"Self-reliance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Self-reliance.—The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigor and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... But this was not the fault of Augustus, whose intellect expanded with his fortunes, and whose magnanimity grew with his intellect—a man who comprehended his awful mission, and who discharged his trusts with dignity and self-reliance. ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... He was a mass of bone and sinew, splendidly formed and supple as a young panther. In every movement and pose there was indescribable grace, and, at the same time, a suggestion of wonderful strength and self-reliance. ...
— Frank Merriwell's Races • Burt L. Standish
... bred of ancient, clean-blooded stock; inflexibly principled, trained by a God-fearing mother, nurtured in a cradle of adversity, schooled in a school of hardship, developed in the big outdoors, wise in the ways of the woods, burnt in the fire of affliction, forced into self-reliance, inspired with the lofty inspiration of sacrificial patriotism—the good stuff of his make-up shone, as shines the gold in the fervent heat; the hard blows that prove or crush, had proved; the metal had rung true; ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... neighbourhood. Consequently our school children presented a different appearance from that we had been accustomed to see in our old home, and especially in its great cities. Rosy faces and figures full of robust health, vigour, and the joy of living, self-reliance, and strong intelligence were betrayed by every mien and every movement. Thus were our children equipped for entering upon the serious ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... was afterwards somewhat vain. At school he was impetuous, turbulent and self-willed. Upon leaving the academy he entered the military service, and soon developed such energy of character, such a spirit of self-reliance and such administrative ability that he was appointed director of the colony at Curacoa. He was recklessly courageous, and was deemed somewhat unscrupulous in his absolutism. In an attack upon the Portuguese island of Saint Martin, in the year 1644, ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... substituted self-reliance, buoyancy, a sense of responsibility, we should scarcely go too far; for, indeed, it would be difficult to say from what sources the consistent determinist is to derive these qualities. He regards himself as the inevitable product of forces which have ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... there had been little effort made to instill into the minds of their children the principles of holy living, and it was felt that there was but little necessity to give them habits of self-denial or self-reliance. ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... faced a tiger with bare hands. 'Tis easy In passion to meet passion; but it is A daunting thing to look on, when the blood Is going its wonted pace through your own veins. Besides, this man had something in his face, With its live eyes, close lips, nostrils distended, A self-reliance, and a self-command, That would go right up to its goal, in spite Of any no from any man. I would As soon have stopped a cannon-ball as him. Over the porter, lying where he fell, He strode, and up the stairs. I heard him go— I listened as it were a ghost that walked With ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... of no luxury and demand much endurance, is the best probation. Von Moltke has recorded that the comfortless routine of the Military Academy at Copenhagen inured him to privation, and Jackson learned the great lesson of self-reliance in the rough life ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... other words, would become dependent, losing their sense of self-dependence. For such the highest service one can render is as judiciously and as indirectly as possible to lead them to the sense of self-reliance. Then there are others whose natures are such that, the more they are helped, the more they expect, the more they demand, even as their right, who, in other words, are parasites or vultures of the human kind. In this case, again, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... the triumphant car of one gigantic intellect, they had forgotten the dignity of their own nature, and were astonished to find how transcendant its resources and sufficient its strength. The publication of the Nation was really an epoch which marked a wonderful change, and from that day forth self-reliance and self-respect began to take the place of grateful but stultified obedience and ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... First-Class Pictorial Weekly Family Paper. Devoted to Entertainment, Improvement, and Progress. To illustrate Life in all its phases, to point out all legitimate means of Economy and Profit, and to encourage a spirit of Hope, Activity, Self-Reliance and Manliness among the People are some of the objects of this Journal. Published Weekly, at $2 a ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... irresponsible, the feeble-minded are encouraged to breed unhindered, while all the powerful forces of tradition, of custom, or prejudice, have bolstered up the desperate effort to block the inevitable influence of true civilization in spreading the principles of independence, self-reliance, discrimination and foresight upon which the great practice of intelligent parenthood ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... confessed that their steady and unwavering adherence to a line of conduct which has made England feared and her power respected by every country in the world has a certain element of dignity and manly self-reliance which compels our admiration. And while they have been of late so frequently outwitted by the flexible, if not tortuous, policy of Louis Napoleon, it yet remains to be seen whether the firm and unyielding course of the English Ministry will not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... foes within .... the strong self-reliance and bounding life proper to youth, without which at the opening of the flower, the bloom would be poor and the fruit little, ... the power of appeals to the unjaded and physically strong senses, ... the difficulty ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... years the inventive spirits of England and the Continent were secretly at work to produce a timepiece which would deserve the large reward, amongst them Charles Mason, who labored with such perfect discretion and uncommunicative self-reliance that none knew, none will ever know, the motive principle he employed or the enginery he devised. While he was working at this survey, near the spot at which we stand, the Board of Award gave the L20,000 to one John Harrison, almost ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... may not have been right in every point of his creed, but in the main he was correct, his purpose being to implant in his children a sturdy self-reliance. They could not hope to get along at all times without leaning upon others, but that boy who never forgets that God has given him a mind, a body, certain faculties and infinite powers, with the intention that he should cultivate ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... from the cradle to the grave. Self-educated—that is to say, educated by Nature, which gave and nourished his high intellect and independent soul—Allan could comprehend and appreciate the manly bearing and stern self-reliance of the painter, whose best resources were in himself; thus the biography of Hogarth is among the finest examples of its class which our language supplies. Allan's sympathies were with his subject; and his knowledge also came to his aid: for the poet was thoroughly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... parsimony, is far too rare among young men in this lavish and wasteful age. The young man who shows what enlightened self-control, what high probity and fidelity to the details of little wants and expenditures can do to lift a man high above debt, to thrift and self-reliance, is a valuable citizen, exerting an influence as wholesome as it is wise, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... streams—under the shadow of such surroundings as these, my subject attained maturity, with no opportunities for culture except those he made for himself. Yet he became possessed of an education eminently useful, essentially practical and calculated to establish just such habits of self-reliance and decision as afterwards proved chiefly instrumental in his success. Glazier had a fixed ambition to rise. He felt that the task would be difficult of accomplishment—that he must be not only the architect, but the builder of his own fortunes; and, as the statue grows beneath the sculptor's ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Browning was one of the sturdiest defenders in England of the cause of the American Negro at the time of the beginning of the Civil War. It is to be regretted that she did not live to read the Emancipation Proclamation and to see the Negro started on an era of self-reliance ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... knowing whether to feel grateful for the churlish advice or to resume his wonted attitude of self-reliance and hold himself unprejudiced by Presby's condemnation of the Croix d'Or. He wondered if Bully Presby suspected him of having been friendly with the mob of drunken ruffians at the road house, but he had been given no chance ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... which indicated a sensitive temperament. His hair was dark brown, his features were refined, his eyes were blue and he looked like a boy of affectionate temperament, who would feel injustice and harshness keenly. This was indeed the case. He lacked the strong, sturdy character, the energy and self-reliance which made Robert Coverdale successful. Robert was not a boy to submit to injustice or wrong. He was not easily intimidated and could resist imposition with all his might. But Bill—to call him by the name given him by Mr. Waldo—was ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger
... rather of great good sense. His views on this occasion were unquestionably both pure and exalted." But nothing can more strikingly show the almost miraculous energies of Napoleon's mind, and his perfect self-reliance, than the readiness with which, in addition to the cares of the Empire of France, he assumed the responsibility of organizing and developing another nation of five millions of inhabitants. This was in 1802. Napoleon was then ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... power in quickly conceiving the safest plan of action in difficult emergencies, and his bravery, which in his youth, sometimes amounted to rashness, caused his companions to follow his leadership. His courage, promptitude, self-reliance, caution, sympathy and care for the wounded, marked him at once as the master mind. Like the great Napoleon, when he joined the army for his first campaign, he was a hero, in spite of his youth, among ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... any older community. Here he kept a general store, operated blacksmith and wheelwright shops, served as post-master, ran a hotel, and sat as justice of the peace. Indeed, he got so much in the habit of self-reliance in all emergencies, that in more than one instance he subjected himself to some criticism by calmly sitting as both judge and jury in cases wherein he had no jurisdiction. Getting a jury at Llano was no easy task. Often the country for miles around might be scoured without producing ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... them, at least, peculiarities belonging to the early emigrant, as much before as after his removal. And there were others, quite as distinctly marked, called into activity, if not actually created by his life in the wilderness. Such, for example, was his self-reliance—his confidence in his own strength, sagacity, and courage. It was but little assistance that he ever required from his neighbors, though no man was ever more willing to render it to others, in the hour of need. He was the swift avenger of his own wrongs, and he never appealed ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... as these which troubled Mr. Harding. They, as a rule, are as satisfied with the wisdom and propriety of their own conduct as can be any Mr. Slope, or any Dr. Proudie, with his own. But unfortunately for himself Mr. Harding had little of this self-reliance. When he heard himself designated as rubbish by the Slopes of the world, he had no other resource than to make inquiry within his own bosom as to the truth of the designation. Alas, alas! The evidence seemed generally ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... ground for the charge; or that Moore—feted at Holland House, and hovered-round by the fashionable of both sexes, the men picking up his witticisms, and the women languishing over his songs—was capable of the same sturdy self-reliance and simple adhesion to principle which might possibly have been in him, and forthcoming from him, under different conditions. Who shall touch pitch and not be defiled,—who treacle, and not be sweetened? At the same time, it is easy to carry charges of this ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... Self-reliance, or self-trust, is one of the principles Whitman announces in his "Laws for Creations." He saw that no first-class work is possible except it issue from a man's deepest, most ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... taken lightly or tinged with the frivolity that too often accompanies an ardent love affair between two young people who have not learned, as had Bob and Donna, to view life seriously. Both were graduates of the hard school of practicalities, and early in life each had learned the value of self-reliance and the wisdom of thinking clearly and ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... let black troops be mustered in their stead. In urging this matter, I suggest that the government has the first right to the services of the freedmen, and he needs the discipline of the army to develop his manhood and self-reliance. Such a course of recruiting black soldiers will act as a powerful restraint upon the abuses practiced by the planters on the freedmen, and will also compel the payment of better wages. If the planter wishes the services of a shrewd, enterprising freedman, he must out-bid the government. Lastly, ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... in the colonies must take with him a quantity of self-reliance, energy, and perseverance; this is the best capital a man can have. Let none rely upon introductions—they are but useless things at the best—they may get you invited to a good dinner; but now ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... philosophy, and the precepts that I then treasured and practised I believe developed those principles of character which have enabled me to triumph over so many difficulties. Notwithstanding all the wrongs that slavery heaped upon me, I can bless it for one thing—youth's important lesson of self-reliance. The baby was named Elizabeth, and it was pleasant to me to be assigned a duty in connection with it, for the discharge of that duty transferred me from the rude cabin to the household of my master. My simple attire was a short dress and a little white apron. My old mistress encouraged ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... child was stolen by adults for purposes other than ransom. It was not very likely that a child of six would be stolen by a neurotic adult to replace a lost infant, and Paul Brennan was personally convinced that James Holden had enough self-reliance to make such a kidnap attempt fail rather early in the game. He could hardly say so, nor could he suggest that James had indeed run away deliberately and skilfully, and with planned steps worthy of a much older person. He could only hint ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... object, that his country should dominate over as many other states as possible; but seeing that, in states as in individuals, happiness is derived from virtue and single-mindedness, he directed all his efforts to implant in his countrymen feelings of honour, self-reliance, and self-control. These were also taken as the basis of their constitution by Plato, Diogenes, Zeno, and all who have written with any success upon this subject. But they have left mere dissertations; Lykurgus produced an ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Ireland he wisely accepted the fact that the Roman Catholic priests had the heart of the people, and shaped his conduct accordingly. His 'Word to the Wise' was an appeal addressed in 1749 to the priests, exhorting them to use their influence to promote industry and self-reliance among their congregations. This sort of Episcopal charge to the clergy of another Communion was received, it is said, with a no less cordial feeling than that in which it ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... He was at first disposed, out of modesty, to decline; but, on consultation with Ferguson, decided to accept and do his best. He was ambitious to produce a good impression, and his experience in the Debating Society gave him a moderate degree of confidence and self-reliance. When the time came he fully satisfied public expectation. I do not say that his oration was a model of eloquence, for that could not have been expected of one whose advantages had been limited, and one for whom I have never claimed extraordinary genius. But it certainly ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... men who were bashed by utter stupefaction; she noted it and her self-reliance grew steadier. She drove the point of the cant dog into the soft duff with a manner after the heart of Flagg himself. She spread her freed hands to them in appeal. "I have come here ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... engaged, and that system of defensive war prescribed by the French government, which Pitt, in the English Parliament, proclaimed to be the forerunner of certain ruin. That system, when we wished to renounce it, had already penetrated our habits; it had, so to say, weakened our arms and paralyzed our self-reliance. Too often did our squadrons leave port with a special mission to fulfil, and with the intention of avoiding the enemy; to fall in with him was at once a piece of bad luck. It was thus that our ships went into action; they submitted to it instead of forcing ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... not only produced original work, but it has also delivered a worthy message to humanity. Franklin has voiced an unsurpassed philosophy of the practical. Emerson is a great apostle of the ideal, an unexcelled preacher of New World self-reliance. His teachings, which have become almost as widely diffused as the air we breathe, have added a cubit to the stature of unnumbered pupils. We still respond to the half Celtic, half Saxon, song ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... success—a teaching in which I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others. All this individual morality I was taught by the books I read at home and the books I studied at Harvard. But there was almost no teaching ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... pirate he believed that Larpent would continue at his post without the smallest change of front. To raise a protest of any sort would have been absolutely foreign to his nature. He was made to go straight ahead, to do his duty without question and with perfect self-reliance. ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... they may not drop quite out of mind. The men are worth remembering. They carried the marks of their blood in their fierce passions, their courage, their loyalty; and of the forest in their patience, their resourcefulness, their self-reliance. But deeper than all, the mark that reached down to their hearts' core was that of their faith, for in them dwelt the fear of God. Their religion may have been narrow, but no narrower than the moulds of their lives. It was the biggest thing in them. It may have taken a somber ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... longer to defend its borders and gave way before the scattered attacks of the German peoples, who never combined in any general alliance against it, is a very difficult question to answer satisfactorily. The inhabitants of the Empire appear gradually to have lost their energy and self-reliance and to have become less and less prosperous. This may be explained partially at least by the following considerations: (1) the terrible system of taxation, which discouraged and not infrequently ruined the members of the wealthier classes; (2) the existence of slavery, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... aptitudes in man are a direct consequence of his gregarious nature, which itself is a result of the conditions both of his primeval barbarism and of the forms of his subsequent civilisation. My argument will be, that gregarious brute animals possess a want of self-reliance in a marked degree; that the conditions of the lives of these animals have made a want of self-reliance a necessity to them, and that by the law of natural selection the gregarious instincts and their accompanying ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... the armies with the necessities of life. The letters written by the women in that period reveal an intelligent grasp of affairs and a strength of spirit altogether admirable. Here was indeed a charming mingling of feminine grace, tenderness, sympathy, self-reliance, and common sense. ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday
... and raised the siege. Retreat on the morrow of victory would have been craven indeed, but to stand firm with such shattered forces was a bold and hazardous resolve, for which Lord Raglan deserves the fullest credit, and the coming winter, with its terrible trials, was destined to put his self-reliance to the proof. ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... who came to Madame Bonanni for advice. They had good voices, too, those poor trembling candidates; many of them had talent of a certain order; but it was not the real thing, there was not the real strength behind it, there was not the absolute self-reliance to steady it; above all, there was not the tremendous physical organisation ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... self-reliance, but a fierce and warlike temper, was shown in the first youthful exploit of Rodrigo. His father Diego, when too old to bear arms, was grossly insulted by an enemy, the Count of Gormaz. Diego wept and raged at the insult put upon him ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... had not become an old thing with Ralph. He felt that the charm and novelty of running the crack train of the road could never wear out. With each trip, however, there came a feeling of growing strength and self-reliance. Ralph had learned to handle the proposition aptly, and he took a great pride in the time record ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... was a man crushed out of all courage, all self-reliance, all comfort in life, it was Jacob Flint. Why this should have been, neither he nor any one else could have explained; but so it was. On the day that he first went to school, his shy, frightened face marked him as fair ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... disconsolate frame of mind. The more she thought of Robert's losing his place, the more unfortunate it seemed. She could not be expected to be as sanguine and hopeful as our hero, who was blessed with strong hands and a fund of energy and self-reliance which he inherited from his father. His mother, on the other hand, was delicate and nervous, and apt to look on the dark side of things. But, notwithstanding this, she was a good mother, and Robert ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... bordered and defended by such ferocious foes, that to cross its eddying tide, and penetrate into the unknown and unexplored regions beyond, leaving the broad, and deep, and rapid stream to cut off the hopes of retreat, implied the possession of extreme self-reliance, courage, and decision. ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... stately house after another, with a clump of fruit-trees on the sheltered side, and a row of blooming hyacinths and wall-flowers on the balcony, passed by on either side. The people we met were sunburnt and ugly, but there was a rough air of self-reliance about them, and they gave me a hearty "God greet you!" one and all. Just before reaching Trogen, the postilion pointed to an old, black, tottering platform of masonry, rising out of a green slope of turf on the right. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, and their compeers,—who were elevated to power by the early choice of the people, seem to have been not often brilliant, but distinguished by a ponderous sobriety rather than activity of intellect. They had fortitude and self-reliance, and in time of difficulty or peril stood up for the welfare of the State like a line of cliffs ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... football team or his industrial organization or his regiment. He has an infinite capacity for 'team' work. And he brings to bear upon that work a high order of intelligence and understanding. In his other splendid qualities, his self-reliance, his devotion to his cause and his comrades, and his unfailing cheerfulness under hardship and distress, he displays other manifestations of ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... was the scion of a staunch race of Scottish fighters. His great-grandfather served under Cope at Prestonpans; his grandfather fought in Boscawen's expedition at Louisburg and under Wolfe at Quebec. His father attained the rank of Lieutenant-General. From his mother, too, he derived qualities of self-reliance and endurance of no mean order. Despite the fact that she had eleven children, and that three of her sons were out at the Crimea, she is said never to have quailed during that dark time. Of these sons, Charles George was serving in the Engineers; he showed at his first contact with ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... burst of indignation, as we look back at it, hopelessly foolish, with no possible end but death in the wilderness. Still there was a method in love's madness, and Beverley, with his superb physique, his knowledge of the wilderness and his indomitable self-reliance, was by no means without his fighting chance ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... duty, and God gave us the victory," said Paul. He stood before them taller and stouter than when he went away. He was sunburnt; but his countenance was noble and manly, and marked with self-reliance. He never had made a speech. He did not know what to say. To