croquet develops and improves the muscles of the arms, beautifies the complexion, strengthens the back, and throws out the chest. Croquet is for girls and women what cricket is for boys and men—a glorious game. Croquet has improved both the health and the happiness of womankind more than ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... French peasant has great virtues, but he has the defects of his virtues, and his home life is far from idyllic. He is laborious, shrewd, enduring, frugal, self-reliant, sober, honest and capable of intense self-control for a distant reward; but that reward is property in land, in pursuit of which he may become as pitiless as ...
— The American Missionary — Vol. 44, No. 4, April, 1890 • Various
... experience of his great life, an experience which almost broke him. More than once the thought of Vittoria filled him with sudden dread. In her he had seen God and the world in one. The powerful effect of this on so self-reliant a character, a man who had been unable to find much sympathy with patrons and friends, to whom women had meant nothing, may easily be imagined. All at once he had found a centre, and more than that—a solution of all the discords of life, of the ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfully self-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... blame him for a sudden quaking in the region of his heart—such a fate is too terrible to calmly contemplate; but this qualm is only momentary, and then Doctor Chicago is himself again, brave and self-reliant. ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... breath of the Lord, the symbol of the one genial strength at the root of all life, resurrection, and growth—commonly called the Spirit of God.—Who has not seen, as the infirmities of age grow upon old men, the haughty, self-reliant spirit that had neglected, if not despised the gentle ministrations of love, grow as it were a little scared, and begin to look about for some kindness; begin to return the warm pressure of the hand, and to submit to be waited upon by the ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... himself (as if the question were necessary) whether he would be able to take away a keen mental photograph of those fine features—the clear and placid forehead, the strongly marked eyebrows, the calm, self-reliant eyes, the proud and yet not unsympathetic lines of the mouth. She came nearer; a smile lit up her face; and there was a kind of radiance there, he thought. He had leaped down from the wagonette: he went forward to meet ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... intense egotist, in the good and respectable sense of insisting on her own way of doing things, of settling for herself what it was that she was living for, and of treading the path with a firm and self-reliant step, yet Harriet Martineau was as little of an egotist as ever lived, in the poor and stifling sense of thinking of the perfecting of her own culture as in the least degree worthy of ranking among Ends-in-themselves. ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... told me some of the greatest yarns about what she did in an organization called the Girl Scouts. It certainly is interesting and a wonderful thing for girls. Teaches them all sorts of things, you know. Why, that child was more self-reliant than lots of the grown girls I know. You must be sure to have Rosanna join it, mother. She needs it, I feel sure. I scarcely know Rosanna, but her letters always had about as much originality as ...
— The Girl Scouts at Home - or Rosanna's Beautiful Day • Katherine Keene Galt
... by the average seminarian, let alone a Doctor of Divinity." He accepted the title of D. D. very reluctantly, being conscious that he did not deserve it. A feeling of the insufficiency of his education tormented him all through life. "It cannot be denied that he was industrious, self-reliant, ambitious, but withal, he was not a methodically trained man. At bottom, he was neither a philosopher nor a theologian, and at no time of his life, despite his efforts to acquire knowledge, did he show himself more than superficially equipped to grapple with serious and difficult ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... fail to?" said Aunt Susan. "Women are coming into their own, Alice. They're growing sensible and self-reliant. Look at our Grandmothers and at us. Do you notice the difference? And our grandchildren will be just as far ahead of us as we are of our grandmothers. Isn't ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... circumstance. Dismounting from the vehicle at the stage office, the too-confident traveler is apt to walk straight out of town under the impression that it lies in quite another direction. It is related that one of the tunnel men, two miles from town, met one of these self-reliant passengers with a carpetbag, umbrella, Harper's Magazine, and other evidences of "Civilization and Refinement," plodding along over the road he had just ridden, vainly endeavoring to find the ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... took a current of mental force more vitalizing than any stream of ideas from books, and that source was the superior intellect of his wife. Hardly could he make up his mind on any practical matter, unassisted by her thinking and advice. Doubly dependent, he was not the man to cope with the daring, self-reliant, versatile Aaron Burr. But once in his stronghold, bulwarked by standard editions, and, as it were, in the arsenal of established science, the philosopher rose to his best. He fairly glowed with learning's soft fire, while exhibiting ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... sorely taxed my gravity by using the bed for a temporary dumb waiter, the bushmen showed no embarrassment, simply because they felt none, and retained their self-possession with unconscious dignity. They sat among the buzzing swarms of flies, light-hearted and self-reliant, chatting of their daily lives of lonely vigils, of cattle-camps and stampedes, of dangers and privations, and I listened with a dawning consciousness that life "out-bush" is ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... he wrong? Could she honestly assure herself that Ralph was stronger, more self-reliant, more able to stand alone without the stimulus of constant support and encouragement? Instinctively Darsie's hand went up to touch the little golden brooch which fastened the lace collar of her blouse. If the anchor were withdrawn, would Ralph drift once ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Prohack." She smiled anew; and her smile, so clever, so self-reliant, so enigmatic, a little ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... a C.B. But Grey, it is needless to say, by thus trumping the trick of his opponent the General, did not improve his own relations with the Home authorities. He did, however, furnish another strong reason for a self-reliant policy. Ultimately, though gradually, the Imperial troops were withdrawn, and the colonists carried on the war with their own men, as well as their ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... known and observed ever since I first knew her. I held it in silence for a minute. Somehow I felt our positions were reversed to-day. This interview had suddenly brought out what I know now to be my own natural and inherent character—self-reliant, active, abounding in initiative. For four years I had been as a child in her hands, through mere force of circumstances. My true self came out ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... with no more of the recent stress in his voice. "And now I have talked to you about myself quite enough. But you must have my confession." He had now resumed entirely his half-playful tone. "I was just a little mistaken, you see too self-reliant, perhaps—when I supposed, in my first missionary ardor, that I could get on without any remembrance of the world at all. I found that I could not. And so I have taught the old operas to my choir—such ...
— The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories • Owen Wister
... give rein to his eagerness, to his high sense of expectation, while remaining innocent of impiety towards persons and places holding, until now, first claim on his obedience and affection. All this fell in admirably with his natural bent. Self-reliant, agreeably egotistical, convinced of the excellence of his social and mental equipment, Tom was saved from excess of conceit by a lively desire to please, an even more lively sense of humour, and an intelligence to which at this period nothing came ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... trouble to get away. But I promised to come back this afternoon, and, do you know, Aunt Caro, I had the queerest feeling this morning. I thought you wanted me, wanted me urgently. As if you could ever want anybody urgently, you self-reliant wonder." She gave the shoulder she was caressing an affectionate hug. "But it was odd, wasn't it? I nearly telephoned, and then I concluded you would think I had taken ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... saved, she may rest for a few weeks. If she has spent all her money, she must continue at work. Then, too, she should guard herself by the possession of a bank account against sickness, and being out of work. Even a small sum saved every week enables a girl to feel strong and self-reliant. The habit of saving calls for ...
— The Canadian Girl at Work - A Book of Vocational Guidance • Marjory MacMurchy
... charge of one of their offices in Spain. At any rate, he asked if you spoke Spanish well....So I can easily afford to increase your allowance to one hundred and fifty a month. More, if you should ask for it, but you are so proud and self-reliant I can do absolutely nothing with you, dear boy. I quite understand your unwillingness to accept more than you actually need from me. It is splendid, and I am very proud of you....This girl you wrote me about, ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... to hear of it, as possibly she would through one of the little Buttons, who might pick up the news in the street, he would be soundly beaten. But there was a chance of her not hearing, and he desired to be no more of a blight than he could help. So Paul, vagabond and self-reliant from his babyhood, turned up at the Sunday-school treat, hatless and coatless, his dirty little toes visible through the holes in his boots, and his shapeless and tattered breeches secured to his person by a single brace. The better-dressed ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... through clusters of mellow and translucent grapes. Yet our grasp of his mental situation at this point would not be complete, without recognition of the graver emotions that sometimes throbbed beneath the surface. The doubt, the hesitancy that sometimes must have weighed upon his lonely, self-reliant spirit with weary movelessness, and all the pain of awakening ambition and departing boyhood, seem to find a symbol in this ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... there are women. It will be rather painful. If you would—" He hesitated, and gave Antony a timid little smile, pathetic in so big and self-reliant a man. "Just your moral support, you know. It would ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... theorists before him, Piper attempted to chart the progress of human-kind; unlike most, however, he did not envision or try to create a system of ethics that would end all of humanity's problems. The best he could offer was his model of the self-reliant man: The man who "actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he's going to go right ahead and do it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... she had held aloof from manhood until now. At least no youth in her neighborhood had ever impressed her as her equal. Neither did Babcock so impress her; but he was different from the rest. He was not shy and unexpressive; he was buoyant and self-reliant, and yet he seemed to appreciate her quality ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... among friends or relatives, she stood by the weaker party, and by her earnest appeals and kindliness awoke latent affection, and healed all wounds. Open as day to melting charity, with a heart brimming with generous affection, yearning for sympathy, helpful, hopeful and self-reliant, such was Mary Wollstonecraft." And ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... over and saw what a lot of keen, fearless, and self-reliant men I was among, I was very proud to think that I was one of ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... is a bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until the last page shall have been reached. The tale is ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... conditions of the Sun-Moon organism alternate with others of a more physical nature. In such physical epochs human beings and those of the lower kingdoms appear as though they were preparing, in stiff not yet self-reliant forms, the type of what they were to become in a more independent manner during the Earth period. We may therefore speak of two preparatory epochs in the Moon evolution, and of two others during the ebb-tide. In occult science such epochs may be termed cycles.(20) ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... the atomic theory seized upon these observations of Gay-Lussac as lending strong support to their hypothesis—all of them, that is, but the curiously self-reliant and self-sufficient author of the atomic theory himself, who declined to accept the observations of the French chemist as valid. Yet the observations of Gay-Lussac were correct, as countless chemists since then have demonstrated anew, and his theory of combination by volumes ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... in his Cabinet, as his father had been in the Cabinet of President Lincoln. Like his father before him, he had ruled the Republican Party of Pennsylvania with a strong hand. He was not given to much speaking. He was an admirable executive officer, self-reliant, powerful, courageous and enterprising, with little respect for the discontent of subordinates. He was supported by a majority of the delegates from Pennsylvania, although Blaine, who was a native of that State, had a large following there. The New York ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... was a world of war. Tribe warred with tribe, and village with village; even within the village itself feuds parted household from household, and passions of hatred and vengeance were handed on from father to son. Their mood was above all a mood of fighting men, venturesome, self-reliant, proud, with a dash of hardness and cruelty in it, but ennobled by the virtues which spring from war, by personal courage and loyalty to plighted word, by a high and stern sense of manhood and the worth of man. ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... in another world, but from a pure sense of duty as a citizen of nature, as a patriot of the planet on which he dwells. This is no cold and cheerless philosophy; it is an elevating and ennobling ideal which may console him in his afflictions and teach him how to live and how to die. It is a self-reliant philosophy that makes a man intellectually free, and this mental emancipation allows him to face the world without fear of ghosts and gods. It relates solely to facts, while theism resorts to opinions that are grounded only upon emotionalism. Joseph Lewis has well noted that, "Atheism does not ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... Burmistone had not been timid at all, and would, indeed, as soon have met Lady Theobald as not, for which courage his companion admired him more than ever. It was not very long before to be with this hero re-assured her, and made her feel stronger and more self-reliant. She was never afraid to open her soft little heart to him, and show him innocently all its goodness, and ignorance of worldliness. She warmed and brightened under his kindly influence, and was often surprised ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... love of home and country is stubbornly, almost pathetically, strong. Isolation, pride of lineage, independence of government, antiquity of law and custom, and jealousy of imperial influence or action have combined to make a race self-reliant even to perverseness, proud and maybe vain, sincere almost to commonplaceness, unimaginative and reserved, with the melancholy born of monotony—for the life of the little country has coiled in upon itself, and the people ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... him a model boy. But there were some good points about him nevertheless. He was above doing anything mean or dishonorable. He would not steal, or cheat, or impose upon younger boys, but was frank and straight-forward, manly and self-reliant. His nature was a noble one, and had saved him from all mean faults. I hope my young readers will like him as I do, without being blind to his faults. Perhaps, although he was only a boot-black, they may find something in ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... brother's death is still so keen and vivid that if I am to write at all about him—and my duty in that respect is clear—it must be out of the fulness of my heart. My earliest recollections of him begin when I was a child and he was a bright, self-reliant lad in the home at Newcastle, the characteristics of which are with artless realism described in the opening pages of this book. It is the simple truth to say that we grew up in an atmosphere of love and duty. Our father was a man of studious habit, passing rich in the possession of a library ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... mind and heart; for the sweet sincerity of her disposition; for her loving, charitable thought; for her strength of character? because she is pitiful to the sinful, tender to the sorrowful, capable, self-reliant, modest, true-hearted? in brief, because she is the embodiment of ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... soon after going with them from post to post, to see that the men were well supplied with ammunition; and I could not help noticing that in spite of all they had gone through, they looked rested and self-reliant; quite ready in fact for a fresh ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those rewards of ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... the trees. The silence was broken only by the deep, distant, low roar of the Shawenegan Falls. Mr. Trenton sat in his place, while the half-breeds held the canoe steady. Miss Sommerton rose and stepped with firm, self-reliant tread on the landing. Without looking backward she proceeded up the steep hill, and disappeared among the dense foliage. Then Trenton leisurely got ...
— One Day's Courtship - The Heralds Of Fame • Robert Barr
... it and all things that moved upon it with passionate love, the only kind she was capable of. And all summer long she spent her days riding up and down the range alone, or with her father, or with Joe, or, best of all, with The Duke, her hero and her friend. So she grew up strong, wholesome and self-reliant, fearing nothing alive and as untamed as a ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... while throwing out a pittance in charity here and there, so Vanderbilt embodied in himself the qualities that capitalist society in mass practiced and glorified. "It was strong men," says Croffut, "whom he liked and sympathized with, not weak ones; the self-reliant, not the helpless. He felt that the solicitor of charity was always a lazy or drunken person, trying to live by plundering the sober and industrious." This malign distrust of fellow beings, this acrid cynicism of motives, this extraordinary imputation of evil designs on the part of the ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... on human agency, directed with earnestness, patience, and will, my mission will have a prosperous result," he replied. "It is to be my first entirely self-reliant experience, and I think the discipline of mind it will involve must strengthen me for higher professional work than any in which I have yet been engaged. You are aware, Doctor, that my heart ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... her eyes and nose became apparent to all. There was much chaff and fun, therefore, when Mrs. Rayner finally appeared, over the supposed affliction of the big Irishwoman at the prospect of parting with her patroness. Miss Travers saw with singular sensations that both the captain and her usually self-reliant sister were annoyed and embarrassed by the topic and strove to change it; but Foster's propensity for mimicry and his ability to imitate Mrs. Clancy's combined brogue and sniffle proved too much for their efforts. Kate was in a royally bad temper by the time the ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... ribbons, surrounded by luxuries that are the price of her dignity; one who pours her sorrows into the lover's ear—yes! I say they prefer such a one to a noble woman who bravely faces misery with proud resignation, who refuses the favors of those she despises, and calm, strong, self-reliant, waters with her tears her ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... family was induced to remove from Kelso to London. The position they occupied we have not learned; but young Hume is remembered as being a quick, intelligent, and most affectionate boy, eager, industrious, self-reliant, and with an occasional dash of independence that made him both feared and loved. He might have been persuaded to adopt almost any view, but an attempt at coercion only excited a spirit of antagonism. To use an old and familiar phrase, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... As Eleanor Millsap, self-reliant, self-sufficient and latterly self-supporting, the girl through the years had steadily been growing out of the domestic orbit which bounded the lives of her parents. As Mrs. Dallam Wybrant, bride of an up-and-coming ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... docile, and keep it in a condition of unremitted tutelage under the nurserymaid, the governess, the preparatory school, the secondary school, and the university, until it is an adult, you will produce, not a self-reliant, free, fully matured human being, but a grown-up schoolboy or schoolgirl, capable of nothing in the way of original or independent action except outbursts of naughtiness in the women and blackguardism in the men. That is ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... and I suppose we had better go home. But I like to watch those great trees over yonder. How strong and self-reliant they are. How proudly they lift their heads. What storms have swept over them, and yet they stand as erect as ever. They do not complain, but accept everything, whether sunshine or darkness, winter or summer, as a matter of course. They are friendly, ...
