"Self-esteem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will be obliterated—every vestige of them. The wind, the rain, and dust will do this. How is their trail to be taken up? "That will be easy enough," says one, whose self-esteem is greater than his prairie experience. He adds: "As they're going due west, we can't make any mistake by steering the ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Markovna was delighted when she came to town. There was no one with whom she liked more to drink coffee, no one to whom she gave her confidence in the same degree; they shared the same liking for household management, the same deep-rooted self-esteem and the ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... for her an unconscious business. After several years of it she evolved into a flushed, nervous victim of her own technique. She managed, however, to preserve her self-esteem by looking upon the perversion of her normal sexual instincts into a species of verbal nymphomania as an indication of a superior soul state. Radical books excited her mind as ordinarily her body might have been excited by radical caresses. Amateur ...
— Erik Dorn • Ben Hecht
... ran up the garden path with her self-esteem thus agreeably restored, she had not the faintest idea that she had just passed by that rarest thing in life—a ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... must have cut him deeply in a man's tenderest spot—his self-esteem. But just how well she had gauged the look and possibilities of Mr. Andrew Bush, Hazel ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... daughter-in-law, then in a dying state abroad. After that day, I met them frequently, and was at their house, when I could go. On occasion of my first visit, I was struck by an incident which explained the ridicule we have all heard thrown on the old poet for a self-esteem which he was merely too simple to hide. Nothing could be easier than to make a quiz of what he said to me; but to me it seemed delightful. As he at once talked of his poems, I thought I might; and I observed that he might be interested in knowing which of his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... education, the son of a simple farmer, and incapable of competing with me in anything, having over me but the advantage of dawning manhood, did not appear to me a fit person to be preferred to me; my young self-esteem whispered that I was above him. I began to nurse a feeling of pride mixed with contempt which told against Bettina, whom I loved unknown to myself. She soon guessed it from the way I would receive her caresses, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... in history was so sublime a vanity revealed; and it is hard for a stranger to understand upon what it is based. Chicago is Chicago—that is what its citizens say, with a flattered smile, which makes argument useless. Its dirt and dust do not disconcert its self-esteem. The oversized ugliness of its buildings are no disappointment to its candid soul, and if its peculiar virtue escape your observation, so much the worse for you. "The marvellous city of the West"—that is its own name, and it lives ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... and it was natural that he should read her changing behaviour for something other than it was. A man of his type asks for no advance from the woman; the woman he loves does not make them; but at the same time he has a natural self-esteem, and believes readily in his power to win the return he ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... referred,—Bowditch, Davy, and Buxton. From their childhood they thought for themselves, so that, when they became men, they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... apology and self-condemnation that I uttered she silenced me by laying the whole blame upon the anxiety and fatigue to which I had been of late exposed; and when at length she had salved the wound inflicted upon my self-esteem by my recent loss of self-control, she set about the task of coaxing me to yield with at least an apparent good grace to the demands of the men— seeing that we were completely in their power, and could do no otherwise—in ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... grudgingly. It wounded his self-esteem that this man should be able thus to manage the interview at pleasure. Yet, even while his anger mounted high, the Scotchman felt himself compelled to an involuntary admiration for the authoritative composure in the manner of one who, by the accident ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... powerful, and—what is frequently more ardently sought for than all—feared; yet would he rather have sacrificed every advantage he had gained—every desire for which he had unhesitatingly bartered his own self-esteem—every distinction he had considered cheaply purchased at the price of conscience, than have lost the good opinion, the confiding love of his only child. Even now he looked upon her with mingled feelings of dread and affection, though her ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... Through the dark medium of life's feverish dream; Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan, If but that little part incongruous seem. Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem; Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise. O, then, renounce that impious self-esteem, That aims to trace the secrets of the skies: For thou art but of dust; be humble, and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... into conversation with and question regarding his battles, wounds, and post-office address. When he met that girl again, he wanted to meet her as Don Miguel Jose Farrel, of Palomar. He was not so unintelligent as to fail to realize that in his own country he was a personage, and he had sufficient self-esteem to desire her to realize it also. He had a feeling that, should they meet frequently in the future, they would become very good friends. Also, he looked forward with quiet amusement to the explanations that would ensue when the supposedly dead ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the Pirro will live forever. Perhaps a mistake, but it is by such mistakes that true genius conquers envy. "To be immortal," says Schiller, "live in the whole." To be superior to the hour, live in thy self-esteem. The audience now would give their ears for those variations and flights they were once wont to hiss. No!—Pisani has been two-thirds of a life at silent work on his masterpiece: there is nothing he can add to ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... dreaming scholar, although in the company of a few friends he could become convivial and witty. His heart, however, was always in his study. His portrait gives you the impression of great fastidiousness, and almost feminine delicacy of face, as well as of considerable self-esteem. His face has more of the critic than of the poet. His learning and accomplishments have been equalled perhaps by no poet since Milton. He knew the Classics, the Northern Scalds, the Italian poets and historians, the French novelists, Architecture, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... ourselves with an effort, we easily make mistakes. We "call evil good, and good evil;" and self-esteem easily deceives us. But when we remain exposed to the searching gaze of God, that Divine Sun brings to light even the smallest atoms. We must then, for self-examination, abandon ourselves ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... pricked his vanity, who incurred his displeasure, was safe from his vengeance. No person who wounded his self-esteem was too obscure to escape his vindictive malice, and no means that he could employ, providing it was legally safe, was too unscrupulous, too petty, to use to punish the offender. Hounding somebody was his recreation, his one extravagance. ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... his ninety-nine associates. And yet, by a secondary action, such combinations are found eminently successful. Having obtained from every confederate a pledge, in some shape or other, that he will give them his support, thenceforwards they bring the passions of shame and self-esteem to bear upon each member's personal perseverance. Not only they keep alive and continually refresh in his thoughts the general purpose, which else might fade; but they also point the action of public ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... county, within six or seven miles, Hamlyn's Purlieu was near the sea and separated by forest land from other places. The seclusion in which its owners were thus forced to dwell differentiated their characters from those of the neighbouring gentlemen. They found much cause for self-esteem in the number of their acres, and, though many of these consisted of salt marshes, and more of wild heath, others were as good as any in Hampshire; and the grand total made a formidable array in works of reference. But they found greater reason still for self-congratulation ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... upon me; he included me in his bow—that was all. All my little day-dream of growing self-complacency was shattered, scattered; the old feeling of soreness, smallness, wounded pride, and bruised self-esteem came back again. I felt a wild, angry desire to compel some other glance from those eyes than that exasperating one of quiet indifference. I felt it like a lash every time I encountered it. Its very coolness and absence of emotion stung me ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time when 'all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still higher to my self-esteem,—I allude to the Quarterly Review of the Third Canto of Childe Harold, which Murray told me was written by you,—and, indeed, I should have known it without his information, as there could not be two who could and would have done this ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... of his own self-esteem, the sufferer fails to catch the drift of sentiment round him, or to put himself in touch with the opinions of others. His chair in any room is soon surrounded by vacant seats or by patient sufferers. The vice ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... caffe, and they would have left off dining at the hotel but for the shame of feeling that he had driven them away. If he had been an Englishman repelling their advances, instead of an Englishman pursuing them, he could not have been more offensive. He affronted their national as well as personal self-esteem; he early declared himself a sympathizer with the Southrons (as the London press then called them), and he expressed the current belief of his compatriots, that we were going to ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... comprised all that was specially droll or quaint in these social gatherings, the members of which were a very commonplace set of men, who discussed their little local topics in very ordinary fashion, slightly elevated, perhaps, in self-esteem, by thinking how little the outer world knew of their dulness ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... operation of a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius, which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The principal of these was a firmness of mind, an unconquerable ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... "I suppose he will pay me that respect;" but through this little effort at assertion it was easy to detect the white feather of mistrust. She half suspected the touchy self-esteem of Mr. Smith. If she had merely been guilty of a breach of good manners toward him, she knew that he would deeply resent it; how, then, when she had—however innocently—given ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... end? Without definitely making up his mind on this point, much less committing himself to this object, Samuel allowed himself the pleasurable occupation of trifling with the situation. But alas for Samuel's peace of mind! and alas for his self-esteem! the daily presence of this fascinating maiden in her new Canadian dress and with her new Canadian manners, which appeared to go with the dress, quite swept him away from his ordinary moorings, and he found himself tossed upon a tempestuous sea, the helpless ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... man's life, as well as that which he derives from the contemplation of the world to come, and the cultivation of his relation to it, (pure religion.) The other sentiments may be briefly enumerated, their names being sufficient in general to denote their functions— firmness, hope, cautiousness, self-esteem, love of approbation, secretiveness, marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation, combativeness, destructiveness, concentrativeness, adhesiveness, love of the opposite sex, love of offspring, alimentiveness, and love of life. Through these faculties, man is connected with the external ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... affection which it often produces. Having settled these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ of self-esteem had ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... walking swiftly the while, he began to make a rough inventory. He sorted out his injuries, catalogued them. It was perhaps his self-esteem that had suffered least of all, for he was by nature modest. He had a savage humility, valuable in a crisis ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... sinciput, he could hardly have permitted two friends to walk into the fire in his stead, as they were about to do in the stupendous and horrible farce enacted in the Piazza Gran Duca. There was no lack of self-esteem either in the man or his head. Without it, he would scarcely have thought so highly of his rather washy scheme for reorganizing the democratic government, and so very humbly of the genius of Dante, Petrarch, and others, whose works he condemned to the flames. A ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... Wingfield, Sr.'s boast to himself that he had never been beaten, which average mortals with the temerity to say "Nonsense!"—that most equilibratory of words—might have diagnosed as a bad case of self-esteem finding a way to forget the resented incidental reverses of success. Yet, even average mortals noted when John Wingfield, Sr. arrived late at the store the morning after Jack's departure for the West that he had ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... by this that you ever want to drive your men, because the lash always leaves its worst soreness under the skin. A hundred men will forgive a blow in the face where one will a blow to his self-esteem. Tell a man the truth about himself and shame the devil if you want to, but you won't shame the man you're trying to reach, because he won't believe you. But if you can start him on the road that will lead him to the truth he's mighty apt to try to reform himself before ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... on with his mixtures of nonchalance, condescension and, above all, his ebullient self-esteem that flowed over on to everyone to the point of deluging them. When he went away, it was with such a warm invitation to call upon him the next week that Kirtley could not but accept. Besides, here was opened up a novel and suggestive line of behavior from the standpoint of the ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... enough about others to allow of their own emulation and advance; whereas the barbarian, in his own estimate, is perfect already; and what is perfect cannot be improved. Hence he cherishes in his heart a self-esteem of a very peculiar kind, and a special contempt of others. He views foreigners, either as simply unworthy of his attention, or as objects of his legitimate dominion. Thus, too, he justifies his sloth, and places his ignorance of all things human ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... their own vessel. That which was done on board the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, was very freely emulated by those on board her namesake of the Vineyard. They made their comparisons, and formed their conclusions, with the same deference to self-esteem, and the same submission to hope, as had been apparent among their competitors. It would seem to be a law of nature that men should thus flatter themselves, and perceive the mote in the eye of their neighbour, while the ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... idea how absurd he himself appeared. He launched into a tirade designed to make him seem a super-statesman in the eyes of a stranger who did not care what he was. The more he talked himself into a delirium of self-esteem the less his character impressed me. I even ran into the danger of under-estimating him because he ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... did not know it very well, to say so. At first, I felt it very much; but afterwards I found pleasure in doing it. So, when I began to be indifferent about its being known that I could not sing well, it gave me no pain at all, and I sang much better. This miserable self-esteem took from me the power of doing that which I regarded as an honour, for every one regards as honourable that ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... psychic side, no doubt, the most frequent and the most characteristic result of persistent and excessive masturbation is a morbid heightening of self-consciousness without any co-ordinated heightening of self-esteem.[340] The man or woman who is kissed by a desirable and desired person of the opposite sex feels a satisfying sense of pride and elation, which must always be absent from the manifestations of auto-erotic activity.[341] ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pigments may or may not be employed. The painter who unnecessarily uses fugitive colours must have little love for his craft, and a poor opinion of the value of his work; but, even with the best intentions and the utmost self-esteem, the artist cannot always confine himself to strictly stable pigments. He has no right to use orpiment instead of cadmium yellow, or red lead instead of vermilion, or copper blue instead of cobalt: he has no business to employ indigo when Prussian blue saddened by black will answer ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... that her own supposed simplicity was cheap and ostentatious. If Miss Sherwood had received her with hostility, doubt, or even chilled civility, the situation would have been easier; the aroused Maggie would then have made use of her own great endowment of hauteur and self-esteem. But to be received with this frank cordiality, on a basis of a equality with this finished woman—that left Maggie for the moment without arms. She had, in her high moments, believed herself an adventuress ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... clothing. In some former day the man's garments had been elegant and fashionable, but they were now dropping to pieces. Misery and debauchery could be read in every stain upon them, but the wearer seemed not to have lost a particle of his self-esteem. Standing proudly in a pair of boots all run down at the heel and riddled with holes, a greasy and misshapen felt hat perched on one ear, he daintily broke with the extreme tips of his fingers a piece from a penny cake, carried it to his lips ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... friend can be trusted not to speak merely soft words of flattery. It is often the spectator who sees most of the game, and, if the spectator is at the same time keenly interested in us, he can have a more unbiased opinion than we can possibly have. He may have to say that which may wound our self-esteem; he may have to speak for correction rather than for commendation; but "Faithful are the wounds of a friend." The flatterer will take good care not to offend our susceptibilities by too many shocks of wholesome truth-telling; but a friend will seek ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... does not speak from jealousy, for nobody ever courted fame 'with less solicitude than I.' But for all that, there will come a time! He knows it on a surer ground than vanity. Let us hope that this little salve to self-esteem never lost its efficacy. Surely of all prayers the most injudicious was that of Burns, that we might see ourselves as others see us. What would become of us? Richardson, as we might expect, was highly esteemed by Young of the 'Night Thoughts,' and by Johnson, to both of whom he seems to have ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... been always on the watch to take him down a peg when he was pleased with himself—to hold him cheap and overpraise some duffer in his hearing—so that I might save my own self-esteem; to pay him bad little left-handed compliments, him and his, whenever I was out of humor; and I should have been always out of humor, having ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the pot. Since he was the only one who could handle the clumsy weapon with any kind of skill in spite of his ocular deficiencies, and who knew about the local game, this task had been assigned to him. With longer contact his fear of the caroj had lessened, and his self-esteem rose at his recognized ability as a hunter. He strolled arrogantly out into the knee-high grass, crossbow over his shoulder, whistling tunelessly through his teeth. Jason stared after him and once again felt a ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... acquaintance with old Mervin in that hunting trip had been entirely accidental, and he had been astounded by the marriage contract which Mervin shortly after proposed between the two families. Ordinarily even Jude Cartwright, with all his self-esteem, would never have aspired to a star so remote as Mervin's daughter. The miracle, however, happened. He saw himself in the way to be the richest man on the range, the possessor of the ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... itself, would not matter, if it did not incur a loss of self-esteem and of self-confidence. But just as nothing succeeds like success, so nothing fails like failure. Most people who are ruined are ruined by attempting too much. Therefore, in setting out on the immense enterprise of living fully and comfortably within the narrow limits of twenty-four ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... street she no longer looked as if she belonged to any respectable person. She had not the appearance of a virtuous woman's maid. She lost the aspect of a servant who, by dint of displaying her self-esteem and self-respect even in her garb, reflects in her person the honor and the pride of her masters. From day to day she sank nearer to the level of that abject, shameless creature whose dress drags in the gutter—a ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... flesh-wounds; that remorse is the least permanent of sentiments. But then Westray might not yet wish to forget. He had run full counter to his principles. It might be that he was resolved to take the consequences, and wear them like a hair-shirt, as the only means of recovering his self-esteem. No; whatever penance, voluntary or involuntary, Westray might undergo, Lord Blandamer could only look on in silence. His object had been gained. If Westray felt it necessary to pay the price, he must be let pay it. Lord Blandamer could neither inquire nor remonstrate. He could offer ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... our dear Teacher to-day to beware of self-esteem and of all signs that would indicate an untruth. We were referred to the condition of Ananias and Sapphira, who intended to deceive the Apostle. Would that I were wholly free from that same Evil Spirit which tempted those persons in ancient ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... had very little to be thankful for. Personally, she was, without any exception, the ugliest white girl I ever saw. She measured about twice as long from the chin to Self-Esteem as from Benevolence to Amativeness; not one feature of her face was even middling; her skin was of a neutral creamy tint; and she had a straggly goatee of dirty white, with woolly side-boards of the same colour, in lieu of the ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... with study, no vices—such vices as it offered were coarsely stripped of any imaginative glamourfull drunkenness, clumsy leering shameful lust, no social intercourse even to waste one's time, and on the other hand it would minister greatly to the self-esteem of a conspicuously industrious student. One was marked as "clever," one played up to the part, and one's little accomplishment stood out finely in one's private reckoning against the sunlit small ignorance of that agreeable place. ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... they are supported by the approval of their neighbours. It is not difficult to be unconventional in the eyes of the world when your unconventionality is but the convention of your set. It affords you then an inordinate amount of self-esteem. You have the self-satisfaction of courage without the inconvenience of danger. But the desire for approbation is perhaps the most deeply seated instinct of civilised man. No one runs so hurriedly to the cover of respectability as the unconventional ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... that careless arm soft on his pistol, lest Don Ruz should abruptly dislike him too much; for Luis contrived a tone for his small-talk that would have disconcerted the most sluggish, sweet to his own mischievous ears, healing to his galled self-esteem. "Good-night, Don Ruz. Good-night, Lolita. Perhaps I shall come to-morrow, manana ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... Stella's hopes and her self-esteem had for long played with the thought that it might possibly be one of those impracticable notions which had whipped Harry Luttrell up to the rupture of their alliance; that after all, it was not that he was tired of a chain. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... that young cousins in all the homes where she visited were growing more and more outspoken and rude and less and less considerate of her. She still deemed it her right to be honored guest wherever she chose to bestow the privilege of her company, although her self-esteem had had many a quiet dig and a few hard knocks ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... quickness, and the self-esteem which added such lustre to his character, the smuggler perceived what was passing in her mind, but he was not ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... is dull, she can neither joke nor reason, sometimes she has little tact. You are frightened. You find yourself forever obliged to lead this darling through the thorny paths, where you must perforce leave your self-esteem ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... money for so worthless an object, and added strength to her resentment for the unjustifiable menaces which had extorted from her such a promise. Yet not an instant would she listen to Mr Arnott's offer of fulfilling her engagement, and charged him, as he considered her own self-esteem worth her keeping, not to urge to her a proposal so ungenerous ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... rage came back, the lacerated pride, the offended manhood, the self-esteem which had been spattered by the mud of slander, by the cynical defense, or the pitying solicitude of his friends—of De Lancy Scovel, Barry Whalen, Sobieski the Polish Jew, Fleming, Wolff, and the rest. The pity of these for him—for Rudyard Byng, because the flower in his garden, his Jasmine-flower, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... one who would gain the friendship of his audience. Anything that savors of egotism at once creates a feeling of enmity. No one can endure another's consciousness of superiority even though the superiority be real. An appearance of haughtiness, self-esteem, condescension, intolerance of inferiors, or a desire for personal glory will at once raise barriers of dislike. On the other hand, modesty should never be carried so far as to become affectation; that attitude is equally despicable. Personal ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... elder and the younger lady were together before the party from Italy had arrived in England. Nora had explained everything about herself,—how impossible it had been for her not to love Hugh Stanbury; how essential it had been for her happiness and self-esteem that she should refuse Mr. Glascock; how terrible had been the tragedy of her sister's marriage. Lady Milborough spoke of the former subject with none of Lady Rowley's enthusiasm, but still with an evident ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... have held out long against the other's skill—for Ross possessed no illusions concerning the type of examiner he now faced—he was never to know. Perhaps the drastic interruption that occurred the next moment saved for Ross a measure of self-esteem. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... told him that with these projectiles he would surely kill the object of his dread if he aimed straight. L'Encuerado gradually recovered his self-possession; the idea of slaying in one of its most formidable shapes the cause of his superstition excited his self-esteem, and he went to sleep, and no doubt dreamt of his ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... tendencies, and it is folly to fail to recognize them. It is not easy for so impressionable and imaginative a people as we Americans are to come down to plain, hard facts, yet we are doing it without loss of self-esteem or ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... things than this in the composition of Mr. Brumley, we shall have to go deep into these reserves before we have done with him, but when he had so recently barked the shins of his self-esteem they had ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... persons, possessed of strong self-esteem, arrive at independence of thought through pride of intellect, and this is even more dangerous than to depend upon others for our opinions; for of all idolatry, there is none so interior and hard to overcome as the worship of self. ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... anything, simply because we won't understand that we must receive the strength of Heaven into our souls; that it depends upon our degree of receptivity, and our using the added power that comes in that way; not in our taking our few tools, and our self-esteem and satisfaction with ourselves, and doing our little tricks like dancing dogs; proud because the other dogs can do one less than we, or only bark and walk about on their four legs. It is our souls that make our bodies worth ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... theirs did, and in the matter of death they had had the picturesque advantage. And her father, was he not as dreadful as Iago? Thinking so much of him brought back the hated sense of his physical presence, and she saw again the long, handsome face, solemn with concentration on the task of self-esteem, surmounted by its high, narrow forehead, and heard the voice, which somehow was also high and narrow, repeating stories which invariably ran: "He came to me and asked me ... and I said, 'My dear fellow....'" For, like all Irishmen, he was fond of ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... like their cousins the English. Their fault in this particular lies in a morbid pride, with a stubbornness that is the result of a limited experience, and which is too apt to induce them to set up their own provincial notions, as the standard, and to throw them backward into the intrenchments, of self-esteem. This feeling is peculiarly fostered by the institutions. It is easy to err in this manner; and it is precisely the failing of the countryman, everywhere, when he first visits town. It is, in fact, the ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... and manners with manners, nations will find so little reason to prefer themselves to others, that if they preserve for their own country that love which is the fruit of personal interest, at least they will lose that enthusiasm which is the fruit of an exclusive self-esteem." ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... willing to admit. She shed a few tears of self-esteem, but she simply could not rise to the heights of suffering for anything as abstract as a cause or a nation or a world. She was like so many of the air-ships the United States was building then: she could not be induced to leave the ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and he did not hesitate to compare himself with others to his own advantage. At twenty-nine he wrote his sister after an evening in the gallery of the House of Commons, "Heard Macaulay's best speech.....but between ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... it. I went to sleep, pondering upon ideas of the most somber philosophy, and I awoke to resume an existence without worth or dignity, in which I was losing not only my power of carrying out my design of reparation towards the phantom which haunted my dreams but all self-esteem, and ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... the inquiries of Lady Annabel. He spoke with so much feeling and simplicity of his first days at Eton, and the misery he experienced on first quitting Cherbury, that his details could not fail of being agreeable to those whose natural self-esteem they so agreeably mattered. Then he dwelt upon his casual acquaintance with London society, and Lady Annabel was gratified to observe, from many incidental observations, that his principles were in every respect ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the justice of his sentence,' said the King. 'The matter rests not with us, but with himself.' 'But he is a gentleman, Sire,' I persisted, 'to whom truth is dearer than life, and who would rather languish in misery for thrice the term he is likely to last, than forfeit his own self-esteem by admitting falsehood and injustice.' 'Then let him perish in his pride and obstinacy,' cried the King impatiently. ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... of it! Let it be remembered that Lady Lundie had been left entirely in the dark—that she had written to Sir Patrick in a tone which plainly showed that her self-esteem was wounded and her suspicion roused—and that her first intimation of the serious dilemma in which Arnold Brinkworth stood was now likely, thanks to Julius Delamayn, to reach her from the lips of a mere acquaintance. Let this be remembered; and then let the estimate be formed ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... fell into deep trouble. To serve a man of less importance than himself hurt his dignity and self-esteem; but Jupiter would ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... poets. I suppose that the entity of the poet may be represented by the number ten; it is certain that a chemist on analyzing and pharmacopolizing it, as Rabelais says, would find it composed of one part interest to nine parts of self-esteem. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... of the lovers did Andreas give an immediate answer. He must think a little, he said. The self-esteem of the Herr Strauss was a trifle ruffled by the suggestion that in such a case waiting of any sort was necessary; it seemed to him that an offer so desirable as that which he had made was entitled ...
— An Idyl Of The East Side - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... eyes were deep set and looked at one with great intensity. There was power in his individuality, and, besides shrewd sense, he possessed a considerable gift for mechanics. His boundless self-esteem was not devoid of greatness, and the emphasis with which both body and soul proclaimed themselves made him one of the originals ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... was then sent to hawk it through the streets. This was certainly a remarkable achievement for a lad of his years. The eagerness with which both of the ballads were seized by the public must have greatly gratified the self-esteem ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... they were at first not suspected. It may now be understood that the intercourse with Rembrandt was far from easy, because he was a typical Hollander, good-natured, but with an extra amount of impulsiveness and self-esteem, as may be gathered from his biography and from his work. Consequently, if he had numerous acquaintances, his real friends were not many. We find for instance few traces of intimate friendship with other painters, excepting ...
— Rembrandt's Amsterdam • Frits Lugt
... As stated above (Q. 161, AA. 2, 6), humility observes the rule of right reason whereby a man has true self-esteem. Now pride does not observe this rule of right reason, for he esteems himself greater than he is: and this is the outcome of an inordinate desire for his own excellence, since a man is ready to believe what he desires very much, the result being that his appetite is borne towards ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... end, yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, for no more profound reason than that he does not ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... turning of faces toward the window in which stood Radet and the other, mine turned too. Radet was a cadaverous, weatherworn, passion-worn individual, badger-grey, and worked up into a grotesquely attitudinised fury of injured self-esteem. The other was a denationalised, shifty-eyed, sallow, grey-bearded governor of one of the provinces of the Systeme Groenlandais; had a closely barbered head, a bull neck, and a great belly. He cast furtive glances round him, uncertain whether to escape or to wait for his say. ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... luck had it, I had given careful study on the fo'c'sle-head during the previous evening's second dog-watch, when my friends among the crew were taking their leisure. He bore no malice, I think; in any case, his self-esteem was a very hardy growth, and little liable to suffer ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Rouen and Havre abashed and discomfited him, played havoc with his self-esteem, confused his brain, and vexed him by formality, and, more than all, by their indifference to himself. He admired, yet he wished to be admired; he was humble, but he wished all people and things to be humble with him. When he halted he wanted the world to halt; when he entered a cathedral—Notre ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cooler moment, I hasten to blab the whole simplicity of it, to blab on Roscoe and the other navigators and the rest of the priesthood, all for fear that I may become even as they, secretive, immodest, and inflated with self-esteem. And I want to say this now: any young fellow with ordinary gray matter, ordinary education, and with the slightest trace of the student-mind, can get the books, and charts, and instruments and teach himself navigation. ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... or of the fineness of his genius. It is strange how much the lack of a single ingredient in a man's moral constitution—and that, too, an ingredient in itself of a low and vulgar cast—may affect one's whole destiny. It was the grand defect of this gifted man, that that sentiment of self-esteem, which seems in many instances so absurd and ridiculous a thing, and which some, in their little wisdom, would so fain strike out from among the components of human character, was almost wholly awanting. As the minister of an attached provincial congregation, a sense ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... I assign to persons of a certain distinction, and say that it was unworthy of an ex-ambassador to act as a hall-porter, or a celebrated prose-writer to clean the knives. I confess I do not think so. I shrewdly suspect a great deal of what we are pleased to call philosophy is only a well-regulated self-esteem, and that the man who feels himself immeasurably above another in mind, capacity, and attainments, and yet sees that other vastly superior in station and condition, has within his heart a pride all the more exalting that it is stimulated ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... grief is indeed cured, monsieur. A new bit of finery is the best of balms for wounded self-esteem, is it not, Blanche? I confess I am piqued; I had dared to imagine that my squire might remember me still after a month of absence. I should have known it too much to ask of mortal man. Not till the rivers run ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... wearing either a favour made of her colours or a glove which he asserted that she had given him. Throwing himself in her road on every occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks and gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by his self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that rendered her conspicuous and must have covered another than ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... reach the outer air—which will be in about a second—run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... appreciate how long it was that she had rested there, moveless upon that secluded marble seat, spellbound in the preoccupation of those thoughts, at once long and sweet with the comfort of a solaced self-esteem, for which she had to thank the author of her first proposal ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... "that she'd better be payin' up the calls she owes in the neighbourhood than entertainin' strangers." This shaft pierced a vulnerable spot in Matilda's armour of self-esteem, for she still smarted under ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she thought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them. She became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive righteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of her own ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... sometimes they don't," she returned. "It depends on how good a time I'm having. But I hate to think I'm weak and selfish and vain, and that the only person I really care for is myself. I value my self-esteem, and it often gets an awful jar. Sometimes I feel like a girl that has run away from home— diamonds and dyed hair, you know—and then wakes up at night and cries to think of what a price she has ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... a thirst after honour and preeminence, arising from self-esteem, and prevalent especially where there is little thought of God, and scant reverence for the present majesty of heaven. A man who thinks little of his Maker is great in his own eyes, as our green English hills are mountains to one who has not seen the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... of nothing for no other purpose Dreamless sleep after a day brimful of enjoyment Man must subjugate matter and not become subject to it No one believes anything that can diminish his self-esteem Praise out of all proportion to our merit Save them the trouble of thinking for themselves She no longer thought these things—she was possessed by them Taken it upon herself to be always strong, and self-reliant The most terrible of all ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... was her duty now—the duty of Dr. Mary Arkroyd, a duly qualified, accredited, responsible medical practitioner? With a slight shock to her self-esteem she was obliged to confess that she had only the haziest idea. Had not people who kept a lunatic to be licensed or something? Or did that apply only to lunatics in the plural? And did Beaumaroy keep Mr. ...
— The Secret of the Tower • Hope, Anthony
... had to examine a witness whose evidence would be somewhat dangerous unless he was thrown off his guard and "rattled." The witness in question—an influential man, whose vulnerable point was said to be his self-esteem—was ushered into the box, a portly overdressed person, beaming with self-assurance. Looking him over for a few minutes without saying a word Sir James opened fire: "Mr. Tompkins, I believe?"—"Yes."—"You are a stockbroker, I believe, are you not?"—"I ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... MILTON'S PRODIGIOUS SELF-ESTEEM:—"All which has so elated you that you would be reckoned next after the very first man in England, and sometimes put yourself higher than the supreme Cromwell himself; whom you name familiarly, without giving him any title of rank, whom you lecture under the guise of praising him, to whom you dictate ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say—This man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... into some knowledge that will assist in straightening out a few crooked quirks in several systems. I have no love for the Kogan clan, but to help bring down a Veep of Wass' measure does aid in reinstating one's self-esteem." ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... prove that she is fit for the game, fit for the thrills and throbs of the great melodrama. Out of sheer anxiety therefore, without any genuine desire to gratify a passion, but simply with the view of giving her self-esteem the proof that she is mature, she may behave very much as if her heart and passions were involved. And though, in later life, she may develop into a supremely desirable woman, she behaves for the nonce very much like those deplorable ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... do justice. What was almost more wonderful still was the manner in which the Maid held her place among the captains, most of whom would have thwarted her if they could, with a consciousness of her own superior place, in which there is never the slightest token of presumption or self-esteem. She guarded and guided Alencon with a good-natured and affectionate disdain; and when there was risk of a great quarrel and a splitting of forces she held the balance like an old and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... believe me, for no one ever is ready to believe anything that can diminish his self-esteem—and why should you believe me? I frankly confess that I do not hesitate to lie when I hope to gain more by untruth than by that much-belauded and divine truth, which, according to your favorite Plato, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... eh? And he's far from being stout. From a woman's point of view, I should say he might be very attractive. Tall; thin; melancholy; enormous eyes; moustache waxed; scar on forehead; successful effect of dashing soldier, but not much under the effect, I should say, except inordinate self-esteem, and a masterly selfishness which would take what it wanted at almost any cost to others. There's a portrait ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... Anyone with less self-esteem than myself—or who had led a more honest early life—might have doubted his own reasoning at that moment. I didn't. The ship on the ways still resembled a warship to six places. And knowing human nature the way I do, that was too much of a coincidence ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... and remade twenty letters in my head. I had had to do with a woman like all other women of the kind. I had been poetizing too much. She had treated me like a school-boy, she had used in deceiving me a trick which was insultingly simple. My self-esteem got the upper hand. I must leave this woman without giving her the satisfaction of knowing that she had made me suffer, and this is what I wrote to her in my most elegant handwriting and with tears of rage and sorrow ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... measure interested her in spite of herself. She was not used to indifference, and felt a need to apologise for it to herself. 'Of course,' she reflected, 'he had not seen me then,' and so was reinstated in her self-esteem. The explanation, however, failed her the next moment. For Drake, at all events, had seen her now; she had caught him looking up into the box before Conway left. Yet when Conway communicated his news, Drake never so much as moved his head in her direction. The three ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... for guidance. Such tendrils seeking a foot-hold, make a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her spiritual nature—a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak relation was promptly established, while in the little Virginia he found a heartsease ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard |
