"Self-love" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... these softening emotions foolish weaknesses, which he would banish by shunning the society of all those who could call them forth. Their candid acknowledgment of having deserved his displeasure, and submission to his will, however, so soothed his self-love, his fondness for absolute power, that he permitted them to have vent with but little restraint. Agnes might have been the wife of a traitor, but he was out of Edward's way; the daughter of a traitress, but she was equally powerless; linked with treason, but too much crashed by her own misery ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... to Blackmore, we are not allowed to doubt; but the relater is hindered by that self-love, which dazzles all mankind, from discovering that he might intend a satire very different from a general censure of all the ancient and modern writers on medicine, since he might, perhaps, mean, either seriously or in jest, to insinuate, that Blackmore was not adapted by nature to the study of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... we wrestled for a second, blinded and choking. Then self-love conquered hate, and we kicked ourselves free and spluttered to the surface. My shoulder was stinging, and I could not tell how long I could depend on it. I made a desperate stroke or two, dived, and put myself in the cover ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... all the dreams and illusions by which men have been destroyed and saved, and lays them mockingly naked.... He shows the bare side of every virtue, the hidden heroism of every vice and crime. He summons before him all the injustices that have come to birth out of ignorance and self-love.... And in all this there is no judgment, only an implacable comprehension, as of one outside nature, to whom joy and sorrow, right and wrong, savagery and civilization, are ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... the parish. Nobody ever thought of asking how Klaus got possessed of his new money. He had it; that fact was all-sufficient for the multitude. One or two might itch to make their comments upon the quick metamorphosis, but self-love kept them quiet; for every man already licked his lips in anticipation of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... generosity to exonerate him from the false charge, which Mary, in her waywardness or madness, had fixed upon him. Judging his cousin's mind by his own, he felt that he was secure—that, however painful to Godfrey's self-love, he would never suffer him to bear the reproach of a crime committed ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... truthful of any I ever knew—but to hold opinions which she would not have otherwise held. This touches her intellectual nature, which was as incapable of being mystified or modified by any suggestion of vanity, self-love, or gratified pride, as the most judicial-minded judge who ever sat on the bench. Her intellectual view on the matter was, I thought, mystified and modified by the intensity of her love for the Italian cause, and of her hatred for the evils from which she was watching the Italians ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... Musgrave was the son of a farmer on the Forest, who called cousins with the young Carnegies. As the connection was wide, perhaps the vigorous dislike of more important persons than Bessie Fairfax is sufficiently accounted for. All the world is agreed that a slight wound to men's self-love rankles much longer ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... to say nothing against the Signor Sigismondo. He is a gallant swimmer, and a staunch support in time of need. Be he Swiss, or Genoese, either country may be proud of him, but self-love teaches us all to take care of our own interests before those of another. It Would be far pleasanter to dwell in the Palazzo Grimaldi, on our warm and sunny gulf, honored and esteemed as the heir of a noble name, than ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... to give her pleasure, much less that he would be willing to sacrifice his own pleasures for her, as a mother, for instance, would for a child. His hyperboles, in a word, tell us not of love for another but of a self-love in which the other figures only as a means to an end, that end ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... 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.
... matters. The retiring young man was not pleased when they got the better of him, you see! His vanity, don't you see? He wanted revenge. Then, those thick lips of his suggest passion. So there you have it: wounded self-love and passion. That is quite enough motive for a murder. We have two of them in our hands; but who is the third? Nicholas and Psyekoff held him, but who smothered him? Psyekoff is shy, timid, an all-round coward. And Nicholas would not know how to smother ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... may influence my choice; but the dexterity of self-love will contrive to applaud either ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... what it is to live in a Court, and to care only for earthly things!" she said. "All sense of justice is lost in that world of vanity and self-love. You are as near akin to the Marquise as your sister; and yet, because she was familiar with the one and not with the other—and because her vain, foolish soul took pleasure in a beauty that recalled her own perishable charms, she leaves one ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... honours, to help it. Such shalt thou find some here, even in the reign of Cynthia,—a Crites and an Arete. Now, under thy Phoebus, it will be thy province to make more; except thou desirest to have thy source mix with the spring of self-love, and so wilt draw upon thee as welcome a discovery of thy days, as was then ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... employments; two proceeded with the building of a furnace on an anthill, where they are almost always placed, and they keep a look-out while working. We have the protection of an all-embracing Providence, and trust that He, whose care of His people "xceeds all that our utmost self-love can attain, will shield us and make ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... worked herself up till she believed firmly in this little fiction. Yes, those tears were tears of pure altruism—tears not of wounded vanity and self-love, but of compassion for an ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... Self-love, so long in icy chains confin'd; No selfishness and no self-will are nigh, For at her advent they were forced ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... mentioned in the Karika of Is'varakr@sna, but I have omitted them in my account of Samkhya as these have little philosophical importance. The viparyyaya (false knowledge) are five, viz. avidya (ignorance), asmita (egoism), raga (attachment), dve@sa (antipathy), abhimives'a (self-love), which are also called tamo, moha, mahamoha, tamisra, and andhatamisra. These are of nine kinds of tusti, such as the idea that no exertion is necessary, since prak@rti will herself bring our salvation (ambhas), that it is not necessary to meditate, ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... might easily, on that account, divert the thoughts of the mind and the efforts of the will from more important objects; dispositions very often dangerous for those who possess them, because it is easy to abuse them, and because they flatter and nourish self-love, or the other passions that flesh is heir to. You should imitate those intelligent gardeners who pay a daily visit to their garden, pruning knife in hand, and cut off branches that might exhaust or overcharge the tree—not ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... young smarting soul went through in that half-mile of listening is better guessed than analysed. There are certain moments of shame, which only women know, and which seem to sting and burn out of youth all its natural sweet self-love. A woman may outlive them, but never forget them. If she pass through one at nineteen her cheek will grow hot over it at seventy. Her companion's measured tone, the flow of deliberate speech which came from him, the nervous aloofness of his attitude—every detail in that walk seemed to ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... upstart favourites of fortune; unless it be that the submission of men who have newly attained to greatness to those who boast of a transmitted rank, is a necessity of their position rather than an error of their self-love. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... seem no evidence at all to them; and they would move too late, or, if they moved in time, would muddle the whole business, and let the Biggleswades know they were suspected. Besides, it hurt his self-love to seek aid from anyone. No, the proper game was to rob the robbers, and he had seven shillings ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... well acquainted with each other, are accustomed to play together, and know almost by heart the work they are executing. Even then, the inattention of a single player may occasion an accident. Why incur its possibility? I know that certain artists feel their self-love hurt when thus kept in leading-strings (like children, they say); but with a conductor who has no other view than the excellence of the ultimate result, this consideration can have no weight. Even in a quartet, it is seldom that the individual feeling of the players can be left ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... that there is a being in existence who holds us dearer than aught else in the whole wide world. But not even a misogynist would have dared to assert that, in the present instance, love was but an excess of self-love; for if ever there was a true attachment that honestly sprang from the purest feelings of the heart, it was that which existed between Miss Patty ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... the instant his countenance evinced genuine emotion. His self-love was cruelly shocked by the evident loathing with which she shrunk away from the arm that, only a few days before, had brought the bright blood into her cheeks did she but rest her hand upon it ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... Excessive self-love, a taste for exciting pleasures, aspirations of hatred, pride, and lordliness, a species of evil sympathy, the perfidious attraction of which brings together perverse natures without mingling them, had made of the princess and the Marquis accomplices ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... pretty Lucy Harcourt. And yet there was about the latter a powerful fascination, which he found it hard to resist. It rested him just to look at her, she was so fresh, so bright, so beautiful, and then she flattered his self-love by the unbounded deference she paid to his opinions, studying all his tastes and bringing her own will into perfect subjection to his, until she scarcely could be said to have a thought or feeling which ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the body of the maiden rent by the horns of the bull or torn by the claws of beasts. 20 His cruelty, his deformed imagination and deformed desires, found a kind of delight in such spectacles. And now the people wanted to rob him. Hence anger appeared on his bloated face. Self-love also would not let him yield to the wish of the multitude, and still he did not dare to oppose 25 ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... Sick of self-love, Malvolio, like an owl That hoots the sun rerisen where starlight sank, With German garters crossed athwart thy frank Stout Scottish legs, men watched thee snarl and scowl, And boys responsive with reverberate howl Shrilled, hearing how to thee the springtime ...
— Sonnets, and Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets (1590-1650) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... for himself. Other artists have been as careless of present or future applause, in self-forgetfulness, or because they set moral or political ends above the ends of art; but in him this solitary culture of beauty seems to have hung upon a kind of self-love, and a carelessness in the work of art of all but art itself. Out of the secret places of a unique temperament he brought strange blossoms and fruits hitherto unknown; and for him, the novel impression conveyed, the exquisite effect woven, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... love, humility and truth. This step taken, there will flow into the human consciousness the qualities of God himself, giving powers that mortals believe utterly impossible to them. But hatred must go; self-love, too; carnal ambition must go; and fear—the cornerstone of every towering structure of mortal misery—must be utterly cast out by an understanding of the allness of the Mind that framed ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... of duty and necessity. You mean self-love and self-interest. Man, be honest. Because this woman is an obstacle in your career, you would sacrifice her. It is boundless, pitiless selfishness. Suppose you abandon her, dare you think of her without shame! She loves ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... pure that the world holds nothing that resembles it, and nothing that we would exchange for it. For this is now our great reward, that peace attends our footsteps, and that our hearts are no longer vexed with the perturbations of vanity and self-love, of envy and revenge. We find human nature answering to our touch even as it answered to the touch of Jesus, and revealing to us all its best and purest treasure. We find the very natures we thought intractable and destitute of all affinity with ours, ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... pain and evil, and all which is salutary, of pleasure and happiness. By these sensations, man, sometimes averted from that which wounds his senses, sometimes allured towards that which soothes them, has been obliged to cherish and preserve his own life; thus, self-love, the desire of happiness, aversion to pain, become the essential and primary laws imposed on man by nature herself—the laws which the directing power, whatever it be, has established for his government—and which laws, like those of motion in the ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... regarding the good and ill of all others as merely indifferent, any farther than as they contribute to the pleasure or advantage of that person: so there is a different temper of mind which borrows a degree of virtue even from self-love. Such can never receive any kind of satisfaction from another, without loving the creature to whom that satisfaction is owing, and without making its well-being in some sort ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... passes away; and the disappointment which sinks the deepest and lasts the longest of all the disappointments which are fanciful rather than material, is that which reaches a man through his ambition and his self-love,—principles in his nature which outlast the heyday of the heart's supremacy, and which endure to man's latest years. The bitter and the enduring disappointment to most human beings is that which makes them feel, in one way or other, that they are less wise, clever, popular, graceful, ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... it is a personal affair—a hyphen, a trait d'union,[45] between you and your censor; age's philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio,[46] sick with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man were made of gutta-percha, ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but after breakfast every moment "runs itself in golden sands," and the break in your time crashes a worse break in your temper. "Are you busy?" asks the considerate wretch, adding insult to injury. What can you do? Say yes and wound his self-love forever? But he has a wife and family. You respect their feelings, smile and smile, and are villain enough to be civil with your lips, and hide the poison of asps under your tongue, till you have a chance to relieve your o'ercharged heart by shaking your fist in impotent wrath at ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... argues pride of heart, when men will not deny themselves in things that they may, for the good and profit of their neighbours. And it argueth now, that pride has got so much up into self-love and self-pleasing, that they little care who they grieve or offend, so they may have their ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... touch of some withering blight seemed to have swept across the whole dainty face, and taken the dewy freshness from the eyes. There was fever in it—the fever of fret and mutiny and of a starved self-love. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... proposition in words, you oblige him to commit it to writing. Not necessarily to be used against him afterwards, but for this reason—and I can almost quote my papa's phrase on the occasion—in the homage of his self-love, a man will rarely write himself such a knave as he will dare to own when he is talking, and in that act of weakness is the gain of the other party ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... criticism. I think the notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a just critique; whatever should be deducted on the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the subject; ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism, on the one part, and degrading submission on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... condition of a servant, enduring hardship, contumely, and an ignominious death, for our sakes. This does not mean that we are not to love ourselves at all, nor be entirely regardless of our own interests; for the rule which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, recognizes the right of self-love; and the command, "Thou shalt not steal," establishes the right of private property. But it forbids us to make our own interest and happiness our chief concern, to the disregard of the rights of others and the general good; and requires us to make sacrifices ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... precisely the same kind of a person that George Barker is, and when they meet each other and realize that they are exactly alike, and see how sort of small and mean they really are, it destroys their self-love." ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... much precaution had I, O my God! for a vain point of honor, and I had so little of true honor, which is not to displease you. I went so far in this, and my self-love was so great, that if I had failed in any rule of politeness, I could not sleep at night. Every one wished to contribute to my diversion, and the outside life was only too agreeable for me; but as to indoors, vexation had so depressed my husband that each ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... not prove the goodness, but the caprice and partiality of the God that religion represents to us as full of sagacity, benevolence, and equity, and that it describes as the common father of all the inhabitants of the earth. If the interest and self-love of those whom he favors makes them admire the profound views of a God because he has loaded them with benefits to the prejudice of their brethren, he must appear very unjust, on the other hand, to all those who are the victims of his partiality. A ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... watched him with her narrowed glance. She saw the quick glance he gave Miss Allen, and her lids narrowed still more. So that was it! But she did not swerve from her purpose, for all this unexpected thrust straight to the heart of her self-love. ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... so much self-love! It needed nothing more to separate us; but, happily, last night we had an explanation. I undeceived her; to tell you of her joy would be impossible; for she loves me! oh, how she loves me! Thus, this cruel separation has ceased; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... audience; they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others. To satisfy the requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly reception-day and went a great deal into society to obtain the consideration her self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her temperament suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make about money, they one and all, if they live in Paris, must grovel ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... which you seem more touched than I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to have been, did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular occasions; and that the fallacy of our self-love extends itself as wide as our interest or affections. Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress, and his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... my love. I confess it shocks all my notions of propriety to see the sinner, even when he professes to be the most humble and penitent, thrust himself up ostentatiously, as if filled only with his own self-love ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... on this subject, I must attempt to lay down a definition of selfishness, lest you should suppose that I am so mistaken as to confound with the vice above named that self-love, which is at once an allowable ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... experience as we read these books is alone a sufficient vindication. They relieve us, as well as trouble us, because in these pages we all confess what we have never confessed to anyone. Our self-love is outraged, but outraged with that strange accompaniment of thrilling pleasure that means an expiation paid, a burden lightened. Use the word "degenerate" if you will. But in this sense we are all "degenerates" for thus and not otherwise ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... Hartwell suspected this love. He was remarkably quick-sighted, and men, as well as women, were very vain and wont to give even undue weight to every circumstance which flattered their self-love. She had long seen this partiality; would not the object of it be quite as penetrating? Clara was very pretty; nay, at times she was beautiful. If conscious of her attachment, could he ever suffer himself to be influenced by it? No; impossible! There were utter antagonisms of taste and temperament ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... doctrine. Mr. Chesterton, with his usual felicity of phrase, hits the nail on the head when he says that upon this principle "the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish person;" certainly it should be clear that on this assumption, as there can be no return of affection from a God whose love is only self-love, so the effect of prayer can only be that which is produced upon the soul by its consciousness—supposed to be elevating—of being an infinitesimal fraction of an infinite totality. We say that this consciousness is supposed to ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... into the minds of all the company, she would have been astonished to find how little she occupied their thoughts. It would be difficult to determine whether it is more for the happiness or misery of man and womankind that politeness should cherish, or truth destroy, these little delusions of self-love. ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... we derived our impressions of the French people, as well as of Italian skies, from English literature. The probability was that our earliest association with the Gallic race partook largely of the ridiculous. All the extravagant anecdotes of morbid self-love, miserly epicurism, strained courtesy, and frivolous absurdity current used to boast a Frenchman as their hero. It was so in novels, plays, and after-dinner stories. Our first personal acquaintance often confirmed this prejudice; for the chance was that the one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this world shall never want for detractors. The mean and insignificant, writhing under the consciousness of his shortcomings, ministers to his self-love by vilifying the great that he may lessen the gap between himself and them. To achieve greatness is to achieve enemies. It is to excite envy; and as envy no seed can raise up such a crop ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... other things, of a disease called "touchiness"—a disease which, in spite of its innocent name, is one of the gravest sources of restlessness in the world. Touchiness, when it becomes chronic, is a morbid condition of the inward disposition. It is self-love inflamed to the acute point; conceit, WITH A HAIR-TRIGGER. The cure is to shift the yoke to some other place; to let men and things touch us through some new and perhaps as yet unused part of our nature; to become meek and lowly in heart while the old sensitiveness is ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... reason does he hate himself: thus a sick man hates his sickness for the very reason that he loves himself. Or we may say that avarice makes man hateful to others, but not to himself. In fact, it is caused by inordinate self-love, in respect of which, man desires temporal goods for himself more ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... and we start to-morrow. Mr. Pounce is in a condition of painful dignity. He seems afraid to move lest motion should thaw his official ice. Having found out that I am the "chaplain", he has refrained from familiarity. My self-love is wounded, but my patience relieved. Query: Would not the majority of mankind rather be bored by people in authority than not noticed by them? James North declines to answer for his part. I have made my farewells to my friends, and on ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... looking at things?' And everything became grey and dismal about me. Next morning it was just the same. It was as if I had waked in the middle of some chaos over which God had never said: 'Let there be light.' And the next day was worse. I began to see the bad in everything—wrong motives—and self-love—and pretence, and everything mean and low. And so it has gone on ever since. I wake wretched every morning. I am crowded with wretched, if not wicked thoughts, all day. Nothing seems worth anything. I ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... Mr. Godwin's philosophy, in one word, was too much ambition—"by that sin fell the angels!" He conceived too nobly of his fellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is nothing that annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on imaginary achievements, to which we are wholly unequal)—he raised the standard of morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to the most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, and impracticable. The ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and advantage,—why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you never to forget me—and sailed away ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... saying of a man that he is hardened by self-esteem than the following on M. Guizot: "The consciousness that he has of himself, and a natural principle of pride, place him easily above the little susceptibilities of self-love." M. Sainte-Beuve is not an admirer of Louis Philippe, and among other sly hits gives him the following: "Louis Philippe was too much like a bourgeois himself to be long respected by the bourgeoisie. Just as in former times the King of France ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... more idlers into the world for the workers to feed. Then came the usual difficulty about the lady. I did not want a helpmeet; I can help myself. Nor did I expect to be loved devotedly, for the race has not yet evolved a man lovable on thorough acquaintance; even my self-love is neither thorough nor constant. I wanted a genial partner for domestic business, and Agatha struck me quite suddenly as being the nearest approach to what I desired that I was likely to find in the marriage market, where it is extremely hard to suit oneself, and where the ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... you draw me to you by awakening the motive of my self-love?" asked Vesta. "That is not the way to preserve my heart as you ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... that the streets were made for people to walk, and not to converse in: keep up their ancient use; and whenever you see two or three gathered together, be you amongst them, and let them not hear the sound of their own voices till they have bought off the noise of yours. When self-love is thus satisfied, remember social virtue is the next duty, and tell your next friend where he may go and obtain the same relief, ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... unplumbed depths of her own heart, came the first tremor of doubt, come the tardy vibration of the silver cord which Page had struck so sharply. Was it—after all—Love, that she cherished and strove for—love, or self-love? Ever since Page had spoken she seemed to have fought against the intrusion of this idea. But, little by little, it rose to the surface. At last, for an instant, ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... that the daughters of lust are unfittingly reckoned to be "blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, self-love, hatred of God, love of this world and abhorrence or despair of a future world." For mental blindness, thoughtlessness and rashness pertain to imprudence, which is to be found in every sin, even as prudence is in every virtue. Therefore they should not be reckoned ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... vaunteth not itself. We can only love God at the sacrifice of all self-love. When man possesses the love of God there is no self-praise, nor seeking of honor; there is no setting self forward, but the lowliest ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... Bentham: [65] "How many praises are wasted on mercy! It has been repeated, time and time again, that that is the first virtue of a sovereign. Surely if crime consists only in an offense to one's self-love, if it is no more than a satire which is directed against him or his favorites, the moderation of the prince is meritorious. The pardon which he grants is a triumph obtained over himself! But when one treats of a crime against society, the pardon is not an act ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... stranger's to his own hands, which lay curved on the sea-wall as if asleep. They were small for a man of his stature, but, lying warm in the sun, they looked particularly secure in life. Instinctively, with a wave of self-love, he closed ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... such love; it leads to the knowledge of God. To aim at perfection in order to be worthy of the one you love, to make for him a thousand secret sacrifices, adoring him from afar, giving your blood drop by drop, abnegating your self-love, never feeling any pride or anger as regards him, even concealing from him all knowledge of the dreadful jealousy he fires in your heart, giving him all he wishes were it to your own loss, loving what he loves, always ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... to the wild animals of the earth, the air, and the waters. In the progress from primitive equity to final injustice, the steps are silent, the shades are almost imperceptible, and the absolute monopoly is guarded by positive laws and artificial reason. The active, insatiable principle of self-love can alone supply the arts of life and the wages of industry; and as soon as civil government and exclusive property have been introduced, they become necessary to the existence of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... learn to speak to the highest that is in them. A man's religion must consecrate his ideals. A religion which invites him to live on a lower plane than the highest on which his thought travels cannot win his respect. And therefore the new evangelism must learn to find its motive not in self-love, no matter how refined, but in the love that identifies the self with the neighbor. It must bring home to the individual the truth which he already dimly knows, that his personal redemption is bound up with the redemption of the society to which he belongs; that he cannot ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... kinds of uncouth and most useless methods. Some have shielded themselves, or tried to shield themselves, in an armour of stoical indifference—of utter selfishness, being sure that at all events there was one friendship in the world which could neither change nor fade—Self-love. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... heroic character. Whilst I contemplate the sublimity of his sentiments and the tenderness of his soul, I cannot help thinking how few would believe that so many admirable qualities could belong to one mind, and that mind remain unacquainted with the throes of ambition or the throbs of self-love." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... to this mountain, be thou cast into the sea. For I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to debase it.... Let me expostulate ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... or gives a present from vanity, or writes a book from vanity, or seeks an office from vanity,—then, as certainly as the bite of an asp will poison the body, will the expected good be turned into a bitter disappointment. Self-love cannot be the basis of human action without alienation from God, without weariness, disgust, and ultimate sorrow. The soul can be fed only by divine certitudes; it can be enlarged only by walking according ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... latter, and to have been truly attached to David. But it is at least questionable whether Ziba was such a villain, and Mephibosheth such an injured innocent, as is supposed. This, at least, is plain, that Ziba demonstrated attachment to David at the time when self-love would have kept him silent. It took some courage to come with gifts to a discrowned king (2 Sam. xvi. 1-4); and his allegation about his master has at least this support, that the latter did not come with the rest of David's court ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover, ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely, and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a mad trick and tied her to a husband she had ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... imaginations, how thou mayest ease thy mind of them. Which thou shalt do; if thou shalt go about every action as thy last action, free from all vanity, all passionate and wilful aberration from reason, and from all hypocrisy, and self-love, and dislike of those things, which by the fates or appointment of God have happened unto thee. Thou seest that those things, which for a man to hold on in a prosperous course, and to live a divine life, are requisite and ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... are not very much obliged to me. Much good it was for me to talk to you about your nose! You would never have found out how extraordinary it was if it hadn't hindered you from doing what you wanted to. You see how self-love keeps us from knowing our own defects of mind and body. Our reason tries in vain to show them to us; we refuse to see them till we find them in the way of ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... extremely, but whatever he said, whether gravely or in jest, was always well worth waiting for, though the inevitable impression it made might not be always pleasant to individual self-love. Conscious of great native elevation above the general standard of intellect, he became early in life sore upon opposition, whether in argument or conduct, and always resented it by sarcasm of very keen edge. Nor was he less impatient of the sallies of egotism and ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... desire to remove the distemper of sin, similarly it is necessary to seek out the root of all sin. We can lay our finger on it at once; it is inordinate self-love. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... Mordecai and Elihu; but more especially the command of their Lord and Master Jesus Christ, who forbade his followers to call men Rabbi, which implies Lord or Master; also the fashionable greetings and salutations of those times; that so self-love and honour, to which the proud mind of man is incident, in his fallen state, might not be indulged, but rebuked. And though this rendered their conversation disagreeable, yet they that will remember what Christ said to the Jews, "How can you believe which receive ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... qualites"(Gaffarel), he is ridiculous. The difference is not merely that we tolerate in a man of confessed superiority what would be intolerable in an equal. This is true; but there is a further distinction of moral quality in men's confessions. In Milton, as in Gibbon, the gratification of self-love, which attends all autobiography, is felt to be subordinated to a nobler intention. The lofty conception which Milton formed of his vocation as a poet, expands his soul and absorbs his personality. It is his office, and not himself, which he magnifies. The details of his life and nurture are ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... in a bad way, due not so much to the wound in his left shoulder as to the state of his mind. Haig's bullet was extracted without difficulty or serious complications, but Haig's words were encysted too deep for any probe. Huntington's self-love had been dealt a mortal blow; and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... still apply this name to something, lies in the work of breeding genius . from such training everything is to be hoped. All consolation comes from art. Education is love for the offspring; an excess of love over and beyond our self-love. Religion is "love beyond ourselves." The work of art is the model of such a love beyond ourselves, and a ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... Emulation misses, She turns to Envy, stings and hisses: The strongest friendship yields to pride, Unless the odds be on our side. Vain human kind! fantastic race! Thy various follies who can trace? Self-love, ambition, envy, pride, Their empire in our hearts divide. Give others riches, power, and station, 'Tis all on me an usurpation. I have no title to aspire; Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher. In Pope I cannot ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... granted to the unfortunate prince a longer life, and a safe return to his kingdom, had Germany been at peace." But when a trait, which is nothing more than a proof of a yet lingering humanity, and which a mere regard to appearances and even self-love, would have extorted from the most insensible, and the absence of which could exist only in the most inhuman heart, has, by a Roman Catholic writer of modern times and acknowledged merit, been made the subject of the highest eulogium, and compared with the magnanimous ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... what we saw, we wish it were in our power to lay down next, for the benefit of those who come after us, a satisfactory method of treating small-pox. The hospital returns are not of such an encouraging nature as to make our self-love predominate over observation and experience, and lead us to inferences which might seem to sanction the utility of this or that medicine, or curative plan. We had to deal, it is true, with the worst portion of the community; persons of constitutions exhausted or perverted by excess of sensual indulgences, ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... thy unbounded ambition hath been wrecked in the gulf of thy self-love, it would be proper that thou shouldst take in the sails of thy temerity, and cast the anchor of repentance in the port of sincerity and justice, which is the port of safety; lest the tempest of our vengeance make thee perish in the sea of the ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... still passable, but with a form a little too much like that of the Emperor Nicholas for the humble part I play, I am happy! Let me tell you why: Adolphe, rejoicing in the deceptions which have fallen upon me like a hail-storm, smoothes over the wounds in my self-love by so much affection, so many attentions, and such charming things, that, in good truth, women—so far as they are simply women—would be glad to find in the man they marry defects so advantageous. But all men of letters ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... way, a successful, prosperous man of business, head of a firm which sold artistic and ecclesiastical furniture in the Rue Bonaparte. She was about to have a child when her husband was ordered to the front. There could be no doubt of her ardent patriotism; for self-love includes one's country. Clerambault would never have expected to find any sympathy in her for his theories of fraternal pity. She had little enough for her friends, but none at all for her enemies. She would have ground them in a mortar with the same cold satisfaction ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... performance, the live, lovely, glamourous performance, and the world shall be the scenery. I refuse to dedicate my life to posterity. Surely one owes as much to the current generation as to one's unwanted children. What a fate—to grow rotund and unseemly, to lose my self-love, to think in terms of milk, oatmeal, nurse, diapers.... Dear dream children, how much more beautiful you are, dazzling little creatures who flutter (all dream children must flutter) on golden, ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... should have entreated, and resisted where she ought to have obeyed; but when she found that her wealth, power, and consequence were unknown, or utterly disregarded, and that she could only be esteemed for her good qualities, even her self-love tended to cure her of her idleness; and instead of drawling out—"Zebby, bring me this," "You fool, fetch me the other," she administered to her own wants, and obtained her wishes at so much less expense than she had once thought possible, that even her ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... the people in Charlottesville praised the piety and, above all, the prudence of Mrs. Grey—"Such a young and beautiful woman to be so entirely weaned from worldliness and self-love and so absorbed ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... hid; Must I then flatter my own mind? And must (which laws of shame forbid) Blind love of you make self-love blind? ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... away with a barbed arrow in my self-love, and a hard, resentful pain at my heart, on my mother's account. Fierce tears scalded the inside of my eyelids as I recalled her weeks of loving preparation for our school life, the thousand of stitches set by her dear hands, the gentle smile of satisfaction ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... known. It is a surprise, mingled with mystery and delight. But with what increased surprise and delight does one meet with a "person after his own heart." All men have recognized the strength and beauty of right self-love. The second great law of Christ's kingdom is declared in terms of true self-love. "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Every one loves himself, because one's self is the truest and best of other lives filtered ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... Duke, her husband. Her attendance here is necessary, but it contributes little to the development of her character. We have learned to know her, and expect neither womanish tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which touches her heart less than her self-love. Webster, among his other excellent qualities, knew how to support character by reticence. Vittoria's silence in this act is significant; and when she retires exclaiming, 'O me! this place is hell!' we know that it is the outcry, not of a woman ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... whose inspiring tale of blood Alexander pillowed his head; not in the animated strain of Pindar, where virtue is pictured in the successful strife of an athlete at the Isthmian games; not in the torrent of Demosthenes, dark with self-love and the spirit of vengeance; not in the fitful philosophy and intemperate eloquence of Tully; not in the genial libertinism of Horace, or the stately atheism of Lucretius. No! these must not be our masters; in none of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... incidents which it has been our task to accord. Alice listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father; taking care, however, not to wound the self-love of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided attention, ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... of public good, which, though operating unseen, never ceases one moment to act with unabating power, if it be not perverted by the futile regulations of some short-sighted politician." Again, Malthus, in his Essay on Population, in 1817, says: "By making the passion of self-love beyond comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence, the more ignorant are led to pursue the general happiness, an end which they would have totally failed to attain if the moving principle of their conduct had been benevolence. Benevolence, ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Chum. At about four or five years the child leaves the infantile stage of development, with its self-love and its intense devotion to parents and their substitutes. He begins to be especially interested in playmates of his own sex, to care more for the opinions of the gang—or if it be a little girl, of the chum—than for those of the parents. The life-force is leading him on to the next ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... are a man and a Roman, and let your actions be done with dignity, gravity, humanity, freedom and justice; let every action be done as though it were your last. Have neither insincerity nor self-love. Man has to gain but few points in order to live a happy and godlike life. And what, after all, is there to be afraid of in death? If the gods exist, you can suffer no harm; and if they do not exist, or take no care of us mortals, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... uses!" she exclaimed parenthetically. "Ah! Kirylo Sidorovitch, you like other men are fastidious, full of self-love and afraid of trifles. Moreover, you had no training. What you want is to be taken in hand by some woman. I am sorry I am not staying here a few days. I am going back to Zurich to-morrow, and shall take Yakovlitch ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... more dependent on Bryda. She was an utterly selfish old lady, and selfish people have a strange power of getting all they want out of those who minister to their particular weaknesses and foster their self-love and self-indulgence. Bryda was allowed to go home for two days at Christmas, having first made the puddings, and pastry for the mince pies, and cut the citron and orange peel into the prescribed portions for the rum punch which would be brewed ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... employed in services more gross or more refined: but whether the slaves of avarice, of sensuality, of dissipation, of sloth, or the votaries of ambition, of taste, or of fashion; whether supremely governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful sovereign. Let not this seem a harsh position; it can appear so only from not adverting to what was shewn to be the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... wondered at Professor Spiral's choice Of you for an example, and our hope. Now you grow dangerous. You must have thought, And some things true you speak-save 'terrorized.' It may be flattering to sweet self-love To deem me terrorized.—'Tis my own soul, My heart, my mind, all that I hold most sacred, Not fear of others, bids me walk aloof. Who terrorizes me? Who could? Friends? Never! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." And this is no empty declaration on his part. It is the thought which of all in his book is nearest to his heart; and hence he energetically assails those philosophers who look upon self-love and the refinements of self-love as the universal cause of all our sentiments, and seek to explain ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... sees these in the services he renders them, he says in his heart, "Of what use is it? Why should I do it? Of what advantage will it be to me?", and he leaves it undone. His delight is only that of self-love. And because the delight which springs from his love makes the life of a man, therefore his life is the life of self; and the life of self is life from man's proprium; and the proprium of man, viewed in itself, is nothing but evil. Love of self is of such ...
— The Gist of Swedenborg • Emanuel Swedenborg
... is not sincere in the matter, and that he has himself become so far alienated from the scheme that we may sleep quietly upon it." And James appeared at that moment so vexed at the turn affairs were taking in France, so wounded in his self-love, and so bewildered by the ubiquitous nature of nets and pitfalls spreading over Europe by Spain, that he really seemed waking from his delusion. Even Caron was staggered? "In all his talk he appears so far estranged from the Spaniard," said he, "that it would seem ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... stage of spiritual training one must take into account that with the strengthening of the forces of the soul a degree of self-love and egoism appears with such intensity as is quite unknown in the ordinary life of the soul. It would be a mistake for anyone to think that it is only a case of ordinary self-love at this point. Self-love ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... smiling lips, I have lived now to prove Were not for me, were not for me, But came of her self-love. ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... purpose, a convenient house was hired at Little Chelsea, and furnished for a ladies' boarding-school. Assistants of every kind were engaged, and I," says Mrs. Robinson, "was deemed worthy of an occupation that flattered my self-love, and impressed my mind with a sort of domestic consequence. The English language was my department in the seminary, and I was permitted to select passages both in prose and verse for the studies of my infant pupils; it was also my occupation to ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... frequent misapprehension of their true character. Were it possible to see with the eyes of others, this might not so often occur; for it need not be remarked, that few things, if any, ever retain their proper forms in the atmosphere of self-love; a fact that will account for many obliquities besides the one in question. To this we may add, that the existence of a compulsory power in either Good or Evil could not, in respect to man, consist with his free agency,—without ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... and his wishes to serve her. He would die to secure her good. He gives, and asks nothing. Or, in the same way, the woman loves the man so that her whole thought is not what she can obtain from him, but what she can give him. True love desires only to give. Self-love strives only to secure. ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... teaching may disagree with the reader. It is apt to harden the heart, wearying the attention, and mortifying the self-love. Such disturbances of the system interfere with the digestion of ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... Individuals set upon their own Persons; that high Esteem, which I take all Men to be born with for themselves. I have proved from what is constantly observ'd in Suicide, that there is such a Passion in Human Nature, and that it is plainly [2] distinct from Self-love. When this Self-liking is excessive, and so openly shewn as to give Offence to others, I know very well it is counted a Vice and call'd Pride: But when it is kept out of Sight, or is so well disguis'd as not to appear in its own Colours, it has no Name, tho' Men act from ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... her own heart, and in solitary reflection pondered deeply if she in any way deserved them. She knew that the lesson of self-knowledge is never entirely learnt; and she knew too, that an enemy may say that in ill-will or malice which may have some foundation, though our friends, aided by self-love, may have hidden the truth from us. Deeply did this noble woman think on her plan of conduct; severely she scrutinized its every motive, and she was at peace. Before entering upon it she had implored the Divine blessing, and she felt that, in the case of Emmeline and Ellen, ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... element in their character, 'Missis no 'spect to find coloured folks' house clean as white folks.' The mode in which they have learned to accept the idea of their own degradation and unalterable inferiority, is the most serious impediment that I see in the way of their progress, since assuredly, 'self-love is not so vile a sin as self-neglecting.' In the same way yesterday, Abraham the cook, in speaking of his brother's theft at the rice island, said 'it was a shame even for a coloured man to do such things.' I labour hard, whenever any such observation is made, to explain to ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... He was astonished at the multitude of people he knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of surprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had told Marcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... what they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now, true self-denial is the denial, for Christ's sake and the sake of souls, of these preferences. To say to God: "I sacrifice my way for Thy way—my wish for Thy wish—my will for Thy will—my plan for Thy plan—my life for ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... the stone with the aid of my own glasses (he having by accident left his at home) and in my own study. The heathen ancients might have instructed this Christian minister in the rites of hospitality; but much is to be pardoned to the spirit of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious who can make out the words her hrilir from any characters in the inscription in question, which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not mortuary. And even should the reverend gentleman succeed in persuading some fantastical wits of the soundness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... slavery. The desire of dazzling by riches, the most certain pre-eminence that man can obtain, the pleasure of commanding flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which Genius "must hide its diminished head," it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... thus privileged to lay hands on Patriarch and Patrician in the name of Augustus was looked up to with awful reverence by all the lower members of the official hierarchy; and Lydus, with one graphic touch, brings before us the glow of gratified self-love with which, when he was a subordinate Scriniarius, he found himself honoured by the familiar conversation of so great a person as the Commentariensis[150]: 'I too am struck with somewhat of my old ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... pleasures which would otherwise be contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoken by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a transplanted self-love." ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... had been called upon to live with him. "I hadn't a word to say in society," she writes; "I didn't even know its language. Obliged, as a woman, to captivate people's minds, I was ignorant how many shades there are of self-love, and I offended it when I thought I was flattering it. Always striking wrong notes and never hitting it off, I saw that my old ideas would never accord with those I was obliged to acquire; so I have hid my little capital away, never to see it again, and set about working for my ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... caused this storm. Le Brusquet, however, was not to be seen. He had stolen in, thrown his apple of discord, and stolen forth again like a ghost. None knew or understood better than he the wayward character of Vendome, and that never was the prince capable of acting with decision unless his self-love were hurt. So he had made his plan, and acted, and now stood in the shadow of a pillar in the courtyard waiting for the prince. He had not long to wait, for Vendome came storming out, almost on his heels, and called for ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... said Lady Carbury, still suffering in every fibre of her self-love from the soreness produced by those ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... and most hearts are pure while temptation is away. It is easy to awaken generous sentiments in privacy; to despise death when there is no danger; to glow with benevolence when there is nothing to be given. While such ideas are formed they are felt, and self-love does not suspect the gleam of virtue to ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... ready to perform its functions, and more powerful in impressing upon our minds the demerit or wickedness of an action committed by another, than if we ourselves had committed it. The reason of this is obviously self-love, which partly overbears the natural operations of this principle. Violence of passion and strong desire, when we are tempted to commit a crime, are hostile movements against the dictates of conscience; and they too frequently, by their excess, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... committing adultery, of taking revenge, of defrauding, of stealing, of acting cruelly, indeed, in the worst men, of blaspheming the holy things of the church and of inveighing against God. The fountainhead of those enjoyments is the love of ruling from self-love. They come of lusts which obsess the interiors of the mind, from these flow into the body, and excite uncleannesses there which titillate the fibers. The physical pleasure springs from the pleasure which the ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... destructive agency. The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights ...
— The Federalist Papers
... Finding myself on debatable ground, I gave way, and thanked him for his advice, which I said I should certainly follow whenever the case occurred to me; not that I felt convinced then, and have since found that he was wrong; still my apparent tractability pleased his self-love, and he became my advocate. "He grinned horribly a ghastly smile," and, turning to the other captains, asked ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... principle, embodying our own idea of what is absolute justice, and to insist that everything shall conform to that: to say, "all human affairs must be subject to that as the law paramount; what is right agrees therewith and stands, what is wrong conflicts and falls. Private cohesions of self-love, of friendship, or of patriotism, must all be subordinate to this universal gravitation toward the eternal right." The difficulty is that this Universe of necessities God-created, of sequences of cause and effect, and of life evolved from death, this interminable succession and aggregate ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... sin, might (as the scripture assures it may) insensibly become hard;—and, like some tender parts of his body, by much stress and continual hard usage, lose by degrees that nice sense and perception with which God and nature endowed it:—Did this never happen;—or was it certain that self-love could never hang the least bias upon the judgment;—or that the little interests below could rise up and perplex the faculties of our upper regions, and encompass them about with clouds and thick darkness:—Could no ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... attentive to methodical sciences, moderately so as to others; well versed in mathematics and geography; silent, a lover of solitude, whimsical, haughty, excessively prone to egotism, speaking but little, pithy in his answers, quick and severe in repartee, possessed of much self-love, ambitious, and high ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... this principle; but whenever the electoral sheep, left to their own instincts, can persuade themselves that they are voting from their own intelligence and their own lights, we may be certain to see them following that line eagerly and with a sentiment of self-love. Now to know a man's name, electorally speaking, is a good beginning toward a knowledge ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... expense of other organisms. Yet at a certain stage in evolution this principle of the survival of the fittest at the expense of the rest gives way to a counter principle, that of the fitting of as many as possible to survive. The thief tendency gives way to the shepherd tendency, self-love to mother-love, the struggle to survive to the struggle for the life of others. I do not pause at the moment to account for these two antithetic tendencies, there they are; all through the history of this sad old world of ours these two tendencies have been in sharp conflict. ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... perseveringly, and her love so humbly, that it would take all the obstinacy of a spoilt child to withstand him. Just as formerly he could think of nothing but his love, so now she will consider nothing except her self-love; but she is so much the more to blame than he, as her motives are less good than his. She is like a child that has woke up too early in the morning; it strikes and kicks at any one that comes to ...
— Three Comedies • Bjornstjerne M. Bjornson
... little he realized this change in her, and was touched with the wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his responsibility deepened, and he heard her voice but ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... marriage contract. The comparative poverty of the young couple and the absence of a corbeille quickened the interest that people love to exhibit; for it is with beneficence as with ovations, we prefer the deeds of charity which gratify self-love. The Marquise de Pimentel, the Comtesse du Chatelet, M. de Senonches, and one or two frequenters of the house had given Francoise a few wedding presents, which made great talk in the city. These pretty trifles, together with the trousseau which Zephirine ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... of Greek literature, and concluding the memoirs of his life and times, in which, through twenty-two books, he recorded the story of his deeds, colored doubtless to a great extent by his own magnificent self-love. In the last words of his "Memoirs" he characterized himself, with a certain degree of truth from his own point of view, as "fortunate and all-powerful to ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... feeling of affection, and freedom, and justice, and to give thyself relief from all other thoughts. And thou wilt give thyself relief if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy, and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given to thee. Thou seest how few the things are, the which if a man lays hold of, he is able to live a life which flows in quiet, and is like the existence of the gods; for ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... of the primary laws of existence in the physical world is self-love; that is, an instinct in every creature to procure its own good, even at the expense of others, so that the preservation of one is attended with the destruction of some others. All nature is in a perpetual struggle within itself, and every component part receives ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... standing by the piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin seizes him by the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating time the while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception of the delicacy of the passage. If anybody's self-love is to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand. If anybody's overweening vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it. What wonder that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin's friendliness; that he is universally allowed to be handsome as amiable; ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... crush his love of honour, he burnt a letter of thanks for his services from the Governor-General of India, and other documents of the same kind. He fasted severely, and having by nature a peculiar horror of the decay and mouldering of death, he deemed it pride and self-love, and dug a grave beside which he would sit meditating on the appearance of the body after death. He had a bamboo hermitage on the borders of the jungle, where he would live on rice for weeks together—only ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... conveys a warning to writers that is not of an age but for all time. Coleridge may have exaggerated the "manly hilarity" and "evenness and sweetness of temper" of men of genius. But there is no denying that, the smaller the genius, the greater is the spite of wounded self-love. "Experience informs us," as Coleridge says, "that the first defence of weak minds is to recriminate." As for Coleridge's great service to Wordsworth's fame, it was that of a gold-washer. He cleansed it from all that was false in Wordsworth's reaction both in theory and in practice ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... man imagined that he "was singled out alone to give his testimony for Christ, discovering Antichrist's marks." "If any," he cried out, "will be faithful for Christ, they must witness against Antichrist, which is self-love, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The witnesses are now slain, but shortly they will rise again," &c. He tried to get up "private Christian meetings," to run an opposition to "pulpit ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... imitate the petty thought, Nor coin my self-love to so base a vice, For all the glory your conversion brought, Since gold alone should not have been its price. You have your salary; was't for that you wrought? And Wordsworth has his place in the Excise. You're shabby fellows—true—but poets still ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... of love and hatred is some other person, of whose thoughts, actions, and sensations we are not conscious. This is sufficiently evident from experience. Our love and hatred are always directed to some sensible being external to us; and when we talk of self-love, it is not in a proper sense, nor has the sensation it produces any thing in common with that tender emotion which is excited by a friend or mistress. It is the same case with hatred. We may be mortified by our own faults and ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... naturally a lover of himself, and that it is right that it should be so. This is a mistake; for in fact the cause of all the blunders committed by man arises from this excessive self-love. For the lover is blinded by the object loved, so that he passes a wrong judgment upon what is just, good, and beautiful, thinking that he ought always to honour what belongs to himself, in preference to truth. For he who intends to be a great man ought to ...
— Book of Wise Sayings - Selected Largely from Eastern Sources • W. A. Clouston
... perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called important matters. I should be so here, more than in any other case, from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the person. The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la Duchesse de Berry's marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon, in spite of herself and ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... is not only the duty, but (by the laws of the Moral Government of the World) also the interest of Man, or to express it in Bishop Butler's manner, Conscience and Reasonable self-love are the two principles in our nature which of right have supremacy over the rest, and these two lead in point of fact the same ...
— Ethics • Aristotle
... office, not forgetting the cage: chary of this low life, even in the peril of his own. So, going out on the street, he tested his own nature by this trifle in his old fashion. "The ruling passion strong in death," eh? It had not been self-love; something deeper: an instinct rather than reason. Was he glad to think this of himself? He looked out more watchful of the face which the coming Christmas bore. The air was cold and pungent. The crowded city seemed wakening to some keen enjoyment; even his own weak, deliberate step rang ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... Cope had now no self-love to consider, no self-esteem to guard. He did not raise his face from out the pillow to reply. But he found Lemoyne rather drastic. Arthur had shown himself much in earnest, of course; he had the right, doubtless, to be reproachful; and he ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... a lover who has a piece of dishonesty lurking in him. My chilled self-love had certainly the right to demand the explanation of her coldness, and I could very well guess that a word or two drawn from the neighbourhood of the heart would fetch a warmer current to unlock the ice between us, but feeling the coldness I complained ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... vanity is concerned it is well enough. But self-love is a cup without any bottom, and you might pour the Great Lakes all through it, and never fill it up. It breeds an appetite for more of the same kind. It tends to make the celebrity a mere lump of egotism. It ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... she goes. What? Not a glance at her mother, not a silent farewell, not a tear? No, nothing! With the terrible clearness of vision of those who are about to die, she suddenly realizes that her childhood and youth have been sacrificed to a vast self-love. She feels very sure that a word from their great man will comfort that sleeping mother, with whom she is almost angry for not waking, for allowing her to go without a quiver of ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet |
