"Selfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and never will be. In point of intellect she is far superior to her sister, and possesses more graceful and lady-like manners. Instead of Ella's being ashamed of her, I fancy it will be just the reverse, unless your daughter's foolish vanity and utter selfishness is soon checked. Pardon me for being thus plain, but in the short time Mary has been with me, I have learned to love her, and my heart already warms towards her as towards a daughter, and I cannot calmly hear ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes
... that for six hours per diem he is in Buckingham nursery?—has led him into the perpetration of various eccentricities which, when we reflect upon the fortune he must have hoarded, and the innate selfishness of our common nature, may possibly end in a commission of lunacy. As juries are now-a-days brought together (especially as Chartists abound), excessive loyalty may be returned—confirmed insanity. It is, however, our duty as good citizens and fellow-journalists to protest, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... read the letter through to the end, and it is possible (for women are blind in such matters) failed to perceive the selfishness in every line of it. Then, with the message of happiness in her hand, she returned to the chair she had just quitted, with a vague wonder in her mind, and the very human doubt that accompanies all possession, as to whether the ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... the blessing instead of the bane of society. He had no salient propensities to evil, no faults which righteous wisdom might not have disciplined. But indulged, caressed, praised and admired by all around him, the selfishness inherent in our nature, acquired a hot-bed growth from the sultry moral atmosphere which ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Shuster "persuaded" him to stick to his bargain. How she managed I don't know, but there are lots of ways, and Larry with all his faults is a gentleman. He even has a chivalrous vein which, though lying deep under selfishness, crops up near the surface occasionally. I wish he'd been chivalrous with his daughter, while there was time for it to do good, instead of at the last moment with this silly middle-aged woman who wants to get "into society" ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... who had formerly saved him from death. For five years Hiros['e] had been a naval attach['e] at St. Petersburg, and had made many friends in Russian naval and military circles. From boyhood his life had been devoted to study and duty; and it was commonly said of him that he had no particle of selfishness in his nature. Unlike most of his brother officers, he remained unmarried,—holding that no man who might be called on at any moment to lay down his life for his country had a moral right to marry. The only amusements in which he was ever known to indulge were physical exercises; ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... but he was blamed by his brethren for thus lowering the dignity of the teacher. He died several years before Ptolemy Soter came into Egypt. The Cyrenaic sect thought happiness, not goodness, was the end to be aimed at through life, and selfishness, rather than kindness to others, the right spring of men's actions. It would hardly be fair to take their opinions from the mouths of their enemies; and the dialogues of Socrates, with their founder, as told to us by Xeno-phon, would prove a lower tone of morality than he is likely ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... society of many unmitigated rogues of every description; but that his new friend, Barry Lynch, though he might not equal them in energy of villany and courage to do serious evil, beat them all hollow in selfishness, and utter brutal want of feeling, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... keep Luke Claridge alive! But for it one enemy to his career, to his future, would be gone. He did not shrink from the thought. Born a gentleman, there were in him some degenerate characteristics which heart could not drown or temperament refine. Selfishness was inwoven with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... he could not bring himself to believe that any girl, when so tempted, would, in sincerity, decline to commit this great wickedness. If he was to do any good by seeing Miss Crawley, must it not consist in a proper explanation to her of the selfishness, abomination, and altogether damnable blackness of such wickedness as this on the part of a young woman in her circumstances? "Heaven and earth!" he must say, "here are you, without a penny in your pocket, with hardly decent raiment on your back, with a thief for your father, and you ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Charles de Remusat, who is best known to this generation by very sober and serious philosophical works, and by his part in his mother's correspondence. I do not know that there ever were any imputation on M. de Remusat's morals; but in memoirs of the time, he is, I think, accused of a certain selfishness and hauteur, and he certainly made his way, partly by journalism, partly by society, to power very much as Marsay did. But Marsay would certainly not have written Abelard and the rest, or have returned to Ministerial rank in our own ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... can you—and those who were at that meeting yesterday—hope to gain by these proceedings? If you could succeed, you would break up the Church, the strongest weapon that exists in this country against sin and selfishness—and who ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... should die to-night, My friends would call to mind, with loving thought, Some kindly deed the icy hand had wrought, Some gentle word the frozen lips had said— Errands on which the willing feet had sped; The memory of my selfishness and pride, My hasty words, would all be put aside, And so I should be loved and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... Rabbi Simon, "all that they have done has been from a selfish motive. The bridges bring them in a revenue, for all who use them are taxed; the bath-houses are for their personal adornment—'tis all selfishness, ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... degree of selfishness in his patriotism, and that government is revered only as a means to an end, is evidenced by revolutionary tendencies ever uppermost when there are reasons to believe that these benign purposes are being thwarted. But if for wrongs, the return be fidelity, for obloquy patience, for ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... selfishness," he said gently. "There are many nuns in the convents working for the wretched and helping the poor and praying for the oppressed, while only a few women are devoted directly to the cause of freedom. It strikes me that you descend when you retire from a field of larger ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... is on the lowest ground. Pure selfishness should send her to the king; for, if she did not go, she would not escape the common ruin. So, on the one hand, she had to face certain destruction; and, on the other, there were possible success and escape. It may ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... we Republicans, whose households melt away like new-fallen snow in a spring morning, must content ourselves with our many counterbalancing advantages,—for this one, so apparently desirable to the far-projecting selfishness of our nature, we are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 48, October, 1861 • Various
... tavern, order a supper to be prepared, drink of the richest wines, and spend all the money that had just been given him in charity, without having any one to participate the regale with him, and while his wife and child were starving home? This is an instance of base selfishness, for which no name is as yet invented, and except by another poet[2], with some variation of circumstances, was perhaps never practiced by the most ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... in my mission, thanks to Lee's folly and selfishness. Would to God the troopers who lie in wait for me would go after him! A quick raid would do it, for he lies eight miles from his army, and with no guard worth a thought. There 'd be a fine prize, if the British did but ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... And she's not worrying. It's very—" Bridgie paused for a moment, just one moment, to swallow that accusation of selfishness—"kind! Pixie darling, ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... of this house, and the legend which gave rise to it. Clad in the white garments of Righteousness, we may keep the tryst as Ederyn kept it, and bring to the King the white pearls of a well-spent life. Days unstained by selfishness, days filled up with duties faithfully performed. It matters not how small and commonplace our efforts seem, the rice and the pigeons of the poor showed Kublan Kahn his subjects' loyalty as fully as the ivory carvings and the costly ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... training to be got here, as elsewhere, developed primarily, indeed, and all unconsciously, the first and greatest of requisites in life, whether for dog or man. And if, in some instances, evil characteristics, such as combativeness, selfishness, and the habit of bad language, became accentuated, in spite of the stern discipline of the place, their opposites—good temper, a light and happy disposition, and a civil tongue—received their meed of recognition even from the bigger fellows, like Pagan I. or II., or that Captain of the School, ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... her mope, mother. If I thought it were good for Hatty I would stay at home, to prevent her feeling so miserable, but it would be false kindness to give in to her; she would hate herself for her selfishness, and she would not be a bit happy if she knew she had prevented my visit. I would rather see her fret before I go, and bear it as well as I can, and then I know she will cheer up soon and be looking ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... phrases. You feel only words. You love! What mockery to hear you handle the worn, old words! You have secluded yourself in careful isolation from the human world you seem to despise. You have no right to its passions and solaces. Incarnate selfishness, dear friend, I suspect you are. You would not permit the disturbance of a ripple in the contemplative lake of your life such as love ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... humanity. The Vedantin claims that the unity of all being, as taught by him, is a strong injunction upon him to love all the parts of that unity. But the Bhagavad Gita does not teach clearly even this Vedantic doctrine. Selfishness is too much stamped upon the Hindu faith. It is too exclusively an individualistic religion. It is every one for himself in the great struggle of man for redemption. It pre-eminently tends to cultivate in man both pride in his own achievement and an exclusively selfish devotion to ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Scarborough Square?" He smiled unsteadily and shook his head. "No, I wouldn't know how to live there. I wouldn't fit in. I am just myself. You are a dozen selves in one. But I am beginning to see dimly what you see clearly. Concerning my selfishness there is certainly nothing hazy. The walls around my house have been pretty high, and perhaps they should come down. You have much to teach me. I have ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... some to death. This occurred in May, 1899. After that time not so much as the skeleton of any Philippine public authority—president, cabinet, or other official—existed. Later opposition to the American arms seemed to proceed in the main not from real Filipino patriotism, but from selfishness, lust of power, and the ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... great firmness; when once set upon a thing you are not easily moved. But you have a mean, grasping disposition and a tendency to want more than your share. You have formed an attachment which you hope will be continued throughout life, but your selfishness threatens ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... Richards was astute, though perhaps he did not look it. So he began at once to shuffle his cards for the game he was about to play—a game which he rightly judged was to be one of life or death. For he shuddered to think of the living death to which the selfishness of her miserly, ambitious father ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... Epicurean, Lawrence had not let himself grieve over her. Unluckily one could not pay a chemist to put Bernard Clowes out of his pain! "This is going to be deuced uncomfortable," was the reflection that crossed his mind in its naked selfishness. "I wish I had never come near the place. I'll get away as soon as ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... selfishness of human nature! A moment's delay, a touch of courtesy, and such scenes would be avoided. The struggle for 'first place,' to better one's self at the expense of one's neighbor, is an ugly thing ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... even now, return to that condition in which there might be hope. The true spectre of the criminal—such as I am—the criminal chiefly from the crimes and injustice of society, not forgetting the education of my boyhood, which grew out of the same crimes, and whose most dreadful lesson is selfishness—is despair! The black waters once past, the blacker hills rise between, and there is no return to those regions of hope, which, once lost, are lost for ever. This is the true punishment—the worst punishment which man inflicts upon his fellow—the felony of public opinion. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... his white lips gave the lie to the words he uttered, and his heart smote him cruelly for his selfishness in wishing to save himself by sacrificing Edith; and it would be a sacrifice, he knew—a fearful sacrifice, the giving her to a blind man, old enough to be her sire, noble, generous and ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Selkirk finds some sweetness in pitying evils which are not his own; he no longer dreams of wrapping himself in a cloak of selfishness; that disdainful heart, hitherto invincibly closed, at last experiences friendship, or at least aspires to ...
— The Solitary of Juan Fernandez, or The Real Robinson Crusoe • Joseph Xavier Saintine
... Margaret. "Not because the people in it spoke truth; but because the truth which they spoke was hatred, and malice, and selfishness." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... of sin upon our nature is to make it selfish, and covetous. We are tempted to love money more than we ought to do. We are not so willing to part with it as we should be. And we never can be good and true Christians unless we overcome the selfishness of our sinful hearts, and not only learn to give, but to give liberally. The Bible teaches us that God not only expects his people to give, but, as St. Paul says, in one place, to give "cheerfully." II. ...
— The Life of Jesus Christ for the Young • Richard Newton
... devotees have a tendency in the matter of payments to keep strictly to the letter of the law. Is this from poverty, or from the selfishness to which their isolation condemns them, thus encouraging the natural inclination of all men to avarice; or is it from a conscientious parsimony which saves all it can for deeds of charity? Each nature will give a different answer to this question. The ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... gathered thought The innermost of truth is taught, The mystery dimly understood, That love of God is love of good, And, chiefly, its divinest trace In Him of Nazareth's holy face; That to be saved is only this,— Salvation from our selfishness, From more than elemental fire, The soul's unsanctified desire, From sin itself, and not the pain That warns us of its chafing chain; That worship's deeper meaning lies In mercy, and not sacrifice, Not ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... have produced. There is a time when all things must be known, and then we shall reap our reward. Let this be a consolation to us in all our troubles and disappointments when we have been strenuously endeavouring to do some important good, and find all our plans and projects defeated by the selfishness, the ignorance, the obstinacy of others, perhaps of the persons we would benefit, till at last we are inclined to exclaim: "What is the use of attempting to do good in this world? Do all I can, I cannot succeed." We do succeed—we ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... I should encourage him in nothingness. What's more, I want extra brains and hands. It's not altogether a pleasant thing, is it ... the selfishness of the hard ...
— Waste - A Tragedy, In Four Acts • Granville Barker
... afraid that it is selfishness, Felicia," I answered. "I should not care to go away and leave you here. I am beginning to find," I added, "that the pleasures in life which do not include ...
— The Lost Ambassador - The Search For The Missing Delora • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... harnesses his dogs, and heads for the Southland. A few months later, supposing him to be possessed of a faith in the country, he returns with a wife to share with him in that faith, and incidentally in his hardships. This but serves to show the innate selfishness of man. It also brings us to the trouble of 'Scruff' Mackenzie, which occurred in the old days, before the country was stampeded and staked by a tidal-wave of the che-cha-quas, and when the Klondike's only claim to notice was ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... him, he becomes as one of the divine in his desire to give rather than to take, in his wish to help rather than be helped, in his resolution to feed the hungry rather than take manna from Heaven himself. His nature is transformed, and the selfishness which prompts men's actions in ordinary ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... birds. She said that none but those who had been in the position of a governess could ever realise the dark side of "respectable" human nature; under no great temptation to crime, but daily giving way to selfishness and ill-temper, till its conduct towards those dependent on it sometimes amounts to a tyranny of which one would rather be the victim than the inflicter. We can only trust in such cases that the employers err rather from a density of perception and an absence of sympathy, than ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... there is so much stability in morals, there must be permanent principles, and something surely is worthy to be saved from the wreck of the past. I doubt if all this craving for change has not more of selfishness in it than either of expediency or of philosophy; and I could wish, at least, that Satanstoe should never be frittered away into so sneaking ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... about "that other, whom his dam called God." Setebos is the great First Cause as conceived and dreaded in the heart of a Caliban. The poem is by no means a caricature of the natural theology which springs from selfishness and fear. All the phenomena of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the Alps so much to us. Society is there reduced to a vanishing point—no claims are made on human sympathies—there is no need to toil in yoke-service with our fellows. We may be alone, dream our own dreams, and sound the depths of personality without the reproach of selfishness, without a restless wish to join in action or money-making or the pursuit of fame. To habitual residents among the Alps this absence of social duties and advantages may be barbarising, even brutalising. But to ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... brought into something approaching actual conflict. But, stern as the fight with weakness had been, she had emerged chastened and victorious. Realization had come to her—realization of whither her troubles had been leading her. She knew she must not abandon herself to the selfishness which her brief rebellion had prompted. She was young, inexperienced, and of a highly-sensitive temperament, but she was not weak. And it was this fact which urged her now. Metaphorically speaking, she had determined to tackle life ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... Ernestine's wardrobe was pretty near ready to go upon her visit. She had exercised her ingenuity in making few things look their best and go a long way; and her selfishness in getting every available thing from the girls, without ever expressing a wish that they were going to share the pleasure; because, she reasoned in her mind, if they were going, she couldn't have all their ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving
... painters find no encouragement among the English for many other works than portraits, has been imputed to national selfishness. 'Tis vain, says the satirist, to set before, any Englishman the scenes of landscape, or the heroes of history; nature and antiquity are nothing in his eye; he has no value but for himself, nor desires any copy ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... selfishness of young women in these matters is appalling. Richard was mine by right of conquest, and I owed him no gratitude for the service of his life. That other was the lord who had the right inalienable over me. I bent myself in the ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... above referred to were tried, and doubtless the domesticated animals like the horse, which are now of such service to man, are the result of these experiments in which the men of those days acted in co-operation with the Manu and his ministers. But the co-operation was too soon withdrawn. Selfishness obtained the upper hand, and war and discord brought the Golden Age of the Toltecs to a close. When instead of working loyally for a common end, under the guidance of their Initiate kings, men began to prey upon each other, the ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... deficient in the higher qualities of the imagination. She could analyse, but not characterise; construct, but not create. She could take one defect like selfishness, or one passion like love, and display its workings; or she could describe a whole character, like Napoleon's, with marvellous penetration; but she could not make her personages talk, or act like human beings. She lacked pathos, and had no sense of humour. In short, hers was a mind endowed with ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... without the means of sustaining nobility—a man of rank with no dignity—a superior without the shadow of pre-eminence; but for all the wealth of the kingdom, he would not have sullied the order to which he belonged, by what he conceived to be one act of meanness or sordid selfishness; as if there could be any thing foul or base in any act that seeks, by honourable industry, to repair the errors of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... It means—though rather "laid on with a trowel"— A Trade with Public Spirit quite at jar. The "mercenary politician," making A pocket-business of a patriot's task, Recently put your Press in a great taking; But sordid selfishness here doffs all mask! Which with a patriot's conscience plays most tricks? Which most the venal virus has betrayed,— The man who makes his Trade his Politics, Or he who makes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... oath—more binding than his bond; fair, manly dealing is at an end; and he who would mount the ladder of fortune, must be prepared to soil his hands if he hope to reach the top. Legitimate trading is no longer profitable. Selfishness is arrayed against selfishness—cunning against cunning—lying against lying—deception against deception. The great rogue prospers—the honest man starves with his innate sense of honour and integrity. Is it possible to enter cheerfully upon employment which demands ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... not frame a reply. He left me thinking over what he had said. Whatever was the soundness of his logic or the moral tone of his philosophy, his argument greatly impressed me. I could see, in spite of the absolute selfishness upon which it was based, that there was reason and common sense in it. I began to analyze my own motives, and found that they, too, were very largely mixed with selfishness. Was it more a desire to help those I considered my people, or more a desire to distinguish ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... civilisation," or as Professor Saintsbury says, how "vice makes some bees happy, and virtue makes them miserable"; the latter calls him "The Diogenes of English Philosophy"; he affirmed that "private vices are public benefits," and reduced virtue into a form of selfishness; his satire is directed against the ethics of SHAFTESBURY (q. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... himself, did he repair to his own chamber, and there he strove, with what energy he was able to bring to the task, to find out some excuses, if he could, for Charles's conduct. But he could find none. View it in what light he would, it presented but a picture of the most heartless selfishness it had ever been his lot ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... shelter under a projecting crag. It is fitting that I should live under crags hereafter, and I lie down in a huddle, small and invisible. Anything else you please, as long as you don't flaunt your selfishness and ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... displeased me. You are not only a Polish patriot; you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you do not know how I always have detested this man. In all these sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but selfishness, and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I promise not to steal it ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... strength. We were told that no change was involved, and indeed we saw no change, but it was there, my friends. The suicides of men like Kenneth Armstrong did not just occur. There are many reasons that might lead a man to take his life in this world of ours—selfishness, self-pity, hatred of the world or of himself, bitterness, resentment—but it was none of these that motivated Kenneth Armstrong. His death was the act of a bewildered, defeated mind—for he saw what ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse
... Parliamentary enactments against Slavery, our huge blue books of published Anti-Slavery papers, our protocols and treaties with Foreign Powers, all, each, and singular, are one grand organized system of selfishness and hypocrisy." I know very well that, in general, foreigners give us no credit whatever for our anti-slavery feelings and public acts for the suppression of the Slave-Trade. This they have reiterated in my ears. And, how can they give us credit for ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... silent afterwards, and Festing lit his pipe. Something stood between them, and she felt that it was not less dangerous because their motives were good. Had they differed from selfishness, agreement might have been easier, but an estrangement that sprang from principle was hard to overcome. She wanted to help her husband and keep him to herself; he meant to save her hardship and carry out a task that was properly ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... benighted superstitions of the Papacy by the glorious light of Reformation. Finally, you have the broadly philosophical history, which proves to you that there is no evidence whatever of any overruling Providence in human affairs; that all virtuous actions have selfish motives; and that a scientific selfishness, with proper telegraphic communications, and perfect knowledge of all the species of Bacteria, will entirely secure the future well-being of the upper classes of society, and the dutiful resignation of those ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... contract he ascribes the subsequent degradation of human love through sensuality; and all the sin and selfishness thence deriving to ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... her nature was gentle and tranquil, she gradually imbibed the grave and rather prim ideas which were in vogue when Miss Patty was the reigning belle of her county. Although petted and indulged, she had not been spoiled, and remained singularly free from the selfishness usually developed in the character of an only child, nurtured in the midst of mature relatives. When eighteen years old, Leo, accompanied by her governess, Mrs. Eldridge, had been sent to New York and Boston for educational advantages, which it was supposed ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... advised him to emigrate to Australia. He himself was tempted to practice medicine in Sydney; but to give up his purpose seemed to him like cowardice. On the other hand, to prolong the struggle indefinitely when he might quickly earn a living in other ways seemed like selfishness and an injustice to the woman to whom he had been for a long time engaged. Miss Heathorn, however, upheld him in his determination to pursue science; and his sister also, he writes, cheered him by her advice and encouragement to persist in the struggle. Something of the man's ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... The selfishness of love and the cruelty of jealousy were fairly exemplified at this moment. Each of the two men looked at his friend as he had never looked at him before. Each was TROUBLED ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... arrived, Swinburne always appearing at the moment of the meal, always the same simple and substantial fare, Swinburne never allowed to talk before the meal was half over. As to this last point, I soon realised that I had been quite unjust in suspecting Watts-Dunton of selfishness. It was simply a sign of the care with which he watched over his friend's welfare. Had Swinburne been admitted earlier to the talk, he would not have taken his proper quantity of roast mutton. So soon, always, as he had taken that, the embargo was removed, the chance was given him. And, swiftly ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... Is it actually possible, sir, that you have no sense whatever of shame?—that you are so full of selfishness that there is no room in you for any other feeling? Are you forgetful of the fact, Mr Dale, that it is to your greed and clumsiness we are indebted for the greatly increased hardships of our situation? ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... whose education enables them, in the contemplation of the past glories of the world, to shut out from their view the everyday squalors that the most of men move in. Sirs, I believe that art has such sympathy with cheerful freedom, open-heartedness and reality, so much she sickens under selfishness and luxury, that she will not live thus isolated and exclusive. I will go further than this and say that on such terms I do not wish her to live. I protest that it would be a shame to an honest artist to enjoy what he had huddled up to himself of such art, as it would be ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... family was turned out of house and home! Well, I did that—and did it under the effect of drink. I learned the habit at your table; wine was placed in my hands, in my very childhood, by you; you indulged all my vile selfishness; made me a miserable, arrogant wretch; I came to hang about the village tavern, and gamble, and fuddle myself, until I was made worthless! Then, when one day the devil tempted me, I committed a crime—and that crime was committed by you! for you cultivated in ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... unless it were of general application. They were conscientious men, who had learned the ten commandments and wished to do right; but this class was a small minority, and their objections were soon silenced by the all-powerful race argument. Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts which sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... thoughts come to these solitudes. Here selfishness dies away, and purity and magnanimity expand, the essence and germ of life. Sitting here in these cool recesses, screened from the sun, moist and musical with the waters, crusts of worldliness and vanity cleave off from the soul. The din dies away, and, with ears attuned to the ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... a battle-field, except so far as every laborious achievement means a victory over opposition, indifference, selfishness, faintheartedness, and that great property of mind as well as matter,—inertia. We are not met in a cathedral, except so far as every building whose walls are lined with the products of useful ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his Taxation no Tyranny (Works, vi. 228), he wrote:—'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The boobies in this ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... yet, if they did not come to laugh, they would not come at all. Mockery is the price he must pay for a hearing. Or has he calculated to a nicety the power of reaction? Does he seek to drive us to aspiration by the portrayal of sordidness, to disinterestedness by the picture of selfishness, to illusion by disillusionment? It is impossible to believe that he is unconscious of the humor of his dramatic situations, yet he stoically gives no sign. He even dares the charge, terrible in proportion to its truth, which the most serious ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... that scorn and disgrace had overthrown his courage, and that his pride, transformed into bitterness and spite, led him to see nothing in the harshness and injustice of men but their evil disposition and the vanity of all virtue. He had seen that religion was but a mask for selfishness, and its holy services but a screen for hypocrisy; he had found in the subtleties of empty disputations heaven and hell awarded as prizes for mere words; he had seen the sublime and primitive idea of Divinity disfigured by the vain ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... at this early time of his life, one grain of selfishness about him. You know that the word chivalry was not used till about a thousand years back, while David lived almost three times as long ago; but he was one of the most chivalrous men that ever lived. ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... agony entering into possession of all her faculties. She was so startled, so amazed at this revelation of herself. If she had felt less, she would have thought more for him. She did not think for a moment what that silent standing by her side meant for him. She knew at last the selfishness of passion. She wanted him as she had never wanted anyone or anything before. She could only think of the craving of her own heart, the extraordinary trouble that possessed it. Those who have had a passing acquaintance with love, those ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... secession to be too clear for discussion. The adverse argument of Mr. Webster, approved by a large majority of the Northern people, was considered to be founded on lust of power, not on reason. The governments of western Europe, with judgments unclouded by selfishness, would at once acknowledge it. France, whose policy since the days of the eleventh Louis had been one of intense centralization, and Germany and Italy, whose hopes and aspirations were in the same direction, would admit it, while England would not be restrained ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... the ends which give to the name of democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless; it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It indicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... come true, indeed, that Newfoundland now possesses the most valuable cod-fishery in the world, and that her exports of salmon are considerable, but as to her being a great country—well, that still remains unfulfilled prophecy; for, owing to no fault of her people, but to the evils of monopoly and selfishness, as we have already said, her career ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... you will and long as you will, this is the naked front and aspect of the measure. And in this aspect it could not but produce agitation. Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature—opposition to it in his love of justice. These principles are at eternal antagonism, and when brought into collision so fiercely as slavery extension brings them, shocks and throes and convulsions must ceaselessly follow. Repeal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compromises, ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... also smarting under a sense of the inconsiderateness and selfishness of the rest of the world—both misunderstood—everything expected from you, and ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... presume to fall in love, or that another should dare to love her, until I had made up my mind whether I should take her myself: and this after so long an absence, and their having given up all hopes of ever seeing me again. The reader may smile at the absurdity, still more at the selfishness of this feeling; so did I, when I had reflected upon it, and I despised myself ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... improvement is often absent when it is most needed. A vast multitude of inferior people are perfectly content with themselves in a selfish life, wholly absorbed in providing for their own wants, or, if possessed of wealth, using it only in selfishness and ostentation,—content in believing themselves as good as their neighbors, doing nothing to benefit society, unless under the coercion of public opinion, leading such lives that the world is certainly no better, and perhaps a ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... that either heaven or hell is within us, according to the character of our ruling love; that the Lord casts no one into hell, but does all He can, without interfering with man's freedom, to prevent men from going to hell; if they go there, they go of their own free choice, among their like, where selfishness in some form rules the hearts of the inhabitants; they would not and could not be happy among those who are ruled by love to the Lord and the neighbor; or by obedience to the divine commandments. The spiritual world is a more real world ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... constantly thrusting us into equivocal situations, in which our acts and our professions of respect for the independence of other nations are in contradiction, and in which our proceedings become tainted with the double reproach of inconsistency and selfishness. Nothing, in my opinion, can be more fatal to our prestige and legitimate influence. My modest ambition for England is, that she should in this Eastern world establish the reputation of being all-just and all-powerful; but, to achieve this object, we must ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... right he could blame his ministers and advisers for his own mistakes and misdeeds. He was so selfish that he would make concessions here and there rather than "embark again upon his travels." In fact, pure selfishness was the basis of his policy in domestic and foreign affairs, but it was always a selfishness veiled in wit, good humor, ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... daily more and more hurried on by the diminution of his patrimony, and by his consciousness of guilt; both which evils he had increased by those practices which I have mentioned above. The corrupt morals of the state, too, which extravagance and selfishness, pernicious and contending vices, rendered thoroughly depraved,[47] furnished him ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... ring, a dreadful change came over him. The warm red blood, which until that time had leaped through his veins, and given him life and strength and human feelings, became purple and cold and sluggish; and selfishness, like serpent-poison, took hold of his heart. Then, as he kept on gazing at the hoard which lay before him, he began to lose his human shape; his body lengthened into many scaly folds, and he coiled himself around his loved treasures,—the very likeness of the ring ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... between the musician and the public. The responsibility toward the musician is not that which we are accustomed to hear harped on by the aggrieved ones on the day after a concert. It is toward the musician only as a representative of art, and his just claims can have nothing of selfishness in them. The abnormal sensitiveness of the musician to criticism, though it may excite his commiseration and even honest pity, should never count with the critic in the performance of a plain duty. This sensitiveness is the product of a low state in music as well as criticism, and in the face ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... granite doorstep of the Winslow cottage. Probably the poor woman's mind was slightly affected; it is charitable to hope that it was. It seems the only reasonable excuse for the oddity of her behavior during the last twenty years of her life, for her growing querulousness and selfishness and for the exacting slavery in which she kept ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... provided I do not annoy you. I am a gloomy companion, I fear. I fancy there is no other person in the world troubled with such petty egoism as I am. Think of it, my wife locked up in an asylum is occupied every moment of the day with proving her own selfishness, weakness, unworthiness and wickedness toward me. Because she is so unworthy, as she says, and because I am so great, so noble, so admirable, they have to watch her all the time, I am told, to keep her from inflicting injury upon herself. A very pleasant fact to be conscious of, isn't it, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... his prerogative ceases to be a king or constitutional ruler, but becomes either a despot or demagogue; and in the one case is feared, in the other despised by his subjects. Still the one is the result of kindliness of disposition, and the other that of selfishness ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... question girls ask about one another is, "Is she pretty?" and in their criticism of one another the personal appearance is the first and most, important subject discussed. A personal beauty ideal has little value to the character; in fact, it tends to exaggerate vanity and triviality and selfishness; it leads away from the higher aspects of reality. If you ask the majority of women which would they rather be, very beautiful or very intelligent, most will say without question (in their frank moments) that they would rather ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... together had in a measure subsided, and enlistments went on slowly. After a month's exertions, only five thousand names were enrolled; and Washington, lamenting the dearth of public spirit, almost despaired. Alluding to the selfishness exhibited in camp, he says: "Such stock-jobbing and fertility in all low arts, to obtain advantages of one kind and another, I never saw before, and pray God I may never ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... acquainted with man's selfishness than woman's devotion, only replied by an impatient gesture. But Gurth, lately wedded to a woman worthy ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and considers it amusing to let other people wait on her and do for her the things she should do for herself. Her room is a jumble of disorder. The one gleam of hope for her lies in the fact that out of shame, she allows no visitor to enter her apartments if she can help it. Concrete selfishness is her chief mark. She will avoid responsibility, side-step every duty that calls for honest effort; is ...
— Love, Life & Work • Elbert Hubbard
... high sources by the power of thought, and when the receiving instrument is so often imperfect, so frequently out of gear, and when that instrument in addition is more than a trifle wilful and tainted with selfishness. Inspiration is ever ready, it floats around us like tuned wireless vibrations waiting to be picked up by a sympathetic receiver. Yet so few receivers, being but human after all, are sensitive enough and sufficiently ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... the world it pictures seems to it beautiful, and it may incidentally prize itself also, when it has come to regard itself as a part of that world. Initially, however, it is free even from that honest selfishness; it looks straight out; it is interested in the movements it observes; it swells with the represented world, suffers with its commotion, and subsides, no less willingly, in ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... (241), all patriots at Carthage felt that it was only a truce. They must have seen that Rome would never be satisfied with any thing short of the abject submission of so detested and dangerous a rival. There was a peace party, an oligarchy, at Carthage; and it was their selfishness which ultimately brought ruin upon the state. But the party which saw that the only safety was in aggressive action found a military leader in Hannibal,—a leader not surpassed, and perhaps not equaled, by any other general of ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous avoiders ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... felt that any man worth his salt would like to gratify her innocent tastes. Probably Falkner couldn't endure a less charming woman for his wife. So she condoned, as one does with a clever child, all the little manifestations of waywardness and selfishness that she was too intelligent not to see in her new friend. Isabelle liked to spoil Bessie Falkner. Everybody liked to indulge her, just as one likes to feed a pretty child with cake and candy, especially when the ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... which others undoubtedly have, a something to complete the round of homely happiness in our little rural centres; how is it that we do not properly encourage the things which, albeit childlike, are essential, which sweetly recreate? It is not merely the selfishness of those who are well placed and prefer to live for themselves, or who have light but care not to shed it on those who are not of their class. Selfishness is common enough everywhere, in men of all races. It is not selfishness, nor the growth ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... of any suspicion of philanthropy, Sir Robert. I give you credit for pursuing a policy of intelligent selfishness. You must know by this time that I will not purchase my life, nor let it be purchased, on the terms which you propose. Well then, I confess it puzzles me to guess what amusement you find in such a ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... unbalanced man. He was magnetic, his geniality was really heart-warming, yet he was perfectly cold- blooded in his selfishness. He was cool and calculating, but interference roused him to an almost insane pitch of passion. Fickle in most things, he was uncompromising in his hatreds. O'Neil's generosity in affording sanctuary to his defiant mistress struck him as a personal affront, it fanned ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... fulfil love's duty to the world. If we have found that which has blessed us richly, we owe it to others to tell them about it. To hide away in our own heart the knowledge of Christ is to rob those who do not know of him. It is the worst selfishness to be willing to be saved alone. Further, secret discipleship misses the fulness of blessing which comes to him who confesses Christ before men. It is he who believes with his heart and confesses with his mouth, who has promise of salvation. Confession is ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... surest to perform nothing to-day which should be remembered on the morrow, they would have thought of Wakefield. Only the wife of his bosom might have hesitated. She, without having analyzed his character, was partly aware of a quiet selfishness that had rusted into his inactive mind; of a peculiar sort of vanity, the most uneasy attribute about him; of a disposition to craft which had seldom produced more positive effects than the keeping of petty ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the same manner. His utter disregard of other people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys of furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his great black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it. The softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old wicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars. And when he could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and wiping them on a cloth, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... it would have amounted to sacrilege to attempt to have plucked; and the attempt itself would have savoured of insanity, from the utter hopelessness of success. Every sentiment connected with her was pure, from mere selfishness. Not for worlds would I have injured her; because in destroying her peace of mind, my own would have fled for ever. When I contemplated our final union, I blushed for my own unworthiness; and looked forward to the day when, by repentance and amendment, I might ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... born about 1769, mother of Diane d'Uxelles; beloved by the Duc de Maufrigneuse, and about 1814 gave him her daughter in marriage; ten years later she withdrew to her Uxelles estate, where she lived a life of piety and selfishness. [The Secrets of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... offer them any help. "But," added she, "if I take the child in charge, you must let me have my way for a whole year." The king and queen gladly promised that they would not even speak to or see their son for the year if the fairy godmother would only cure him of his selfishness. "We'll see about that," said the godmother. "Humph, expecting to be a king some day and not caring for anybody but himself—a fine king he'll make!" With that she flew off, and the king and queen saw nothing more of her for a day and a night and another day. Then back she came ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... whose sake he had been to far lands and gathered much wealth, but who had pined in his absence and died. He flung himself on the loathsome place, and the night-wind bore around the ravings of his despair. Wo for that selfishness which belonged to my mortality! I felt at that moment more of terror than of pity! I thought of myself: Thus must I, with all my power, my science, and loved by one into whose sphere death comes not, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... Purgatoire—neither to reach their destination nor to return. Did they attempt to descend the stream in boats and go to wreck among the rapids? Were they swept into eternity by a freshet? Did they lose their provisions and starve in the desert? Did the Indians revenge themselves for brutality and selfishness by slaying them at night or from an ambush? Were they killed by banditti? Did they sink in the quicksands that led the river into subterranean canals? None will ever know, perhaps; but many years afterward a savage told a priest in Santa Fe that the regiment had been surrounded by ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... you put her into my arms, and she grew into my heart, and she took away all that feeling, till I forgot I ever had it." This was the story of one, a young wife, for whom the natural joys of home can never be. But if there is selfishness or slackness or a weak desire to drift along in easiness, taking all and giving nothing, things are otherwise. For such the nurseries hold nothing but noise and interruptions. We ask to be spared from such as these. Or if they come, may they be inspired by the constraining love of Christ ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... together, and the spirit of pleasure is with all. As the parties go their rounds, and familiar forms and faces appear to greeting eyes, the necessity of friendship and the desolation of its absence come home to the mind. It is felt that comfort is lost when allied to selfishness, and that it is good to be respected or beloved. And as those meet between whom the year has passed in sullen estrangement; upon whose anger many an evening sun has descended; a relenting spirit obeys the mingled voices of Memory ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various |
