"Self-denial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sudden smile; she had looked very much worried, for work or self-denial was distasteful, and yet it seemed so near. But now she smiled and nodded brightly, "I know what I will do, mama. I'll go on cultivating my voice and work hard, so that I may take a position in some city church, where everything is so elegant and ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... minister in his family. David's brothers and sister had also learned to look upon the lad as destined by Providence to bring holy honors upon the household. No thought of jealousy had marred their intended self-denial in their younger brother's behalf. Their stern Calvinism taught them that Jacob's and Jesse's families were not likely to be the only ones in which the younger sons should be chosen for vessels of honor; and Will Promoter, the eldest of the brothers, spoke for all, when he said, "Send Davie to Aberdeen, ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... She might profit by it in the end, but Ben would be the first beneficiary. It was an act of self-denial, for she was giving up a definite and certain good for a ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... nun continued to speak to the band of little girls, who had eagerly gathered around her; thus was she wont to teach them lessons of wisdom in a sprightly, gay, happy-hearted way, as if generosity, unselfishness and self-denial were the most natural traits imaginable, and the whole world fair because it is God's world, and we are all His children. Was it this spirit of joyousness which attracted young people especially to her, and gave her such an influence ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... directly upon the public! No private joy, no private sorrow, no rest, no change, is recognized by this taskmaster. It is well: on the whole we would not have it otherwise; because those who can minister to the great Public embrace their profession in a spirit of conscious or unconscious self-denial. In either case the result is the same: ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... things, but on the things of others—id opus est. "Seekest thou great things for thyself?" said the prophet; "seek them not." Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things can not be great. The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste. It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all, than, having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... she called to him with dejection and humility, We ought not to talk to thee for I am the cousin-wife of thy friend and companion Attaf, prince of generosity and devotion. If there be in thee any feeling of the self-denial of a man thou wilt do for him that which, in his devotion, he hath done for thee. When Ja'afar heard these words he became troubled and taking in the magnitude of the situation he said to the young lady, O thou! thou art then his cousin-wife? and said she, Yes! it ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... mind of youth with its impulsiveness that it is a privilege as well as a duty to present the body to God, as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable in his sight. That God gives man no law that is not for his best advantage, and that the interests of humanity, and the laws of purity and self-denial all lie in the same direction, and the man who does not take care of his body must fail to take the best care of his soul; for the body should be temple for God's holy spirit and the instrument to do his work, and we have no right ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... self-denial in painting portraits was not well rewarded, for commissions were few, and the clouds began to gather again. One of his sitters had to be appealed to for money for coals, and if such appeals were frequent, the scarcity ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... unusual degree of vanity, which had strengthened with years; though now she had too much sense and refinement to display it publicly. While generous and naturally warm-hearted, the elements of gentleness and patient self-denial for the sake of others at this time could scarcely have been ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... is ill-timed,' retorted the other in a suppressed tone and voice, 'and its subject ill-chosen. Reserve it for those who are your friends, and do not expend it on me. I lay no claim to the distinction, and have the self-denial ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... terrace was of livid stone unrelieved by any sculpture. The air was full of voices inculcating charity and self-denial, and others lamenting the sin of envy. Here envy was punished, and here the sharpest pain pierced Dante's heart as he saw the penitents sit shoulder to shoulder against the cliff, robed in sackcloth of the same livid color, their eyelids, through which bitter tears trickled, sewed together with wire. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... taunts. You, by self-denial and profound search into the highest of the higher Mysteries, have made yourself something wiser than human; I have preserved my humanity, and with it its powers and frailties; and it seems that each of us has his proper uses, or you ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... country once more to a position of proud independence. Added to all this, the seductive picture of future fame, of undying renown as a patriot and liberator, rose before his vision. Already, as hero of the Madonna della Scoperta, he had tasted the intoxication of martial glory. A strength and self-denial more than human seemed necessary if he would turn his back coldly on the splendid prospect that opened before him as his country's avenger and deliverer. What words can do justice to the conflicting emotions which Manasseh experienced ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... deny himself." "Deny himself"—what does that mean? Well, deny means to say "no," plainly and positively. Himself is the smoother English word for his self. Let him say "no" to his self. Please notice that Jesus is not speaking of what is commonly called self-denial. That is, repressing some desire for a time, sacrificing something temporarily in order to gain an advantage later. That sort of thing is not peculiar to the christian life, but is practiced by all classes, even among the lowest. He is not speaking of that, but of something ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... the captain of the Eastern Star had introduced those three,—who had never seen each other before—and told them that they would spend many months together among savages in the midst of terrestrial beauty, surrounded by mingled human depravity and goodness, self-denial and cruelty, fun and tragedy such as few men are fated to experience, they would have smiled at each other with good-natured scepticism and regarded their captain ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... the events of his life, if events they can be called, that chiefly consisted in the casual opportunities vouchsafed to him, of soothing some extraordinary sorrow; of recalling to the fold of Christ some wandering sinner, and of performing works of mercy and self-denial such as are seldom met with or even heard of in this luxurious and self-indulgent age. I will, therefore, revert to that hour of evening prayer which this chapter began by describing, as it will introduce us at once to the subject ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... the nucleus of the larger colony which would surely have followed them, for while they were willing to give up everything except religious liberty, they were human enough to regret having to abandon the improvements which they had made at the cost of so much labor and self-denial. The Church at large shared this feeling, and for many years watched and waited for an opportunity to re-open the work in Savannah, but without result. If the Trustees had even permitted the Moravians to stay as missionaries it might have saved the settlement to Georgia, ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... he said. "It's all right." He smoked in silence for a minute; then went on. "Why, 'content' is hardly the word for it. When I think what it was I wanted and what you've given me instead ...! It wasn't self-denial or any other high moral principle that kept me from flaring up when you took hold of me just now. It's because I've got a better thing. Something I wouldn't trade for all the love in the ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a sympathising way—she knew the joy of these small economies and contrivances; the little purse of savings had not been gathered together without some self-denial; but as she saw the lovely rainbow smile on Olivia's face, she felt that she ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... surrender you to another and to witness that other's happiness! Was not my self-denial perhaps a form of selfishness? I only shrank from love because I dreaded the reproaches of my own heart; I did good to no one, was only anxious to save myself. She—I dare not think of it! My nature is so weak. Take your love from me and you ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... brutal and tyrannical sovereign in the world. You have no longer to bear the "good pleasure" of the sovereign, but you have to endure the whims of the mob and the fancies of the Republic—the ruin of all good Government. A republic presupposes self-denial and a virtuous people; it cannot endure long in ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... proposition opened a door by which her point might be gained. "Well," said she, at last, with infinite self-denial, "if you think it is for Mr Gresham's advantage, and if he chooses to ask Dr Thorne, I will not ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... Catholic Church, those who avail themselves of the boon of Indulgences are usually her most practical, edifying and fervent children. Their spiritual growth far from being retarded, is quickened by the aid of Indulgences, which are usually accompanied by acts of contrition, devotion, self-denial and the ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... upon it as the most natural one in the world. I am not the devil's, because I fear God, and have at the bottom a principle of religion; then, on the other hand, I am not properly God's, because his law appears hard and irksome to me, and I cannot bring myself to acts of self-denial; so that altogether I am one of those called lukewarm Christians, the great number of which does not in the least surprise me, for I perfectly understand their sentiments, and the reasons that influence them. However, we are told that this is a state highly displeasing to God; ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... took these freedoms with me, it did not go to that which they call the last favour, which, to do him justice, he did not attempt; and he made that self-denial of his a plea for all his freedoms with me upon other occasions after this. When this was over, he stayed but a little while, but he put almost a handful of gold in my hand, and left me, making a thousand protestations of his passion for me, and of ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... at once, that Dr. and Mrs. Millar, though they were reckoned clever, sensible people enough by their contemporaries, had softer hearts than they had hard heads. They had not been used to painful self-denial and stern discipline, either where they themselves ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... transgressor, and exposes his folly to the world, with little less precision than certain vices signify their presence by a tobacco-tainted breath, beer-bloated body, rum-emblazoned nose, and kindred manifestations. They coddle themselves instead of practicing self-denial, and appear to think that the chief end of life is gratification, rather ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... humanity that even most of our actions are correct, but if we look closer at them we everywhere come upon the dear self which is always prominent, and it is this they have in view, and not the strict command of duty which would often require self-denial. Without being an enemy of virtue, a cool observer, one that does not mistake the wish for good, however lively, for its reality, may sometimes doubt whether true virtue is actually found anywhere in the world, and this especially as years increase and the judgment is partly made wiser ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... increasing wants of our growing city demanded more churches, but how many in the Second Presbyterian could obtain their own consent to exchange the comfort and ease of this elegant temple, which at length, after much self-denial of its members, was almost free from debt, and whose pulpit was adorned with the gifted and talented Dr. Potts! who could give up their cushioned and carpeted pews, the choice choir, the grand organ, and the many ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... court of life And pass through the hours of trial; He shall tested be by the rules of strife, And tried for his self-denial. Time shall bruise his soul with the loss of friends, And frighten him with disaster, But he shall find when the anguish ends That of ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... enforced by some external sanction. If, in short, Christians are to be regarded as more trustworthy and as living on a higher moral plane than the rest of the world, they must furnish stronger evidence of their sincerity than is now exacted from them, in the shape of plain and open self-denial. The church, in short, must be an organization held together by some stronger ties than enjoyment of weekly music and oratory in a pretty building, and alms-giving which entails no sacrifice and is often only a tickler of social vanity. There is in ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... proved it. I never knew her turned aside from what she had made up her mind to. I can hardly imagine her forsaking her friends to keep house for any man, even if she loved him with all her heart. She is dedicated as irrevocably as any nun, and will, with St. Paul, cling to the right of self-denial." ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... the rest of the party came up. General Wilders dismounted, flask in hand, and the wounded lad was rewarded for his self-denial. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... religion and his spirit approach nearer to Christianity than any other oriental faith, and doubtless his influence was great for the uplifting of the race, though it cannot be classed as technically educational. "Self-denial, virtuous life, suppression of all self-seeking, love for fellow-men," said he, "are cardinal virtues which bring blessedness to mankind." T. W. Rhys Davids says, "Buddha did not abolish castes, as no castes existed at his time." Had the spirit of his ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... taking particular notice of the globes, books, and mirrors. Their manners are remarkably gentle and unassuming. They are observant, and not without curiosity, but they require encouragement to induce them to come forward, being restrained, it would seem, by a genteel self-denial, from gratifying curiosity, lest it might be thought obtrusive. Their dress is singularly graceful; it consists of a loose flowing robe, with very wide sleeves, tied round the middle by a broad rich belt or girdle of wrought silk, a yellow cylindrical cap, and ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... such interest, but not before evoking a real love and gratitude in Darsie's heart. How thankful the girl was to remember that she had been able to cheer the last year of that lonely life, to recall every loving word and action, every tiny scrap of self-denial on her own part which had repaid in some small way the great gift to herself. Thankful and grateful she would be to the end of her life, but she was not, and had not even pretended to be, sorry ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... tenderness for Hazel and her following crept into his sermon. He spoke of the power of protection as almost the greatest good in life, the finest work. He said it was the inevitable reward of self-sacrifice, and that, if one were ready for self-denial, one could protect the beloved ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... which one wages war are generally selfish: and anyway that law is preferable to force as a method of settling disputes. As to whether National ideals can be Christian ideals, in the strict sense they can't very well: because so large a part of the Christian ideal lies in self-suppression and self-denial which of course can only find its worth in individual conduct and its meaning in the belief that this life is but a preparation for a future life: whereas National life is a thing of this world and ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... archives of ten centuries, in which are preserved the thoughts and opinions, the views and verdicts, the errors, transgressions, hopes, disappointments, customs, ideals, convictions, and sorrows of Israel—a work produced by the zeal and patience of thirty generations, laboring with a self-denial unparalleled in the history of literature. A work of this character assuredly deserves to be known. Unfortunately, the path to its understanding is blocked by peculiar linguistic and historical difficulties. Above all, explanations ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... of his affliction was that he was left almost penniless. With all the thrift, frugality, and self-denial of mother and aunt, they had been able to leave the youth hardly anything at all when they died. The humble home, with all its belongings, was sold for less than the mortgage, and Tom found himself with little besides the clothes he wore and a few precious mementoes ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... was actually coming to pass, and everything was in train for his going to one of the very best and healthiest of our colonies, there seemed little danger that even if Melcombe fell to him he should find the putting it from him a great act of self-denial. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... be considered exceptions, one can hardly tell why. The practice, however, is not uncommon, especially if there are more nouns than two, and each is emphatic; as, "Wonderful was the patience, fortitude, self-denial, and bravery of our ancestors."—Webster's Hist. of U. S., p. 118. "It is the very thing I would have you make out: for therein consists the form, and use, and nature of language."—Berkley's Alciphron, p. 161. "There is the proper noun, and the common noun. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... distiller in the country could make. Even the whisky itself gave her little relief; it seemed to scald both stomach and conscience, and she vowed never to take it again. But alas! this time is never the time for self-denial; it is always the next time. Abstinence is so much more pleasant to contemplate upon the other side of indulgence! Yet the struggles after betterment that many a drunkard has made in vain, would, had his aim been high enough, have saved his soul from death, and turned the charnel ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... prayer—those unswerving admonitions to consider the vanity of earthly treasures, and to prepare for death—which had sounded so unreal amidst the perfumed elegances of the chateau, came back now with a reality gained from experiment. The daily life of self-denial, the conversation garnished from Scripture and from the Fathers, had not, after all, been mere priestly affectations. In no symbolic manner, but literally, he had "watched for the coming of his Lord," and "taken up the cross daily;" and so, when the cross was laid on him, and when the voice spoke ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a man too helpless for a Frenchman, too ceremonious for an Englishman, too pliable for a Spaniard, too lively for a Dutchman, too cordial for an Italian, too modest for a Russian—a man pressing towards me with oblique bows, and doing homage with ineffable self-denial to all that seems of rank; then my heart, and the blood in my face, says, 'that is thy countryman.'" How true! and how often have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 398, November 14, 1829 • Various
... colonist, and the trained European who fought at his side, frequently expended months in struggling against the rapids of the streams, or in effecting the rugged passes of the mountains, in quest of an opportunity to exhibit their courage in a more martial conflict. But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... and fancies that all he has to do is to take no pains. Thus he thinks indeed simply, but the thoughts not being chosen with judgment, are not beautiful. He, it is true, expresses himself plainly, but flatly withal. Again, if a man of vivacity takes it into his head to write this way, what self-denial must he undergo, when bright points of wit occur to his fancy? How difficult will he find it to reject florid phrases, and pretty embellishments of style? So true it is, that simplicity of all things is ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... charms of existence would be destroyed—generosity, gratitude, and half the finer virtues would be unknown. The first principle of our religion, charity, could not be practised—pity would never be called forth—benevolence, your great organ, would be useless, and self-denial a blank letter. Were all equal in ability, there would be no instruction, no talent—no genius—nothing to admire, nothing to copy, to respect—nothing to rouse emulation or stimulate to praiseworthy ambition. Why, my dear father, what an idle, unprofitable, weary world would ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... highest gifts of intellect; if memory, perspicuity, perception, and genius; added to all the virtues, wisdom, benevolence, philanthropy, and self-denial; if to be the active friend of man and the declared enemy of error, and of that alone; if these can entitle him to esteem, admiration, reverence and praise, why then esteem, admiration, reverence and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... old priest, who said his beads well and made a desert around his pulpit by miserable preaching, criticise Father Hecker, who, he imagined, put too much reliance in man, and not enough in God. Father Hecker's piety, his assiduity in prayer, his personal habits of self-denial, repel the aspersion that he failed in reliance upon God. But my old priest—and he has in the church to-day, both in America and Europe, tens of thousands of counterparts—was more than half willing to see in all outputtings of human energy a lack of confidence ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... commonness of the every-day life of the mill hands and their families he lived and moved as Savonarola had moved and lived in the midst of the picturesque wickedness and splendidly coloured fanaticism of Italy in dim, rich centuries past; but his was the asceticism and stern self-denial of Savonarola without the uplifting power of passionate eloquence and fire which, through their tempest, awakened and shook human souls. He had no gifts of compelling fervor; he could not arouse or warm his hearers; he never touched them. He preached to them, he visited them at their ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... high standard of physical health. This does not mean the maximum of nourishment, combined with stimulants to compel a jaded appetite: on the contrary, artistic efficiency demands super-cleanliness and a tolerably rigid self-denial. Girth is no measure of artistic ability. But the body, sound or otherwise, is the instrument through which we play life's little tune, just as the pianist plays through his pianoforte. But when we have closed the pianoforte nobody supposes ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... for you are my friend, as he was. But what will the future be? I have been compelled all my life to center my thought upon books and music, friends, travel, and devotion to Uncle Tom. I have developed this power of concentration and self-denial; but would you bring me to live over again what I lived with Uncle Tom? Oh, my friend, no man can understand and fathom the maternal desire in a woman. It is a mystery which she ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... indeed, it was pretty plainly hinted to some of them that they would best prove their patriotism by using their especial knowledge in such a way as would most effectually prevent it. Boston set the example of self-denial and of resistance. In the December of 1773 three ships laden with tea arrived in her port. Their captains soon heard of the hostility to their mission, were soon warned of the dangers that awaited them. Alarmed at their perils, the captains declared their ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... cura were both as depraved as any of their dining companions. Any little reserve either might have shown upon ordinary occasions had disappeared after a few cups of wine; and none of them feared the company, which, on its part, stood as little in awe of them. The affectation of sanctity and self-denial was meant only for the simple poblanos and the simpler peons of the settlement. At the dinner-table it was occasionally assumed by one or the other, but only by way of joke,—to give point and piquancy ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... ferocity attributed to the natives was not so much a part of their personal character as the result of their habits and beliefs. They were remarkable for great energy of mind and body, foresight, and self-denial. Their average height was about five feet six inches, but men from six feet to six feet six inches were not uncommon. Their point of honour was revenge, and a man who remained quiet while the manes of his friend or relation were unappeased by the blood of ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... and good men have been anglers, as well as many men of a different description; but their goodness would have been complete, and their bravery of a more generous sort, had they possessed self-denial enough to look the argument in the face, and abstained from procuring themselves pleasure at the expense of a needless infliction. The charge is not answered by the favorite retorts about effeminacy, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... the incarnations of this kind that God has hitherto taken, the greatest and most solemn was that in which he appeared thirty centuries ago in Kachemire, under the name of Fot or Beddou, to preach the doctrines of self-denial ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... another that he is fond of him. And you would not wonder at my regard, if you only knew what a pure-minded, noble fellow this Cormac is,—so thoughtful, so self-sacrificing, for, you know, it must have cost him—it would cost any one—a terrible effort of self-denial to dwell in such a solitude as this for the sole purpose of nursing a stranger, and that stranger a doomed leper, as I thought at first, though God has seen ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... and mind and body what we should all be but for the lack of a little public spirit and self-denial (under proper guidance) during the last few hundred years on the part of a few thousand millions of ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... be so long and so bulky, and though Bunsen's life was a very full and active one in all matters of intellectual interest, and in some of practical interest also, we cannot help thinking that his biography would have gained by greater exercise of self-denial on the part of his biographer. It is altogether too prolix, and the distinction is not sufficiently observed between what is interesting simply to the Bunsen family and their friends, and what is interesting to the public. One of the points in which biographers, and the present author ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... of the day, having a roast fowl with bread sauce in her own room. The miser who starves himself and dies without an ounce of flesh on his bones, while his skinny head lies on a bag of gold, is after all, respectable. There has been a grand passion in his life, and that grandest work of man, self-denial. You cannot altogether despise one who has clothed himself with rags and fed himself with bone-scrapings, while broadcloth and ortolans were within his easy reach. But there are women, wives and mothers of families, who would give the bone-scrapings to their husbands and the bones to ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... husband; and she cannot help taking his friend, when she has lost him. Nor must it be forgotten, that the husband was the first to break the tie. We respect him more than we do her, because he was capable of greater self-denial; but if he himself preferred his friend to his love, we can hardly blame her (custom apart) for ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... offended by the exhalations of our misery. Yet are we God's creatures made in God's image like himself. What does he know of God? Religion he knows as he knows good wine, rich food, and soft women. He preaches self-denial as the way to heaven, and by his own tenets is he damned." He growled an obscene oath as he heaved the great oar forward. "A Christian I?" he cried, and laughed for the first time since he had been chained to that bench of agony. "I am ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... uselessness of the sacrifice came immediately into his mind. Of what use would it be? . . . He looked robust and was well-preserved for his age, but he was over seventy, and only the young make good soldiers. Combat is but one incident in the struggle. Equally necessary are the hardship and self-denial in the form of interminable marches, extremes of temperature, nights in the open air, shoveling earth, digging trenches, loading carts, suffering hunger. . . . No; it was too late. He could not even leave an illustrious name that might ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... it is your fish; try to play it out." No one but the good man himself knew what a tremendous effort of self-denial Mr Sudberry made on this occasion. But Fred felt certain that the fish would get off. He also knew that his father would give fifty pounds down on the spot to land a salmon: so he said firmly, "Father, if you don't take the rod, ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... rush, and lastly the overpowering cheers from all sides as he went on. To leave the scene where he has so long wielded at will the, alas! not fierce "democracie" (and it will be milder still without him!) must require immense self-control and self-denial. ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... assembled; but she hoped she should always have virtue enough to postpone any interested consideration, when it should happen to clash with the happiness of her friends. Finally, such was her modesty and self-denial that she industriously informed those whom it might concern, that she was no less than three years older than the bride; though had she added ten to the reckoning, she would have committed no mistake in point ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the frame where I was to be ornamented by her own pretty hands, she regarded me with a look of delight, nay, even of affection, that I shall never forget. As yet she felt none of the malign consequences of the self-denial she was about to exert. If not blooming, her cheeks still retained some of their native color, and her eye, thoughtful and even sad, was not yet anxious and sunken. She was pleased with her purchase, and she contemplated prodigies in the way of results. Adrienne ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... Bill Terriss!" said everybody who knew that his impecuniosity was due to the exactions and extravagancies of his wife and "Witchie."—"And what a bad thing for Frank Garrison!" was the echo. His intimates knew that he had "put by" through economy and self-denial about two thousand dollars, the extent of his fortune outside of his pay. "She'll make ducks and drakes of it in the six weeks' honeymoon," was the confident prophecy, and she probably did, for, despite the fact that he had ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... Burke, in his speech in favor of his Bill for Economical Reform, went even farther than Lord Camden, and blamed the House of Lords for rejecting Lord Shelburne's motion on such a ground. "They had gone," he said, "farther in self-denial than the utmost jealousy of the Commons could have required. A power of examining accounts, of censuring, correcting, and punishing the Commons had never, that he knew of, thought of denying to the Lords. ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... to allow his passion to flag, the Creole seemed at times touched with his attentions, and flattered by the terrible domination she exercised over him. Then, supposing that by proofs of his devotion and self-denial he could make her forget age and ugliness, she delighted to paint in glowing colors his reward when he ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... liberally to all except their creditors; and there are wives who will love all mankind better than their husbands. Duty is a familiar word which has little effect upon an ordinary mind; and as ordinary minds make a vast majority, we have acts of generosity, valour, self-denial, and bounty, where smaller pains would constitute greater virtues. Had William followed the common dictates of charity; had he adopted private pity, instead of public munificence; had he cast an eye at ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... attachment and admiration, Frederic politely but firmly declined. His camp was no place for amateur students of military science. The Prussian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The officers, while in the field, were expected to practise an abstemiousness and self-denial such as was hardly surpassed by the most rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, however high their rank in the service, they were not permitted to eat from anything better than pewter. It was ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the story of a celebrated Danish doctor, an optician, who became attracted to the Army, and, giving up his practice and position, entered its service with his wife. They said they wished to lead a life of real sacrifice and self-denial, and so, after going through a training like any other Cadets, were sent out to take charge of the medical work in Java. A recent report stated that this Officer had attended 16,000 patients in nine months, ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... suffering. This was the cause of the Cure's great anxiety, of his great solicitude. His friend Reynaud, where was he? Where was he? Then he called to mind the noble life of the country doctor, all made up of courage and self-denial; he recalled his death, above all his death, and ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy
... nor one who seemed more incapable of committing such a crime. The oaths and vows administered on initiation to secret societies are not directed only to political ends. They impose on the initiates in the most explicit terms a life of self-denial, and sometimes celibacy; and though these vows do not always avail against some of the worst forms of sensuality, it would be foolish and wrong to generalize from unworthy exceptions. In its moral aspects the revolt of young Bengal represents very frequently a healthy reaction against ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... foreknowledge of these outward events which, in the unbroken chain of cause and effect, act upon it, would suffice to enable us to foresee our future as readily as astronomers foresee eclipses of the sun and moon. Now if the root of all evil be individuality, the essence of all morality is self-denial; and no act performed for the purpose of obtaining happiness, temporal or eternal, is moral. The evil and pain, therefore, which befall us upon earth cannot be regarded as the retribution for the deeds ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... boy, I cannot. Since I drew that cheque I have felt strangely happy. I think this very small act of self-denial will bring me a blessing, and I don't wish to be deprived of it. Good-bye, Arthur; come to see me again at three, and I will take you ...
— The Palace Beautiful - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... proof of the force of the will that held it; and thus the effect should not establish the cause. But when I see a young man, brought up as your brother has been, throwing himself with such energy, self-denial, and courage into a task so laborious and obscure, I must own that, such is the construction of the human mind, I am led to reconsider the train of reasoning that has ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Silent, two heroes of ancient German stock, who had learned the arts of war and peace in the service of a foreign and haughty world-empire. Determination, concentration of purpose, constancy in calamity, elasticity almost preternatural, self-denial, consummate craft in political combinations, personal fortitude, and passionate patriotism, were the heroic elements in both. The ambition of each was subordinate to the cause which he served. Both refused the crown, although each, perhaps, contemplated, in the sequel, a Batavian realm of which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... it is to the common worldling to see these gentle beings thus living entirely for others, seeking no reward but that inspired by Christian promises and hopes. Nor is it mere drudgery and self-denial which constitute their great merit. When humanity calls from the midst of danger, whether in the shape of pestilence or of war, they are equally unfailing. It has been our lot to see a city taken by storm, the streets on fire and half-choked with ruins, and these ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 420, New Series, Jan. 17, 1852 • Various
... alone, the founders anticipate no hasty or numerous addition to their numbers. The kingdom of peace is entered only through the gates of self-denial; and felicity is the test and the reward of loyalty to the unswerving law ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... Theodoret) by the influence of his pious mother Anthusa. After his baptism (about 370) by Meletius, the bishop of Antioch, he gave up all his forensic prospects, and buried himself in an adjacent desert, where for nearly ten years he spent a life of ascetic self-denial and theological study, to which he was introduced by Diodorus, bishop of Tarsus, a famous scholar of the Antiochene type. Illness, however, compelled him to return to the world; and the authority of Meletius ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... maturity of spirit and judgment which comes by precept, by kindness, by study, by watching, and above all, by example. The numerous American commanders from all services who have been accorded special honor because they rose from the ranks have invariably made their careers by the extra work, self-denial and rigor which the truly good man does not hesitate to endure. The question facing every young officer is whether he, too, is willing to walk that road for the rewards, material and spiritual, which will ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... to have escaped with so gentle an admonition, returned to Lantza to resume his command. He was indeed more circumspect than in the past; but he found and seized the occasion to revenge himself on the town for the compulsory self-denial the Emperor had imposed on him. On his arrival he found in the suburbs a large number of recruits who had come from Paris in his absence; and it occurred to him to make them all enter the town, alleging that it was indispensable they should be drilled under his own ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... day, to render it possible for them to band together in a vowed brotherhood, to enforce, by strength of heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done, which it costs you pain ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... understand you, and I will not understand you," said Trenck gravely. "You laugh at me, and call me a silly boy, and I allow it. I know we cannot understand each other in such matters; you cannot conceive what strength, what self-denial, what energy I exert to make myself worthy of the pure, modest, and exalted love which Amelia has consecrated to me. You cannot comprehend how often my good and evil genius struggle for the mastery, how often I pray God to keep me from temptation. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... the palace: for I have wasted myself in building, hoping for peace, and there is no peace. Therefore now I shall fly from it, to another, sweeter work—not of building, but of destroying—not of Heaven, but of Hell—not of self-denial, but of reddest orgy. Constantinople—beware!' I tossed the chair aside, and with a stamp was on my feet: and as I stood—again, again—I heard: the startlingly sudden wrangle, the fierce, vulgar outbreak and voluble controversy, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... of country, and the better feelings of clanship are the chief grounds upon which a great people can be raised. These feelings are closely allied to self-denial, or a willingness on the part of each man to give up much for the good of the whole. By this, chiefly, public monuments are built, and citizens stand by one another in battle; and these feelings were certainly strong in Upper Egypt in the days of its greatness. But, when the throne ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... brain, a gewgaw of the fancy.(2) Yet to enable himself to put this scheme in execution, he had perhaps toiled and watched all his life, denied himself rest, food, pleasure, liberty, society, and persevered with the patience and self-denial of a martyr. I have insisted on this point the more, to show how much of the imaginary and speculative there is interfused even in those passions and purposes which have not the good of others for their object, and how ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... himself up to every form of effeminacy and dissipation. In a word, he was no longer the same man. The decision, the energy of character, the steady pursuit of great ends by prudence, forethought, patient effort, and self-denial, all disappeared; nothing now seemed to interest him but banquets, carousals, parties of pleasure, and whole days and nights spent in dissipation ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... that the sweetness, the solicitude, the subdued fondness which she afterwards displays, relative to the letter, are as true to the softness of her sex, as the generous self-denial with which she urges the departure of Bassanio, (having first given him a husband's right over herself and all her countless wealth,) is consistent with a reflecting mind, and a spirit at once tender, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... cannot be reached without the exercise of many virtues. There must have been prudence, self-denial, and temperance at the very least. According to the proverb, he that would be long an old man must begin early to be one, and the beginning early just means taking a great many precautions commonly neglected till ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... Theology. He may have been a man whose practice was not suitable to his principles, so that his character might injure the effect of his book, which he had written in a season of penitence. Or he may have been a man of rigid self-denial, so that he would have no reward for his pious labours while in this world, but refer it all ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... clamoring for bread. Even the king and the nobility sent their plate to the Mint. The exhaustion of the realm had become so complete that the haggard features of want seemed to be staring in even at the windows of the palace. Madame de Maintenon practiced so much self-denial as ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... majority of our people a disposition and a power peaceably to remedy abuses which have elsewhere caused the effusion of rivers of blood and the sacrifice of thousands of the human race. The result thus far is most honorable to the self-denial, the intelligence, and the patriotism of our citizens; it justifies the confident hope that they will carry through the reform which has been so well begun, and that they will go still further than they ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren • Martin van Buren
... as any other, without Injustice to any other; it is ever want of Breeding or Courage to be brow-beaten or elbow'd out of his honest Ambition. I have said often, Modesty must be an Act of the Will, and yet it always implies Self-Denial: For if a Man has an ardent Desire to do what is laudable for him to perform, and, from an unmanly Bashfulness, shrinks away, and lets his Merit languish in Silence, he ought not to be angry at the World ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... all alone, Kneeling on the floor of stone, Prayed the Monk in deep contrition For his sins of indecision, Prayed for greater self-denial In temptation and in trial; It was noonday by the dial, And the ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... it. To pray to him to change my will, is to seek from him what he seeks from me; it is to wish no longer to be human, it is to wish something other than what is, it is to wish disorder and evil."[343] We may admire both the logical consistency of such self-denial and the manliness which it would engender in the character that were strong enough to practise it. But a divinity who has conceded no right of petition is still further away from our lives than the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Ursuline convent, will have an important part to play in the following narrative. Being as hypocritical as Urbain was straightforward, his ambition was to gain wherever his name was known a reputation for exalted piety; he therefore affected in his life the asceticism of an anchorite and the self-denial of a saint. As he had much experience in ecclesiastical lawsuits, he looked on the chapter's loss of this one, of which he had in some sort guaranteed the success, as a personal humiliation, so that when Urbain gave himself airs of triumph and exacted the last letter of his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with immense self-denial, had answered: "No, I want to write a long letter to papa and my sisters. I won't come down again ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... condition continued to aggravate. The thought of death struck his heart with terror. Behind him, he left a life of selfishness and bigotry. No good deed, no act of self-denial to soften the pangs of ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... help us, we beseech Thee, that we may be of the sheep that hear the Shepherd's voice and follow Him. Strengthen our faith in that dear Lord who has laid down His life for us, that we may daily, by self-denial and self-sacrifice, lay down our lives for Him, and follow Him here in all the footsteps of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... literature, all parents cannot fill their children's home with papers, magazines, and books, but by means of school and Sunday-school libraries, by means of circulating book clubs, and by a little self-denial, earnest parents can feed hungry minds just as they feed ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... to the region of Brahma, which is supposed to be located within every heart. One reaches that region through penances and self-denial. The sense, of course, is that his is that pure felicity of the heart who has succeeded in driving off ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... of people who are kept poor because they are the victims of their own improvidence. It is no sin to be rich, and it is no sin to be poor. I protest against this outcry which I hear against those who, through economy and self-denial and assiduity, have come to large fortune. This bombardment of commercial success will never stop this quarrel ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... the same pious way,—to smell a rose without bothering ourselves about its having been made expressly to serve the turn of the essence-peddlers of Shiraz. We yield the more credit to Mr. White's self-denial in this respect, because his notes prove him to be capable of profound as well as delicate and sympathetic exegesis. Shakspeare himself has left us a pregnant satire on dogmatical and categorical esthetics (which ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... long did Sam Holt continue in Europe. Rambling over many countries, from the heather hills of Scotland and the deep fiords of Norway, to the Alhambra and the sunlit 'isles of Greece,' this grandson of a Suffolk peasant, elevated to the ranks of independence and intellectual culture by the wisdom and self-denial of his immediate ancestors, saw, and sketched, and intensely enjoyed the beauty with which God has clothed the Old World. And in that same sketch-book, his constant companion, there was one page ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... buoyancy of the morning. Would her sparkling gaiety endure, I wondered, through the monotonous days ahead, when poverty became, not a child's play, not a game tricked out by the imagination, but the sordid actuality of hard work and hourly self-denial? ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... plants for the home supply certainly should not hesitate to furnish their gardens as early in the summer as possible. To wait two years of our short lives for strawberries because the plants are a little cheaper in the spring is a phase of economy that suggests the moon. Such self-denial in a ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... because he was in a coup, warmly shut against the sharp, wholesome Christmas-week weather, and was wrapped to the chin in a long fur overcoat, which he wore that night as a duty to his family, with a conscience against taking cold and alarming them for his health. He now practised another piece of self-denial: he let the cabman drive rapidly past the interesting spectacle, and carry him to the house where he was going to fetch away the child from the Christmas party. He wished to be in good time, so as to save the child from anxiety about his coming; but he promised himself to stop, going ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Thirty-five years of struggle with poverty and temptation! Ever since that day in the blacksmith's shop in Norfolk, when he had heard the call of the Lord to go and preach His word, had he not striven to choke down his carnal nature,—to shut his eyes to all beauty and love,—to unmake himself, by self-denial, voluntary pain? Of what use was it? To-night his whole nature rebelled against this carnage before him,—his duty; scorned it as brutal; cried out for a life as peaceful and meek as that of Jesus, (as if that were not an absurdity in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... an experience of the highest order, like unto Saint Therese, though in symbols of mundane things. But that is the fault of the age more than yourself. With more practise your mind will exhibit even greater power. You must continue in the path. Who knows what you could do after years of self-denial, when a mere two weeks without cigarettes have ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... physical nature that you have to suppress; that you have always to regulate and coerce; that you have sometimes entirely to cast away and to do without, if you mean to be Jesus Christ's at all. The old law of self-denial, of subduing the animal nature, its passions, appetites, desires, is as true and as needful to-day as it ever was; and for us all it is essential to the loftiness and purity of our Christian life that our animal nature and our fleshly constitution should be well kept down under heel and subdued. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... articles of comfort or decoration for one and another of my seniors, or else changing books at the library, taking messages to other clerks in other offices, and otherwise laying myself out for the general good—a self-denial which brought me more kicks than halfpence, but which, all the same, served to establish my footing as a regular member of the Export fraternity at Merrett, Barnacle, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... beautiful, and it is a piece of self-denial to close the shutter, light my lamp, and write in my journal. Peace of mind came yesterday, positive happiness to-day, neither of which I can analyze. I only know I have not been so thoroughly content since the acquisition of my first jackknife; nor so proud since ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... in which you spend your money, as in every thing else, accustom yourself to a certain degree of self-denial. Do not buy any thing merely because it hits your fancy, and you think you should like to have it, but consider whether you cannot easily do without it. Be as liberal as you can reasonably afford to be in ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... against the divine character and government appeared in their true light. He had accused God of seeking merely the exaltation of Himself in requiring submission and obedience from His creatures, and had declared that while the Creator exacted self-denial from all others, He Himself practised no self-denial and made no sacrifice. Now it was seen that for the salvation of a fallen and sinful race, the Ruler of the universe had made the greatest sacrifice which love ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... valued most the qualities of bravery, endurance, and self-denial, used the gymnasia only as schools of training for the more sanguinary contests of war. So, too, the martial Roman despised those who practised gymnastics with any other object than as fitting them to be better ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... was hers, to read the admiration in Robin's eyes. She had no thought of disloyalty in claiming the credit that really belonged to the little mother who had dreamed the dream first for her girl and then, through years of work and self-denial, had lived for ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... repast. He had thought it too much trouble to murmur flatteries in great ladies' ears; he came where morning, noon, and night the inexorable demands of rigid rules compelled his incessant obedience, vigilance, activity, and self-denial. He had known nothing from his childhood up except an atmosphere of amusement, refinement, brilliancy, and idleness; he came where gnawing hunger, brutalized jest, ceaseless toil, coarse obscenity, agonized ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... was correct, and Shelton, placing some garments in the bath-room, invited his visitor to make himself at home. While the latter, then, was doing this, Shelton enjoyed the luxuries of self-denial, hunting up things he did not want, and laying them in two portmanteaus. This done, he waited for his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... one who is right, and who means to do right to the end, cost what it may. The peace that he promises is not immunity from pain or loss, or the gratification of the heart's earthly desires. His natural and earthly desires were not gratified; often ours cannot be. His peace came from self-denial for the good of others, from the consciousness that he was doing his Father's will, and from the assurance that good would come out of the seeming evil. Suffer he must, because he was human, and in a world of suffering; but he chose to suffer that we ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe |
