"Disinterested" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others, nor is disturbed in her own counsels, and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... The disinterested behaviour of the converts betokened their intense earnestness. "All that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need." [52:2] These early disciples were not, indeed, required, ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... herself, for safety in her crime and success in her deep-laid scheming. A prayer for Le Gardeur mingled with Angelique's devotions, giving them a color of virtue. Her desire for his welfare was sincere enough, and she thought it disinterested of herself to ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... in the Park, in the early morning, breathless and dazed, and drove him home to his own house, where the boy spent the day; they took a hansom, the doctor tells me, than which no statement is more quickly and easily checked. Are we to believe this apparently unimpeachable and disinterested witness, or are we not? He was most explicit about everything, offering to show me exactly where he found the boy, and never the least bit vague or unsatisfactory in any way. If you are prepared to believe him, if only for the sake of argument, you may care to hear Dr. Baumgartner's ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... in the scale against him. More able friends than myself your royal highness may easily find, and of more consequence in the state; but one more attached and affectionate is not so easily met with: Princes seldom, very seldom, find a disinterested person to communicate their thoughts to: I do not pretend to be that person; but of this be assured, by a man who, I trust, never did a dishonourable act, that I am interested only that your royal highness should be the greatest and best man ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... alumni to form a permanent society, to offer to graduates an inducement to revisit the seat of their youthful studies and to give new life to disinterested friendships found in ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... indeed, when I hope I have an interest in the precious Redeemer, and behold an infinite loveliness and beauty in Him, apart from anything I expect or hope. But even then how deceitful is the human heart! how insensibly might a mere selfish love take the place of that disinterested complacency which regards Him for what He is in Himself, apart from what He is to us! Say, my dear friend, does not this thought sometimes ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; guarded, by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous, that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves; with all these qualifications, as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... purer sentiments of Alice lowered him in his own eyes; and though unshaken in his opinion, that it were better the vessel should be steered by a pilot having no good title to the office, than that she should run upon the breakers, he felt that he was not espousing the most direct, manly, and disinterested side of ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... possessing scientific knowledge, others who have both practical experience and science but are charlatans, others again who are very scientific but incapable in practice. The ideal is a combination of art, science and disinterested honesty; but it is not very uncommon to meet with a combination of ignorance, incapacity and charlatanism. Lastly, too many doctors, otherwise capable and intelligent, are too much influenced by authority, text-books and prejudices, instead of observing and judging each case for ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... physiognomy; his short, thick neck, designed to tempt the hatchet of the guillotine: these details, so accurately photographed, not only prove that M. Michu was a resolute, faithful servant, capable of the profoundest secresy and the most disinterested attachment, but for the really skilful reader of mystic symbols foretell his ultimate fate—namely, that he will be the victim of a false accusation. Balzac, however, ventures into still more whimsical extremes. ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... plausible polyglot, who deliberately used his facility in acquiring and translating tongues as a ladder to an administrative post abroad. Borrow, as was perhaps natural, put a wrong construction upon his sympathy, and his apparently disinterested ambition to leave no poetic fragment in Russian, Swedish, Polish, Servian, Bohemian, or Hungarian unrendered into English. He determined to emulate a purpose so lofty in its detachment, and the mistake cost him dear, for ...
— George Borrow - Times Literary Supplement, 10th July 1903 • Thomas Seccombe
... for the future. Of the two great political parties which have divided the opinions and feelings of our country, the candid and the just will now admit that both have contributed splendid talents, spotless integrity, ardent patriotism, and disinterested sacrifices to the formation and administration of this Government, and that both have required a liberal indulgence for a portion of human infirmity and error. The revolutionary wars of Europe, commencing precisely at the moment when the Government ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Your friend raised his flag at once, and nailed it to the staff. And this little minx thought that she could deceive an old soldier like myself by playing the role of disinterested friend to a lonely young man condemned to the miseries of a mining town. I was often tempted to ask her why she did not extend her sympathy to scores of young fellows in the service who are in danger of being scalped ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... had found only frank, disinterested friendship,—a somewhat ironic comradeship, the condescending tolerance of a person compelled by solitude to choose as her comrade the least repulsive among a host of inferiors. Alas! How clearly he remembered ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... compensation of a good income. They found it difficult to conceive that her husband's death could be felt by her otherwise than as a deliverance. The person who was most thoroughly convinced that Janet's grief was deep and real, was Mr. Pilgrim, who in general was not at all weakly given to a belief in disinterested feeling. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... to the Association, and the disinterested attorney for this prosecution?—Yes, I was sent by him for the express purpose of purchasing this pamphlet; I should not have gone if I had not ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... descriptive translation of the caption under which he wrote. That such should be the case will not, it is hoped, be accounted either an unseemly presumption or an undue inclination to work under a borrowed light. The aim and compass of any disinterested inquiry in these premises is still the same as it was in Kant's time; such, indeed, as he in great part made it,—viz., a systematic knowledge of things as they are. Nor is the light of Kant's leading to be dispensed with as touches the ways and means of systematic ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... scientific and philosophic thinkers. These men—such as Kant and Hegel, for example—have been proverbially, and often ludicrously, indifferent to the material details of their existence. Who can suppose that the disinterested passion for truth, which had the effect of making these men forget their dinners, will stimulate others to devote themselves to the ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... broker, thus admonished, only laughed. Indeed, the thing Inches admired most in Mrs. Jim was her forcible manner of expressing herself. He admired and liked her well enough, for that and for other reasons, to take a very disinterested pleasure in putting her in the way ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... said he, "I cannot suffer a man of your age to kneel to me; are you not one of my best and truest friends? I will ever remember your disinterested affection for me; and if heaven restores me to my rights, it shall be one of my first cares to render your old age easy and happy." Joseph wept over him, and it was some time before he could utter ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... Aquinas than those of his predecessors were in making Amaury of Bena a mystery.[14] Yet there has always, in generous souls who have some tincture of philosophy, subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over the work of these generations of mainly disinterested scholars who, whatever they were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do, could think. And there have even, in these latter days, been some graceless ones who have asked whether the Science ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... position in the house had sprung from circumstances which would not, perhaps, in the eyes of the world at large, have recommended her for such friendship. She knew—the reader may possibly know—that nothing had ever been purer, nothing more disinterested than her friendship. But she knew also,—no one knew better,—that the judgment of men and women does not always run parallel with facts. She entertained, too, a conviction in regard to herself, that hard words and hard judgments were to be expected ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... Thus, science is absolutely disinterested in the selection which we are now discussing and that fact I wish to emphasize particularly, as we are about to take a vote which we can easily anticipate by the one we had a few minutes ago, in order that the opponents of the resolution ...