stand there facing the audience, with his mother, Azalia, Daphne, and all his old friends before him, was very embarrassing. It was worse than meeting the Rebels in battle. But why ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... boy that self-reliance which is so essential in the making of a life, that faith in others which is the foundation of society, that spirit of altruism which will make him want to be of service in helping other fellows, that consciousness of God as evidenced in His handiwork which will give him a basis of morality, ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... man, and goes with his pious wife and child to the house of God, and offers the child, for her, to be baptized, is more of a man than before, gains reputation for some desirable qualities, excites respect for self-reliance, the quiet performance of a duty from which certain feelings might lead him to shrink, and in the increased love and esteem of others, to say no more, ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... I bid defiance, 'Tis such my mental wreck have made; Of God alone, and self-reliance, I ask for solace—hope ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... a thin line of sparsely populated territory. But the men who lived in this new land of fresh air and high skies were very different from their brethren of the mother country. In the wilderness they had learned independence and self-reliance. They were the sons of hardy and energetic ancestors. Lazy and timourous people did not cross the ocean in those days. The American colonists hated the restraint and the lack of breathing space which had made their lives in the old country so very unhappy. They ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... as our smuggler himself. He has grown brisk and active too; he is a good walker, and rides well; he is not in the least like the lad of sixteen who looked like a boy of twelve eight months ago; any one might think that he was twenty years old. There is an air of self-reliance and independence about him. In fact he is a man now, and you must begin to think about his future ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... of Epytus, an attendant who had grown old in the service of Aeneas' aged father, and was at all times devoted to him. In his likeness, then, Apollo said, "Aeneas, can you not manage, even though heaven be against us, to save high Ilius? I have known men, whose numbers, courage, and self-reliance have saved their people in spite of Jove, whereas in this case he would much rather give victory to us than to the Danaans, if you would only fight instead ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... to resist that voice, to stuff your ears so full of clay, and worldliness, and sin, and self-reliance as that it shall not echo in your hearts. 'The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they that hear shall live,' and obtain to-day 'a better resurrection' than the resurrection of the body. If you do not hear that voice, then you will 'remain ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... however, that such an expression of self-reliance on the part of a great man should be accompanied with some proof that no conceit or impatience is mixed with his steadfast calm. If he believes the public to be really unable to appreciate himself, he must show no surprise when they admire his inferiors; ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... prospect of leaving her father and Evelyn, but the idea of self-support and independence, and taking a little of the burden from her father, intoxicated her. Maria had the true spirit of the women of her race. She liked the feel of her own muscles and nerves of individuality and self-reliance. She felt a head taller after she had read ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... evil and choose the good, and require no experimental proofs to teach them the evil of transgression. I would not send a poor girl into the world, unarmed against her foes, and ignorant of the snares that beset her path; nor would I watch and guard her, till, deprived of self-respect and self-reliance, she lost the power or the will to watch and guard herself;—and as for my son—if I thought he would grow up to be what you call a man of the world—one that has "seen life," and glories in his experience, even though he should so ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... shown by his strenuous advocacy of increased armaments, better coast defenses, and more and more powerful ships. "He never ceased for a single moment to keep before the nation the great lesson that empires are kept as they are gained, by courage and self-reliance." ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... him long after his form had disappeared, and indeed even after the sound of his wheels had died toward town. As I approached, the riverman turned to me a face from which the reckless, contained self-reliance of the woods-worker had faded. It was wide-eyed with an almost ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... battle royal of man against mother earth? And the man who fights here successfully a winning fight, not stopping to ask at what odds, must be endowed with a great strength, a rugged physical and moral constitution, self-reliance, a true, deep insight into the natures of other men. Those things my father has. So has Bat Truxton, so has Brayley, so, for ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... consultations with him helped to turn the balance between peace and war, and substantially conduced towards a pacific solution. Abdur Rahman left on those who met him in India the impression of a clear-headed man.of action, with great self-reliance and hardihood, not without indications of the implacable severity that too often marked his administration. His investment with the insignia of the highest grade of the Order of the Star of India appeared to give him much ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... minister left Turin to breathe the fresh air of the mountains. He was not in high spirits. To La Marmora, the only man besides the king who knew the true motive of his journey, he wrote, "Pray heaven that I do not commit some stupidity; in spite of my usual self-reliance, I am not without grave uneasiness." He succeeded in travelling so privately that he was nearly arrested on arriving at Plombieres because he had not a passport: a mysterious Italian coming from no one knew where—no doubt a new Orsini! But one of the Emperor's ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... his pocket, he stood on the curb watching with confident, cynical, smiling eyes the tides of people that flowed past him. Into that stream he must cast his net and draw fish for his further sustenance and need. Good Izaak Walton had not the half of his self-reliance and bait-lore. ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... was placable and easily yielded to others. The facility with which he yielded, the result of good-natured credulity, made him too often the dupe of the crafty; and it showed, certainly, a want of that self-reliance which belongs to great strength of character. Yet his facility of temper, and the generosity of his nature, made him popular with his followers. No commander was ever more beloved by his soldiers. His generosity ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... happy and very confident. Ernestine, if less confident, had sufficient self-reliance not to worry about the future. Thanks to her eighteen years of successful self-support, she knew that she could meet life anywhere any time, and get ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... auntie," Elsie answered, giving her a look of loving reverence, "but surely the passing years must have brought you so much wisdom and self-reliance that that can be no such very ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... effect, and soon awakened a slumbering conscience. But its upbraidings were not accepted unquestionably by Angelina, as they had been by Sarah. They only stung her into a desire for investigation. She must know the why; and her strong self-reliance helped her judgment, and buoyed her up amid waves of doubt and anxiety that would have submerged her ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... be that the methods of his "Neighbor" and the "Captain" in the rearing of Leander, the one with unbridled leniency, the other with spurious severity and affected indifference, had combined to foster self-reliance and decision of character, or it may be that these qualities were inherent traits. At all events, he encountered the emergency without an instant's hesitation. He felt no need of counsel. He had no doubts. He carried to his pallet ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... entirely unlike than he and Arthur; the latter, selfish, proud, haughty, self-willed, passionate, and reckless of consequences to himself or others; the former sweet-tempered, amiable, and affectionate, but lacking in firmness and self-reliance. ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... depends upon the sacredness and sanctity of the home. That a people or a nation may be happy or prosperous it must have enlightened and intelligent homes, and for this purpose the girls must be educated in virtue, industry and self-reliance. ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 42, No. 1, January 1888 • Various
... instructions which accorded neither with his temperament nor with his situation. The troops he commanded were not, like his old riders, accustomed to his methods, confident in his genius, and devoted to his fortunes. He attempted aggressive operations with his former energy and self-reliance, but not with his former success. He drove out of West Virginia two invading columns, and then made an incursion into the heart of Kentucky—known as his last Kentucky raid—in the hope of anticipating and deterring ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... exposed. No man in all New York appeared that night more simple, more unassuming, more modest, more unpretentious, more conscious of his own defects than Abraham Lincoln; and yet we now know that within his soul there burned the fires of an unbounded ambition, sustained by a self-reliance and self-esteem that bade him fix his gaze upon the very pinnacle of American fame and aspire to it in a time so troubled that its dangers appalled the soul of every American. What were this man's thoughts when he ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... noticeable in his passion to revaluate theories, to redefine notions brought from the East. The great success with which he has met in various co-operative schemes has also developed in him a high sense of self-reliance. The only danger is that he carries that same self-assurance into domains where he often over-reaches himself. This fact is very noticeable in the various annual Conventions. Unconsciously, in matters beyond his grasp, he is at the mercy of a few leaders. Resolutions are passed, legislation is suggested, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... the place to enlarge upon the general question of bringing children abroad to be educated, we might suggest, at the outset, that there were certain English qualities, such as manliness and self-reliance; and certain English sports, such as cricket, hunting and the like, which have less opportunity of fair development in boys educated abroad. And as to girls—who knows the impression left for life on young hearts, by the dead walls and silent trees ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... nevertheless, although civil war occurred, and much blood was spilled, the anarchy and chaos were of far shorter duration than elsewhere. Doubtless the barrier of the Andes, which had shut off the country to such a large extent from the rest of the world, had added not a little to the tranquillity and self-reliance of the Chilian character, determined as this ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... containing the name of the prince. There is an older "Lamiyat al-Arab" a pre-Islamitic L-poem by the "brigand-poet" Shanfara, of whom Mr. W. G. Palgrave has given a most appreciative account in his "Essays on Eastern Questions," noting the indomitable self-reliance and the absolute individualism of a mind defying its age and all around it. Al-Hariri ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... know how to adapt herself to circumstances," said Mr. Goodlow. "I was conversing last summer with that Mrs. Bland who boarded at Mr. Parker's, and she told me that girls in Europe are brought up with no habits of self-reliance whatever, and that young ladies are never seen on the streets alone in France ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... he was possessed of common-sense and self-reliance. Though the youngest of the family he had been so thoroughly impressed with the necessity of considering "safety first" in regard to Win, that in an emergency of any kind he was usually level-headed. He stopped where he was, searching his pockets for the compass ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... friendly disposition towards me, with which he has been inspired by you, and his most absolute incapability, with all his aestheticism, of conceiving the slightest notion of what had to be conceived. The total confusion engendered in him by listening to my opera he transfers with bold self-reliance to my intentions and to the work itself. He, who apparently can see in opera nothing but kettledrums, trombones, and double-basses, naturally in my opera did not see the wood for the trees; but, being a clever and glib- penned litterateur, he produces a witty and many-coloured set ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... nor were they accustomed to go aloft; while he had fifteen prisoners below, who would naturally lose no opportunity of retaking the ship. His greatest difficulties were only now beginning. What consciousness of his superlative seaman-like qualities, what perfect and just self-reliance he must have possessed, to have undertaken the task of navigating a ship completely across the Atlantic with such means at his disposal! Considerate and generous, as well as brave, as soon as he had shaped a course for England, ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... as we have said, owing to the state of the tide, Junkie conducted his companions high up the stream by a footpath. And a proud urchin he was, in his grey kilt and hose, with his glengarry cocked a little on one side of his curly head, as he strode before them with all the self-reliance of a Highland chieftain. ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... acknowledged to herself that she had grown in that short space very fond of Tom. She looked forward to seeing him, and when he was gone she went over with pleasure what he had said and how he had looked. She liked his drollery and his strength, she admired his poise and self-reliance; and she had the greatest respect for his teaching ability, of which she had received direct proof. Still, she was not at all sure that she wished to marry him. After all, she had really known him only something over a month, and it was ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... old-fashioned roses, A fan-light above the door, and little square panes in the windows, The wood-shed piled with maple and birch and hickory ready for winter, The gambrel-roof with its garret crowded with household relics,— All the tokens of prudent thrift and the spirit of self-reliance. ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... difficulties, he will not be able to help the boys to meet their difficulties bravely. Most obstacles grow small before a contented mind, and boys who bring this to their work will find their studies much easier than if they came to them discontented and worried. Courage and steadiness lead to self-reliance, and one who is self-reliant can always be depended on to do his ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... acknowledged that reliance upon others may be carried so far as to result in loss or disadvantage. "Self-reliance" is one of the most admirable traits of character. The pioneer farmer possessed it from necessity to a remarkable extent. A habit of depending upon others may quickly cause a person to lose the "knack" of ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... root of pauperism, and to initiate local reforms in the poor-law system. It was clearly found that, where out-door relief was abolished or rigorously limited, where no allowances were made in aid of wages, and where a manly self-reliance was encouraged instead of a servile mendicity, wages rose, honest industry revived, and the whole character of the village population was improved. Fortified by these successful experiments, the commissioners took a firm stand on the vital distinction, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... one so young. But now he began to observe other more intimate qualities,—the wealth of affection bestowed on Bettina and the distant home; her tender regard to the feelings of those about her; her quick resentment of any injustice; her sturdy self-reliance; her sweet, unspoiled, unselfish nature; and her longing for knowledge and ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt
... might have remained for ever dormant, with their treasure of happiness and hardy virtues. It is possible, no doubt, in that severe and plain life to lose many things which are not replaced by its self-reliance and hardihood. It is possible to drop into merely material preoccupation in the struggle for existence. But it is also possible not to do so, and the difference lies in ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... with in the bush and the pony was valuable enough to tempt a desperate man—such as the Winfield murderer, who was roaming the district, nobody knew where. There was a score of possible risks; to battle with them, a little maid of twelve, strong only in the self-reliance bred of the bush. The father looked at the ghastly face before him, and asked himself questions that tortured—Was it right to have let the young life go to save the old one that seemed just flickering out? He put his face in his hands ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... no need to devise and plan in bondage. There was no need for an enterprising spirit; consequently, he is lacking in leadership and self-reliance. He is inclined to stay in ruts, and applies himself listlessly to a task, feeling that the directive agency should ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... feeling came when this proud self-reliance was forced to give way, and she was obliged to leave herself helpless in the hands of others. 'God requires that I should give up my last form of self-will,' she said; 'now I have resigned this, perhaps He will let me ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... those who know from whose hand, for what purpose, it is sent. I do not mean the trouble people cut out for themselves by curdling all the milk of kindness in their neighbors. But when a man will be a man, will labor with Truth, Charity, and Self-Reliance—always frank and open in his dealings—always giving credit to his neighbors for their good deeds, and humbly abstaining from a judgment of what looks like evil in their conduct—when he knows, under God, no helper but his own brave heart, and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... Each demands to know why he should do a thing before he does it. This is, I think, the great link between two peoples in many ways very different; and they who ardently desire abiding friendship between our two countries will do well never to lose sight of it. Any sapping of this quality of self-reliance, or judging for oneself, in either country, any undermining of the basis of democracy will imperil our new-found comradeship. You in America have before all things to fear the warping power of great Trusts; we in England to dread the paralyzing ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... what is well known to all present, that their labors thus far have given entire satisfaction to the Society and the public. I was surprised and rejoiced to find that women, without the least preparation or experience, who had never raised their voices in public one year ago, should with so much self-reliance, dignity, and force, enter at once such a field of labor, and so ably perform the work. In the metropolis of our country, in the capital of our State, before our Legislature, and in the country school-house, they have been alike earnest and faithful ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... firmness and a just self-reliance, President Arthur did not hesitate about vetoing the "Chinese Bill" and the "Bill making appropriations for rivers and harbors" for reasons which he laid before Congress in his veto messages. The wisdom and sagacity which he has displayed in his management of national ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... efficiency of the Negro, tend to degrade and demoralize him. The argument that the deprivation of the Negro's political and social rights in the South tends to crush his ambition, warp his aspirations and distort his judgment, is unsound, because his self-reliance, ambition and independence in the South can be traced partly to this very deprivation. By it he has been forced to establish his own schools, his own churches, educate his own children and train his own ministers. All of these make for self-reliance and ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... our fathers established and bequeathed to us as an object of our love and veneration. It perverts the patriotic sentiments of our countrymen and tempts them to pitiful calculation of the sordid gain to be derived from their Government's maintenance. It undermines the self-reliance of our people and substitutes in its place dependence upon governmental favoritism. It stifles the spirit of true Americanism and stupefies every ennobling ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... conviction that he is peculiarly capable of impressing for good the present condition of our national character. By giving us fuller realizations of liberty and justice his writings will tend to increase our self-reliance in the great emergency of civilization to which we have been summoned. "Our Progressive Independence," so brilliantly illustrated by Dr. Holmes, emancipating us from foreign fine-writing, leaves us free to welcome the true manhood and mature wisdom of Europe. In the time of our old prosperity, amusing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... probably a lad about twelve years of age, observed how worthless were the animals which his father was offering. His heart at once became filled with Shraddha. There is no one English word which can convey the meaning of this Sanskrit term. It is more than mere faith. It also implies self-reliance, an independent sense of right and wrong, and the courage of one's own conviction. As a boy of tender age, Nachiketas had no right to question his father's action; yet, impelled by the sudden awakening of his higher nature, ...
— The Upanishads • Swami Paramananda
... pence (the only pocket-money that came to them), to make crackers and other simple fireworks, and to turn old keys into toy cannon, besides making a large variety of articles for practical domestic purposes. Thus he cultivated the gift of resourcefulness and self-reliance on which he had so often to depend when far removed from all civilisation during his travels on the Amazon ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... "they should don a costume which will permit them the use of their legs." Of bicycling she said, "I think it has done more to emancipate woman than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... greatest writer of the period. His Autobiography has a value possessed by no other work of the kind. This and his Poor Richard's Almanac have taught generations of Americans the duty of self-culture, self-reliance, thrift, and the value of practical common sense. He was the first of our writers to show a balanced sense of humor and to use it as an agent in impressing truth on unwilling listeners. He is an equally great apostle of the practical and the altruistic, although he ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... unprincipled. At any rate, he is self-willed; being one who less hearkens to what others may say about things, than looks for himself, to see what are things themselves. If in straits, there are few to help; he must depend upon himself; he must continually look to himself. Hence self-reliance, to the degree of standing by his own judgment, though it stand alone. Not that he deems himself infallible; too many mistakes in following trails prove the contrary; but he thinks that nature destines such sagacity as she has given him, as she destines it to the 'possum. To these fellow-beings ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... this volume has selected the careers of a dozen young fellows of different lands and epochs, who, even had they not lived out their "teens," could have rightly claimed a place in the world's annals as Historic Boys. They are such also as show that, from the earliest ages, manliness and self-reliance have ever been the chief groundwork of character, and that in this respect the boy of the nineteenth century in no way differs from his brother of the second or the ninth. To bravely front danger, difficulty, or ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... almost have been a relief to me if it had been discovered. If I had reported the affair at once, as I should have done, all would have been different, but having kept my secret for a while I found it impossible to confess it later. It was the first time I ever felt my self-reliance severely shaken.... But what was his message, and why did you not tell ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... mother went back to Austria—she was a German, the father alone being Hungarian. With his father the lad remained, and found him a severe and domineering master. But in 1827 he died, leaving his sixteen-year-old son alone in Paris. That stalwart self-reliance and sense of honour, which gave nobility to so much of Liszt's character, now showed itself; he sold his grand piano to pay the debts his father had left him, and sent for his mother to come to Paris, where he supported her by giving piano lessons. Then, as later, he found plenty of pupils, ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... assured that in either Liverpool or Manchester—the centres of commercial and manipulative energy—I could settle down with my limited capital and tools, and in course of time contrive to get on, helped by energy, self-reliance, and determination. I also found that the demand for machine-making tools was considerable, and that their production would soon become an important department of business. It might be carried on with little expenditure of capital, as the risks were small and the returns were quick. I resolved ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... the officers whose length of service and professional reputation indicated them as suitable for the position, there was little to guide the department to the man who would on emergency show the audacity and self-reliance demanded by the intended operations. The action proposed, though it falls within the limits of the methods which history has justified, and has, therefore, a legitimate place in the so-called science of war, was, nevertheless, as the opinions of Barnard and Porter show, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... re-experiencing, and the play will react upon his mind and give greater power to visualize. Nothing is better for the child than the freedom and initiative used in dramatization, and nothing gives more self-reliance and poise than to act, to do something.—We must remember that in the history of the child's literature it was education that freed his spirit from the deadening weight of didacticism in the days of the New England Primer. And we must now have a care ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... place they hold in our great cenatorial system. He knows all liquors also by name, with their places and times of appearing. And he is as great in action as in knowledge. When he takes the command of a burra khana he is a Wellington. He plans with foresight, and executes with fortitude and self-reliance. See him marshal his own troops and his auxiliary butlers while he carves and dispenses the joint! Then he puts himself at their head and invades the dining-room. He meets with reverses;—the claret-jug collides with a dish in full sail and sheds its contents ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... to the east, the winter was proving exciting. He had won his reelection to the Assembly with ease and had plunged into his work with a new vigor and a more solid self-reliance. He became the acknowledged leader of the progressive elements in the Legislature, the "cyclone member" at whom the reactionaries who were known as the "Black Horse Cavalry" sneered, but of whom, nevertheless, they were ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... pauper homes, but from the homes where only the mere necessities of life could be obtained, and where early in their youth the children felt it necessary to go into the world and make their own way. Self-dependence, self-reliance, energy, ambition, were all ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... J. Hutchins, and is sent broadcast by the "National Institute for Moral Instruction," In this code, boys and girls are enjoined and pledge themselves to be good Americans by obeying the following laws: "The Law of Health; The Law of Self-control; The Law of Self-reliance; The Law of Reliability; The Law of Clean Play; The Law of Duty; The Law of Good Workmanship; The Law of Friendly Cooeperation in Good Team-work; The Law of Kindness; The Law ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... thoughts, he drew forth from an inside pocket a small book. It was well marked and showed constant usage. It was a volume of Emerson's Essays, a number of which he knew almost by heart. It was only natural that the book should open at the essay on Self-reliance, for there the pages were most thumb-marked. His eyes rested upon the words: "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance." He read on to the beginning of the next paragraph, "Trust thyself: ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... sighed responsible to the flattering vows of beaux. But now!—ask me not how I feel, in thinking of the person who has touched my indurate heart. Need I say that the individual in question has only to demand that heart, to have it detailed to him in all its infantile simplicity and diurnal self-reliance? Do not—do not—diffuse it! ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... she replied, using the pet name the men in barracks frequently called the child. "It's just a wee story of one man fighting it out alone—just alone, single-handed—with no reinforcements but his own courage, his own self-reliance." ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... pray, and never feel the need of prayer. And though I admit, as above, that it may have some present advantage, yet I am inclined to think that it is bought too dearly at the price of a decrease in our self-reliance. I do not think it is good for a man to be always asking for help, for benefits, or for pardon. It seems to me that such a habit ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... The struggle with opium in which I was now so seriously engaged had repeatedly suggested the propriety of including the former also in the contest. While the severity of the struggle would, I supposed, be enhanced, the self-respect and self-reliance, the opposition and even obduracy of the will would, I hoped, be enough increased as not seriously to hazard the one great object of leaving off opium forevcr. Still I dreaded the experiment of adding a feather's weight to the sufferings I was then enduring. ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... been proof enough to the French authorities of the folly of setting rigid standards, making hard-and-fast rules to be met by prospective aviators. As our own experience increased, we saw the wisdom of a policy which is more concerned with a man's courage, his self-reliance, and his powers of initiative, than with his ability to work out theoretical problems ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... Catholic victory; and his reception was so favourable (particularly as the wretched Charles, the victim of his mother's bigotry, had himself no mean poetic feeling), that, with a rash mixture of simplicity and self-reliance (respect makes me unwilling to call it self-importance), the poet expressed an impolitic amount of astonishment at the favour shewn at court to the Hugonots—little suspecting the horrible design it covered. He shortly afterwards broke with his master the cardinal; ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... this struggle to preserve our nationality intact which has sanctified our war, from the red heart of which has grown a patriotism which, glowing like a central sun, burns away all the dross of our earlier materialism, gives as self-reliance, and frees us at last from our long tutelage to the Old World. And never had patriotism a more solid ground than ours, since the power, growth, and safety of our nationality are the progress, happiness, and prosperity of humanity itself. Everything that breathes ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... that he has known the shadow; but he has fought with no Apollyons, reached the Celestial City without crossing the dark river, and won the immortal garland "without the dust and heat." Self-sacrifice, inconsistently maintained, is the watchword of the one: self-reliance, more consistently, of the other. The art of the two writers is in strong contrast. The charm of Emerson's style is its precision; his sentences are like medals each hung on its own string; the fields of his thought are combed rather than ploughed: he draws outlines, as ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... shrinking nature that is a characteristic of the violet. Timidity and reserve she probably did have somewhere in her heart,—as all women do,—but it had never been her part to play them out. She had all her life been called upon to show only energy, activity, and self-reliance. She was an only child, and had been obliged to be son and daughter, brother and sister in one. Her father was the owner of the house in which were the rooms occupied by Mrs. Schroder and her sons. The little shop on the lower floor was his place of business. He was ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... Providence had plainly shut against him, but waited patiently for his day, knowing it would come; yet whether it came or not, it was all the same to him,—a man with all the holy rapture of a Kepler, and all the glorious self-reliance of a Newton. He was indeed jealous of his fame, but he was not greedy of admiration. He worked without the stimulus of praise,—one of the rarest things,—urged on purely by love of art. He loved art for its own sake, as good men love virtue, as ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... meets the billows with defiance. Undaunted and unshaken day by day, In spite of its unyielding self-reliance, Is by the warfare surely ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... spirits that evening. The praise bestowed upon them had created a strong feeling of self-reliance in their minds. Their discipline had passed through a severe ordeal, and it was pronounced perfectly satisfactory by all concerned. They had done hard work, and done it well. Their success was the result of their excellent discipline. It would have been in vain ...
— All Aboard; or, Life on the Lake - A Sequel to "The Boat Club" • Oliver Optic
... and withered, was made strong by her power as mother-in-law and her faith in her country and her gods. The daughter was weak and negative by reason of no particular faith and no definite gods. The system by which she had been trained did not include self-reliance nor foster individuality. Under it many of the country's daughters grow to beautiful womanhood because of their gift of living their own inner lives entirely apart, while submitting to the external one ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... are opposed, of distinguishing the personal character of an opponent from the opinions he maintains. Men lean most to justice, and women to mercy. Men are most addicted to intemperance and brutality, women to frivolity and jealousy. Men excel in energy, self-reliance, perseverance, and magnanimity, women in humility, gentleness, modesty, and endurance.... Their religious or devotional realisations are incontestably more vivid.... But though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than those of men. Their imaginations individualise more, ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... years and the service he had done my father in the old wars, was of a dictatorial way with all of us, and I knew he would rob me of all responsibility and freedom, so that I should be again a lad under the thumb of an elder and should profit nothing in self-reliance and mastership. Besides this reason, which I urged upon my parents, I had my own reason, which I did not urge, namely, that I should never dare let Blaise know the special purpose of my visit to Paris. He would laugh me out of countenance, and yet ten to one he would in the end deprive me of the ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... planet called Earth, he had been catapulted into a dubious present in a world full of criminals. He had gotten a glimpse of a complex class structure, and a hint of an institutionalized program of murder. He had discovered in himself a certain measure of self-reliance, and a surprising quickness with a gun. He knew there was a great deal more to find out about Omega, Earth, and himself. He hoped he would live long enough ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... flatter myself so far," he answered. "Jasper is an improvement on the parent stock. I see in him more manliness and self-reliance than I ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... had bequeathed to his daughter many of his strong characteristics—his resolution, his gay courage, his contumacious self-reliance, his pride as a reigning monarch of hoofs and horns. /Allegro/ and /fortissimo/ had been McAllister's temp and tone. In Santa they survived, transposed to the feminine key. Substantially, she preserved ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... overdo your mastership. Remember that a dog needs much liberty and independence to develop his individuality, and an enterprising puppy learns more by observation and experience in a week than a pampered lap-dog does in his whole life; he learns self-reliance, but he will always run to his master or mistress in any real difficulty, and you who are his master or mistress must be wary not to misunderstand or disregard him, for he needs sympathy and love, and if he does not get them he either becomes cowed and stupid ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... was different.[122-1] No speculative dreamer, but a practical man, bent on improving his fellows by teaching them self-reliance, industry, honesty, good feeling and the attainment of material comfort, he did not see in the religious systems and doctrines of his time any assistance to these ends. Therefore, like Socrates and many other men of ancient and modern times, without actually condemning the ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... remember is, that life and property were not secured to the Anglo-Saxon by the State, but by the loyal union of his fellow-citizens; the Saxon guilds are unmatched in the history of their times as evidences of self-reliance, mutual trust, patient self-restraint, and orderly love of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... difference between the good impulses of his natural heart and the evil impulses of his corrupt heart. With this benighted heart as a starting-point, he can carry out none of his intentions, and he has to lift his shoulders sighing and sighing again. A creature much to be pitied indeed! Then he loses all self-reliance, so that, although it would be better for him to hold his tongue and say nothing about it, if he is in the slightest trouble or distress, he goes and confesses the crookedness of his heart to every man he meets. What a wretched state for a man to be in! For this reason, I beg you to learn ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... for months inundated the Atlantic cities and towns, the writer, addressing himself to American citizens, observes: 'In all other circumstances and questions save that of a literature, you have taken the high ground of freedom and self-reliance. You have neither asked, nor loaned, nor besought, but with your own hands have framed, what the occasion required. Whatever stature you have grown to as a nation, it is due to that sole virtue; and by its exercise may you only ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... as a badge of degradation, of inferiority. Hence labour was something that both races on the slave plantation sought to escape. The slave system on our place, in a large measure, took the spirit of self-reliance and self-help out of the white people. My old master had many boys and girls, but not one, so far as I know, ever mastered a single trade or special line of productive industry. The girls were not taught to cook, sew, or to take care of the house. All of this was left to the slaves. The slaves, ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... living men which she meets in her applications to books and periodicals; in her vacations, by her studies of nature, or it may be other communities than her own. The freedom which she enjoys she does not trespass upon, for if she did not learn at school she has acquired since habits of strong self-reliance, self-support, earnest thinking, deep discriminations, and firmly believes that the most perfect liberty is that state in which humanity conforms itself to and obeys strictly, without deviation, those laws which are best ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... none. As there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest in it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport of his visit; namely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release, with as little detriment as possible to the self-reliance and self-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to possess any remnant of those qualities: without doubt a very wide stretch of supposition. Plornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the Defendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff was a ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... there was the certainty of immediate events of interest as soon as he reached San Francisco, and he felt confident that he could meet whatever might come. His past experiences had taught him self-reliance and he thrilled to the sense of coming adventures. But the fact that he was soon to enjoy a good breakfast had something to do with his feeling of contentment. Besides, he and the engineer were objects of interest in this little mountain settlement, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... the girl was so strikingly her opposite in every particular, she admired Kate exceedingly. The freshness of her candid friendly face, her general wholesomeness attracted her. She felt also the latent strength of character beneath the ingenuous surface, and the girl's courage and self-reliance drew her in her own trembling uncertainty at this ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... back a little further, the most of these society women are the products of that higher education which the pioneer suffragists made possible. They are women of wide reading, of independent thought, of much self-reliance. They began to wonder why they could not vote, when the sloping-shouldered, sloping-skulled youths who proposed to marry them, or had married them, had that right and did not exercise it and showed no information and no concern as to the rottenness of the local government.... ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... industry which causes distress. But I do not agree with those who say that every man must look after himself, and that the intervention by the State in such matters as I have referred to will be fatal to his self-reliance, his foresight, and his thrift. We are told that our non-contributory scheme of old-age pensions, for instance, will be fatal to thrift, and we are warned that the great mass of the working classes ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... deterioration, the tokens whereof were noted by every visitor in the spare and desultory culture of the soil, the neglected resources, the dilapidated fences and dwellings, and the absence of that order and comfort which inevitably attaches to legitimate industry and self-reliance. This melancholy perversion of great natural advantages was the result of slave breeding for the Southern market. Otherwise Virginia would have continued the prosperous development initiated in her colonial days. The exigencies of the cotton culture, rendered immensely profitable by ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... himself; he was contented so long as he could feel, as he always had a right to feel, that he was doing his work thoroughly to the very best of his abilities. He could dispense with much appreciation from outside, though it was unaffectedly welcome when it came from competent persons. He had too much self-reliance to be dependent upon any endorsement by others. But, though this might be perfectly true, he was at bottom sensitive enough, and it was also true that he felt keenly certain consequences of his position. His professional ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... them so rich and successful, believing that a careful study will convince all that the proverbial "luck" had little to do with it. On the contrary, one is taught those lessons of self-helpfulness and self-reliance which are so essential to success in life's struggles. It is fearful to think how many of our young people are drifting without an aim in life, and do not comprehend that they owe mankind their best efforts. We are all familiar ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... the Polish revolution, excited my admiration. I felt more particularly attracted by Count Vincenz Tyszkiewitcz, a man of exceptionally powerful physique and noble appearance, who impressed me by his dignified and aristocratic manner and his quiet self-reliance—qualities with which I had not met before. When I saw a man of such kingly bearing in a tight-fitting coat and red velvet cap, I at once realised my foolishness in ever having worshipped the ludicrously dressed up little heroes of our students' world. I was delighted to meet this ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner |
