"Public-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the service of their country, unless it is accompanied with a monetary compensation, are after all, very closely akin to the men who waited until bounties were offered before they would take service in connection with the Civil War; while, on the other hand, the men who are truly public-spirited, take pleasure in serving the public and are liberal beyond the ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... and leading laymen and ministers is admirably illustrated in Rev. O.B. Frothingham's account of his father in his book entitled Boston Unitarianism. They were interested in many, public-spirited enterprises, and the social circle in which they moved was cultivated and refined; but they were provincial, and little inclined to look beyond the limits of their own immediate interests. Dr. Nathaniel L. Frothingham, ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... Jack, "a town that has a few public-spirited citizens of his type is to be congratulated. But here's where I leave you, and hike across lots to my shack, where a nice bath awaits me. See you later, Toby; and sorry you can't ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... excavations are still being continued, thanks to the generosity of some public-spirited ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... were getting serious, and absorbing the minds of the people. The grocers of Kimberley are a respectable and, in the aggregate, a public-spirited body of citizens; they are men of substance; most honourable; most humane, too; and, as events were to show, most human. With fine foresight they detected in the conflagration of patriotism which consumed the consumer, a chance of bettering themselves. ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... perfect health, never being tired, willing to listen to others, able to decide quickly, and world-wide in his interests, Henry Ford is one of the twentieth century's greatest public-spirited business men. No better illustration can be found than the fact that although Mr. Ford did not believe in war and was a man of peace, yet when the United States entered the World War, he hastened to Washington, offered his great factory to the government to make war supplies, ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... element of uncertainty will enter into its plans which cannot fail to largely interfere with the fullest realization of its possibilities for good. This danger may be wholly obviated, the Institute placed on a secure foundation, and its future usefulness be assured, if some public-spirited men of wealth, desirous of conferring the incalculable benefits upon future generations, which will follow upon the realization of the Institute's plans, will provide for it an endowment, the income of which will be sufficient to defray the expense ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... Williams, the public-spirited master of the Three Tuns Inn, and the chief contractor for conveying the mails, had in the morning of this day placed in the front of his house His Majesty's Arms, neatly carved in gilt. In the evening his house was illuminated in ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... most other New England towns. It does not assimilate readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth Hoar, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... depend for their culture, not on the exclusive devotion of time and wealth; nor the quickening rays of titled patronage; but on hours and seasons snatched from the purest of worldly interests, by intelligent and public-spirited individuals. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... like it. They have kind hearts, and they never forget birthdays. I forget what he was, something in the City, where the patriotism comes from; and she—oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited of her. I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. Not that it really matters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous people who are ...
— Reginald • Saki
... public-spirited citizens took the matter in hand and succeeded in having a new government established, which was modeled after that of the territories of the United States. There was a governor, a legislature, and ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... meaner sort of families. His grandfather, John Wiswall, then some eighty-three years old, ever took an active interest in the church and social affairs, first in Dorchester, and afterward in Boston. Mr. Savage says that he was a brother of Thomas Wiswall, a public-spirited man of Cambridge, Dorchester, and Newton; but John Wiswall was ruling elder of the First Church, Boston, made so the third month, fourth day, 1669, the day John Oxenbridge was ordained pastor. He also was one of the town's committee to act with the selectmen, to receive the ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume I, No. 2, February, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... The letter goes on to suggest that Mr. Seward is willing to take the responsibility, leaving, if needs be, the credit to the nominal chief. The letter was a curious example of the weakness and of the bumptiousness of the man, while it gave evidence also, it is fair to say, of a real public-spirited desire that things should go right and that the nation should be saved. It was evident that he had as yet no adequate faith in the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... and to learn the habits of another. I have no quarrel with the aristocracy, and do not in the least wish to level them to the ground. I am quite prepared to acknowledge them as the upper class. They are, as a rule, public-spirited, courteous barbarians, with a sense of honour and responsibility. But they take a great many things as matters of course which are to me simply alien. I no more wish to live with them than Wright, my self-respecting gardener, wishes to live with me—though so deeply rooted are ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ostentatious display of wealth, and to spend his money upon demoralising amusement; or if, again, he tries to succeed by quackery instead of by the production of honest work, he is, of course, so far mischievous and immoral. But a man whose aims are public-spirited, nay, even if they be such as simply tend to improve the general comfort; who develops, for example, the resources of the country, and introduces new industries or more effective modes of manufacture, is, undoubtedly, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... grave, in the old church-yard of Chelsea, a stone and sculptured brass record his name and age and parentage, together with that of his aged and more distinguished sire. This stone, too, was placed by the above-mentioned public-spirited societies, (unto both which the writer has the honour to belong) at the same time as the monument, stated by Faulkner, to the ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... first, of a wise interest and support on the part of the state, which early recognized the importance of educating its citizens, and, second, of the self-sacrificing efforts of a number of intelligent, earnest, and public-spirited men. ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... extraordinary mineral resources, our almost undisputed control of one of the great staples of the world, the year 1876 found us a prostrate people almost beyond precedent. To this breach came several thoughtful, public-spirited, eloquent men of the newspaper guild. It was our good fortune that in Dawson of the "Charleston News and Courier," in Major Burke, Page M. Baker, and Colonel Nicholson of New Orleans; in Major Belo of Galveston; in the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... to make the gratification of his personal animosities seem due to public-spirited indignation have been generally exposed. Beside the overwhelming desire to spite Theobald for his presumption in publishing "Shakespeare Restored" the aggrieved poet was actuated by numerous petty grudges against the inhabitants of Grub Street, all of which he masked ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... beginning the cable-roads spread over most of the city and around the world. With the development of the electric trolley they were largely displaced except on steep grades, where they still perform an important function. Mr. Hallidie was a public-spirited citizen and an influential regent ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... of O'Connell and his "tail," as his followers were called, had been neutralised, since the reform act, by the overwhelming strength of the whigs, and the public-spirited action of Peel, who, as leader of the conservative opposition, actually supported the whig government in sixteen out of twenty most important contests on domestic policy. A very different spirit was now shown by the whig opposition, and ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... chairman of the committee of arrangements, "this evening, fellow-citizens, there will be a grand display of fireworks on the village green, superintended by the inventor and manufacturer, our public-spirited ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... It is pleasing evidence of a public-spirited feeling, extremely pleasing evidence. I might almost say I hardly expected it. But you have a closer knowledge of public ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... done with the beggars for good and all. You talk about your editors and publishers, you literary swine. Barabbas was neither a robber nor a publisher, but a six-barred, barbed-wired, spike-topped Fence. What we really want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves, with some public-spirited old forger to run it for us ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... speak now from the authority of the Americans themselves. There is the greatest possible difficulty in fixing young men long enough at college. Innumerable devices have been tried with considerable ingenuity to remedy this evil, and the best possible intentions by the professors and other public-spirited persons who are sincerely grieved to see so many incompetent, half-qualified men in almost every corner of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... metropolis proves to be his instalment as scrivener in an attorney's office. No wonder he chafes at this; no wonder, that, in his wanderings about town, he is charmed by an advertisement which invited all loyal and public-spirited young men to repair to a certain "rendezvous"; he goes to the rendezvous, and presently finds himself a recruit in one of His Majesty's regiments which is filling up for service ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... 1883 opened with the cheer of dawn in New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty and righteousness above ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... are justly proud of their Public Schools, and of the system of education under which they are conducted, but yet the history of these schools, until within a few years, was one of struggle against parsimony and prejudice. It was only by persistent efforts on the part of a few public-spirited citizens, who believed that money spent in educating the masses is the best investment that can possibly be made, that the Public School system of Cleveland has attained its present excellence, and the miserable make-shift school buildings, in which the children ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... cottages, painted white or yellow; but as they proceeded they came to a country very sparsely settled, and very similar to that of New England. The road lay through woods of pine and fir, and had been constructed by Mr. Heftye, a public-spirited citizen, who owned a large estate at the summit of ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... to reap unpopularity! Then, if the nation, its hopes of 1830 restored, should feel it its duty to keep its promise,—and it would keep it, for the word of the nation is, like that of God, sacred,—if, I say, the nation, reconciled by this act with the public-spirited monarchy, should bear to the foot of the throne its cheers and its vows, and should at that solemn moment choose me to speak in its name, the following would be ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of Adoniram C. Orne, a well-known and highly respected citizen of that town, at the age of 74. He was one of the earliest shoe-manufacturers in Marblehead, and a public-spirited citizen, many important local improvements having been suggested and carried into effect by his persistent efforts. He was a consistent advocate of temperance, and was the author of several statistical pamphlets on the subject, some of which are recognized as authority, ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... that there are few who are like you, and who would approve of such arguments; the majority of mankind are so ignorant of their value, that they would be more ashamed of employing them in the refutation of others than of being refuted by them. I must further express my approval of your kind and public-spirited denial of all differences, whether of good and evil, white or black, or any other; the result of which is that, as you say, every mouth is sewn up, not excepting your own, which graciously follows the example of others; and thus all ground of offence is taken away. But what appears ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... no mean family; in birth, in breeding, in education, the equal of any man in Agrigentum. In my political conduct I was ever public-spirited, in my private life mild and unassuming; no unseemly act, no deed of violence, oppression, or headstrong insolence was ever laid to my charge in those early days. But our city at that time was divided into factions: I saw myself exposed to the plots of my political ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... in Japan is bound to increase, but it ought not to increase through unjust oppression of agriculture or at the expense of the physical stamina of the race. This fact is now winning recognition not only from the nation at large, but from public-spirited manufacturers as well. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... arrived on which the worthy and public-spirited inhabitants of Maranham have it in their power at once to declare the independence of their country, and their adherence to their patriotic monarch, Pedro Primiero, whose protection has afforded them the glorious privilege of freemen—that of choosing their constitution and ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... and lived through the War of the Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, and almost up to the Civil War, dying in 1854. In 1797 she was married to Captain William Royall, an exceptional man, a Virginian, cultivated, liberal, singularly broad-minded and public-spirited, and life with him added years of genuine culture to the energy of a naturally bright mind. Left a widow at the age of forty-four, and, after ten years of travel and experience, defrauded of the property left to her by her husband, she began to live a brave ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the "military duty" consisted of two "company trainings" of half a day each in May and October, and one "general training" or "regimental muster" of one day in October. While no uniforms were required at the trainings, except to distinguish the officers, yet there were usually enough public-spirited people in every town to furnish uniforms to the crack company. The other company, the tatterdemalions of the town, was called "the flood-wood." The regiment consisted of one company each of artillery, grenadiers, light infantry, and riflemen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... It won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home is to be founded in Camden Town ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... Holt, for though neither possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... French, had they, which was probable, attacked her, was to be proved in 1849. Her people, moreover, that basso popolo which nowhere in the world is more free from crime, more patient in suffering, more intelligent and public-spirited than in Venice, was anxious and ready to resist; when the nobles offered themselves a sacrifice on the Gallic altar by welcoming the proposed democratic institutions, the populace, neither hoodwinked nor scared into ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... Explosives, of the American Railway Association, and the Bureau of Mines, of the United States Geological Survey, were independent products of a general agitation due to the appreciation by a limited number of public-spirited citizens of the gravity of the "explosive" problem. It is the plain duty of the average citizen to become familiar with work of this kind prosecuted in his behalf. He may be able to help the work by assisting to overcome misguided opposition to it. Evidences of this opposition may be noted ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... weapons of the slain guards—a live arsenal that fled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... hard-hearted woman; and though her house was altogether too good for poor folks, and she really didn't know what she should do with him, it seemed too bad to send him away shelterless, that stormy November night. Besides, her husband was a rising politician,—the public-spirited Judge Gingerford, you know,—the eloquent philanthropist and reformer;—and to have it said that his door had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... The public-spirited lady met the little boy on the street. Something about his appearance halted her. She stared at him in her ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... was acclaimed by the conservative pulpit and press as a public-spirited citizen who had done exactly the right thing—disinterestedly enforced the law regardless of his own convenience and safety as a matter of principle and for the sake of the community—a moral hero; on ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... Mill's "liberty" and Carlyle's "strength" and Ruskin's "nature," he set up a new presence and entity which he called "culture," the disinterested play of the mind through the sifting of the best books and authorities. Though a little dandified in phrase, he was undoubtedly serious and public-spirited in intention. He sometimes talked of culture almost as if it were a man, or at least a church (for a church has a sort of personality): some may suspect that culture was a man, whose name was Matthew Arnold. But Arnold was not only right but highly valuable. If we have ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... had discreetly comported himself in other respects he might have passed tolerably well as an extremely public-spirited and philanthropic man. After every great fraud that he put through he would usually throw out to the public some ostentatious gift or donation. This would furnish a new ground to the sycophantic chorus for extolling his fine qualities. But he ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... craving for them. They help one another and cultivate unselfishness. The good old word, neighbor, means something to them. They have a sturdy morality, and you can always rely upon them in great moral crises. They are patriotic and public-spirited; they have not so many, or so enslaving, selfish interests. They have always been trained to self-sacrifice and the endurance of hardship; and heroism is natural to them. They have a strong will, cultivated by the battle ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... began. The course of events brought about such a state of affairs in the nineteenth century. Though the Chinese have never been content with their Manchu rulers, they submitted to them as long as they were just and public-spirited. But in time this dynasty suffered the fate of all others, weak emperors following the strong ones, and in the reign of the incompetent Kea-king, who succeeded Keen Lung, rebellions broke out in a dozen quarters, pirates ravaged the coast, and the ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... make a public declaration against that policy. In the Conservative ranks there are to be found some other men, also able and also discontented, to whom the general policy of Opposition seems unsatisfactory and feeble. Each of these discontented parties fancies itself to be truly patriotic, public-spirited, and independent. The two factions at length unite for the common good of the country; they tell the world that they are patriots, that they are the only patriots, and the world for a while believes them. This was the condition of things when Pulteney in Parliament joined with ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... subject of funeral ceremonies by a recurrence to the affair of the Yellowhouse Man, and a query as to what would have been the programme of the public-spirited hamlet of Wolfville if that invalid had died instead of yielding to the nursing of Jack Moore and that tariff on draw-poker which the genius of Old ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... If this feeble woman could in so short a time sweep such a street, a strong man, with a suitable broom, could certainly do it in half of the time. He therefore drew up a plan for cleaning the streets of London and Westminster, which was placed in the hands of one of the most influential of the public-spirited men of London. ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... generation, of vast bodies of land in the hold of a great nobleman who had contrived a title in them by the simple device of enclosing the people's commons. It was a wrong, but there was no one of the wronged who was brave enough or rich enough to dispute it through the broken law, and no witness public-spirited enough to come to their aid. Such things make us think patiently, almost proudly, of our national foible of graft, which may really be of feudal origin. Doubtless the aggression was attacked in the press, but we all know what the attacks of the press amount to against the steadfast will ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... the operatives in the manufactories constitute another agency in the cause of general learning. The city of Lawrence, under the lead of well-known public-spirited gentlemen there, has the honor of introducing the system in America. A movement, to which this is kindred, was previously made in England; but that movement had for its object the education of the operatives in the simple elements of learning, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... Sherman, of Ohio, represents the noblest principles and traditions of the Republican party. He is an astute politician; but, much better than that, he is a wise, public-spirited, broad-minded statesman. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... woman with the black mittens, for making me laugh so this morning! I take her to be a kind of public-spirited Mrs. Sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. God bless you both, my dear friends, in this Christmas and New Year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to Gad's Hill with the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... you would come to me to use an old friendship to buy the laddie off! Ye're a nice citizen; a fine, public-spirited body!" ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... the death of a member of Parliament, a prominent county magistrate, the owner of large estates, and an active, public-spirited man in all local and national matters, was it known by those who had not seen him, that it was but the misshapen block of a man that had lived this ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... "You're a sharp man. You ain't a-goin' to be taken in by any of them paupers' rigmarole. I always said, Squire Pope, that you was the right man in the right place, and that the town was lucky to have so intelligent and public-spirited a citizen ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... considerable progress inevitable, and then as now they were in some cases assisted by their landlords, as in Herefordshire, where Lord Scudamore, after the assassination of his friend the Duke of Buckingham, devoted his energies to the culture of fruit, and with other public-spirited gentlemen turned that county into 'one entire orchard', besides improving the pastures and woods[299]; though Hartlib laments that gentlemen try so few experiments for the advancement of agriculture, and that both landowners and farmers instead of communicating their knowledge to each other kept ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... her inhabitants, and the knowledge comprised in her bosom, France possesses great natural advantages; but the effect which they might have produced on her industry, has been counteracted by the errors of her old government, and the calamities attendant on the revolution. Some public-spirited men, thinking the moment favourable for restoring to them all their influence, have lately met; and from ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... and this was the case with not a few of the distinguished authors of the age. The presentation of books to the public required at this time what might be called the endowment of literature, and endowment which was supplied by the liberality of wealthy patrons possessed of literary appreciation or public-spirited ambition, or of both. As Symonds expresses it, "Great literary undertakings involved in that century the substantial assistance of wealthy men, whose liberality was rewarded by a notice in the colophon or in the title-page." The formal dedication was an invention ...
— The Private Library - What We Do Know, What We Don't Know, What We Ought to Know - About Our Books • Arthur L. Humphreys
... the anniversary was observed with due pomp and circumstance. No kindly tribute to great moral worth is too good for this good woman. As one of the chief heroines of our generation, she abundantly deserves all the honors which were paid her on that festal night. There are many public-spirited workers in our busy land; many noble souls who have devoted their life-long energies to the elevation of their fellow-beings; many moral pioneers, who, when they die, will leave the world better than they found it; and conspicuous ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... fit to get run down, and have an attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... in the class, dressed as pages, had been chosen to place the posters announcing the various numbers on the standards at each side of the stage. These posters had been designed and painted by Beatrice Alden and Frances Marlton, who, with Mabel Ashe, Constance Fuller and several other public-spirited seniors, had generously offered their services. As both Beatrice and Frances possessed considerable skill with the brush they turned out extremely decorative posters, which were afterward sold to various admiring students for souvenirs of the club's ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... himself a generous victor, and the men saved from the enemy's ships owed their lives to him. Five years later the returned hero, now become Lord Heathfield, sat to Reynolds for his portrait, ordered by a wealthy admirer—the public-spirited Alderman Boydell. The picture shows the brave old soldier as he took his stand in command of Gibraltar. Some one has said that it tells the whole ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... smart things that are expected of her? Who would be a sweep or a chaperon, were all roads free? Who is it succeeds in escaping the law of the hive? The loafer, the tramp. On the other hand, who is the man we respect and envy? The man who works for the community, the public-spirited man, as we call him; the unselfish man, the man who labours for the labour's sake and not for the profit, devoting his days and nights to learning Nature's secrets, to acquiring knowledge useful to the race. Is he not the happiest, the man who has conquered his own sordid desires, who gives ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... long residence among them, and described the trials and hardships he had encountered as a first settler in that district, while it was yet in the wilderness. He extolled his conduct as a good citizen, and faithful Christian, and a public-spirited man. His sermon was a very complete piece of rural biography, very curious and graphic in its way, and was listened to with the deepest attention by the ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... said Mr. Jarvie, as I entered, "respecting the Duke o' Argyle and the name o' Campbell. He's a worthy public-spirited nobleman, and a credit to the country, and a friend and benefactor to the trade ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... thousand tragic disappointments, so hopeful. Every man is a bad man, every man is a feeble man and every man is a good man. My motives come and go. Yours do the same. We vary in response to the circumstances about us. Given a proper atmosphere, most men will be public-spirited, right-living, generous. Given perplexities and darkness, most of us can be cowardly and vile. People say you cannot change human nature and perhaps that is true, but you can change its responses endlessly. The other day I was in Bohemia, discussing Silesian coal with Benes, and I went ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... be necessary to bring home to the railway companies, and for the execution of this part of my Scheme I must wait till I get some manager sufficiently public-spirited to try the experiment. When such a man is found, I purpose to set at once about my Sea-Side Establishment. This will present the following special advantages, which I am quite certain will be duly appreciated by the very poorest of the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the liberal assistance afforded him by the Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection of eagles and owls presented by them to the Zoological ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... of it, in Ranke, iii. 219.] For the rest, the Bavarian question; and very specially, Who the new Emperor is to be?"King of Poland, thinks your Majesty?"—"By all means," answers Friedrich, "if you can! Detach him from Austria; that will be well!" Which was reckoned magnanimous, at least public-spirited, in Friedrich; considering what Saxony's behavior to him had already been. "By all means, his Polish Majesty for Kaiser; do our utmost, Excellencies Valori, Courten and Company!" answers Friedrich,—and for his own part, I observe, is intensely busy upon Army matters, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... meeting of some public-spirited men, at Samuel Coots's store near the Gap, for the purpose of agreeing upon the construction of a bridge across the river near the store; for cutting down the face of the Gap Rock; for making a new road through the Cut; and for raising funds to ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... was the individual citizen fitted to deal with all public affairs, but he was consistently public-spirited and endowed with unflagging interest. He was public-spirited enough in the township, where he knew everybody and was interested in everybody's business. The idea of enough for the township turned easily into the idea of enough for ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... Two public-spirited citizens of St. Paul, John McCloud and Thompson Ritchie, purchased in the East and brought to the city at their own expense the first fire engine introduced in the Northwest. Although it was a miniature affair, on numerous occasions it rendered valuable assistance in ...
— Reminiscences of Pioneer Days in St. Paul • Frank Moore
... made at its foundation have triumphed. Its faculty, numbering over one hundred and, fifty; its students, numbering but little short of two thousand; its noble buildings and equipment; the munificent gifts, now amounting to millions of dollars, which it has received from public-spirited men and women; the evidences of public confidence on all sides; and, above all, the adoption of its cardinal principles and main features by various institutions of learning in other States, show this abundantly. But there ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... that he went home ill. No man said us nay in the exercising our right of religious hospitality, why should they in our civic? We must not allow the town to put us in such an attitude! Must Not! It was for this that I called this meeting at Evelina's, as she was the one to propose this public-spirited and ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Polish Government appointed a special body to deal with Jewish affairs. It was called "Committee of Old Testament Believers," though composed in the main of Polish officials. It was supplemented by an advisory council consisting of five public-spirited Jews and their alternates. Among the members of the Committee, which included several prominent Jewish merchants of Warsaw, such as Jacob Bergson, M. Kavski, Solomon Posner, T. Teplitz, was also the well-known mathematician Abraham Stern, one of the ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... of the Union or the States; but in this, as in every other department of liberal art and science, the great dependence,—and may I not add, the safe dependence?—as it ever has been, must continue to be upon the bounty of enlightened, liberal, and public-spirited individuals. ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... afterward as the dwelling-place of George Draper, one of the most eminent manufacturers and sagacious and public-spirited citizens—founder of the Home Market Club— the reputation and honor of whose name has been still more extended by his sons, the eldest of whom is the admirable soldier, Representative to Congress and Minister to Italy, General William ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... calm in judicial faculty; passions which determine conduct, but have no influence on opinion. For instance, I have bought for my own exclusive gratification, the cottage in which I am writing, near the lake-beach on which I used to play when I was seven years old. Were I a public-spirited scientific person, or a benevolently pious one, I should doubtless, instead, be surveying the geographical relations of the Mountains of the Moon, or translating the Athanasian Creed into Tartar-Chinese. But I hate the very name of the public, and labor ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... of the railway, when they were saved by a vigorous protest of Prosper Mrime, and in 1902, when, on the pretext that they blocked the development of the city, the municipality decided to demolish the unrestored portions. Luckily the intervention of a public-spirited Prefect of Vaucluse proved successful, and they were again rescued from the housewrecker's pick. No visitor to Avignon should omit to walk or ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... his business increased in size and scope, he found his own interests by way of conflicting at many points with the laws of his country and with its well-being. He did not take this conflict very seriously. He was still reflected in the mirror of his own mind as a patriotic and a public-spirited citizen; but at the same time his ambition was to conquer, and he did not scruple to sacrifice both the law and the public weal to his own prosperity. All unknowingly he began to testify to a growing and a decisive division between the two primary interests of American life,—between the interest ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Clark, a man of the people, had made a good governor, but he was too heavily weighted with prohibition to suit the older public men, who did not take kindly to him. They turned to Moses H. Grinnell, whose pre-eminence as a large-hearted, public-spirited merchant always kept him in sight. Grinnell was now fifty-three years of age. His broad, handsome face showed an absence of bigotry and intolerance, while the motives that controlled his life were public and patriotic, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of the two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the exercise ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... supplied with topics in life and letters. In his death, he manifested the strength of his religious faith, and resigned his spirit with a benignant composure. But I am forbidden to enlarge on the many excellences and services of the public-spirited John Pintard. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... slow-moving streams so that their torrents might flow into wilderness places rather than over the fields and towns. In the great flow of 1669, which menaced the city of Catania, a large place on the seashore to the southeast of the cone, a public-spirited citizen, Senor Papallardo, protecting himself and his servants with clothing made of hides, and with large shields, set forth armed with great hooks with the purpose of diverting the course of the lava mass. He succeeded ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... with an opera house was not heard of again, so far as I can recall, until Mr. Conried became director of the Metropolitan Opera House. It has much to commend it, and might be made a power for artistic good with an operatic establishment on a really public-spirited, artistic, and unselfish basis; as it is, its influence is apt to be pernicious morally, as well as artistically. How seriously Mr. Fry took the proposed educational feature of the institution is indicated by an article on the new opera house, which he published in The Tribune, in the ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... an intelligent man, and he had seen a great deal of the world. As a citizen of London, he had called a public meeting, at the Paul's Head Tavern, to petition for peace; and this public-spirited and truly constitutional act was at that period quite sufficient to draw down the vengeance of Pitt and his myrmidons. His ruin was decided upon by them, and he was handed over to the care of the minister's pliant, powerful ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him; and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style,[7] just ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... as cheaply as you can and sell for as much as you can," Stubby reminded him, "is a fundamental of business. You can't get away from it. My father abandoned that maxim the last two years of his life, and it nearly broke us. He was a public-spirited man. He took war and war-time conditions to heart. In a period of jumping food costs he tried to give people cheaper food. As I said, he nearly went broke trying to do a public service, because no one else in the same business departed from the business rule of making all they could. In fact, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the family of Buccleugh. The crash was especially disastrous in Scotland; only three private banks in Edinburgh out of thirty survived it, and a large joint-stock bank, Douglas Heron and Company, started only three years before, for the public-spirited purpose of promoting improvements, particularly improvements of land, now seemed to shake all commercial Scotland with its fall. In this company the Duke of Buccleugh was one of the largest shareholders, and, liability being ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... leaders whom they served, there was none who stands out now as a very interesting personality, and their chosen chief is an unattractive figure; but we are not to think of these authors of the war as a gang of hardened, unscrupulous, corrupted men. As a class they were reputable, public-spirited, and religious men; they served their cause with devotion and were not wholly to blame that they chose it so ill. The responsibility for the actual secession does not rest in an especial degree on any individual leader. Secession began rather with the spontaneous movement of the whole community ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... conscious ones. In order, therefore, to be wholly virtuous it is only necessary to repeat virtuous formulas. We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in business, philanthropic towards the poor, public-spirited in politics." So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... objects connected with the pursuits of literature and science, and the cultivation of the fine arts, originated with a few public-spirited individuals, in the year 1823, and was soon honoured with the public, and finally, with royal, patronage, The building, which has been erected from a design by Mr. Barry, of London, and is of a durable and richly-coloured stone, from the vicinity of Colne, forms a splendid addition to the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various
... collection of the taille; the apprehensions, embarrassment, almost dishonor, associated with the trade in breadstuffs; the interior custom-houses and barriers which make the various parts of the kingdom like foreign countries to one another ...,"—all these evils, which public-spirited citizens had long deprecated, Calonne proposed to do away ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... horses' heads; and, to quote the account of this interesting scene which was sent to the Rotherby Guardian, 'loud cheers immediately testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, with the public-spirited exertions of their fellow-townsmen.' Bill Powers, whose bloodshot eyes, bent hat, and protuberant altitude, marked him out as the natural leader of the assemblage, undertook to interpret the common sentiment by stopping the chaise, advancing to the door with raised hat, and ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Protection, and on the Market-Day harangues the good People of the Place with Aphorisms and Receipts. You may depend upon it, he comes not there for his own private Interest, but out of a particular Affection to the Town. I remember one of those Public-spirited Artists at Hammersmith, who told his Audience 'that he had been born and bred there, and that having a special Regard for the Place of his Nativity, he was determined to make a Present of five Shillings to as many ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of Mr Benson points more effectively in the same direction. A public-spirited champion of Shakespeare and the classical drama, he has maintained his hold in the chief cities of Ireland, Scotland, and the English provinces for a generation. Although for reasons that are not hard to seek, he has failed to establish his position in ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... to disgrace the Catholic and royalist party. The revolution had left society dissolved, full of bloodthirsty and false men. But though the Protestants had their share of such villains, they also had the one consistent and public-spirited element in the kingdom, namely Knox and his immediate followers. Moray was a man rather above the average respectability and he confirmed the triumph of Protestantism in the Lowlands in the few short years preceding his assassination in January, 1570. But by this time the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... of new Patent Smokeless Fuel, as experimentally exhibited in 1891 before the Prince of WALES and Empress FREDERICK in York Road, King's Cross. A few public-spirited householders insist on their cooks using it in the kitchen. Cooks of public-spirited householders unanimously give warning. No quotation of Fuel Company's ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 18, 1891 • Various
... the public that the sad case of the two lepers at the pest-house had become tragic, because the white one had gone insane. Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, declaiming against the maintenance of such a danger to the community, and demanding that the United States government build a national leprosarium on some remote island or isolated mountain peak. But this tiny ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London |