— International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. • Various
... presence. He dwelt in his musings upon her devotion to the church, her good works, her visitings of the poor and sick. He assured himself with a vehemence too feverish not to be fallacious that he was instigated only by entirely disinterested feelings; by the desire to assist in deeds of Christian helpfulness, and by pleasure in the society of one whose devotion to godliness was so marked. He argued with himself as eagerly as if he were struggling to convince another, ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... have the honor to transmit herewith a Brevet Commission, conferred by the President in recognition of your faithful and disinterested services ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... first leader of the opposition which developed in the Assembly after the War of 1812 was James Stuart, the son of the leading Anglican clergyman of his day, but he soon fell away and became a mainstay of the bureaucracy. His brother Andrew, however, kept up for many years longer a more disinterested fight. Another Scot, John Neilson, editor of the Quebec "Gazette", was until 1833 foremost among the assailants of the bureaucracy. But steadily, as the extreme nationalist claims of the French-speaking majority provoked reprisals and as the conviction ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... not trouble me either. Absolutely disinterested friends I do not seek, as I should only find them among idiots or somnambulists. As to those whose interests are base, they do not know how to conceal their motives from me. For the rest, I am not so unreasonable as to object to a fair account being taken of my wealth ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... to no motive,—of whose feelings we can form no more idea than of a sixth sense. We have left a race of creatures, whose love is as delicate and affectionate as the passion which an alderman feels for a turtle. We find ourselves among beings, whose love is a purely disinterested emotion,—a loyalty extending to passive obedience,—a religion, like that of the Quietists, unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. We see nothing but despotism without power, and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the professors of each became more expert in their particular craft, they became less respectable in their general character. Their skill had been obtained at too great expense to be employed only from disinterested views. Thus, the soldiers forgot that they were citizens, and the orators that they were statesmen. I know not to what Demosthenes and his famous contemporaries can be so justly compared as to those mercenary troops who, in their ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... imagine I was bitterly disappointed. The lesson was a hard one, but salutary. I took no more disinterested advice; I bought no more property. There are too many agents between a woman and the thing she aims at, for her ever to attain it without danger of discomfiture. The experience, as you may guess, put me ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... if disinterested, makes about as good a witness as anybody. There is really no such thing as "the lust of lying:" falsehoods are told for advantage—commonly a shadowy and illusory advantage, but one distinctly ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... showing 'clean hands' to the Sultan in proof of the unselfishness of British action," the policy of England in the Near East has been actuated, ever since the close of the Napoleonic wars, by a sincere and wholly disinterested desire to save Turkish statesmen from the consequences of their own folly. In this cause no effort has been spared, even to the shedding of the best blood of England. All has been in vain. History does not relate a more striking instance of the truth of the old Latin saying that self-deception ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... had made her blush, so of course she did blush—and Mr. John Dounce was a long time drinking the brandy-and-water; and, at last, John Dounce went home to bed, and dreamed of his first wife, and his second wife, and the young lady, and partridges, and oysters, and brandy-and-water, and disinterested attachments. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... numbers of opposing parties afforded sufficient evidence of the comparative justice of their claims the government should carry the principle into its courts of justice; and instead of referring controversies to impartial and disinterested men, to judges and jurors, sworn to do justice, and bound patiently to hear and weigh all the evidence and arguments that can be offered on either side, it should simply count the plaintiff's and defendants in each case, (where there were more than one of either,) and then give the ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... the citizens, in plain and simple words, for the disinterested respect they were good enough to pay ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... to their defects and infirmities, should be segregated according to counties or other suitable areas. On the treatment of able-bodied paupers there are different opinions. It is suggested by the Philanthropic Reform Association, which includes some of the most earnest and disinterested philanthropists in Ireland, that the well-conducted of this class should be placed in labour colonies, and the ill-conducted in detention colonies—both classes of institutions to be maintained and controlled by the State, and not by the ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the silent, all but disinterested Larry, "Have these three put in separate rooms in that section they used for the violent wing when the place was a nuthouse. Have a good guard and see they ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... justification of their form of slavery, namely, that it was confined to one race, and that race widely separated from all other races by the existence of peculiar characteristics, has been regarded as an aggravation of their misconduct by all humane and disinterested persons. The Greek system of slavery, which was based on the idea that Greeks were noblemen of Heaven's own creating, and that they therefore were justified in treating all other men as inferiors, and making the same use of them as they made ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... all know, it does push so much else to one side! Love, spiritual gropings, the arts, our old closeness to nature, the independent outlook and disinterested friendships of men—all these must be checked and diminished, lest they interfere. Yet those things are life; and big business is just a great game. Why play any game so intently we ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... that you will be esteemed for your disinterested kindness, but you will feel no pleasure ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... the distance. There was indeed much cause for anxiety. Suddenly an alarm was raised that the camels had been stolen. The old chief, taking advantage of this state of things, urged Barth and Overweg to confide their property to him and another chief. This was not entirely disinterested advice; for, if anything had happened to the travellers, the chief would, of course, have ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... where. Sleeps with it on his bed, eats with it by his chair, even takes it to the bathroom—by-the-by, he acquired the dog and bowel-control at the same time, if you recall—but does he like the dog? He never pets it to speak of. Plays with it sometimes in a clumsy, disinterested sort of way, but it's not the classic boy-dog relationship. If the dog is merely a ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... was nothing if not cordial. "But her face is her fortune. I needn't ask if you can keep her in the state to which she's accustomed," his eye wandered over the dilapidated vicarage furniture, "or whether your attentions are disinterested. Evidently you're one of those men who like their wives to be dependent on them— ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... matter of that the Major, would have known in the least what I was talking about. A man like that about the place would be a great comfort to me. I should have some one to talk to. I wish I could get you all to understand that I'm acting in this whole business from purely disinterested and altruistic motives. I don't want to get rid of Simpkins. You and Doyle and ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... "I have had three proposals of marriage, and on each occasion my aunt pressed me to accept the offer. I refused to do so, unless I were allowed time and opportunity to make the most exhaustive inquiries as to my disinterested lover's antecedents. My heart not being touched, I was able to do so dispassionately, and in each case I discovered something dishonourable in their characters. One I found was on the brink of pecuniary ruin, I therefore considered I had a right to think he loved my fortune and not myself. ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the interpreter of an idea; an idea is first exhibited by the poet and the deed is afterwards set forth as its consequence; the conclusions are too patently didactic or doctrinaire; we suspect that they have been motives determining the action; our scepticism as to the disinterested conduct of the story is aroused by its too plainly deduced moral. We catch the powers at play which ought to be invisible; we fiddle with the works of the clock till it ceases to strike. Yet if only a part of Browning's mind is alive in these early poems, the faculties brought into exercise ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... wonderful that this semi-conscious Arab should have chosen a text from the Koran so singularly appropriate to his condition. There were hundreds of suras familiar to Michael, relating to the benefits to be received by the faithful who performed disinterested acts of charity. "Do good to the creatures of God, for God loves those who do good." These words came to his mind as more suitable, as referring only to his hospitality to the fainting wayfarer. Or again, "The truly righteous are those ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... they had been under the sweet illusion that disinterested affection must eventually win for itself a way to union; but old Mr. Raincliffe had spoken seriously to them, and altogether forbade their further meeting until Robert had spoken to his father. He went home that very night, and, ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... without observing her prosperity, but still a hard dry life. Even her neighbours, whose ideas of enjoyment do not soar above the St. Armand level, think that her lot would be softer if she married. Many of the men have offered marriage, not with any disinterested motive, it is true, but with kindly intent. They have been set aside like children who make requests unreasonable, but so natural for them to make that the request is hardly worth noticing. The women relatives of these rejected suitors ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... record as bearing upon military efficiency. The Administration, responsible for results, knew Rodney's capacity, though its full extent was yet to be revealed; the question in their minds clearly must have been, "Can we depend upon its exertion, full, sustained, and disinterested?" Sandwich, despite the coldness with which he had received Rodney's application,—going so far as to refuse to support it actively,—was apparently in a minority among his colleagues in believing that they could. He declared in the House ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... goin' to begin!" cried little Mr. Moses in an extraordinary sort of disinterested excitement, like that of an animal during music or a thunderstorm. "Follow on to the 'Igh Court of Eggs and Bacon; 'ave a kipper from the old firm! 'Is Lordship complimented Mr. Gould on the 'igh professional delicacy 'e had shown, and which ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... look at Croyden. His face was a study. Hunting the Parmenter treasure, with the Chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee as a disinterested spectator, was rather startling, to say the least. The Senator's ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... vices—some to be pitied for their weaknesses and follies—some to be scorned for mean and selfish conduct. But there are others whose memory is embalmed in tears of grateful recollection. There are those whose generosity and whose kindness, whose winning sympathy and noble disinterested virtues are never thought upon or ever spoken of without calling forth a blessing. Might it not, therefore, be good for us often to ask ourselves how we are likely to be spoken of when the grave has closed upon the intercourse between us and ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... interpretation on a tenet. Why not on Christianity, wholesome, sweet, and poetic? It is the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely disinterested, a truth-speaker, and bent on serving, teaching, and uplifting men. Christianity taught the capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that to love him was happiness,—to love him in ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... probability of a splinter of bone knocked off my left hip, the possibility of paralysis in the leg, the certainty of a seriously injured spine, and the necessity for the most violent counter-irritants. Follow blisters which sicken even disinterested people to look at, and a trifle of suffering which I come very near acknowledging to myself. Enter the fourth. Inhuman butchery! wonder they did not kill you! Take three drops a day out of this tiny bottle, and presto! in two weeks ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... buffalo; Tete Rouge of theaters and oyster cellars. Henry had led a life of hardship and privation; Tete Rouge never had a whim which he would not gratify at the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tete Rouge, though equally good-natured in his way, cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would not have lost him on any account; he admirably served the purpose of a jester in a ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... are speaking of my brother, my friend and benefactor! one of the best, noblest, most disinterested creatures Heaven ever made!" cried Mabel, erect and indignant. "You have no warrant—I shall never give you the right—to asperse him in my presence. He is incapable of cruelty or unfairness. It is my duty to obey him, but it ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... in mathematics, in astronomy, and in Biblical literature and criticism.[130] Brilliant attainments in so many departments were commended yet more to the admiration of beholders by a modest and unassuming deportment, by morals above reproach, and by a disinterested nature in which there was no taint of avarice. The sincerity of his unselfish love of knowledge was said to be attested by the liberality with which he renounced the entire income of his small patrimony in favor ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and alert in warfare, was singularly limited in civil affairs. As a statesman he was so constant an example of devotion to duty, self-sacrifice, and high disinterested character, that the country was the better for his presence. But he fiercely opposed Catholic Emancipation, the Reform Bill, and everything upon which our modern life is founded. He could never be brought ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... itself as absolutely as "Leaves of Grass;" but suppose it had been written three or four centuries ago, and had located itself in mediaeval Europe, and was now first brought to light, together with a history of Walt Whitman's simple and disinterested life, can there be any doubt about the cackling that would at once break out in the whole brood of critics over the golden egg that had been uncovered? This reckon would be a favorite passage ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... whips along the main street of Mulinuu. There was no punishment, there was even no inquiry; the three Consuls winked. Only one man was found honest and bold enough to open his mouth, and that was my old enemy, Mr. Cedercrantz. Walking in Mulinuu, in his character of disinterested spectator, gracefully desipient, he came across the throng of these rabblers and their victims. He had forgotten that he was an official, he remembered that he was a man. It was his last public appearance in Samoa to interfere; it was certainly his best. Again, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... carried on until quite lately, and which had also until quite lately been entirely financed by him. Even if he baffled her questions, his consciousness of the facts would make it too desperately difficult a task for him to assume the role of Molly's disinterested friend now, although in truth he felt as such, and would have done and ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... Fabian Society, p. 268: "Sooner or later, unless democracy is to be discarded in a reaction of disgust such as killed it in ancient Athens, democracy itself will demand that only such men should be presented to its choice as have proved themselves qualified for more serious and disinterested work than 'stoking up' election meetings to momentary and foolish excitement. Without qualified rulers a ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... how disinterested it was of me to offer you marriage: nay, more, I never loved you; if I told you so, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... disinterested motives, pure love for one's neighbor, for humanity, for country, do not form a hundredth part of the total energy that produces human activity. It must not be forgotten that the actions of men are ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... shown me, in multitudinous ways, the wisdom of this decision; and I beg disinterested people to ask my loyal students if they consider three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my instruction during twelve half-days, or even in half as many lessons. Nevertheless, my list of indigent charity ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... those noble and gentle ladies of England who have in so good a spirit expressed their views of the question will not be discouraged by the strong abuse that will follow. England is doing us good. We need the vitality of a disinterested country to warm our torpid and benumbed ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... can have no doubt but that our views are disinterested, and we therefore think ourselves entitled to your attention, whilst we speak of matters in which you are ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... thy love, O my God, Thou wast pleased to fix me in a continual adherence to Thyself alone. Souls thus directed get the shortest way. They are to expect great sufferings, especially if they are mighty in faith, in mortification and deadness to all but God. A pure and disinterested love, and intenseness of mind for the advancement of thy interest alone. These are the dispositions Thou didst implant in me, and even a fervent desire of suffering for Thee. The cross, which I had hitherto borne only with resignation, was become my delight, and the special ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... place at court. You may not have known that he was in London, as you have never met him; your coming with me will make it appear so. Tell him that I have just made known to you his noble and disinterested conduct." ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... about theology, but they let other things alone. The boards of trustees are almost always made up of "practical men," and if their faiths, ideas, and prejudices are to make the norm of education, the schools will turn out boys and girls compressed to that pattern. There is no wickedness in any disinterested and sincere opinion. That is what we all pretend to admit, but there are very few of us who really act by it. We seem likely to have orthodox history (especially of our own country), political science, political economy, and sociology before long.[2213] It will be ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... can't help seeing why—it's for the moral advantage. Way down at the bottom, that's what it is. We have the sense to want all we can get of that sort of thing. They've developed the finest human product there is, the cleanest, the most disinterested, and we want to keep up the relationship—it's important. Their talk about the value of their protection doesn't take in the situation as it is now. Who would touch us if we were running ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... suits his palate; discouragements, entanglements, aberrations are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps are even pecuniary distresses wanting; for 'the good Gretchen, who in spite of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him hither, must after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble hand.' Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin, the Humour of that young Soul, what character is ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... It is improbable that Sir John Cope had ever tried to oblige Smollett. His ignoble attack on Cope, after that unfortunate General had been fairly and honourably acquitted of incompetence and cowardice, was, then, wholly disinterested. Cope is ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... refused; and that Rebekah reproved them for their churlishness. Her civilities were connected essentially with her promotion, though she had no selfish purpose in view: they resulted solely from a pure and disinterested generosity ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... of ambition by an adverse leader. His brief and precarious enjoyment of power must be employed in rewarding his partizans, in extending his influence, in oppressing and crushing his adversaries. Even Abou Hassan, the most disinterested of all viceroys, forgot not, during his caliphate of one day, to send a douceur of one thousand pieces of gold to his own household; and the Scottish vicegerents, raised to power by the strength of their faction, failed not to embrace the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... "There is a Miss —— here, the nicest girl I ever met; but don't be afraid, the dead do not marry." His own secret opinion seems to have been that marriage spoilt both men and women, and it will be at least admitted that if he had married he could never have lived the disinterested, heroic life which remains ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... engineer about the progress of his business, interesting himself in the development of that factory of which he always spoke with the affection of a father. The millionaire, in spite of his reputation for miserliness, had even volunteered his disinterested support if at any time it should become necessary to enlarge the plant. And it was this good man's happiness that his son, a frivolous and useless dancer, was going ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the earlier special works upon the disease. A part of his testimony has been occasionally copied into other works, but his expressions are so clear, his experience is given with such manly distinctness and disinterested honesty, that it may be quoted as a model which might have been often ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... of sensuous service are gradually being set aside. The religion of the future will neither be a political institution, nor a means of livelihood, but an expression of the highest moral attribute, human or divine—disinterested love." ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... illusion. Nay, the enthusiasm of the charming woman before him was contagious. "Thanks to your father's disinterested liberality," he resumed, "I am now in comparatively prosperous circumstances. I came not merely to discharge a debt; believe me, it is no common gratitude I feel! Doubtless you inherit all your father's wealth—doubtless it is but little service I can ever hope to render you. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... colony should be charged with breaking an article of the agreement, or with doing an injury to another colony, the complaint was to be submitted to the consideration and determination of the commissioners of such colonies as should be disinterested.[73] ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... who dared to cheat one of these fierce savages, with the blade of a long lance ten inches from his breast bone. Honesty was emphatically the best policy, and the moral suasion of a Chukchi spear developed the most disinterested benevolence in the breast of the man who stood at the sharp end. The trade which was thus established still continues to be a source of considerable profit to the inhabitants of Anadyrsk, and to the Russian merchants who come there every year ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... you are,—accept a friend's disinterested advice," remarked Betterson. "If your boy had been on the right side of the fence, minding his own business,—you will bear with me if I am quite plain in my speech,—my boy would have had no occasion to ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... conventionalities, high or low, could restrain—a festive nature flowing through the artificial soil of elevated life." And it must be owned that there was at least nothing petty or rancorous in a nature which showed so rare an appreciation of genius, and an equal capacity for warm and disinterested friendship. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... exist. In many individuals, whose littleness and meanness in the common intercourse of life would have stamped them at once as contemptible and worthless, with ordinary Englishmen, he had found such virtues of disinterested patriotism, fortitude, and self-denial, as would have done ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... others, as also for our entire attitude in face of divers orders of truths—that here we should ignore the physiological explanation, and retain and taste only the emotions of this nuptial flight, which is yet, and whatever the cause, one of the most lyrical, most beautiful acts of that suddenly disinterested, irresistible force which all living creatures obey and are wont to call love? That were too childish; nor is it possible, thanks to the excellent habits every loyal mind ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck
... final effort to meet quibbles, the British Ambassador at Berlin then suggested that after Austria had satisfied her military prestige, the moment might then be favorable for four disinterested powers to discuss the situation and come forward with suggestions for ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... write a volume to you; but all the language on earth would fail in saying how much, and with what disinterested passion, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Manyuema. Appetite returned, and instead of the spare, tasteless, two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a demonstrative turn; as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be, but this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity. Mr. Stanley has done his part with untiring energy; good judgment ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... sure I cannot imagine what you mean, for it is not in my power to be useful to anyone. Your friendship for me must be disinterested, Bertha." ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... the disinterested and strenuous exertions of a Jewish international lawyer, the affair was settled out of court after all—fifteen hundred francs, plus expenses ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... support, took up the case on account of which I had stood my trial, and, by their energy and the ventilation of its details, did much to show how greatly I had been wronged. I did not and do not suppose that all this friendship was disinterested, but, whatever its motive, it was equally welcome to ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... the first Russian who has been on our N.W. interior since the enterprising gentlemen who thought to speculate on the 'copper rock.' But Capt. Tchehachoff has no other views than those of an enlightened and disinterested observer. I am sure that it will give you pleasure to show ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... all his countrymen. Notwithstanding his illness, he told us he was determined to command the expedition against Eimea, saying it was of little consequence if they killed an old man, who could no longer be useful. He was very cheerful under his infirmities, and his way of thinking was nobly disinterested, and seemed to be animated by true heroism. He took leave of us with a degree of cordiality and emotion, which touched the heart, and might have reconciled a misanthrope to the world."—G.F.— Who does not see in this noble ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... was read out—I forget how it went—it sounded like a long hymn being given out. Jack pleaded guilty. Then he straightened up for the first time and looked round the court, with a calm, disinterested look—as if we were all strangers and he was noting the size of the meeting. And—it's a funny world, ain't it?—everyone of us shifted or dropped his eyes, just as if we were the felons and Jack the judge. Everyone except the ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... have found, nevertheless, in the author whom all extolled, opinions closely analogous to those by which the wildest fanatics had justified their extravagances. The doctrines of an inner light, of perfection, of reason quiescent amid the tumult of the soul, of mystical union, of disinterested love, are all strongly maintained by the Archbishop of Cambray. He wrote his 'Maximes des Saints' with the express purpose of showing how, in every age of the Church, opinions identical with those held by himself and Madame Guyon had been sanctioned by great authorities.[507] It was, in fact, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... had gradually withdrawn to the scholarly cloisters of our fifth-story apartment, adjacent to the tin roof, which so fascinated the summer sun, and far above the turmoil of a world of men and women wholly disinterested in me. Perhaps this may seem a little too pessimistic for a philosopher whose experience had taught him to be above disappointment, yet I must confess it is true I could not witness the social achievements of my companion without pangs of remorse; ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... Chicago anarchists, whose Homer you constituted yourself by 'The Bomb.' I tried to get some literary men in London, all heroic rebels and skeptics on paper, to sign a memorial asking for the reprieve of these unfortunate men. The only signature I got was Oscar's. It was a completely disinterested act on his part; and it secured my distinguished consideration for him for ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... whose history forms the object of my study, will not have been entirely in vain; and that the lovers of human progress, the believers in the capacity of nations for self-government and self-improvement, and the admirers of disinterested human genius and virtue, may find encouragement for their views in the detailed history of an heroic people in its most eventful period, and in the life and death of the great man whose name and fame are identical with those ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I walked up the street figuring where I'd get the money. Of course I saw I'd have to divide the profits. I didn't know anybody; but after a while I decided that the best chance was to get some advice from honest and disinterested man. So I asked the first man I met who ran the biggest gambling place in town. ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... better than many buyers do their part. It has driven fraudulent brands off the market, compelled carefulness in factory-mixing, and given to the intelligent buyer a knowledge of the kinds and amounts of plant-food in the bag or ton. The sampling is done by disinterested men, and the analyses are made by competent chemists. There need be little distrust of the analysis as printed on the bag, unless a failure of the manufacturer to keep his goods up to the standard has been made public ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... 'sixties were as Dickens drew them. The famous consultant, Dr. Parker Peps; the fashionable physician, Sir Tumley Snuffim; the General Practitioner, Mr. Pilkins; and the Medical Officer of the Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Insurance Company, Dr. Jobling; are in the highest degree representative and typical; but perhaps the Doctor—his name, unfortunately, has perished—who was called to the bedside of little Nell, and came with "a great bunch of seals ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... to know, O royal sage, whether any fault is incurred by one who from interested or disinterested friendship imparts instructions unto a person belonging to a low order of birth! O grandsire, I desire to hear this, expounded to me in detail. The course of duty is exceedingly subtile. Men are often seen to be stupefied in respect of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... though it can, sometimes, be done. With painstaking care Steger went over all the ground of Stener's long relationship with Cowperwood, and tried to make it appear that Cowperwood was invariably the disinterested agent—not the ringleader in a subtle, really criminal adventure. It was hard to do, but he made a fine impression. Still the jury listened with skeptical minds. It might not be fair to punish Cowperwood for seizing with avidity upon ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... although not governed by the will, do themselves greatly influence the will. All acts of will produced entirely by pure affection for another are disinterested.... So soon as the affections move towards an object, the will is proportionally influenced to please and benefit that object, or, if a superior being, to obey ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... do we commonly hear about the contrast between college education and the education which business or technical or professional schools confer? The college education is called higher because it is supposed to be so general and so disinterested. At the "schools" you get a relatively narrow practical skill, you are told, whereas the "colleges" give you the more liberal culture, the broader outlook, the historical perspective, the philosophic atmosphere, or something which phrases of that sort try to express. You ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... no muskets, seldom, if ever, shot stray pigs; but they did sometimes, as an act of friendship, wholly disinterested, point out to the infantry a pig which seemed to need shooting, and by way of dividing the danger and responsibility of the act, accept privately a ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... formidable book he may also specify any complaint he has to make against the station-holder, boy, horse, cariole, or any body, animal, or thing that maltreats him, cheats him, or in any way misuses him on the journey; but he must take care to have the inn-keeper or some such disinterested person as a witness in his behalf, so that when the matter comes before the Amtmand, or grand tribunal of justice, it may be fairly considered and disposed of according to law. When the inn-keeper, station-holder, posting-master, alderman, ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... very kind to him. It might have struck a disinterested observer that she was a little afraid of him—a little anxious to propitiate him; but none of these things crossed ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... The benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary have already been felt in more States than one; and though they may have displeased those whose sinister expectations they may have disappointed, they must have commanded the esteem and applause of all the virtuous and disinterested. Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must now feel, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the unfortunate heiress had been a soft-hearted, simple girl?" said Katherine, with a slight faltering in her tones. "Suppose she were credulous, loving, attracted by you—you are probably attractive to some women—and married you believing in your disinterested affection?" ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in the end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a favour? You humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested generosity. Let me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in assuming it you do not treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is mean to take advantage of my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself thus at ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... in war Samuel was the type of a disinterested, incorruptible judge, who even refused compensation for the time, trouble, and pecuniary sacrifices entailed upon him by his office. (43) His sons fell far short of resembling their father in these respects. Instead of continuing Samuel's plan of journeying from place to place ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... committed his remarks so thoroughly that many believed them to have been extemporaneous. His speech was pronounced by good judges as the greatest specimen of "the art which conceals art" that has ever been delivered in this country. With apparent candor, good nature, and disinterested statesmanship, he adroitly stated his side of the case, reviewing what had been done at previous Presidential elections, and showing that he had given the subject careful study. As dinner-time approached, Senator Edmunds ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... tribute which the poet pays to the great writers of antiquity. And finally nothing could be more salutary for an age in which literature itself has caught something of the taint of the prevailing commercialism than to bathe itself again in that spirit of sincere and disinterested love of letters which breathes throughout the 'Essay' and which, in spite of all his errors, and jealousies, and petty vices, was the master-passion of ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... hands became benumbed; when, feeling convinced that it was lost, he sat down and burst into a passionate fit of weeping. Let no one feel surprise or contempt at this. In this little affair of the thimble there had been disinterested love, self-sacrifice, anticipated joy, disappointment and despair, though all expended on a cheap thimble. Yet, Willie was but seven years old, and "thought as a child, felt as a child, understood as a child." I am a grown-up child now, and have had ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... in truth, anything but disinterested; the conduct of the Emperor only accelerated the execution of his ambitious views. Secure, from motives of gratitude, of the devotion of the Hungarians, for whom he had so lately obtained the blessings of peace; assured ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... temperate in his habits, and strictly moral in his deportment. In a letter written from California, in 1847, introducing Carson as the bearer of dispatches to the government, Col. Fremont says: 'with me, Carson and truth mean the same thing. He is always the same—gallant and disinterested.' He is kind-hearted, and averse to all quarrelsome and turbulent scenes, and has never been engaged in any mere personal broils or encounters, except on one single occasion, which he sometimes modestly describes to his friends. The narrative is fully confirmed by an eye-witness, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... self-control was near to being shattered. If she had been permitted to exercise the right of speech at that crucial moment, she would have committed the irretrievable error of denouncing the brazen creature in the presence of disinterested persons. Afterwards she thanked her lucky stars for the circumstances which compelled her to remain angrily passive, for she was soon to realise what such an outburst would have brought ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Louisville, Ky. There was 11 other children besides myself in my family. When I was six years old, all of us children were taken from my parents, because my master died and his estate had to be settled. We slaves were divided by this method. Three disinterested persons were chosen to come to the plantation and together they wrote the names of the different heirs on a few slips of paper. These slips were put in a hat and passed among us slaves. Each one took a slip and the name on the slip was the new owner. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... 800000l. per annum[f]. Hereby the revenues themselves, being put under the same care and management as the other branches of the public patrimony, will produce more and be better collected than heretofore; and the public is a gainer of upwards of 100000l. per annum by this disinterested bounty of his majesty. The civil list, thus liquidated, together with the four millions and three quarters, interest of the national debt, and the two millions and a quarter produced from the sinking fund, make up the seven millions and three quarters per annum, neat money, which ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... of Barbary seem to care but little for the exploits of their ancestors: their minds are centred in the things of the present day, and only so far as those things regard themselves individually. Disinterested enthusiasm, that truly distinguishing mark of a noble mind, and admiration for what is great, good, and grand, they appear to be totally incapable of feeling. It is astonishing with what indifference they stray ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... have bought some islands from a party who did not own them; with real smartness and a good counterfeit of disinterested friendliness we coaxed a confiding weak nation into a trap and closed it upon them; we went back on an honored guest of the Stars and Stripes when we had no further use for him and chased him to the mountains; we are as indisputably in possession of a wide-spreading archipelago ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... jealousies and rivalries, ever watching with badger eyes to undercut some one else, could see, was a rivalry between these two men. John's instant open-hearted disclaimer made no impression upon them. They seemed not impressionable to such disinterested loyalty. ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... graduated mean between political recklessness and national old fogyism, which alone guarantees an enduring progress, is the object of search to all disinterested political reformers. For only by following such a golden mean, in which political reform shall keep even pace with intellectual and moral advancement, can physical and mental progress be made mutually to sustain each other in the onward march. Yet this mean is extremely difficult to find, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... to thank you properly," she said, rising and giving him her hand, "but, believe me, I do appreciate your disinterested kindness in making this long trip from Bartlesville, and for ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... I have some very nasty failings and I do not shrink from owning them. My desire is to represent myself as I am, and I must admit that it was not entirely owing to disinterested motives that I now took the secret stand I did in Miss Tuttle's favor. To prove her innocent whom once I considered the cause of, if not the guilty accessory to her sister's murder, now became my dream ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... of your pursuers, then, are beginning to discover that you are not a young lady easily persuaded into believing herself an angel, and capable of fancying them the most chivalrous and disinterested of men." ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... of Job has been variously defined. In one form it is raised by the question of Satan, i. 9, "Doth Job fear God for naught?" which is the Hebrew way of saying, "Is there such a thing as disinterested religion?" But the body of the book discusses the problem under a wider aspect: how can the facts of human life, and especially the sufferings of the righteous, be reconciled with the justice of God? With delicate skill the author has suggested that this ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... upon his mind. It was said in business circles that he had for some time past been given to speculation. Oscar said so. If that were the case, many of Jacqueline's suitors might withdraw. Not all men were so disinterested as Fred. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... scattered through the dramas of Shakespeare a disaffection to the world as deep-grained as it is comprehensive; and we find the various elements of it—the contempt of fortune, the ideal virtue, the disinterested passion, the mysticism, the fellowship with the oppressed, the distaste of the world's enjoyment and the weariness of its burden—concentrated in Hamlet for full and exhaustive study; thus presenting what ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... Antonio Rodrigues Neves then kindly invited me to take up my abode in his house. Next morning this generous man arrayed me in decent clothing, and continued during the whole period of my stay to treat me as if I had been his brother. I feel deeply grateful to him for his disinterested kindness. He not only attended to my wants, but also furnished food for my ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... prepared the ginger tea. During its preparation she managed to inform Emily concerning the identity of their unexpected lodger. Solomon, introduced to Miss Howes, merely grunted and admitted that he had "heard tell" of her. His manner might have led a disinterested person to infer that what he had heard was not flattering. He drank his tea, and as he grew warmer inside and out his behavior became more natural, which does not mean that it ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... same time I hope I may be indulged in expressing the consoling reflection (which consciousness suggests), and to bear it with me to my grave, that none can serve it with purer intentions than I have done or with a more disinterested zeal. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... educated gentleman an artist may make an uneducated manual laborer an ablebodied pauper. There are men who fall helplessly into the workhouse because they are good far nothing; but there are also men who are there because they are strongminded enough to disregard the social convention (obviously not a disinterested one on the part of the ratepayer) which bids a man live by heavy and badly paid drudgery when he has the alternative of walking into the workhouse, announcing himself as a destitute person, and legally compelling the ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... of punishment, and a disinterested love of truth, is well introduced by the following picture. "My master's countenance was greatly changed when he found his beloved son guilty of a lie. Sometimes he was pale with anger; sometimes he was red with ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... most disinterested manner,' he laughed. 'An old friend of my wife's—her family had known him intimately when they lived in Germany—took the most extraordinary fancy to it: the Grand Duke of Silberstadt-Schreckenstein, don't you know? He came out to Bombay ...
— A London Life; The Patagonia; The Liar; Mrs. Temperly • Henry James
... Ross dotes on me. Disinterested, of course. No connection with the brother over the way!" commented Hannah with a grin. "By the way, I hear from Dan that your friend Ralph Percival is in trouble already, playing cards, getting into debt, and staying out after hours. Seems to be a poor-spirited ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... roguish cynicism which we should expect in a man whose own life was so far from being straightforward. He was too much dependent upon the public acceptance of honest professions to be eager in depreciating the value of the article, but when he found other people protesting disinterested motives, he could not always resist reminding them that they were no more disinterested than the Jack-pudding who avowed that he cured diseases from mere love of his kind. Having yielded to circumstances himself, and finding life enjoyable in dubious paths, he had a certain animosity against ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... friends gave him credit for being mad, for people are somewhat slow to believe in disinterested self-sacrifice; and the idea of a clergyman with a comfortable living in Norway, who had, besides, a wife and four small children, voluntarily resolving to go to a region in which men could be barely said to live, ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... sanguine dispositions. Robespierre was a vain, envious, and suspicious man, with a hard heart, weak nerves, and a gloomy temper. But we cannot with truth deny that he was, in the vulgar sense of the word, disinterested, that his private life was correct, or that he was sincerely zealous for his own system of politics and morals. He, therefore, naturally finds admirers among honest but moody and bitter democrats. If no class has taken the reputation of Barere under its ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thought of. It seems practically certain that since Napoleon no such genius has been born as Slaney. Cleopatra would say that S. is the reincarnation of Napoleon; but neither Cleopatra nor any one else —above all, Sir Marcus Lark—is to know of his existence. Such is the disinterested self-sacrifice of this buttered-and-sugared Crust, that it will do everything for me, while keeping itself and the Organization which controls it, completely in the background. The Organization is too great to mind; and the Crust, alias T. Slaney, ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... proffered the dinner and the champagne. He was willing to take for granted that Littleton, as a gentleman, would give him the order in case he decided to buy, which would add another customer to his list. But his suggestion was chiefly disinterested. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... too wise a woman not to be acquainted with her son's character. Her love for him was very great; as great and disinterested as that with which the most religious and well-principled of women regard their offspring; but it did not blind her to his faults. Her experience of life had not led her to expect perfection; her standard ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... Christmas presents, expect to receive in return. Not so our little shoemaker. But he, too, had his equivalent; yes, more—the approbation of his own heart, which is always the reward of a disinterested action. Mrs. Burton, too, gave him a small mince-pie, when he went in the morning for the milk; this, too, was saved ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... occupation of a person of low class, and with his own hands ploughs an assigned portion of land in order that the enlightened spirits under whose direct guardianship the earth is placed may not become lax in their disinterested efforts to promote its fruitfulness. In this charitable exertion he is followed by various other persons of recognized position, the first being, by custom, the Guarder of the Imperial Silkworms, while at the same time the amiably-disposed ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... you!" said Cora, with the nearest approach to a sneer that ever she made. "I have heard all you have to say, Mrs. Stillwater, and now I have to reply—First, that I give you no credit for any respect or affection that you may profess for Mr. Rockharrt, or for disinterested motives in marrying the ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth |
