"Altruism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no fine glow of altruism at all, if he had rescued her for another man. Those things happened, they happened with dismal frequency. Billy distinctly recalled the experience of a college friend who had carried a girl out of a burning hotel, to have her wildly embrace an unstirring youth below. ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... freedom in becoming slaves to things, for those who wear soft raiment and live in kings' houses. Riches and pleasure seemed to him to be really greater tragedies than poverty or sorrow. And as for altruism, who knew better than he that it is vocation not volition that determines us, and that one cannot gather grapes of ...
— De Profundis • Oscar Wilde
... misgivings to 1889, and from which I drew strength and happiness amid all outer struggles and distress. And I shall ever remain grateful for the intellectual and moral training it gave me, for the self-reliance it nurtured, for the altruism it inculcated, for the deep feeling of the unity of man that it fostered, for the inspiration to work that it lent. And perhaps the chief debt of gratitude I owe to Freethought is that it left the mind ever open to new truth, encouraged ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... Altruism, therefore, is not a virtue. It is a means of self-preservation—without this degree of initiation into the boundless area of universal, or cosmic consciousness, we may not ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... shillings Nature has approximated a little more closely to the desired animal. Supporters of Hunting, again, will tell you, speaking from inside knowledge, that "the fox likes it," and one is left breathless at the thought of the altruism of the human race, which will devote so much time and money to amusing a small, bushy-tailed four-legged friend who might otherwise be bored. And the third member of the Triple Alliance, which has made England what it is, is Beer, and in support of Beer there is also a clich ready. Talk ...
— Not that it Matters • A. A. Milne
... it makes provision for laboratory religion where there is a working place for each member. Religion is a life and the college should be a society where this life may be lived in its fullest extent, encouraging practical altruism and giving the protection which an ideal society affords ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... yours to command," said the American, with a bow that included us both. And then the oculist suggested that we should have a look at Sholto. I led the way to the coach-house with a heavy heart. I should not have minded a mystery which would have endangered my own life. Apart from any altruism, the personal peril would have afforded a welcome stimulant. But this unseen horror, which stabbed in the dark and robbed my beautiful Myra of her sight, chilled my very soul. I climbed wearily up the wooden stair to Sholto's new den, carrying ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... intended, must tend directly toward social evolution, and the intense personalism which is a distinguishing mark of our civilization, and is clearly seen in our children, needs anointing with the oil of altruism. ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... social vertebrates, and has, therefore, like all social animals, two sets of duties—first to himself, and secondly to the society to which he belongs. The former are the behests of self-love, or egoism, the latter love for one's fellows, or altruism. The two sets of precepts are equally just, equally natural, and equally indispensable. If a man desires to have the advantage of living in an organized community, he has to consult not only his ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.
... stimulate each individual by an appeal to his own self-interest, to make himself as useful as possible to the community. In the second place, it would leave him perfectly free to labor in the service of the community for altruistic reasons, if there was any altruism in his nature. In the third place it would exercise a beneficial selective influence upon the stock or race, because the useful members would survive and perpetuate their kind and the useless and criminal members would ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... out as the basic principle which should guide the actions of your people the maxim that: 'Resistance to aggression is not simply justifiable but imperative, nonresistance hurts both Altruism ...
— A Letter to a Hindu • Leo Tolstoy
... leads only to intolerance of those whose methods differ. Altruism will not stand without ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... indeed such he may be called, represents the antithesis of the common offender, whose evil acts are the outcome of his ferocious and egotistical impulses, whereas criminals from passion are urged to violate the law by a pure spirit of altruism. In fact, they stand in no relation whatsoever to ordinary delinquents, and it is only by a legislative compromise that they are classed together. They represent the ultra-violet ray of the criminal ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... just have time to cast a casual eye over the "H's," and I didn't notice the name of "Henry" standing out in heavy-leaded capitals. It must be an inadvertence, of course. They must have said something about me, as, for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various
... dealt here with the extremes of extrospection and introspection, it is safe to say that in the vast majority of people there is a definite and unassailable interest in both of these directions. Interest in others is not altruism and interest in the self is not self-interest or egoism. But, on the whole, they who are not interested in others never become philanthropists; they who are not interested in things never become savants; and they who do not dig deep into ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... times in her history she has made war upon a would-be despot of the Continent, treating the 'Balance of Power' as a principle for which no sacrifice could be too great. In these struggles she assisted the small Powers, less from altruism than because their interest was her own. She supported Holland against Philip II of Spain and against Louis XIV; against Napoleon she supported not Holland only, but also Portugal and, to the best of her power, Switzerland ...
— Why We Are At War (2nd Edition, revised) • Members of the Oxford Faculty of Modern History
... Our altruism, such as it is, has nothing abstract about it. The successful man does not bother himself about things he cannot see. Do not talk about foreign missions to him. Try his less successful brother—the man who is not successful because you can talk over with him foreign missions ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... people have invented for Christianity. The Inner Light theory has vitriol sprayed upon it. Marcus Aurelius, it is explained, acted according to the Inner Light. "He gets up early in the morning, just as our own aristocrats leading the Simple Life get up early in the morning; because such altruism is much easier than stopping the games in the amphitheatre or giving the English people back their land." The present writer does not profess any ability to handle philosophic problems philosophically; it seems to him, however, that if Chesterton had been writing a few years later, ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... life. He is solitary and pure. Endowed with strong virtues, he becomes conceited. He lives among miserable people. He sees suffering. He has devotion without humanity. He has that sort of cold charity which is called altruism. He is not human because he ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... be seen that the duty of a man to lead a wise life, to be prudent, to make the most of his powers, to maintain a good name, is not a duty to himself, merely an enlightened selfishness, as it is now called, but a genuine form of altruism, a duty to others, as truly as if those others bore different names instead of succeeding to his name. It will be seen that a man's duty to his later selves is like the duty of a father to his helpless children: to provide for their inheritance, to see that he leaves them ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... said aloud, "I was right. There is a possibility that I can yet reincarnate these two warring principles of selfishness and altruism into one big-hearted, splendidly endowed human being. I must take the chances and do my best. Oh, man, man! How little you know what you are doing when you trifle with either your soul or your body! And what ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... his poems incite man to exist, to profess a becoming egotism, without which there can be no real altruism. ...
— Ezra Pound: His Metric and Poetry • T.S. Eliot
... of necessary detail to him and piloting him to England, Mr. Palford did not hold himself many degrees responsible. His theory of correct conduct assumed no form of altruism. He had formulated it even before he reached middle age. One of his fixed rules was to avoid the error of allowing sympathy or sentiment to hamper him with any unnecessary burden. Natural tendency of temperament had placed no obstacles in the way of his keeping this rule. ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and of positive politics, only the first was adopted by the learned world,—that part which justifieth, on new promises, the existent evil of human societies; but the second part, treating of the moral obligations of altruism, arising from the recognition of mankind as an organism, was regarded as not only of no importance, but as trivial and unscientific. It was a repetition of the same thing that had happened in the case of Kant's works. The "Critique of Pure Reason" was adopted by the scientific crowd; but ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... He could afford to have them, and he considered it a duty as well as a glorious privilege to pour his individuality into a new being. It was Nature's way from a true and healthy egoism towards altruism. But she travelled on another road and made jackets for the babies of strangers. Was that a better, a nobler thing to do? It stood for so much, and yet was nothing but fear of the burden of motherhood, and it was cheaper and less fatiguing to sit in the corner of a comfortable sofa and make ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... through the mind of Prince Michael, as he smiled under the stubble of his polychromatic beard. Lounging thus, clad as the poorest of mendicants in the parks, he loved to study humanity. He found in altruism more pleasure than his riches, his station and all the grosser sweets of life had given him. It was his chief solace and satisfaction to alleviate individual distress, to confer favours upon worthy ones who had need ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... years of living for himself and to himself, Andrew Malden had tried to be square with the world. Business was business with him. He made no concessions to any man; pity and altruism were not in his vocabulary. Unconsciously to himself, he had grown to be a very hard man, and the heart within him found it difficult to make itself felt through the calloused surface of his life. But with it all Andrew Malden had been honest. His word was as good ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... comply with them to the very letter. Let them know at once and remember always, that true Occultism or Theosophy is the "Great Renunciation of SELF," unconditionally and absolutely, in thought as in action. It is ALTRUISM, and it throws him who practises it out of calculation of the ranks of the living altogether. "Not for himself, but for the world, he lives," as soon as he has pledged himself to the work. Much is forgiven during the first years of probation. But, no sooner is he ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... social relations of nations (like those of individuals) always hide enmity and jealousy. We cannot expect, therefore, to create a moral spirit in the relations of peoples to one another by teaching alone. We cannot hope to change individualism to altruism merely by exciting feeling. Our main effort must be directed toward establishing ethical relations, rather than to stimulating ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... highly impressionable, the first cure that he succeeded in bringing about seemed to him a direct proof of his alliance with God. As Diderot has said, it is sometimes only necessary to be a little mad in order to prophesy and to enjoy poetic ecstasies; and in the case of Schlatter the flower of altruism which often blossoms in the hearts of such "madmen" was manifested in his complete lack of self-seeking and in his compassion for the poor and suffering which drew crowds around him. As to his miracles, we may—without attempting to explain them—state ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... would be true only in a very superficial and strictly qualified sense. In reality, just as there is eternal conflict between egoism and altruism, so there is conflict between the ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... Japan may hope to avert some of the social perils which menace her. Yet it appears inevitable that her approaching transformation must be coincident with a moral decline. Forced into the vast industrial competition of nation's whose civilisations were never based on altruism, she must eventually develop those qualities of which the comparative absence made all the wonderful charm of her life. The national character must continue to harden, as it has begun to harden already. But it should never be forgotten that Old Japan was quite as much in ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... dignity while protecting them against inheritance from their legal fathers. English philosophy, as I have shown, suffers by the fact that Herbert Spencer was too busy to permit himself any such romantic altruism—just as American literature gains enormously by the fact that Walt Whitman adventured, leaving seven sons behind him, three of whom are now well-known American poets and in the forefront of the ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... thing for America than for us. Mind you, I don't say we need America to help us to make war, but we do need her help if war is to be averted; and any move of such a nature on her part demands what you author fellows would call "a high degree of altruism." How's that, Durwent, for a chap who never reads anything ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... up a very serious obstacle, and debt and failure seem inevitable unless five hundred pounds can be collected quickly. Any reader of Punch moved to bestow alms on as sincere and deserving a a work of altruism as could be found is urged to send a donation to Miss CHARLES, Santa Claus Home, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 29th, 1920 • Various
... not yet known." In another place he throws in a side remark, thus: "Our almshouses, homes for imbeciles, and asylums where the hopelessly insane often outlive their keepers, may be a mistake, save as these things minister to the spirit of altruism which prompts their support. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... Ushas' most sanguine expectations. And here I would remark, that I found my chief stimulus to exertion to be one which had been completely wanting in my former experience. It consisted simply in this, that altruism had been substituted for egotism. Formerly, I made the most herculean spiritual effort to tide myself over the great period of danger—the middle of the fifth round. "That," as Mr Sinnett correctly says, "is the stupendous achievement of the adept as regards ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... perception. Ancestral lesions should bulk for them no bigger than any slightest taint of keyhole lassitude. For it is by thinking of ourselves that we die. It leads to rheums and indigestions and off we go. And even an ignoble altruism would save us. I know one old lady who has been preserved to us these thirty years by no other nostrum than a knot-hole appearing ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... growth of altruism or humanitarianism in the last thirty years, with the application of sincere sympathy as one of the possible solvents of the mystery of misery, it is strange that this book should have passed from the minds of men. The book ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... other ways risking his valuable life, all for the sake of his fellow-creatures, and in the hope of ultimately opening up the country. Was there ever a man more strongly actuated by the spirit of altruism? ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... with a burst of altruism, "it's this way. Gladys is as shallow as a pie-tin and a big cry baby and all that, but if she hadn't been like that her father wouldn't have wanted her to be a Camp Fire Girl and we never would have come to this camp. It's an ill wind, you know. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... yet raised, hands in hands, low voices in leafy places—man and woman together in the golden light, in the breathing space before the cannon should begin again—Richmond was growing used to that. All life was now in public. For the most part a clear altruism swayed the place and time, and in the glow smallness of comment or of thought was drowned. Certainly, it mattered not to Cleave and Judith that it was the Capitol Square, and that ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... defined us made us bond-servants of matter and force from birth to death though they drew back a little from the consequences of their own creeds and sought to save a place for moral freedom and responsibility and a defensible altruism. It is doubtful if they succeeded. Materialism affected greatly the practical conduct of life. It offered its own characteristic values; possession and pleasure became inevitably enough the end of action, and action itself, directed toward such ends, became the main business ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... illustrate again. The wild rose looked at simply as a thing of beauty and perfume becomes yet more interesting to the child who watches the bee gather its golden pollen and its luscious nectar. There is a bond of union now between the fragile flower and its winged guest that begets an altruism which later becomes normally the corner-stone of character. When the graceful tribute of the bee to the flower is presently understood, and the child learns that the seeds of the flower have to thank the bee for their life, the mind expands yet more, ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... customs, also are recorded evidences of the social condition of the people, the affection in which friends and kindred are held, the very beginnings of altruism in primitive life. ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... this last aspect of the boy's character that amazed and interested John Flint, who was himself too shrewd not to divine the sincerity, even the commonsense, of what Laurence called "applied Christianity." Altruism—and Slippy McGee! He ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... "My terrible altruism once more," she sighed. "I had meant not to speak another serious word, and yet I must. Maggie is very clever, amazingly clever, I sometimes think, but if she had the brains of all of her sex rolled into one, she would still be ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... employer. We may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. Altruism is nonsense, craziness. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of all real growth is altruism; and altruism, the inclination to think more of others than of yourself, came into the ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... The national group founded on race expansion. The functions of new groups. Great society and the social order. Great society protects voluntary organizations. The widening influence of the church. Growth of religious toleration. Altruism and democracy. Modern society a machine of great complexity. Interrelation of different parts of society. The progress of the race based on social opportunities. The ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... According to Herbert Spencer, the life of the individual in the perfect society is identical with that of the state: in other words, the first object of him who would live well must be to take his part in promoting the well-being of his fellows individually and collectively. Pure egoism and pure altruism are alike impracticable. For on the one hand unless the egoist's happiness is compatible to some extent with that of his fellows, their opposition will almost inevitably vitiate his perfect enjoyment; on the other hand, the altruist whose primary object is the good ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... stirrings of altruism, a ready sympathy, an instinct to help. Only he saw very clearly that he could not be of any benefit to even a limited circle of his fellow men when at every turn of his hand economic pressure bore so hard upon him as ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Queen Flavia, the strongly rebuilt Lamia, and several independent Space Viking ships, among them the Damnthing of his friend Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, who had volunteered to stay and help in the defense. This, of course, was not pure altruism. If Viktor attacked and had his fleet blown to Em-See-Square, Xochitl would lie open and unprotected, and there was enough loot on Xochitl to cram everybody's ships. Everybody's ships who had ships when the Battle of Tanith ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... in the Chailey scheme of altruism that arose from the War was, as readers of Punch will no doubt remember, the sudden establishment of the St. Nicholas Home for child victims of the air-raids. So sudden was it that within seven days of the inception ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... conservative journal to be an unassailable argument, supported by facts and figures, demonstrating the futility of the movements for international amity. I was hailed as a bold, clear thinker who had pricked the bubble of unintelligent altruism, who at a time when philanthropists were preaching disarmament had proved that men could never disarm as long as they were born with arms, legs and ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... Refugio are served compounds delightful to the palate of the man from Capricorn or Cancer. Altruism must halt the story thus long. On, diner, weary of the culinary subterfuges of the Gallic chef, hie thee to El Refugio! There only will you find a fish—bluefish, shad or pompano from the Gulf—baked after the Spanish method. Tomatoes give it color, individuality and soul; chili colorado bestows ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... plead four greater considerations: against personal glory, the economic cost of militarism; against the moral education of war, the higher heroism of peace; against class interests, the sanctity of human life; and against national egoism, the deeper spirit of national altruism. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... answered lightly. "But I do mean," she added, as he looked away from her, "that, whether it be the consequence of the altruism of the day, or of advancing age, as I said at first, it has grown to be provokingly difficult to ignore those who lose more serious things than a college championship. Verestchagin and such people ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... disinterestedness &c adj.; generosity; liberality, liberalism; altruism; benevolence &c 906; elevation, loftiness of purpose, exaltation, magnanimity; chivalry, chivalrous spirit; heroism, sublimity. self-denial, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, self-immolation, self-control ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... revolutionary principles, it is impossible to consider the decree of 19th November, offering assistance to malcontent peoples, as a meaningless display of emotion. Subsequent events threw a sinister light on it. The annexation of Savoy on 27th November was not a convincing proof of altruism; and the refusal of the Executive Council, on 8th and 9th December, to reconsider its decision on the Scheldt, marked a firm resolve to carry out French policy in the Pays Bas, even if it led to war with England. Now there came, as a damning corollary, the decree of 15th December, which ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... spiritual wants of the citizen, are we not neglecting the moral qualities that make nations enduring and the principles that must live when cities decay and dynasties cease to be? In fine are we not veering too far from the altruism of our fathers, in the apparent subordination of human rights to the acquisition of power and of wealth? This dangerous ambition breeds in our midst socialism and industrial unrest, exemplified in strikes and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... an aggressor. So Mr. Spencer is a most uncompromising opponent of State action, even education and public sanitation coming in for his condemnation. Moreover, he holds that if the social organism be let alone it will tend to a future state of society in which social altruism will be so developed that the individual will voluntarily sacrifice himself ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... boy that self-reliance which is so essential in the making of a life, that faith in others which is the foundation of society, that spirit of altruism which will make him want to be of service in helping other fellows, that consciousness of God as evidenced in His handiwork which will give him a basis of morality, enduring and reasonable, and a spirit of reverence for things sacred and eternal. He ought to have a better appreciation ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... I've had all the statements that I can absorb. What's behind 'em? That's what I want to know. Wait, I tell you! Don't insult my intelligence any more by telling me it's altruism, high-minded unselfishness in behalf of the people! I have heard others and myself talk that line of punk to a finish. Are you going to run for ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... railway, and bicycle path, ebbs and flows the middle-class population. And in the same direction lies the remedy for the tenement evil. In the cleansing country air the slum cannot exist. Improvement in road-beds and the means of locomotion, a tremor of altruism, a little legislation, and the city by day will sleep in ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... animals," temporary or permanent, and to the kind of morality that arose in them. Since then, naturalists have often insisted upon the importance of various forms of symbiosis. Kropotkin in "Mutual Aid" has chosen to enumerate many examples of altruism furnished by animals to mankind. Geddes and Thomson went so far as to maintain that "Each of the greater steps of progress is in fact associated with an increased measure of subordination of individual competition ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... Nazarene's doctrine of servile humility and effeminate peace. But the Christian nations of the earth were weighed in the balance of Divine wrath and found wanting. Wallowing in hypocrisy and ignorance, wanting in courage and valour; behind a pretence of altruism they cloaked their selfish ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... for life than they themselves have had. These last are the people whom it is worth while to help for their own sake. You will observe," says this cool-headed doctor, "that I am considering this matter entirely from the money point of view, without reference to religion or morals or altruism. The question, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' is far more important, I admit; but I confine myself to a lower plane—to the bread-and-butter aspects of municipal life. Great numbers of the incompetent, vicious, idle, deformed, or starved-brain class have been ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... would care no more about the world's future than one cares where the passengers in a train are going to, when we get out at a station. Who, on arriving at home, can lose himself in wondering where his fellow-travellers have got to? We have better things to do than that! That is the sham altruism. It is as if a boy at school, instead of learning his own lesson, spent his time in imploring the other boys to learn theirs. That is what we are whipped for—for not learning ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... explanation of Meyerbeer's 'good-nature,' of which he had once spoken, and he recalled with a smile the extraordinary questions I had put to him at the time. He was, however, quite alarmed when I gave him a very lucid explanation of the disinterestedness and conspicuous altruism of Mendelssohn in the service of art, of which he had spoken enthusiastically. In a conversation about Mendelssohn he had remarked how delightful it was to find a man able to make real sacrifices in order to free himself from a false position that was of no ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... her efforts to poison his mind against Sylvia while pretending to admire her! But I made allowances for Claire at this moment—realizing that the situation had been one to overstrain any woman's altruism. ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Nietzsche denied egoism simply by preaching it. To preach anything is to give it away. First, the egoist calls life a war without mercy, and then he takes the greatest possible trouble to drill his enemies in war. To preach egoism is to practise altruism. But however it began, the view is common enough in current literature. The main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they are makers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus Mr. Bernard ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton
... for many sorts of people to-day. What they call altruism is no discovery of Christianity, but its practice is. I freely admit that there is much honest and self-sacrificing beneficence and benevolence which are not connected, in the men who practice them, with faith in Jesus Christ. But I question very much whether these would have existed if the story ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... his altruism had detained him no longer for before he reached the spot where the dogs were to be quartered he heard a chorus of sharp yelps and saw what appeared to be a dozen dogs coming across the lawn accompanied by Mrs. ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... best thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be loved—she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... cosmic forces, whitewashing Mother Nature after Huxley's Romanes lecture! He told the truth, and Nature loved him for it; but now come hysterical religious ciphers who squeak boldly forth in print that Nature is the mother of altruism, that self-sacrifice is her first law! One genius observes that 'tis their cruelty and selfishness have arrested the progress of the tiger and the ape! Poor Nature! Never a word of shotguns in all this drivel, of course. Cruelty and selfishness! Qualities ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the gold river, we get half the loot, see? Forget the altruism of it—an old sea-dog has no business with a word like that, anyway. I know Houten, and I'll answer for his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... But altruism of this kind is a cold and barren consolation. Men do good by stealth now and then, men submit to misconstruction, but then it is always permitted to them to dream that, some day, an accident may bring the good or the truth to light. This was a hope which, by the ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... those who find no difference between the egoism of the will to power and the altruism of the will to fellowship. They assert that if egoism is given a wider range, so that the ego includes others, you have altruism, which therefore is only an egoism of a larger ego. However true this may be logically, for all practical purposes we may separate these two ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... too much to say that a very large proportion of our modern great properties, tramway systems, railways, gas-works, bread companies, have been created for their present owners the debenture holders and mortgagers, the great capitalists, by the unintentional altruism of that voluntary martyr, the ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... never been superseded. And since ethicists have nothing better to propose in the domain of conduct than what we find in the Gospel—since the "higher law," as formulated by Mr. Salter, reduces itself to altruism versus living for self—there is nothing harsh in saying that the ethical movement proposes merely to take over Christian morality minus its Christian setting. If a simile may be allowed, we should ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... and if he leaves the Woolsack to resume practice as a Junior. It is further rumoured that some of our judges intend to follow his august example. The atmosphere of the Bench is not always exhilarating, and the salary is fixed. But a self-effacing altruism doubtless also enters into ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... determined to replace the watch in the stranger's pocket. He did his best, but he was far more practised in removing than in replacing. The stranger—a hulking, cowardly brute—caught my brother with his hand in his pocket, and failed to grasp the altruism of his motives, and that is why poor Sunnie walks a ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain
... civilization, and a form of national and international altruism making for the betterment, not only of him who receives but as well of him who gives, was organized welfare work. The need of such work always existed; and the organization of trained and equipped auxiliary forces intelligently to perform it must have ever been ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... a very mysterious worker, and no one ever saw him constructing the hinges. Reports went round that the devil was helping him, that he had sold his soul to the King of Darkness in order to enlist his assistance in his work; an instance of aesthetic altruism almost commendable in its exotic zeal. Certain jealous artificers even went so far as to break off bits of the meandering iron, to test it, but with no result; they could not decide whether it was cast or wrought. Later a legend ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... a bud; that also is a part of God's plan. Thus, while the forces of egoism, the powers of capital, were concentrating in a vast organization of socialized individualism, the other forces and powers of society which were pointing toward a socialized altruism, were forming also. There was the man in the exquisite gray twill, harnessing Judge Van Dorn and Market Street to his will; and there was Grant Adams in faded overalls, harnessing labor to other wheels that were grinding ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... for days!" Jenny, trying with all her might to set the affair straight and satisfy everybody, was appealing to his vanity to salve his vanity. Alf saw himself recorded as a public benefactor. He perceived the true sublimity of altruism. ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... than the sentiment which one of his favourite writers, Thomas a Kempis, addresses to God: Amem te plus quam me, nec me nisi propter te. All education and all moral discipline should have but one object, to make altruism (a word of his own coming) predominate over egoism. If by this were only meant that egoism is bound, and should be taught, always to give way to the well-understood interests of enlarged altruism, no one who acknowledges any morality at all would object to the proposition. ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... Mrs. Jack sternly, "you may think about them as much as you like; I have no control over your mental processes, but if you mention single tax, or tenement-house reform, or Socialism, or altruism, or communism, or the sweating system, you will be dropped at Bideford. Atlas is only travelling with us because he needs complete moral and intellectual rest. I hope, oh, how I hope, that there isn't a social problem in Clovelly! It seems as if there couldn't ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... mutual inclusion of selves can obliterate the distinction between self and neighbor, and make my neighbor merely a part of myself. The common opinion of mankind is not at fault in basing upon the distinction between selves the further distinction between egoism and altruism. Whatever interests the egoist may have, his ultimate motive to action cannot be the recognition of the desire or will of another. Such can be the ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... I said; "but consider other cases. Why does a surgeon get out of bed on a winter's night to do an emergency operation at a hospital? He doesn't get paid for it. Do you think it is altruism?" ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... principles of democracy rather further than is usual. And Ascher is a financier. No one expects anything but enlightened greed from financiers. I belong by birth and education to an aristocracy, a class which is supposed to justify its existence by its altruism. There was no doubt a valuable lesson to be learned from these considerations. I fell asleep before I found out exactly ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... picture herself as a scourge of the unrighteous—she probably read up on Jael and Charlotte Corday and women like that. Her brain cracked. I'm not romancing, either. History is full of cold-blooded murders committed from motives of altruism. Common enough, both the cause and effect. Anyway, we have Janet's full confession coming to us—" He broke off short at an involuntary movement on the part of his friend—and abruptly a fear crept into his eyes. "Krech—what are ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... been always dissipated, however, when she recalled, as she did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul fighting in him to make of his enemy—of the man whose brother he had killed—a fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for himself. David's name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic reports and journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source she had learned that Nahoum Pasha was again ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... either disease crises or healing crises. Likewise, so long as ignorance, selfishness and self-indulgence continue to create evil in other domains of life, we must expect there also the occurrence of crises, of reaction and revolution. When knowledge, self-control and altruism become the sole motives of action, evil and the crises ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... essence of some new political philosophy, capable of being applied to the practical politics of his own day, or to busy himself with problems or economics? To us personally, of course, it is a matter of indifference how the historians of the twentieth century conduct themselves; but ought not our altruism to bear the strain of a hope that at least one of the band may avoid all these things, and, leaving political philosophy to the political philosopher and political economy to the political economist, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... He raised it to his lips. An almost-forgotten formula recurred to him. "Down the rat-hole!" he cried, and tilted his arm. The others followed suit, and the associate director watched them with a glow of perfect altruism. ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... an illustration of a different order, proving the truth of my contention that, excepting as a sphere for the exercise of altruism, the acquisition of new territories is an illusive gain. When Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain at the conclusion of a war in which China was defeated, it was a bare island containing only a few fishermen's huts. ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... necessary. What the stratagem was, I shall pass over; I will only say that it was not in accordance with any recognised form of the categorical imperative. However, the ruse succeeded, and now, as I have said, the car was empty. Thus were concluded the prolegomena to that great act of altruism which was to ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... one of the great lakes, and a prairie fire. Love is shown to be no respecter of persons, but is found faithful, pure, and delicate, in people who never heard of cosmic philosophy, or the term "altruism," who knew not the classics, who went sadly astray in grammar. Without direct preaching, the story shows that the way of the transgressor is hard, and that the hardness is ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... not an atom more of real Liberalism than is to be found among the ultramontane peasantry of the Tyrol." In politics Ibsen had now become a pagan; "I do not believe," he said, "in the emancipatory power of political measures, nor have I much confidence in the altruism and good will of those in power." This sense of the uselessness of effort is strongly marked in the course of the next work on which he was engaged, the very brilliant, but saturnine and sardonic tragi-comedy ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse
... same archives show us also that he found time for deeds of beneficence which endeared him to the people, who everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from thraldom. It would not be wise to join in the chorus of those who appear to have taken Cesare's altruism for granted. The rejection of the wild stories that picture him as a corrupt and murderous monster, utterly inhuman, and lay a dozen ghastly crimes to his account need not entail our viewing Cesare as an angel of deliverance, a divine ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... self-sacrificing devotion by the sight of genuine illness, was making it her duty to give her niece a little healthy exercise before going to bed. Cleopatra would have given a good deal to escape this determined altruism on her aunt's part, but Miss Mallowcoid was not so easily thwarted in the practice ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... worried, or forced the pace. And then Jill had disappeared! Gone was their pal, their little sister whom they had petted and spoiled from the day she too had appeared on a fat pony, gone without a trace, leaving these two honest souls, in a sudden unnecessary burst of altruism, to come to a mutual, unspoken understanding that their love must be laid aside in folds of soft tissue, that they must turn the key upon their treasure, until such time as definite news of the lost girl should allow them to bring it out with decency, and deck it with ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... case of the components of Hydra. Yet all the many-celled organisms that we are so accustomed to regard as individuals are really communities, demonstrating the existence and partial antithesis of the great laws of egoism and altruism, which are traceable even down to ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... sufferings are to help to bring about. If the doctrine is held in an extreme fatalistic form, then our duty is to resign ourselves cheerfully to sacrifices for the sake of unknown descendants, just as ordinary altruism enjoins the cheerful acceptance of sacrifices for the sake of living fellow-creatures. Winwood Reade indicated this when he wrote, "Our own prosperity is founded on the agonies of the past. Is it ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... thirteen. He loved with the same radiant enthusiasm that he gave to his music, and while some of his flirtations were of the utmost frivolity, such as his hilarious courtship of his pretty cousin, the "Baesle," he was capable of the completest altruism, and could turn aside from the aristocracy to lavish his idolatry upon the fifteen-year-old daughter of a poor music copyist, whose wife took in boarders. For this girl, Aloysia Weber, he wanted to give up his own ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... way from Aleppo down to Beersheba. Men like Dr. Bliss* have made such an impression that an occasional rotter might easily take advantage of it. Americans in this country—so far—stand for altruism without ulterior motive. If we'd accepted the mandate they might have found us out! Meanwhile, an American is safe." [*President of the American College at Beirut. Died 1920, probably more respected throughout the Near East than any ten men of any ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... sense like an opiate, lulling it to sleep and preventing it from rising up and becoming critical. If he had stolen a watch and chain, he would somehow have succeeded in convincing her that he had acted for the best under the dictates of a benevolent altruism. ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... impulse to that recognition which, as I believe, came from the life now peacefully closed, I shall be no doubt charged by some of you with old-fashioned narrowness if I reiterate my own earnest conviction that we can rely on nothing to bring about a thoroughgoing, a widely-diffused, and a permanent altruism—to use the modern word—except the force that comes from the motive which Jesus Christ Himself adduced, in this very conversation, when He said, 'I am among you as he that serveth.' There is our example, aye! and more than our example, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... old Greeks who christened it knew that it was the god-energy in the human machine. Without its driving force nothing worth doing has ever been done. It is man's dearest possession. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career—all these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of enthusiasm. A medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. Apart from it man's heart is seldom joyful. Therefore it should be husbanded with ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning. The illiberal letter of Swithin's uncle was suggesting to Lady Constantine an altruism whose thoroughness would probably have amazed that queer old gentleman into a withdrawal of the conditions that had induced it. To love St. Cleeve so far better than herself as this was to surpass the love of women as conventionally ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... always toward the praise of the woman in the case. And yet, the whole effort and viewpoint of the work will be found, I think, to be based upon a deep belief that one love is better than two, and that earnestness and honesty and altruism are more blessed and blissful, even with poverty and suffering, than any wealth of money, or of fame, or ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... rights shall prevail. One who really prays that this kingdom come will strive to hasten its coming by living according to the law of God. His effort will be to keep himself in harmony with the order of the kingdom, to subject the flesh to the spirit, selfishness to altruism, and to learn to love the things that God loves. To make the will of God supreme on earth as it is in heaven is to be allied with God in the affairs of life. There are many who profess belief that as God is omnipotent, all that is is according to His will. Such ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... odd," said the Settlement worker, dull color flooding her sallow skin, "for a man to turn his back on greed and gain and devote his life to altruism——" ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... so repugnant to his lips. He was in a state of revolt against himself, his self-betrayal, to realize that she and the two Briscoes could not fail to mark his confusion, attributing his emotion to whatsoever cause they would. Indeed, in the genial altruism of host, Briscoe had succeeded in breaking from the thrall of embarrassment to shield and save ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... — N. disinterestedness &c. adj.; generosity; liberality, liberalism; altruism; benevolence &c. 906; elevation, loftiness of purpose, exaltation, magnanimity; chivalry, chivalrous ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... designates that distinguished body of men, the Army Service Corps. A prolonged diet of plum-and-apple jam has implanted in the breasts of the men in the trenches certain dark and unworthy suspicions concerning the entire altruism of those responsible for the distribution ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... of each brother or sister.[5314] Evidently, with these men and with these women, the ordinary balance of motives which prompt people is reversed; in the inward balance of the scale it is no longer selfishness which prevails against altruism, but the love of others which prevails against selfishness.—Let us look at one of their institutions just at the moment of its formation and see how the preponderance passes over from the egoistic to the social instinct. The first thing we always find at the origin ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... one-syllable word in the vocabulary of Christ is, "Be of use." The problem of living, as Arthur saw vividly, was not how to get yourself through the world unhurt, but how to do the most for some one besides yourself while you are in the world; and this attitude is otherness, altruism. Nurture strength to use. Pass your might on. Knighthood was to serve everybody else first, after the fashion of the Founder of knighthood, even Christ, "who came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister." King Arthur served. Play battles ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... which colonial life in the tropics imposed upon all alike. The touch of cruelty here revealed produces an impression which there is little in the entire work capable of modifying. Labat seems to have possessed but a very small quantity of altruism; his cynicism on the subject of animal suffering is not offset by any visible sympathy with human pain;—he never compassionates: you may seek in vain through all his pages for one gleam of the goodness of gentle Pre Du Tertre, who, filled with intense pity ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... there are no measures, and there is, therefore, not so much competition to achieve these ideals. For the difference between the higher and the lower motives is not, as men often assert, a difference between altruism and selfishness. [Footnote: Cf. Ch. XII] It is a difference between acting for easily understood aims, and for aims that are obscure and vague. Exhort a man to make more profit than his neighbor, and he knows at what to aim. Exhort him to render more social service, and how is he ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of his conversations is selfish and worldly-wise to a degree, with nowhere the slightest suggestion of ideality or altruism. ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... have, however, recognized that virtue, morality, the ethical evolution, cannot be an end in itself, but must be a means to some other end. Effort directed toward other, altruism in any form, must have its final measurement of value in terms of self; otherwise the immutable principles of justice are attacked. I cannot enlarge upon this point, and will content myself with a reference to Prof. Steinthal's admirable essay on "The Idea of ethical ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... calm, statuesque face, whereon no trace of envy appeared, caught Hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the passionate egotism of ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... absorbing engagements to plead as a reason for his inability to 'ang about all day for parties to make up their minds—the usurper's plea, by-the-by, for a coup d'etat—so perhaps some emissary might be found, to drop round to the shop to leave word. This young man was anxious to oblige, but altruism had its limits. Just then a knock at the door below led to Dave receiving instructions to sift it and make sure it wasn't a mistake, before a senior should descend to take it up seriously. It was ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... great worldly environment in which they and we all are placed. Hence, from the extension of infancy, through a period of long years, proceeds at last from the hearts which are subjected to its influence the noble thing which we call altruism: love for others than ourselves and the other high spiritual instincts which are the crown of human nature. The recognition of the extension of infancy as the source from which in our slow evolution comes the brightest thing in the universe belongs to our own time. It is perhaps the climax of ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... than I am. But, Dion, I'm seeing a longish way to-night, farther than I've seen before. Love's a great business, the greatest business in life. Ambition, and greed, and vanity, and altruism, and even fanaticism, must give place when it's on hand, when it harnesses its winged horses to a man's car and swings him away to ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... learn to qualify and govern temper by love in order to save it from hatred. When the irritating object is a personal one the rights, the well-being, of that one must gain some consideration. There will be but little feeling of altruism in children under thirteen; we must not expect it; but egoism is one way to an understanding of the rights, the feelings, and needs of others. The child can put himself in the other's place. He is capable of affection; he loves and is willing to sacrifice for those he loves, ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... woman cannot bear to hurt a man's feelings by letting him know that he is killing her by his stupidity. And even if she did, in the noble spirit of altruism, rather than selfishness, the next woman, with one reproachful glance at her, would pick up the mutilated remains of the man's vanity and apply the splints of her respectful attention and the balm of her admiration, partly to add a new scalp to ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... always been to see people happy. Was not that why he wished to go away with Evelyn? A particularly foolish woman had once told him that she liked going out hunting because she liked to see people amused.... He did not pretend to such altruism as hers, and he remembered how he used to watch for her at the window as she came across the square with her dog. But Evelyn was quite different. He could not have her to luncheon or tea, and send her back to her father. Somehow, it would not seem fair to her. No; he must break with her, or they ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... of the species—as existing in an animal which is not conscious of a self, these appetites will neither be selfish nor unselfish in the sense in which we apply these terms to man. Where there is no ego there can be no alter-ego, and therefore neither egoism nor altruism. The idea of the self as a permanent unity to which all the different tendencies are referred, and the rise in consequence of a new desire of pleasure, distinct from the desires of particular objects, are essential to egoism. The idea of an alter-ego, i.e., of a community with others which ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... incased our souls. I'm afraid it will be a slower process. We must free ourselves from within. I believe we are moving toward some sort of a socialistic state. No man with eyes in his head can help seeing that. But we'll move a step at a time, and only so fast as the love and altruism inside us can be organized ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... should have exchanged his life for that of a little Polish defective. I can even see you talking about the greatest good of the greatest number. You would have loved the paradox of it; the mistaken martyr, self-preservation the greatest altruism, and all the rest of it. But because Ferguson did exactly what you would have said in your article that he ought to have done, you are in a state of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... me hasten to add that these men claim no especial merit for their altruism and unselfishness. They do not pose before the world as philanthropists. They do not strut about and preen themselves as who would say: "See what a noble man am I! See how I sacrifice myself for the welfare of society!" The attitude of cant and pose is entirely alien to the ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... the authority of one chief—Old Eskiminzin, one of the most blood-thirsty and vindictive of all the old Apache leaders. The Government fed these Apaches well during the winter in return for pledges they made to keep the peace. This was due to the altruism of some mistaken gentlemen in the councils of authority in the East, who knew nothing of conditions in the Territory and who wrongly believed that the word of an Apache Indian would hold good. We, ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... the dogma which measures progress by increase in altruism, kindliness, peaceful feelings, there is no reason that I know of to suppose that the basic fund of these emotions has increased appreciably in thousands and thousands of years. Man is equipped with these feelings at birth, as well as with emotions of fear, anger, emulation, and resentment. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park |