— The King's Arrow - A Tale of the United Empire Loyalists • H. A. Cody
... impulse to be of alien origin; Fuller alone, of all the great ones in our art, was in thought and action purely and simply American. The influence that led others into the error of imitation, seems to have been exerted unavailingly upon his self-reliant mind. We shall search vainly if we look elsewhere than within himself for the suggestions upon which his art was established. Superficial resemblances to other painters are sometimes to be noted in his works, but in governing principle and habit of thought ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... detail the experience of a party of boys among the mountain pines. They teach the young reader how to protect themselves against the elements, what to do and what to avoid, and above all to become self-reliant and ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... yield no wine until they are crushed, trampled, bereft of bloom, of rounded symmetry, of beautiful color; but the Lord of the Vineyard is entitled to His own. I was a very proud, self-reliant girl, impatient of poverty, daringly ambitious; and what I deemed a cruel fate, threw me into the vat, to be trodden under foot. It may be, that when the ferment ends, and time mellows all, the purple wine of my bruised ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... have been better boys, but I have never heard of them; and if Grant passed only his first seventeen years in his native state, they were years of as true a greatness relatively as any that followed. From the first he was self-reliant, and taught himself to trust to his own powers and resources. When seven years old, he got an unbroken colt from the stable in his father's absence, hitched it to a sled which he loaded with wood in the forest, and then drove home with a single line. He once wished to ride his father's pacer ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy" and the strong, self-reliant man whose fame had filled two continents, Gadshill Place was an immediate link. Everyone knows the story which Dickens tells of a vision of his former self meeting him on the ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... the mistake of neglecting Jacqueline's affairs. She had had her warning. Moreover, though she would have denied it even to herself, the younger girl had come to occupy a far larger share of her heart than had even been given to the self-reliant Jemima. She had felt, lately (and the thought frightened her) that in watching Jacqueline she was watching her own youth over again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and passion and unselfish ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... to make the boy base, if really so intended, aided to make him great. His morals were corrupted, his health was impaired, and his heart hardened by the excesses of his youth, but his removal from the palace atmosphere of flattery and effeminacy tended to make him self-reliant, while his free life in the country and the activity which it encouraged helped to develop the native energy ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the herd. They are essentially slavish, and accept the common determination, seeking no better lot than to be led by any one ox who has enough self-reliance to accept the position. The men who break in these animals for harness, watch assiduously for those who, by grazing apart, shew a self-reliant disposition, and these they train as fore-oxen. Mr. Galton adds that such animals are rare and valuable; and if many were born they would soon be eliminated, as lions are always on the look-out for the individuals which wander ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... Canada early in the century; and he himself had been governor of Louisiana. He had not the force of character which his position demanded, lacked decision in times of crisis; and though tenacious of authority, was more jealous in asserting than self-reliant in exercising it. One of his traits was a sensitive egotism, which made him forward to proclaim his own part in every success, and to throw on others the burden of every failure. He was facile by nature, and capable of being led by such as had ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... portrayers of the race, have come to represent the negro to the unfamiliar mind, as the typical Englishman is from the Punch-and-Judy figures which amuse him. The slave Nimbus in a white skin would have been considered a man of great physical power and endurance, earnest purpose, and quiet, self-reliant character. Such, in truth, he was. Except the whipping he had received when but a lad, by his master's orders, no blow had ever been struck him. Indeed, blows were rarely stricken on the plantations of Colonel ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... cash would be a dead loss and the claim might be repeated, whereas the conscript would get both pay and plunder out of government, while taking excellent care that government got precious little out of him. A shrewd, slow-spoken, self-reliant specimen, was Flint; yet something of the fresh flavor of the backwoods lingered in him still, as if Nature were loath to give him up, and left the mark of her motherly hand upon him, as she leaves it in a dry, pale lichen, on the bosom of ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... it of strength and manliness, with keen instincts of contempt for all that savoured of affectation and hollowness, and with a sort of largeness and freedom about it, both in its outlook and its discipline, which suited vigorous and self-reliant natures in an exciting time, when debate ran high and the gravest issues seemed to be presenting themselves to English society. The reformed system which has taken its place at Oxford criticises, not without some justice, the limitations of the older one; the narrow range of its interests, the ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... to Jane; but on this occasion, for the first time in her life, she felt real meaning in religious worship. Never before had she felt the sentiment of dependence, which is the primary sentiment of religion. She had been busy, and prosperous, and self-reliant; all she said and did had been considered good and wise; her position was good, her temper even, and her pleasures many. Now she was baffled and defeated on every side—disappointed in the present, and fearful of ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... she laughed. "I can't imagine using a cat-o'-nine-tails on them!" she exclaimed—and neither could I. I heard many similar comments. They are indubitably American, these sailors, youngsters with the stamp of our environment on their features, keen and self-reliant. I am not speaking now only of those who have enlisted since the war, but of those others, largely from the small towns and villages of our Middle West, who in the past dozen years or so have been recruited by ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... all right to give a poor devil a turkey. But are you anxious that he shall have as good a chance as you have to buy a turkey for himself? Are you really enthusiastic about so equalizing opportunities that by and by you shall be surrounded by happy, self-reliant people who have no ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... but your having to do for yourself has made you a stronger, more self-reliant fellow than I will ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... Trelawny could not altogether comfort or satisfy me at such moments. It was with a distinct sense of relief that I saw a new personality in the room in the shape of Nurse Kennedy. There was no doubt that that business-like, self-reliant, capable young woman added an element of security to such wild imaginings as my own. She had a quality of common sense that seemed to pervade everything around her, as though it were some kind of emanation. Up to that moment I had been building fancies around the sick man; so that finally all about ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... work, Aunt 'Viny brought up her dead sister's child in the way it should go, nor ever for one moment grudged her labor or her time. Neither did she spoil Content by over-indulgence; her good sense kept the child unharmed, taught her hardy and self-reliant habits, made her useful all the time, and, even if Nature had not been beforehand with her, would have made her happy. But 'Tenty had her father's firm and sunny character; she never cried but for good reason, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... 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 with the left hand what has been so generously given ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of those restless, nervous, energetic and self-reliant spirits who believe in themselves thoroughly, and make up in activity what they lack in method, was Colonel of the Harris Light, and the dawning glory of young Bayard's fame excited a spirit of emulation, if not of envy in his heart, which found ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... End of Boston is a suggestive illustration. The consideration which causes the most sober thought among earnest men to-day, is the entirely different class of immigration coming to us now from that of former times. In the earlier days of American history it was the intelligent, self-reliant part of the European communities who dared the expense and hardship of the long sea voyage by a sailing-vessel, and faced the exigencies of the New World. The immigrants of those days were mostly farmers and skilled mechanics, who brought with them the habit and prestige of success. But ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... not back, to the Golden Age, and is the prophet of science and evolution. If we compare his Titan with similar characters in Faust and Cain, we shall find this interesting difference,—that while Goethe's Titan is cultured and self-reliant, and Byron's stoic and hopeless, Shelley's hero is patient under torture, seeing help and hope beyond his suffering. And he marries Love that the earth may be peopled with superior beings who shall substitute brotherly love for the present laws and conventions of society. Such is his ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... forgetting even to close her window, at last threw herself, fully dressed, upon her bed. Her anxiety and fatigue had stupefied her and benumbed her faculties. What could ail her, thus to shiver and burn alternately, she who was always so calm and self-reliant, moving with so light a step that those about her were unconscious of her existence? Finally she sank into a fitful, broken slumber that brought with it no repose, in which was present still that persistent sensation of impending evil that filled ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of these has been the persistent demand for political rights, and the question naturally arises, "Why do these continue to be denied? Educated, property-owning, self-reliant and public-spirited, why are women still refused a voice in the Government? Citizens in the fullest sense of the word, why are they deprived of the suffrage in a country whose institutions rest upon ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the brutalized peon, the low caste chulo of Chihuahua, froze into the panic-stare of abject terror under the straight glance of her eye. The slightest motion of her tender hand to him augured a sudden death, for she was of Arizona's daughters, invulnerable in the armor of their self-reliant strength, a shield of lovely innocence, white as ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... was to prepare an integral American force which should be able to take the offensive in every respect. Accordingly, the development of a self-reliant infantry by thorough drill in the use of the rifle and in the tactics of open warfare was always uppermost. The plan of training after arrival in France allowed a division one month for acclimatization and instruction in small units from battalions down, a second month ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... known such a sudden utter confidence in any one, such a glow of eager friendliness as this half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives courage to the most self-reliant of us;" and somewhere in the words he was aware of a false note, but he did ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... confidence in anyone, such a glow of eager friendliness as this half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives courage to the most self-reliant of us"; and somewhere in the words he was aware of a false note, but he did not stop to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... had been jointly occupying in the temple; and it was at once apparent to the younger of the two that the troubles and difficulties with which Stukely had been wrestling were at an end, for he was once more his former self, frank, genial, self-reliant, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... sceptical as to her goodness. Without being in any way smug she was radiant with self-satisfaction and well-doing. A child of the people; an early riser; a help to her mother; a good angel to her father; a little mother to her brothers and sisters; cleanly in mind and body; self-reliant, full of faith, cheerful. ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... travel on a man whose heart is in the right place is that the mind is made more self-reliant: it becomes more confident of its own resources—there is greater presence of mind. The body is soon well-knit; the muscles of the limbs grow as hard as a board, and seem to have no fat; the countenance ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... is stem and unrelenting. It taxes all our energies. And yet it is exhilarating. There is a moral quick-wittedness which sees the smile behind the threatening mask of Fate. Destiny is after all a good comrade for the brave and the self-reliant. ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... my pupil, or rather Nature's pupil, he has been trained from the outset to be as self-reliant as possible, he has not formed the habit of constantly seeking help from others, still less of displaying his stores of learning. On the other hand, he exercises discrimination and forethought, he reasons about ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... intercourse with his parents and sisters, save through the medium of officially inspected letters. Returning now at last he found his mother in frail health, but his father still vigorous and active. Sister Christophine had grown into a strong and self-reliant young woman, the mainstay of the household. She took an interest in literature, loved her brother devotedly, had a sister's boundless faith in his genius, and now became his confidante and amanuensis. Another sister, Louise, had reached the age of fourteen, two others had died, and the youngest ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... newspapers. While his mind was keenly interested in great political questions, he could not endure the trivial treatment of them in the daily press, and cared far more for principles than for the incidents of party warfare. Here again he showed that impatience of detail, and that audacity of self-reliant genius, which were the source of both his weakness and his strength. He used to speak with aversion of a Parliamentary career, and told Hogg that though this had been suggested to him, as befitting his position, by the Duke of Norfolk, he could never bring himself to mix with the ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who loved their mistress, went about with melancholy faces and muffled voices; and the master of the house, hitherto so confident and self-reliant, presented to the world a stony front of silent desolation, for which nobody would have ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... an America living within and for herself alone, but we would have her self-reliant, independent, and ever nobler, stronger, and richer. Believing in our higher standards, reared through constitutional liberty and maintained opportunity, we invite the world to the same heights. But pride in things wrought is no reflex of a completed task. Common welfare is the goal of our national ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... his apprenticeship, his brother John David, was removed by death and an opportunity was presented of taking the stock and tools and carrying on the business. He was ambitious and his early experiences had made him self-reliant and courageous. The opening was promising, but he had neither money nor credit. In this exigency a partnership was formed with Mr. Samuel B. Melendy, who had some knowledge of the craft. With the beginning of the year 1821, the firm of Melendy and David raised a sign in Dock ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... older than her years, and during the period of time over which we have passed so briefly she had matured both in mind and body, until now at the age of twelve she was a self-reliant little woman on whom her mother wholly depended for comfort and counsel. Very rapidly was Mrs. Kennedy passing from the world, and as she felt the approach of death she leaned more and more upon her daughter, talking to her often of the future and commending Louis ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... was self-reliant, almost determined. He went to the piano, sat down, and played the scene Gillier had liked so much, the scene in which some of Said Hitani's curious songs were reproduced. The ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... nineteen years of age;[A] and, three years later, engaged in the same service, under Captain Ebenezer Eastman, of Pennycook.[B] Six years afterwards, in 1753, the muster rolls show him to have been a member of Captain John Goff's company, and doing like service.[C] Such was the training of a self-reliant mind and a hardy physique for the ranging service, in which they ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the Reformed religion attracted him; he studied the Scriptures in their original languages, and the writings of the fathers and schoolmen. Unhappily his perverse and self-reliant spirit led him into grievous errors with regard to the doctrine of the Trinity. In vain the gentle Reformer Oecolampadius at Basle reasoned with him. He must needs disseminate his opinions in a ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... certain cases as the first rule for honest men, and so forth, and so forth,—it was evident that he was always on the winning side merely from the fact that he played more sagaciously and coolly than the rest of us. And now it seemed that this self-reliant, careful player had been stripped not only of his money but of his effects, which marks the lowest depths of loss ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various |
