"Self-respect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was thus communing with herself in the breakfast-room, and while Herbert was trying to patch up a hollow truce with his own much-bruised self-respect in his own bedroom, Ronald was taking poor dazed and wearied Selah round to the refuge of the Baumanns' hospitable roof. As soon as that matter was temporarily arranged to the mutual satisfaction of all the parties concerned, Ronald walked over alone to Ernest's little ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... and a half after this, he came into my shop one day; but how changed. Instead of the bloated, wild, and despairing countenance that once marked him as a drunkard, he now wore an aspect of cheerfulness and health, of manliness and self-respect. I approached, took him by the hand, and said, "Well, ——, how do you do?" "I am well," said he, shaking my hand most cordially. "Yes," said I, "well in more respects than one." "Yes, I am," was his emphatic ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... he says, it is natural to worship, and only the Catholics can prostrate themselves with dignity. That is matter for thought. Stir us to the depths, it will be found that we are poor soupy stuff. For estimable language, and the preservation of self-respect in prostration, we want ritual, ceremonial elevation of the visible object for the soul's adoring through the eye. So may we escape our foul or ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... has little appreciable effect on an iron Hercules. Illicit intercourse is not so demoralizing to man as to woman, for the further reason that it is not considered so great a crime. An act is demoralizing or degrading in proportion as the perpetrator thereof considers it criminal, as it lowers his self-respect; and men regard their crinolinic peccancy as a venial fault, while women consider such lapses on the part of their sex as grievous sin; hence the lightning of lust scarce blackens the pillar while it shatters the vase. The moral effect of an act is determined by ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... point, as before, was that he had begun married life about as badly as possible. Why had he married her at all? What fault had she committed to incur such outrageous usage? But, thank goodness, she had a will of her own, and a proper self-respect; behave as he might, she would still persevere in the path of womanly duty. If he thought to make her life unbearable he would find his mistake; she simply should not heed him; perhaps he would return to his senses before long—and in this vein Mrs. ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... an acid which reacts differently on differing natures. It had reduced Mr Eugene Warden's self-respect to a minimum. Ruth's it had reared up to an abnormal growth. Her pride had become a weed that ran riot in her soul, darkening it and choking finer emotions. Perhaps it was her father's naive stratagems for the enmeshing of a wealthy husband ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... woman of her type and class is so well sheltered as a rule from the roughnesses of life, so accustomed to the deference of their neighbors, that to be handled as Enid Glenwilliam had handled her victim, destroys for the time nerve and self-respect. Lady Coryston felt as if she had been physically as well as morally beaten, and could not get over it. She sat, white and shaken, in the darkness of a closed motor, the prey to strange terrors. She ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the hill with Mahaffy, Cavendish, and Yancy trailing in his wake, memories of what had once been living and vital crowded in upon him. Some sense of the wreck that littered the long years, and the shame of the open shame that had swept away pride and self-respect, came back to him out ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... compromise, advantageous to me, on the part of some, at least, of those who had acted against me. "The Essex Register," of yesterday, speaks of an intention to offer me some better office than that of which I have been deprived. Now, I do not think that I can, preserving my self-respect, accept of any compromise. No other office can be offered me that will not have been made vacant by the removal of a Democrat; and, even if there were such an office, still, as charges have been made against me, complete ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... great trials most creditably, but he was no martyr. He constantly complained that his teachings fell on listless ears, which made him sad and discouraged; but he never flagged in his labors to improve his generation. He had no egotism, but great self-respect, reminding us of Michael Angelo. He was humble but full of dignity, serene though distressed, cheerful but not hilarious. Were he to live among us now, we should call him a perfect gentleman, with aristocratic ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... has ascertained that they are deserving of either? Is anyone who happens to believe that religion is not worthy of reverence to be ruled out as being unfit to express an opinion? Clearly, on this rule, either we compel a man to sacrifice his sense of self-respect before we will allow him to be heard, or we pack the jury with persons who confess to have reached a decision before they have heard the evidence. It would almost seem from the expression that while examining religion we should be in an "exalted ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... then refuse to abide by the result. The Whig party, in its best estate, was not calculated to excite a very warm enthusiasm in the breast of a dispassionate posterity, and it is perfectly true that it was on the eve of ruin in 1852. But it appeared better then, in the point of self-respect, than four years before. In 1848 the Whigs nominated a successful soldier conspicuous only for his availability and without knowing to what party he belonged. They maintained absolute silence on the great question of the extension of slavery, ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and the sight and thought of Mayer. The laws that had ruled her conduct, the pride that had upheld her, melted like cobwebs before the sun. She lived to please a man she thought loved her and that she loved to the point where honor had become an empty word and self-respect transformed to self-surrender. Whatever he would ask of her she was ready to give. The Indian's blood prompted her to the squaw's impassioned submission, the outlaw's to a repudiation of the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... merely handsome. She was grand, queenly; and I told Miss Dix that I differed with her about the kind of women who should go into such places. We wanted young, vigorous women—women whose self-respect and social position would command the respect of those to whom they ministered. She grew angry again, ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... because they never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same intelligence, applied to any one of the trades they must be masters of, would not only pay them better, but leave them their self-respect and rid them forever of the dread of arrest that haunts us all like the memory of some shameful act.... All of which is much more of a lecture than I meant to inflict upon you, Miss Shannon, and sums up to just this: ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... choose not to have such a minister!" exclaimed the first speaker again, excitedly; "and I for one am most decidedly opposed to the whole thing. I do not see how the church can allow it and maintain its self-respect." ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... the revealed will of God, and it declares the God-given sphere of woman. The Bible is, then, our authority for saying woman must content herself with this sphere, and try to meet its responsibilities, or she will lose self-respect and cast away the regard of the community. Without the Bible, her life is everywhere proven to be gloomy. With it, and beneath its protection, she becomes ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... and grieved at his master's want of understanding, "I couldn't do that. If I did I should lose 'face'"—that is, prestige and standing in the community. On such a slender thread hangs self-respect in the Far East. ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... laughed aloud; so evidently it was a report at second or third hand, utterly valueless to one who had any real acquaintance with the Slavs. This moment of spontaneous mirth did him good, helped to restore his self-respect. And as he pondered old ambitions stirred again in him. Could he not make some use of the knowledge he had gained so laboriously—some use other than that whereby he earned his living? Not so long ago, he had harboured great designs, vague but not irrational. And to-day, even in bidding ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... and the method by which the latent becomes the actual. Instead of the ignoble belief that we can fling our sins upon another it makes personal responsibility the keynote of life. It is the ethics of self-help. It is the moral code of self-reliance. It is the religion of self-respect. ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... really the Speaker was so generous; I entered so fully into his idea that recrimination would only prolong an odious, detestable, and degrading scene—that I could not haggle about terms; and was determined to do my part towards getting back the House to a sense of its honour, dignity, and self-respect. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... on the 13th of August by the same route we had followed in going from London to Paris. Our passage was rough, as compared to the former one, and some of the passengers were seasick. We were both fortunate enough to escape that trial of comfort and self-respect. ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... ruin of another. The offence of that other against himself might be of the most foul and hideous, a piece of treachery that only treachery could adequately avenge; yet this consideration was not enough to appease the clamours of Sir Terence's self-respect. ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... though, as every man has—his self-respect. But one sometimes loses that when others do not attribute it ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... another example of the same thing. To describe a man as a detail is bad enough. To call him a Base Detail must lower his self-respect, and as a rule these poor fellows have done nothing to deserve it. A Base Details Camp contains, for the most part, men who have just recovered from wounds received in the service of King and Country. "Details" perhaps is unavoidable, but it ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... that a barbarian of the west would refuse such a sum, in preference to selling his shipmates, never crossed his mind. Little, however, did the Italian understand the American. A greater knave than Ithuel, in his own way, it was not easy to find; but it shocked all his notions of personal dignity, self-respect, and republican virtue, to be thus unequivocally offered a bribe; and had the lugger not been so awkwardly circumstanced, he would have been apt to bring matters to a crisis at once by throwing the gold into the vice-governatore's face; ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... presence would be very unwelcome. I should have thought this was just the one moment in your life and the one place on earth where even YOU would have seen that to stop away was your imperative duty. Mere self-respect would dictate such conduct. This lady has given you clear proof indeed that your society and converse are ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... the earth is slipping under your feet, grab a big Turkish towel, walk briskly into the supreme sanctuary of the body,—the bath-room, take a thorough salt-water bath, with a few drops of perfume in it to awaken your self-respect. Then in a quiet, darkened room take a good sleep of ten to fifteen hours. Then rise and eat slowly, quietly and happily some nourishing food. God, Himself, could do nothing with Elijah, until He had given him a long sleep and a good ...
— Supreme Personality • Delmer Eugene Croft
... is administered parochially and on the supposition that all population is static and localised whereas every year it becomes more migratory; it is administered without any regard to the rising standards of comfort and self-respect in a progressive civilisation, and it is administered grudgingly. The thing that is done is done as unwilling charity by administrators who are often, in the rural districts at least, competing for low-priced labour, and who regard ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... for ourselves, it is never wise to be unjust to others. To deny valor in the enemy we have conquered is to underrate our victory; and if the enemy be strong enough to hold us at bay, much more to conquer us"—she hesitated—"self-respect bids us seek some other explanation of our misfortunes than accusing him of qualities inferior ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... agreeably. Mrs Weston would have been as well pleased if he had not carried himself so well, or made himself so agreeable, as far as her niece was concerned, though she did not allow him to suspect any such feelings, and had self-respect enough to say nothing to her niece till ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... you so grotesquely—the gross-witted hog!—he would have lived, and I died of jealousy. A far from pleasant death, you will allow; worse in that it would have involved your own. For I should have had to kill you too, my dearest joy: so much would have been owing to my self-respect. Things, you see, could not have turned out more fortunately; the fellow trapped himself. We may be happy—we will be wildly happy—you ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... said that "attention to the punctilios of politeness is a proof at once of self-respect, and of respect for your friend." Though irksome at first, these trifles soon cease to be matters for memory, and become things of mere habit. To the thoroughly well-bred, they are a second nature. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... I should not want it to get about that a former officer of mine could possibly make such an ass of himself. You have slept all night in jail, you have groomed horses, you have worn a livery which no gentleman with any self-respect would wear, and all to no purpose whatever. Why, in the name of the infernal regions, didn't you meet her in a formal way? There would have been plenty ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... in other moods, with the feeling that all history is but a vast rubbish-heap and sink; that nothing matters, nothing comes out of all the ages save rags and brutishness. There is a great value for our souls in any place which tells us, by however slight indications, of a past of self-respect, activity and beauty; ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee
... it all to yourselves. I suppose the old adage about 'birds of a feather' swill still hold good. I was in hopes, however, that even if you had no appreciation of what was beautiful, refined, and unselfish in another woman's action, you still had some self-respect, or at least some fear of ridicule, left. Since you won't listen to me, I shall warn your mother. If Sibley and two or three others drink much more, Burleigh will interfere for the ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... incurring the slightest spot or blemish to my fair fame, should seem, by passing over some of their more ridiculous charges, to have tacitly admitted their truth, rather than to have treated them with silent contempt. For a man who has any sense of honour or self-respect must needs—such at least is my opinion—feel annoyed when he is thus abused, however falsely. Even those whose conscience reproaches them with some crime, are strongly moved to anger, when men speak ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... Indian Mutiny. Jethro's eyes wandered eagerly over the weapons, and, in imagination, he had each one in his hand. From the pained, angry confusion he felt when he looked at the books had emerged a feeling of fanaticism, of feud and war, in which his spirit regained its own kind of self-respect. In looking at the weapons he was as good a man as any Gorgio. Brains and books were one thing, but the strong arm, the quick eye, and the deft lunge home with the sword or dagger were better; they were of a man's own skill, not the acquired skill of another's brains ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the pomp which so great an occasion demanded, certain rules of conduct which should guide not only his entry into life but his whole conduct throughout its course. He emphasized the value of self-respect, of a decent carriage, of discretion, of continuous and tenacious habits of industry, of promptitude, and so forth; when, urged by I know not what demon whose pleasure it is ever to disturb the best plans of men, the old gentleman had the folly to add the ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... universality, because there is a great want of self-respect in doing one thing well and another badly, as many do who study only the [rules of] measure and proportion in the nude figure and do not seek after variety; for a man may be well proportioned, or he may be fat and short, or tall and thin, or medium. And a painter ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... appearance—shabby clothes and hardly any of them, when his ready-made dust-colored garments had immediately been replaced by the well-fitting blue serge that was her special weakness in masculine attire. She had invested heavily in frills and slowly regained her self-respect. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... her way with eager hands; she seemed to pass unscathed, unsullied, through the dregs of life and find mirth in the dreariest surroundings. And to-day Landon had broken down one more barrier of the pride which kept Joan's feet upon the pathway of self-respect. Of what use were her ideals since they could not bring her even one half hour's happiness? The road stretched out in front of her ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... sense never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that his Edinburgh popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a day. He wrote a few letters in a high-flown, bombastic vein of gratitude; but in practice he suffered no man to intrude upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the acquaintance were a duke. He would be a bold man who should ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... German will should impose itself without coming at once into conflict with these other national wills. It was impossible that the German ideal should seek to realize itself without coming into conflict with the mere desire to live, let alone the self-respect, of ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... evolve at last a "scientific" revival of the Kaffir's witch- smelling. We shall catch our criminals by anthropometry ere ever a criminal thought has entered their brains. "Prevention is better than cure." These mattoid scientists make a direct and disastrous attack upon the latent self-respect of criminals. And not only upon that tender plant, but also upon the springs of human charity towards the criminal class. For the complex and varied chapter of accidents that carries men into that net of precautions, expedients, prohibitions, and ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... She asked Harry Collins if his tribe were the same as that of ces Missouriens-la, and the Kansan confessed that the two tribes had been a bit hostile of late, but what with raiding, razing, and murdering, he guessed they'd laid the foundation for a mutual self-respect, as behooved valiant redskins. So she often got strange answers for her inquisitiveness, but she had grown wary among Westerners, and she usually paid them back. They were a happy party. But Driscoll wanted a more definite focusing of the joy. ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... my own daughter, and out of cowardly misery speak of a thing she should never have known. You have your revenge, Mary, for I shall go a broken man from this hour. Nothing can ever be the same again. My self-respect is gone. I could have endured everything else—the things that I dreaded. All I could have suffered and survived; but to have forgotten ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... identity of that abstract or ideal man, with whom she was currently contrasted, remained an open secret. But this stiff old gentleman had a wonderful instinct for evil, thus to wind his way into man's citadel; thus to harp by the hour on the virtues of his hearer and not once alarm his self-respect. Otto was all roseate, in and out, with flattery and Tokay and an approving conscience. He saw himself in the most attractive colours. If even Greisengesang, he thought, could thus espy the loose ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... confession that to them we had no answer to give. And it was this consideration which eventually determined the decision of the House, Mr. Disraeli, who closed the debate on his side, condemning the conduct of the ministers as "perplexed, timid, confused, wanting in dignity and self-respect. In not replying to the despatch, they had lost a great opportunity of asserting the principles of public law." The House, taking his view of their conduct, threw out the bill by a majority of nineteen;[309] and the ministry resigned, ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... take the great cats. They are free from this talent for slave-hood. Stately beasts like the lion have more independence of mind than the ants,—and a self-respect, we may note, unknown to primates. Or consider the leopards, with hearts that no tyrant could master. What fearless and resolute leopard-men they could have fathered! How magnificently such a civilization would have ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... with any abrupt change of the outer man, there is sometimes a more, very more natural abandonment of the inner thoughts and disposition and character. Just as men so often lose self-respect when they take to the bush life; or children who pray by their own little bedside alone, leave off praying in "long chamber," ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that waited for one! The big beads on his forehead gathered in drops and ran down his cheeks. He tried to move on, but his legs only trembled beneath him. The hopeless, unreasoning terror of the frightened animal, the raw recruit, the superstitious negro, was upon him. The last fragment of self-respect, of bravado even, was in tatters. No object on earth, no fear of hereafter, could have made him face death in that way, with ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... who were so loud in their plaudits of the victor—cruel as their ancestors whose upturned thumbs condemned the conquered gladiator in the Coliseum—are equally loud in their hooting of the prostrate buttero. But only his self-love and self-respect, and not his life, in these days pays the penalty. As he falls worsted his fellows, watchful to prevent mischief, though perhaps not sorry for a rival's discomfiture, rush forward ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... Instructions," first outlined in 1882 and perfected and applied in 1900, the children of the Public Schools of that country have their attention called first to the duties related to "Home and Family," going on from that topic to "Companionship, The School, Social Life, Animal Life, Self-respect, Work, Leisure and Pleasure, Nature, Art, Citizenship and Nationality," and ending with a study of the "Past and Future." The latter topic indicates an intent to give in some fashion the idea of human progress and something of its outstanding points of interest and value. Other ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... that summary measures were not necessary to enable the trial to go on. Departure from established judicial practice, which makes it unfitting for a judge who is personally involved to sit in his own case, was therefore unwarranted. Neither self-respect nor the good name of the law required it. Quite otherwise. Despite the many incidents of contempt that were charged, the trial went to completion, nine months after the first incident, without a single occasion ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... or food or fuel are not so well appreciated as the respectful hearing which clothes the teller with self-respect, the kind word and loving sympathy that feed the heart, the inspiring consolations of religious faith that animate and warm the soul, and such gifts women of sympathetic Christian hearts can ever render. As has been well said, "Shall the advantages of such a system be monopolized ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... assistance in money and munitions for the internal and external safeguarding of his realm, commercial and other facilities, and honourable recognition, for the Afghan, like the Indian, has a craving for self-respect and the respect ...
— Essays in Liberalism - Being the Lectures and Papers Which Were Delivered at the - Liberal Summer School at Oxford, 1922 • Various
... certainly the cruelest of incentives. We would not have it on any terms were it merely for gain's sake. Even in your day your capitalists knew that the best man was not he who was working for his next dinner, but he who was so well off that no immediate concern for his living affected his mind. Self-respect and pride in achievement made him a far better workman than he who was thinking of his day's pay. But if those motives were as strong then, think how much more powerful they are now! In your day when two men worked side by side for an employer it was no concern of the one, however ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... common use, anything is considered "good enough for just one's own folks." This ought not to be, and mothers who permit such a course, need not be surprised if their children exhibit a lack of self-respect and genuineness as well as awkwardness ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... cannot forgive you. You have thwarted my destiny. You have extinguished with sordid cares a lamp within me, that might, by this time, have shone through the world. And what am I, since your wishes are accomplished? Enriched in pocket, and bankrupt in happiness and self-respect. ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... what they are and ought to be raises them above the unquietness of those who have a suspicion that they are not quite what might be expected of them. It is on this uncertain ground that all the blunders of manners occur; when simplicity is lost disaster follows, with loss of dignity and self-respect, and pretentiousness forces its way through to claim the respect which it is conscious of ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... be plucked from the inmost chamber of his soul; and therefore he did not hesitate to rank his ancient friendship before the present kindness. Besides, when he recalled the previous affront, he could not thank the complaisance that followed; he could not put aside the disgraceful wound to his self-respect. For the memory of benefits or injuries ever sticks more firmly in the minds of brave men than in those of weaklings. For he had not the habits of those who follow their friends in prosperity and quit them in adversity, who pay more regard to fortune than to looks, and sit closer to their own ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... school-house, barn, depot, church, or public hall; on week-day or Sunday, as she found opportunity. For listening to her, on Sunday, many men and women were expelled from their churches. Thus through continued persecution was woman's self-assertion and self-respect sufficiently developed to prompt her at last to demand justice, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... But I soon found that nobody wanted me. The only offers I received were not to my liking. One was a place in a laundry, and the other was to stand outside a tea merchant's and distribute bills. No one seemed to think that it was possible for a Chinaman to be a gentleman, or to have any self-respect. At last, when all my money was gone, I got a job as steward on board a pleasure boat. The owner became bankrupt, and I was paid off at Yarmouth. I walked from Yarmouth to Grimsby, and, after I had been hanging about the docks for a few days, ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... who loved me, all that a woman prizes. And what did you give me in exchange? Your cruel fickleness exposed me to the low mockery of the lick-spittles of your Court. Do you wonder that I went mad, and that in my madness I sacrificed what shreds of self-respect you had left me? And now it seems I have lost all but life. Take that, too, if it be your pleasure. Heaven knows it has little value left for me! But remember that in striking me you strike the mother of your children—the legitimate children ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... I brought thee up: gave thee fire and food, and taught thee the self-respect of an honest dog. Hear, then, ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... the rather summary process of putting both into one large cage. She had suffered at the hands of mankind, and her plumage was in a terribly draggled state; and clothes have as much to do with self-respect in the feathered world as in our own. Her condition of general wreck was so complete as to leave her without a tail,—the last stage of respectability. She was depressed in spirits, and at first did not gainsay the dictation of the bird already in possession. He drove her away ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... whether he should go back on the five o'clock train, which would reach Willoughby Centre after dark, and house himself from public ignominy for one night at least, or whether self-respect did not demand that he should stay in Boston for twenty-four hours at any rate, and see if something would not happen. He had now no distinct hope of anything; but his pride and shame were holding him fast, while the home-sickness ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... women are indicative of the state of society in general, and of the estimation in which they are held in particular. If the other sex treat them as slaves, they will become servile and contemptible, a certain degree of self-respect being essential to the preservation of real dignity of character. The way to render human beings of any class despicable is to undervalue them; for disesteem will superinduce degeneracy. If this be the case, then the state of women in any age or country is a criterion ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... for the sacred work to see that there shall be no winter flies. A niche of usefulness and self-respect exists for every man, however handicapped; but that niche must be found for him. To carry the process of restoration to a point short of this is to leave ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... car, no one offers her a seat, though she is trembling with fatigue, while the showily dressed woman who follows her is accommodated at once. She marks the difference; she does not pause to count the cost, but barters away her self-respect, to gain the respect, or ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... mentioning it, and especially a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner must have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath, because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... to give money without hurting the recipient. It is as difficult to receive it without embarrassment and sense of inferiority. Paul here shows us how he could handle a delicate subject with a feminine fineness of instinct and a noble self-respect joined with warmest gratitude. He carries the weight of obligation, is profuse in his thanks, and yet never crosses the thin line which separates the expression of gratitude from self-abasing exaggeration, nor that other which distinguishes ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... some for a time, but is sure to bring want sooner or later to individuals and communities. The foundation of this good woman's fortune was that she worked with a will. There is no other foundation, either for fortune or any other good, or for self-respect, or for progress in knowledge or goodness ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... brother; "a just appreciation of ourselves. If there is danger of setting too low a value on our merits, there is also some danger of setting too high; though I perfectly comprehend the difference you would make between vulgar vanity, and that self-respect which is certainly in some degree necessary to success. But one, like her thou hast described, would scarce yield her affections without good reason to think them ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... stars walked the dusty camp streets and forgot the existence of Lieutenant Wainwright. A glow of gratitude had flooded his soul at sight of his beloved captain, whom he hoped soon to be able to call his captain. Unconsciously he walked with more self-respect as the words of confidence and trust rang over again in his ears. Unconsciously the little matters of personal enmity became smaller, of less importance, beside the greater things of life in which he hoped soon to have a real part. If ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... it become secondary to yours; and I would have to do just that to earn you. Once I thought that there was no height I could not scale to gain your side. I worked for you, but that is no way for a man to work. He must work because he is a man and needs must win as big as he can to keep his own self-respect. ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... human psyche that abstract idealisms must always take second place where such ascendancy is threatened. Thus we see that the belly-crawler, meek and subservient to the judge, comes off with a token sentence while the man who attempts to maintain his pride, his rights, his self-respect gets the book ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... governors now understand quite well that they must cease to hold their offices if they do not adopt the policy recommended by the British diplomatic agent. If it should be found that we cannot with honor and self-respect begin to abandon our self-imposed task of Cuban "pacification" with any greater speed, the impetuous congressmen, as they read over their own inconsiderate resolutions fourteen years hence, can hide their blushes behind a copy of Lord Granville's letter. They may explain, if they like, with the classical ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... reply was designed to minister to her self-respect. She took up the small black book lying with the Bible. "What ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... when a woman falls to this point all her pride leaves her. Gervaise had divested herself of all her old self-respect, coquetry and need of sentiment, propriety and politeness. You might have kicked her, no matter where, she did not feel kicks for she had become too fat and flabby. Lantier had altogether neglected her; he no longer escorted her or even bothered to give her a pinch now and ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... this course, however, I can not forget what is due to the character of our government and nation; or to a full and entire confidence in the good sense, patriotism, self-respect, and ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... delicacy and hardihood, between courage and conscientiousness. It assisted the cheerfulness I inherited from my father; showed me that circumstances were not to check a healthy gaiety, or the most masculine self-respect; and helped to supply me with the resolution of standing by a principle, not merely as a point of lowly or lofty sacrifice, but as a matter of common sense and duty, and a simple cooeperation with the elements ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... turns to one's natural protector; and above all, he had begun to find himself—to understand that there really was a strong, reliable man behind all the tricks of custom which had built up an artificial nature, which had imposed even upon himself. A little glow of self-respect began to warm his blood. He had missed his youth when he was young, and now in his middle age it was coming up like ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... understand impudence even if I can't say a thing worth remembering. But rather than have words with you I will ride on, not to accommodate you, but to preserve my own dignity and self-respect." ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... heart, and he knew the nature of self-respect as well as men generally. His mind ran entirely outside of texts for a few minutes, and then, with a sigh for the ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... her of my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... infinite bewilderment. He lay stupefied in his bunk, which went whirling round and round with him, sinking down and down and down, into void and bottomless chaos, where solid earth was none—type of the drunkard's moral state, where virtue has lost its foot-hold, and there is no firm ground of self-respect, and conscience is a loosened ledge toppling treacherously, and there is no steady hope to stay his horrible whirling and sinking. Stupefaction became sleep; with sleep inebriation passed; and ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... at him. "There's no need to be polite, Martin. We're both of us beyond that by this time. I'll come back if you really want me. You know that I always will, but at last, after all these years, I've found a scrap of self-respect. Here am I always bundling about—first the aunts, then you, then Paul, then you again, and nobody wanting me. I don't suppose," she said laughing, "that there can be anybody less wanted in the world. So I'm just going to look after myself now. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... at its fulfilment. How much better to have kept the mother free from syphilis by giving the father the benefit of our knowledge. The child who reaped his sowing gained nothing morally, and lost its physical heritage. Its mother lost her health and perhaps her self-respect. Neither one contributes anything through syphilis to the uplifting of the race. They are so much dead loss. To teach us to avoid such losses is the ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... cohesion. A line of cavalry skirmishers[39] formed across the country was making ineffectual efforts to stop the stream of fugitives who had stolidly and stubbornly set their faces to the rear. Dazed by the surprise in their camps, they acted like men who had forfeited their self-respect. They were chagrined, mortified, mad at their officers and themselves—demoralized; but, after all, more ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... up tearfully at The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his passion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to him than his own life, his passion for always giving value received should preclude ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... not exist," it said, "where those nominally entrusted with affairs of government have not control of fiscal and economic policy. No nation with self-respect could accept the idea that while its citizens were regarded as capable of creating wealth they were regarded as incompetent to regulate the manner in which taxation of that wealth should be arranged, and that another country should have the ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... friendships. I've rated them too highly. I've expected everything and then cried like a child because I've been disappointed. I can see now not only the folly of it, but the weakness. It is, I suppose, a mistake, caring too much for other people, one loses one's self-respect." ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... when she was defenseless and could make no move. Of one thing she was certain, if she should stay on in Russia she must come to some understanding with him if possible, and prevent any more of these ways—absolutely insulting to her self-respect. ...
— His Hour • Elinor Glyn
... is not in the least a man of the world, but a curious variety of it, a man of a small and definite society who, on the strength of knowing a certain class, and of possessing a certain savoir faire, credits himself with a mundane position and enjoys his own self-respect. ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... BARBARA ALEXIEVNA,—What am I to say to you, now that all is over, and we are gradually returning to our old position? You say that you are anxious as to what will be thought of me. Let me tell you that the dearest thing in life to me is my self-respect; wherefore, in informing you of my misfortunes and misconduct, I would add that none of my superiors know of my doings, nor ever will know of them, and that therefore, I still enjoy a measure of respect in that quarter. Only one thing do I fear— I fear gossip. Garrulous though my landlady be, she ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... question had to a certain extent been taken up by the public; besides, how could a high-spirited girl like Eleanor Harding really learn to love a man for neglecting a duty which he assumed! Could she allow her affection to be purchased at the cost of his own self-respect? ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... should imagine, for a man "of independent mind" in these circumstances—assuming for the moment that ribands and stars are bestowed on imbeciles—would be a quiet disdain. The above stanza reminds me rather of ill-bred barking. People of assured self-respect do not call other people "birkies" and "coofs," or "look and laugh at a' that"—at least, not so loudly. Compare these verses of Burns with Samuel Daniel's "Epistle to the Countess of Cumberland," and you will ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and he remarked that the absence of passionate profanity among the carmen and drivers, and the good-natured patience they manifested, were in striking contrast with the blasphemous violence exhibited in London under like circumstances; and he attributed it to the greater self-respect bred in this class of men here by the prospect and purpose of a higher vocation. It is curious to observe how professional are the impressions and observations of Broadway pedestrians. Walk there with a portrait-painter, and he will infer character or discover subjects ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... library, but in yourself," says Fr. Gregory, "in your self-respect and your consciousness of duty nobly done—that you are to find the 'Fountain of Youth,' the 'Elixir of Life,' and all the other things that tend to preserve ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... literary pursuits and universal respect soon told upon Johnson's personal appearance. He began to wash his face and hands. His self-respect seemed to grow, like love, by what it fed on; and the more he became respectable, the more his ambitions spread out and flourished. The next time he had big luck in a poker game, instead of spending his money in a spree, he bought a brand-new ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... he lived at the expense of some of his countrymen, but, as Tiburcio had some self-respect, the bread was sour to him, and instead of getting fat he grew thin. As he had neither knowledge of any science, money nor recommendations, his countrymen, in order to get rid of him, advised him to go to some of the provinces and pass himself off as a Doctor of Medicine. At ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... himself thoroughly thanks partially to Mrs. Armour's knowledge of human nature. Where others saw only weakness, she found smarting hurts. She felt that he was on dangerous ground, that he was ashamed of himself, and that his self-pride and self-respect needed propping, and she immediately proceeded ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the immemorial airlessness of the staircase as if they were breathing the free air of the forests depicted on its dirty-brown wall-paper. It was the new atmosphere of self-respect that they were really absorbing. Each had at last explained herself and her brown wig to the other. An immaculate honesty (that would scorn to overcharge fifty centimes even to un Anglais), complicated with unwedded nieces in one case, with a royal shower of New Year's gifts in ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet not have their moral sensibilities completely destroyed. Of these I was one, and I felt that the treatment which I had now to undergo was conceived in a barbarous spirit, and was well-fitted to destroy utterly any feelings of self-respect which my previous experiences had still left me. Every part of my body was minutely inspected immediately on my arrival, in order that I might not take any money or tobacco ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... colored police) able and courteous, shrewd and trusty. These police are excellent specimens of what can be made of the negro, or half-negro, if he be but first drilled, and then given a responsibility which calls out his self-respect. He was warning our crew not to run aground on one or other of the pitch reefs, which here take the place of rocks. A large one, a hundred yards off on the left, has been almost all dug away, and carried to New York or ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... involved. It was she who first suggested the giving up of every thing; and when Henry, less upright than his noble sister, proposed the withholding of a part, she firmly answered, "No, father don't do it. You have lost your property, but do not lose your self-respect." ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... it is the only policy depends upon the meaning we import into the term; of this I am sure—it is the best policy. But I shall not urge this doctrine upon you from the lower standpoint. That might do more than insult your intelligence; it would, I trust, offend against your moral self-respect. I assume that you all would hold it true with Archbishop Whately when he says, that though "honesty is the best policy, he is not an honest man who is honest for that reason." If, then, these latter remarks can carry the weight I want them to bear, what of those that ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... fixing his keen eye upon him solemnly; "to you, Edward Howard, who have thrown away talents, hope, and health—who have blasted the heart of your wife, and beggared your suffering children. To you I am the messenger of your God—by me he offers health, and hope, and self-respect, and the regard of your fellow-men. You may heal the broken heart of your wife, and give back a father to your helpless children. Think of it, Howard: what if it were possible? Only suppose it. What would it be again to feel yourself ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... from being dependent. What you propose is a kind of philanthropic chaos. If I used your money as freely as you would like, it wouldn't be long before half the people in my district would be living on you—giving nothing—no effort, no work, no self-respect in return. You don't mind if I say so, but that sort of thing isn't charity, Jerry. It's merely sentimental tomfoolery which might by accident do some good, but would ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... respected, rather than despised. In order to be respected, by others, we must respect ourselves; and sometimes the ruder classes of society make claims, deemed forward and offensive, when, with their views, such a position seems indispensable to preserve a proper self-respect. ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... thank you, grandpapa, for having granted my request, and received Harry as of old. It is much better that the past should be entirely forgotten. Self-respect seems to require that we should not show resentment under the circumstances," she ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... by a dissolution of the Union? Not peace; for if, when united, there exists such cause of dissension, the evil will be tenfold greater when separated. Not national aggrandizement, for division brings weakness, imbecility, and a loss of self-respect; it invites aggressions from foreign powers, and compels to submission to insults that otherwise would not be given. Not general competence, for the South is quite as dependent upon the North as the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... rest reclined on couches. Noting the scene presented, the first idea to strike the mind of any one must certainly have been that beauty has by nature something regal in it; and the more so, if it chance to be combined (as now in the person of Autolycus) with modesty and self-respect. Even as when a splendid object blazes forth at night, the eyes of men are riveted, (21) so now the beauty of Autolycus drew on him the gaze of all; nor was there one of those onlookers but was stirred to his soul's depth by him who sat there. (22) Some fell into unwonted silence, while the ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... let himself go blind of many sympathies by disuse; and if he were young and witty, or beautiful, wilfully forwent these advantages. He joined himself to the following of what, in the old mythology of love, was prettily called nonchaloir; and in an odd mixture of feelings, a fling of self-respect, a preference for selfish liberty, and a great dash of that fear with which honest people regard serious interests, kept himself back from the straightforward course of life among certain selected activities. And now, all of a sudden, he is unhorsed, like St. Paul, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... dismissed, I shall be ultimately recalled. And yet he is not without gleams of sense, is occasionally sprightly, and has perceptions of principle that might have made him a man—an individual being: but now, having neither firmness, resolution to carry out a good purpose, nor self-respect, he is a miserable and wretched cipher, whose whole value depends on the figure that is next him. Yes, I know—I feel—he will recall me ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... climate but of opportunity. It is not so easy in Christian lands to stock immoral houses with slaves, for the reason that the slaves are not present with which to do it. Women have freedom and cannot be openly bought and sold even in marriage; women have self-reliance and self-respect in a Christian country; they have a clean, decent religion; women who worship the true God have His protecting arm to defend themselves, and through them other women who do not personally worship God share ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... and better affections of our natures, nor happiness, nor our just dues of love and honor from men; not to vilify ourselves, nor to renounce our self-respect, nor a just and reasonable sense of our merits and deserts, nor our own righteousness of virtue, does Masonry require, nor would our imitation of Him require; but to renounce our vices, our faults, our passions, our self-flattering delusions; to forego all outward ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... bearer." There could be no treason in doing what the Constitution of the United States permitted. And so every speech of farewell made by Southern representatives, was one, first of pleading for redress—then of sincere regret that self-respect and justice forced the rupture. The South never desired war, or bloodshed. The North defied possible war, believing that within a month, at least, any resistance must certainly be conquered. "We can easily whip them back." ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... concerning which there could be no doubt, a matter of ordinary expediency—of course a man would be nicer to a woman than to another man; they always were; it was natural. But Elfrida, with her merciless insight, had to harden her heart and ply her self-respect with assurances that it was all in the game, and it was a superb thing to be playing the game. Deliberately she chose the things she looked ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... should insist upon perfect equality of treatment with their home fellow-subjects in this matter. They should resent, as a now quite out-of-date and invidious distinction, any difference in qualification for entry, locality of service, or remuneration for any rank or rating. Self-respect and a dignified confidence in their own qualities, the excellence of which has been thoroughly tested, will prompt the King's colonial subjects to ask for nothing but equal chances in a force on which is laid so large a part of the duty of defending the ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... in the whirlpool of perverted enthusiasm, looking continuously for wealth and still more wealth. But there is something more in life than money. Health, for instance, is worth a thousand times, and self-respect should be rated a million times, more than money. Do not allow a struggle of this sort to enslave you. Do not allow pursuits of any sort to interfere with the development and maintenance of those powers that indicate superior manhood and womanhood. It is also well to avoid the complaining ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... call 'Protection'? Forced plants, we know, suffer in the process; and the Malay, whose proper place is amidst the conditions of the Thirteenth Century, is apt to become morally weak and seedy, and to lose something of his robust self-respect, when he is ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... fingers on the keyboard. Then he would return gloomy of countenance, and Louisa, with a catch at her heart, would read in it with the first glance the customary reproach; or he would stay out late at one inn or another, there to seek self-respect or kindliness from others. On such evenings he would return shouting with laughter, and this was more doleful for Louisa than the hidden reproach and gloomy rancor that prevailed on other days. She felt that she was to a certain extent responsible for the fits of madness in which the ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... "Why do you drink? You know your business is now nearly ruined. Your friends have nearly all deserted you. You are fast losing your self-respect, wrecking your health, and dragging your wife and children down with you. Consider, my darling, what you are sacrificing, and don't be tempted ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... she had been rescued by a hero, that the hero should have been wounded in the affray, and his wound bandaged with her handkerchief (which it could not even bloody), ministered incredibly to the recovery of her self-respect; and I could hear her relate the incident to "the young ladies, my school-companions," in the most approved manner of Mrs. Radcliffe! To have insisted on the torn coat-sleeve would have been unmannerly, if ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... my self-respect, I made another attempt to pass, but more or less the same thing happened, except that I kept my seat, and managed to avoid going so near the bank, I then left the horse to himself, and he ambled back to Numjala's kraal. When I dismounted he was wet with perspiration, and trembling ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... was a proud man, who held fast his self-respect. He would not speak to the envoy, but he took the paper that the envoy had brought, and drew on it an insulting picture, with the words, "Is this what you want?" and sent ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... presence, sway my voice as soon as I begin to speak. Vainly does my modesty take secret offence at it; vainly would my sex and decency bind me to other laws; it is your eyes that dictate my answer, and my lips, the slaves of their almighty power, no longer consult me on the self-respect I owe myself. ...
— Psyche • Moliere |
