"Unselfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... chief of the old school. Among all the Indians of the plains, nothing counts save proven worth. A man's caliber is measured by his courage, unselfishness and intelligence. Many writers confuse history with fiction, but in Indian history their women and old men and even children witness the main events, and not being absorbed in daily papers and magazines, these ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... thing he can stand, and for two weeks afterwards he keeps saying to her, "Didn't I take you to the theatre the other night, honey? Don't I sometimes sacrifice myself for your pleasure?" And she goes and kisses him and says yes, and tries not to think that his selfishness more than outweighs his unselfishness. Women have more conscience about deceiving themselves into staying ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... of living are to be raised. There is now scientific knowledge enough, there is money enough, to prevent the vast majority of the evils which afflict our social organism, if mere knowledge or wealth could avail; but the greater difficulty is to make intelligence, character, good taste, unselfishness prevail. ...
— Why go to College? an Address • Alice Freeman Palmer
... pronouncing on Solomon's final condition, But he stands on the page of this history, a sad, enigmatical figure, a warning to all young people to take heed that the attrition of the world does not rub off the bloom of early religion, or make them cynically ashamed of the unselfishness of their early desires. There is no sadder sight than an old man whose youthful enthusiasm for goodness and belief in the super-excellency of wisdom have withered, leaving him a hard worldling or a gross sensualist. Better the early days, when he was obscure and poor, and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... morning, my thoughts went on, and found that this ideal of nature required of us something beyond good. The conception of moral good did not satisfy one while contemplating it. The highest form known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good, not for any reward, now or hereafter, nor for the completion of an imaginary scheme. This is the best we know. But how unsatisfactory! Filled with the aspirations called forth by the ideal before me, it appeared as if ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... long list of virtues that will help, but, since long lists shatter concentration, let us narrow them to four: (1) sympathy, (2) self-control, (3) unselfishness, (4) industry. ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... useful. She always supplies the females with more spiders than she does the males. The females are larger and require more food, hence the discrimination. All of this care and forethought is expended on young which the mother will never see. Human love cannot give greater evidences of complete unselfishness. ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... a conventional and unpromising opening into a vivid realistic story of an ambitious youth's perilous journey to the Klondike. Author writes from personal experience of the overland route, and principal characters reveal qualities of unselfishness, perseverance, and pluck. ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... springs from loyalty to duty is strenuously insisted upon by Ruskin, and he, more than any other illustrious man in our time, has reached such heights of unselfishness as to enable him to fully appreciate the unalloyed pleasure which flows from a life of sacrifice. If he is austere, he is also very humane. The fountains of pleasure that he would have us drink deeply from would leave no bitter aftertaste. ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... progressiveness, unselfishness, and highly civilized instincts are the strongest points of ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... try to learn unselfishness; though I sometimes think it would be quite as easy for the owl to learn to respect the independence of a mouse, or a cat to be forbearing ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Compendium of Literature, Science and Art? Here in this book is the wisdom of the whole world, and will you selfishly withhold it form those who need it so badly? If I know Kilo, I think not. If what is said in Jefferson regarding the unselfishness and liberality of Kilo is true, I think not. I know what you will say. You will say, 'Here, take this money we have collected this evening and give to the thirsting heathen as many volumes of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... need for such wholesome care, would come a growing realization of the morbidness of all self-centred care, and a clearer, more definite standard of unselfishness. For the self-centred care takes away life, closes the sympathies, and makes useful service obnoxious to us; whereas the wholesome care, with useful service as an end, gives renewed life, an open sympathy, and growing ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... in Nazareth that drew the attention of his companions and neighbors to him in any striking way. We know that he wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling. There was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men. We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Shakespeare. Even "Rockefeller" seems too formal for his grandeur. Plain "John D." is best suited to express the admiration of his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about his head. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential and concrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a true artist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given him nothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotion which a lover shows to his mistress. Like other ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Winters. How could we do otherwise? In society one never puts one's own desires in opposition to those of others. That's what society is for, is what it means, isn't it? Good breeding means unselfishness;" said Helena, then added, with a little flush of modesty: "Not that I am an oracle, but that's ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... had ruled the Church during the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... for unspoiled childish faith and joys of children everywhere! Christmas Eve was fairly within view and welcoming hail, at last, in the thickening eastern shadows. Long Day at its close. Day in a perturbation of blessed unselfishness. Day with its tasks of love not half accomplished. And Day near done! Bedtime coming round the world on the jump. Nine o'clock leaping from longitude to longitude. Night, impatient and determined, chasing all the children of the world in drowsy expectation to sleep—making a clean sweep ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... absolute unselfishness and devotion of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, under all circumstances, it was noblesse oblige, and that no self-seeking would ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... Such unselfishness as this was more than I could appreciate, and rather more, I thought, than was called for by the circumstances. How could she love me so, and still not care if I never were to know her again? Was she the same Mona, after all, who had so provokingly eluded my love during ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... seemed to occupy her mind to the exclusion of the personal application. She had a vision of love as the apotheosis of human affection, a wondrous combination of kindliness, sympathy, courtesy, patience, unselfishness—all these, and something more—that mysterious, intangible quality which Geoffrey Hilliard had so aptly described. Given "the bloom," affection became idealised, patience a joy, and selfishness ceased to exist, since the well-being of another was preferred ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... of all others to be avoided is the outgrown idea that heavenly magic attends completely to these matters. It is earthly wisdom and unselfishness and good intent that are needed in this as in all the great decisions of life. Hence, there can be nothing more absurdly out of drawing with a rationalized civilization than any law which forbids the serious discussion of this most vital of social questions or one that ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... nun continued to speak to the band of little girls, who had eagerly gathered around her; thus was she wont to teach them lessons of wisdom in a sprightly, gay, happy-hearted way, as if generosity, unselfishness and self-denial were the most natural traits imaginable, and the whole world fair because it is God's world, and we are all His children. Was it this spirit of joyousness which attracted young people especially to her, and gave her such an ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... disease. Not a sound of music had been heard in the house for many days. The violin, guitar, and dulcimer had lain utterly neglected and unstrung. Now a change has occurred that must have delighted the angels of God. Through the unselfishness, skill, and noble-heartedness of one man, has come so unexpectedly, as if dropped from the very skies, in the heart of one of the most inhospitable portions of the earth, sweet hope and deliverance. What wonder that their hearts are light and merry? One thought only mars their ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... positions of the highest trust and responsibility in different walks of life. I do not merely count those who have won fame and success but I also claim many others who have taken up the burden of life manfully and whose life of purity and unselfishness has brought gleams of ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... the characteristics of General Lee which made him so successful was his exalted and unmatched excellence as a man, his unselfishness, sweetness, gentleness, patience, love of justice, and general elevation of soul. Lee much loved to quote Sir William Hamilton's words: "On earth nothing great but man: in man nothing great but mind." He always added, however: "In mind nothing great ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... self-confessed failures and even ninnies go into them trenches and come out—oh yes, plenty of them do come out—men. Men that have got close enough down to the facts of things to feel new realizations of what life means come over them. Men that have gotten back their pep, their ambitions, their unselfishness. That's what war can do for your men, you women who are helping them to foster the spirit of holding back, of cheating their government. That's what war can do for your men. Make of them the kind of men who some day ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... surely follows, as concave implies convex, that by daily converse and association with these great ones we take their breeding, their manners, earn their magnanimity, make ours their gifts of courtesy, unselfishness, mansuetude, high seated pride, scorn of pettiness, wholesome ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... possessions, the very things that in their completeness would make him a thousand-fold more effective and powerful in his own life, and hence in the life of real service and influence. And, in a case of this kind, many times the mark of the most absolute unselfishness is a strong and marked selfishness, which will prove however to be a selfishness ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... is often admired as unselfish, but for unselfishness and stoicism a psychologist would read fear, indolence and egotism. Fear of being thought hypochondriacal and fear of facing facts; shrinking from the exertion involved in the effort to become healthy and from the pain involved in witnessing the possible distress and anxiety of friends ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... We think of unselfishness as the first need of a woman who is to be the presiding genius of a home; but both Miss Strong and Jenny are ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... the trust and confidence placed in the Guide in charge, and by him in his clients, and this should be remembered in all negotiations. These men often have to risk their lives for the sake of the people who employ them, and their staunch unselfishness is a fine example of human endeavour for the benefit of others. Their fees may appear to be high, but when everything is taken into consideration, including the shortness of their Winter and Summer Seasons, it is soon realized that ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... "honour" is of course to be taken in the euphemistic sense which the term has under the code duello governing "affairs of honour." It carries no connotation of honesty, veracity, equity, liberality, or unselfishness. This national honour is of the nature of an intangible or immaterial asset, of course; it is a matter of prestige, a sportsmanlike conception; but that fact must not be taken to mean that it is of any the less substantial effect for purposes of a ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... same level as experience. For, with the commoner sort of people, an antecedent notion means just their own selfish point of view. This is not the case with those whose mind and character are above the ordinary; for it is precisely in this respect—their unselfishness—that they differ from the rest of mankind; and as they judge other people's thoughts and actions by their own high standard, the result does not ...
— Counsels and Maxims - From The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... pay like a God; but it is of the devil to imagine imperfection and disgrace in obligation. So far is God from thinking so that in every act of his being he lays himself under obligation to his creatures. Oh, the grandeur of his goodness, and righteousness, and fearless unselfishness! When doubt and dread invade, and the voice of love in the soul is dumb, what can please the father of men better than to hear his child cry to him from whom he came, 'Here I am, O God! Thou hast made me: give me that which thou hast ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... things would naturally come to us. This is what Jesus had in mind when He urged people to give and serve, promising that such giving and serving should be returned to them a hundred fold or more. Jesus never preached unselfishness or talked sacrifice as such, but only urged His hearers to look through to the end, see what the final result would be and do what would be best for them in the long run. Jesus urged His followers to consider the spiritual things rather than the material, and the eternal things rather than ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... a wonderful amount of unselfishness displayed, everybody cheering and trying to help every other body. One of the passengers—a cheery Teuton, named Adolph Herrmann—took a young American lady under his special charge. He helped her up the rigging and held her ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... share with them—" the preacher paused for a moment then went on—"the glory of reward which, I think, God loves best to bestow upon those who, with steadfast unselfishness, have lived simple lives and left their fellows better for having lived. I do not know how God measures the deeds of men, or with what degrees of reward he fixes their place in Paradise; but I feel that I stand on holy ground as my eyes wander here and ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... than Admiral Darling never saw the sun. There was nothing about him wonderful in the way of genius, heroism, large-mindedness, or unselfishness. But people liked him much better than if he combined all those vast rarities; because he was lively, genial, simple, easily moved to wrath or grief, free-handed, a little fond, perhaps, of quiet and confidential brag, and very ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... STOUGHTON). The first half of the book describes the upbringing and early battles of this man of peace, Rose Cottage at Llanystumdwy with "Uncle Lloyd"—there is a touching picture of the courage, wisdom and unselfishness of this grand old man—the little attorney's office at Portmadoc, squire- and parson-baiting passim, capture of Carnarvon Boroughs, guerilla tactics in the House, suspension, recognition, pacifism, office, original ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... however. He might object, and did; but he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and unselfishness, the ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... saw him he was ashamed at the joy that his coming so obviously brought her. He felt her purity, her unselfishness, her single-heartedness, her courage, her nobility in that triumphant welcome that she gave him. That she should care so much for any one so worthless, so fruitless as he had proved ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... and cheerfulness with which the people of San Francisco bore their cruel fate gave a lesson in courage and unselfishness to humanity. The magnificent generosity with which not only the people of southern and northern California, but of the whole country, sprang to the relief of the unhappy city gave a silver lining to the black ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... age," cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... The white strip of her lower neck was now brick red. I dared not ask her how she had gotten through the nights, because she had used the blanket to blindfold the horse. She had hollowed out a place for my hips to lie more easily, and pulled grasses for my bed. In all ways thoughtfulness and unselfishness had been hers. As I realized this, I put my hands over my face and groaned aloud. Then I felt ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... many stirring situations in which the boys are called upon to exercise ingenuity and unselfishness. A ...
— A Day at the County Fair • Alice Hale Burnett
... Judith. I am glad they do not know," said Mary, who had learned that "terrified" did not mean frightened, but "tormented." "I can well believe you have decided in true unselfishness, and in the fear of God. But if you see reason to change your mind, let me know in ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... code of knights, unselfishness, courage, charity and thrift; loyalty to God, country, parents and employers, or officers; practical chivalry to women; the obligation to do a "good turn" daily, ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... the Irish vices were the counterfeit of virtues, contrived so cunningly that it was hard to distinguish their true texture. The fidelity of the clansmen to their leaders was faultlessly beautiful; extravagance appeared like generosity, and improvidence like unselfishness; anarchy disguised itself under the name of liberty; and war and plunder were decorated by poetry as the honourable occupation of heroic natures. Such were the Irish with whom the Norman conquerors found themselves in contact; and over them all was thrown a peculiar imaginative grace, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of such passion the very highest and finest emotions of which human nature is capable are brought into play. In that time more than at any other hour in life do men become unselfish, unselfish at least toward one human being. Not only unselfishness but self-sacrifice is a desire peculiar to the period. The young man in love is not merely willing to give away everything that he possesses to the person beloved; he wishes to suffer pain, to meet danger, ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... whether he is with you or me, or with a third person. I really thought that by entirely complying with her wishes, it might have been an incitement to her to improve, and to acknowledge my complete unselfishness. ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... great deal of her life abroad, and her easy, well-bred manner, her savoir-faire and broad, sagacious views on every subject, had been gained in the world's academy. In spite of her goodness of heart and real unselfishness, she was essentially a woman of the world. Little as Malcolm guessed it at that time, she was Elizabeth Templeton's greatest friend; indeed, both the sisters were devoted to her, and some of Elizabeth's happiest and gayest hours had been spent ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Olivia's seems to have been founded on external liking, else she would not have been as satisfied with Sebastian as with Cesario; while Viola's, though it may have had no deeper foundation, was signalized by unselfishness, for she used every eloquent art of which she was capable to urge her master's suit. Notice in the first scene between Viola and the Duke how she tries to get out of going to Olivia, doubting her own ability, etc. Do you think she really ...
— Shakespeare Study Programs; The Comedies • Charlotte Porter and Helen A. Clarke
... combination of scientific actions. Haphazard, clumsy battering is useless. Your footballer has to be a thinking and a reasoning factor." He believed that games properly played are invaluable as a training in character. "They make," he wrote, "not only for courage and unselfishness, but also for clean living: a sportsman dare ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... pleasures that he had never had time to care for them. His own sons had not interested him when they were very young—though sometimes he remembered having thought Cedric's father a handsome and strong little fellow. He had been so selfish himself that he had missed the pleasure of seeing unselfishness in others, and he had not known how tender and faithful and affectionate a kind-hearted little child can be, and how innocent and unconscious are its simple, generous impulses. A boy had always ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... than he made me acquainted with. And to say the truth, I persuaded him to impart to me no more than need, for so I saw him commanded in her Majesty's behalf, that he should reveal the certainly to no man living.' Here follows a fine tribute to Drake's unselfishness: 'And withal, I must say, as I find by apparent demonstration, he is so inclined to advance the value to be delivered to her Majesty and seeking in general to recompense all men that have been in this case dealers with him, as I dare take an oath with him, he will rather diminish his ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... overwhelming majority of our people seek a greater opportunity for humanity to prosper and find happiness. They recognize that human welfare has not increased and does not increase through mere materialism and luxury, but that it does progress through integrity, unselfishness, responsibility and justice. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... comfort and cheer those about her—she lost the old sore feeling of being nothing but a trouble and a worry, an "alvays naughty" Hoodie, and never again was any one tempted to say that among the fairies invited to baby Julian's christening, those of sweet temper and unselfishness had ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... strength to take abuse than to give it. He would suffer more pain if he hurt you than if you injured him. And still he could have crushed you with greater ease than a cat can a mouse, if he were cowardly enough to do it. That is the real courage of unselfishness—the kind your species cannot understand. Your fellow beings applaud cowardice which they mistake for strength of character. They seem unable to comprehend that it requires far more courage to suffer ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... happiness through all the terrors of anarchy, tread under foot existing laws to make way for better ones, and do not scruple to devote the present generation to misery to secure at this cost the happiness of future generations! The apparent unselfishness of certain virtues gives them a varnish of purity, which makes them rash enough to break and run counter to the moral law; and many people are the dupes of this strange illusion, to rise higher than morality and to endeavor to be more ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... The purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the favorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are capable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness, unselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial duty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected with religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian, like other people, has found by experience that honesty is the best ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... moral law are identified, but not in Hinduism. Brahmanical literature contains beautiful moral sayings, especially about unselfishness and self-restraint, but the greatest popular gods such as Vishnu and Siva are not identified with the moral law. They are super-moral and the God of philosophy, who is all things, is also above good and evil. The aim of the philosophic ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... murderer, but Ingrid, stepping forth, relates how the catastrophe happened, and how Godila seemed to be punished by heaven for his attack on Helga. Everybody is touched by poor despised Ingrid's unselfishness, she even pleads for Helga's union with Erhard, nobly renouncing her own claims on his love and gratitude. Wandrup relents and the happy lovers go on the Ljora-bridge, whence their carnations float ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... misfortunes, and his fall from power. The more generous he became, the more selfish did his brothers and sisters grow. For their interests he neglected his own safety and the welfare of France. His unselfishness was, indeed, his greatest selfishness; and the boy who uncomplainingly took his sister's punishment for the theft of the basket of fruit, stood also as the scapegoat for all the mistakes and stupidities and wrong-doings that were ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... about truth and courage, about the essential equality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to slaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the glory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral essays of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... they present this aspect: Tolstoy, like Goethe, is an interesting combination of genius and hypocrisy. He preaches unselfishness, while himself the embodiment of self. Max Nordau is his antithesis. Nordau gives with generous enthusiasm—of his time, his learning, his genius, most of all, of himself. Tolstoy fastens himself upon each newcomer politely, like a courteous leech, sucks him ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... friend if you speak evil of those I love, Sir Denzil," she said. "Could you have seen the lives of those good ladies of the Ursuline Convent, their unselfishness, their charity, you must needs have respected their religion. I cannot think why you love to say hard words of us Catholics; for in all I have ever heard or seen of the lives of the Nonconformists they approach us far more nearly in their principles than the members ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... slain, and the destruction and misery they have caused. Our religion teaches us that mere courage is not the highest virtue. It is one possessed as much by animals as by men. Higher virtues than this are kindness, charity, unselfishness, and a desire to benefit our fellow-creatures. These virtues make a man a truer hero than the bravest Viking who ever sailed the seas. Even you, Freda, worshipper of Odin as you are, must see that it is a higher and a better life to do good ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... a glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that she, too, had loved Little Frank; that ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... that Christ appeals to the gentler instincts of man,—to his unselfishness, his meekness and compassion. Yet some of the most admirable Christians have been ambitious and aggressive. Others say, He appeals to our need of help. But self-reliance is a Christian trait. Others say, He appeals to our sense of sin—our need of pardon. But many a Christian goes through ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... that their separate interests and the misuse of their sovereignty always stand in the way of the whole tendency of Prussian policy. They clearly recognise the danger which lies in this; it is one against which the unselfishness of our Most Gracious Master alone gives them a temporary security. The opinions of the King, which ought at least for a time to weaken their mistrust, will gain his Majesty no thanks; they will only be used and ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... of my father's character was more admirable than his utter unselfishness. He denied himself many things, that he might give the greater pleasure to his wife and children. He would scarcely take part in any enjoyment, unless they could have their fair share of it. In all this he was faithfully followed by my mother. The admirable example of well-sustained industry ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... her. How she had misjudged him! She had taken him for an ordinary soulless purloiner of cats, a snapper-up of cats at random and without reason; and all the time he had been reluctantly compelled to the act by this deep and praiseworthy motive. All the unselfishness and love of sacrifice innate in good women stirred ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... known old maids in abundance, with pathos and sunshine in their lives; but the old maid of novels I never have met, who abandoned her soul to gossip,—nor yet the other type, a lifelong martyr of unselfishness. They are mixed generally, and are not unlike their married sisters, so far as I can see. Then as to men, certainly I know heroes. One man, I knew, as high a chevalier in heart as any Bayard of them all; one of those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... assembly. Fernando knew enough to fear the veiled threat which this communication contained, and the queen-regent appeared with him at the opening of the session. The scene which followed is pathetic in the extreme, and shows the magnanimity and unselfishness of Maria in a most striking manner. She spoke to the members of the Cortes, recalled their former struggles against the encroachments of the nobles, and urged them to prudent action, that there might be no further occasion for domestic strife. Loyalty to country and to king were ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... you angel, that's so like you. You always want to shoulder the blame for every speck of wrong-doing or depression that appears in your little universe. Women like you always do. It's an odd sort of responsible unselfishness. That doesn't in the very least express to any one else what I mean, but it does to myself. You never allow that any one else has any responsibility when things go wrong, and you never take the smallest share of the responsibility—or ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... loved the widow with the unselfishness of a generous nature and a first passion. He had admired her from the first day his lot was cast in Laurel Spring, where coming from a rude frontier practice he had succeeded the district doctor in a more ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... harder. Do not give way to despairing grief if I cannot come back to you in this world. Let your faith in God and hope of a future life inspire and strengthen you in your battles, which may require more courage and unselfishness than mine. ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... manhood is described by friends as one of peculiar manliness, geniality, and unselfishness. It is said that, on one occasion, he put aside important work of his own in order to spend several days in the studio of a friend, whose gifts were quite inconsiderable compared with his, and whose prospects were all but hopeless,—helping ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... of others," for the reason that this supreme Fact, his Saviour, is in fact thus and thus, and did in fact think and act thus and thus for His people. Without the facts, which are the doctrine, we might have had abundant rhetoric in St Paul's appeal for unselfishness and harmony; but where would have been the mighty lever for the affections ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... revolutionists I found, also, warm faith in the human, ardent idealism, sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom—all the splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, and alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and to whom the thin wail of the starved ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... much as to say: "I can see that you are a gentlewoman. Please accept me as a gentleman and permit me to do my duty." There was a brief, silent tug-of-war between his unselfishness and hers. He won. Before she realized it, she had dropped wearily into ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... requirements are matters of good manners? Of health? Of courage? Of ambition? Of unselfishness? ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... married individuals in their progress towards the harmonious adjustment of their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of sex cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be developed ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... when civilisation was to assert itself, to brush away many abuses, much cruelty and more injustice. The race hatred which the personality of Rhodes had done so much to keep alive, collapsed very quickly after his death, and as time went on the work done with such unselfishness and such quiet resolution by Sir Alfred Milner began to bear fruit. It came gradually to be understood that the future ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... are not outgrown in one day however eventful, and the young duchess has shown herself amply endowed with them. The Prince's offer promised much, and it held still more. The time may come when she will need that crowning memory of her husband's unselfishness and truth, not to regret what she ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... has fine ideals of truth, unselfishness and honor and they steady her through the teen years when ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery
... attack at Cape Helles; and three months later Mac himself had been incapacitated for life. Their longing for war had been fulfilled with a vengeance. True, war had brought them no good; but it had had many grand moments, power to strengthen character and inspiration towards great thought, art and unselfishness. Tragedy, crime and disease had also followed in its train, though, for his part, Mac thought that some good ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... suggestion, but he was determined to go through with what he had begun. Confronted with the Cardinal, he earnestly represented to him that it was his duty to sacrifice himself for the good of the country; that his retirement would be an act of noble unselfishness which could not fail to win the blessing of Christ; that it would put an end to the sufferings under which France was groaning and save many innocent people from a fearful and horrible death. Mazarin had a sense of humor, and it was ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... to his military repertory. This actor always plays with distinction and with an ease of which the art is so cleverly concealed as perhaps to rob him of his due meed of applause from the unperceptive. Lady TREE made a beautiful thing of the character of Mrs. Wharton, whose simple unselfishness was the best of all Mr. MAUGHAM'S arguments for the defence. Mr. R.H. HIGNETT nobly restrained himself from making a too parsonic parson, yet kept enough of the distinctive flavour to excite a passionate anti-clerical behind me into clamorously ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various
... glance on Mr. Gibney's tortured face. Scraggs was certainly a coward at heart, but there was something in Mr. Gibney's unselfishness that touched a spot in his hard nature—a something he never knew he possessed. He bowed his head and two big tears stole ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... thus called forth, and God only knows how much the consequent progress of the work was due to their faith, supplication, and self-denial. The practical knowledge of the exigencies of their common experience begat an unselfishness of spirit which prompted countless acts of heroic sacrifice that have no human record or written history, and can be known only when the pages of the Lord's own journal are read by an assembled universe in the day when the secret things are brought to light. ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... of many instances of unselfishness that came under my observation. A gentleman was comfortably established in a house which he had recently bought and furnished, expecting there to enjoy the pleasures of a home. One half of the house he had rented; but the husband of the woman to whom it was let ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... such wouldn't gibe with a height of five foot seven. No; his good looks were due to the simple outward expression, through his features, of a certain noble inward quality which would have made the homeliest face attractive. Selfishness will spoil the handsomest features; unselfishness will glorify. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... a curious name; I wonder if it is copyrighted); her barkers persistently advertise to the public her generosity in giving away a piece of land which cost her a trifle, and a two—hundred—and—fifty—thousand—dollar church which cost her nothing; and they can hardly speak of the unselfishness of it without breaking down and crying; yet they know she gave nothing away, and never intended to. However, such is the human race. Often it does seem such a pity that Noah and his party did not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... fitful nervous ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors—I ask you for her but a fair trial ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... the truth even without the aid of those numerous little things which every woman understands. Now, oddly enough, the effect upon her was only a little less disturbing than upon him, for this first boy-love was a thing which no good woman could have treated lightly: its simplicity, its purity, its unselfishness were different to anything she had known—so different, for instance, to that affection which Count Courteau had bestowed upon her as to seem almost sacred—therefore she watched its growth with gratification not unmixed with apprehension. It was flattering and yet ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... Lincoln just then—possibly the largest he might ever hope to gain; and it must have been a hard trial to feel it so near and then see it slipping away from him. He did what few men would have had the courage or the unselfishness to do. Putting aside all personal considerations, and intent only on making sure of an added vote against slavery in the Senate, he begged his friends to cease voting for him and to unite with those five Democrats ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... The Japanese woman can be known only in her own country,—the Japanese woman as prepared and perfected by the old-time education for that strange society in which the charm of her moral being,—her delicacy, her supreme unselfishness, her childlike piety and trust, her exquisite tactful perception of all ways and means to make happiness about her,—can be comprehended and valued.... Even if she cannot be called handsome according to ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... develop habits in the child, to clarify his thinking, to give a habit of memory or to develop emotion or imagination. She may select her tale "just for fun," to give pure joy, or to teach a definite moral lesson, to make a selfish child see the beauty of unselfishness or to impress an idea. The Story of Lazy Jack, like the realistic Epaminondas, will impress more deeply than any word of exhortation, the necessity for a little child to use "the sense ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... is unworldliness. It does not quite imply unselfishness; and that is perceived by her shrewd head. Still he is a very uncommon figure in her circle, and she esteems him, l'homme aux rubans verts, 'who sometimes diverts but more often horribly vexes her,' as she can say of him when ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... I think, was the age, dear, but that's just another instance of his dear unselfishness—so that you wouldn't worry over him. I know! I'm going up to my room—you've upset me for the rest of the day. Call me the very moment he comes. Oh, how could you? How could you be so unkind? Oh, just look at my nose, ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... slowly, tracing a pattern on the rug with the point of the scabbard, "who was badly wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and begged me to help others first who needed it more than he. I did not at first heed his request, for this kind of unselfishness was very common in the army; but he went on, 'For God's sake, doctor, leave me here; there is a drummer boy of our regiment—a mere child—dying, if he isn't dead now. Go and see him first. He lies over ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... been discredited and largely abandoned, as in the case of religion, or, like education, turned into other channels or reversed altogether, as has happened with the idea and practice of obedience, discipline, self-denial, duty, honour and unselfishness; surely the most fantastic issue of the era of enlightenment, of liberty and of freedom ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... the Nation. It SHOULD be,—but what IS it? Look round and judge for yourself. Every daily paper panders more or less to the lowest tastes of the mob, —while if the higher sentiments of man are not actually sneered at, they are made a subject for feeble surprise, or vapid 'gush.' An act of heroic unselfishness meets with such a cackling chorus of amazed, half-bantering approval from the leading-article writers, that one is forced to accept the suggestion implied,— namely that to BE heroic or unselfish is evidently an outbreak of noble instinct that is entirely unexpected ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... devotion and unselfishness, but I would advise no future attempts to pass the British lines for such ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... And it ill becomes us to wrap ourselves in the superiority of our culture, to rebuke the masses for their want of intellect, their want of character, their greed, and to keep insisting on the unchangeability of human character, on the virtues of rulership and leadership, on the spiritual unselfishness and intellectual priesthood of the classes born to freedom. Where was this heaven-nurtured priestly virtue sleeping when Wrong straddled the land and the great crime was wrought? It was composing feeble anthologies and pompous theories, cooking its culture-soup, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... perfect series of brief character-sketches drawn by an American author, and entirely worthy to stand by "A Window in Thrums," and "Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush," and "In Ole Virginia." Deacon Phoebe has forgotten himself. Unselfishness does not often rise to such heights. This "dreamer" of "Francony Way" is full brother to Sidney Carton, born across the seas. Self-forgetfulness, so beautiful as that even name and sex become a memory dim as a distant sail upon an evening sea,—this must be a ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... journal. In betrothals, marriages, deaths, on all the great occasions of life in his circle, his letters under old-fashioned formalities of phrase yet beat with a marked and living pulse of genuine interest, solicitude, sympathy, unselfishness, and union. ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... asked myself that question several times. I like to think that I should have been noble, and withdrawn. But I am not at all sure....Yes, I do believe I should, not from noble unselfishness, oh, not by a long sight, but from pride—if I saw that he was really in love with you. I'd never descend to scheming and plotting and pitting my fascinations ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... that station in life to which He has called us. But what a difference there is between making our dress our main consideration, and considering first and foremost the attire of the soul in meekness and truth, purity and unselfishness. They who are set upon these may be trusted to put the other in the right place. But, on the whole, the truly consecrated soul should study simplicity. It should not endeavour to attract notice by glaring ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... could not seem to realise it. Sometimes I would rise up with the sole intention of finding out whether this frightful thing was or was not a ghastly dream. Then my memory would go back over the long years, and every little instance of unselfishness and devotion would rise before my mind. As I looked at the prostrate and attenuated form that lay silent on the couch of eucalyptus leaves, I felt that life was merely the acutest agony, and that I must immediately seek oblivion in some form or the ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... observances, must acknowledge that the Sisters are far ahead and above any organization of the sort of which Protestantism can boast. The self-sacrifice, the devotion, the single-mindedness, the calm trust in a Power unseen, the humility of manner and rare unselfishness which characterize the Sisters, has no parallel in any organization of the reformed faith. The war placed the claims of the Sisters of Charity fairly before the country; but these Sisters of the different branches have, in ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... people who are ugly and hateful, i.e., not really quite bright toward others, who impute mean, inaccurate motives to them, can only be patiently expected to have a very small area or even mote of unselfishness at first. A cross-section of our society to-day represents the entire geological formation of human nature for 40,000 years. We need but look on the faces of the men about us as we go down the street. All history is ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... sunshine, dear. It is these little acts of ours which count, these acts done unconsciously, without any thought of others seeing, done simply because our hearts are so full of love and sympathy that they bubble over without our knowing it, and others are made happy because of our unselfishness." ...
— The Lilac Lady • Ruth Alberta Brown
... of the wild birds and their ways, how he gave him his first lesson in sport, how one day he saved his life, when he was about to be gored by an infuriated bull. All the kindness of this hard man and his thoughtfulness, all his faithfulness and unselfishness, touched Dundee's heart—a heart capable of affection for a few, though it could never be called tender, and capable of sentiment, though rather that which is bound up with a ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thoroughgoing devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors, day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in Washington ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... are seeking their reward. Man is not given that godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... price is, I shall take it. I can afford it, and I will. Now then, consider this— and you've never thought of it, I'll warrant. Where is the place where there is twenty-five times more manhood, pluck, true heroism, unselfishness, devotion to high and noble ideals, adoration of liberty, wide education, and brains, per thousand of population, than any other domain in the whole world ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... her expenditures of money and blood a benefit accruing to the American States. This was a humorous assumption of the ingenuousness of her most disinterested protestations. The French minister, we are told, "seemed to smile" at this compliment to the unselfishness of his chivalrous nation,[82] and replied that the American States were making no request to England for independence. As Franklin happily expressed it: "This seems to me a proposition of selling to us a thing that was already our own, and making France pay ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... minor consequence. The fact that every thought and act through life carries with it, for good or evil, a corresponding influence on the members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and unselfishness so necessary to future happiness and progress. A crime once committed, an evil thought sent out from the mind, are past recall—no amount of repentance can wipe out their results on ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... as our primary duty, the purpose of our existence as a Christian school, to train up men who shall be penetrated by the spirit of unselfishness, possessed by the feeling that their lives are to be consecrated to ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... but still retaining her girlish slimness of figure, petite, dainty as a Dresden figure, her face lined with the care of years, but softened and ennobled by the unselfishness of those years, holding up my big hand, which would outweigh her whole arm; sitting dainty as a pretty old fairy beside a recumbent giant—for my bulk never seems so great as when I am near this real little good fairy of my life—seven feet beside ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... laughable...By the way, I was very much pleased with the foot-note (The passage which seems to be referred to occurs in the text (page 479) of 'Prehistoric Times.' It expresses admiration of Mr. Wallace's paper in the 'Anthropological Review' (May, 1864), and speaks of the author's "characteristic unselfishness" in ascribing the theory of Natural Selection "unreservedly to Mr. Darwin." about Wallace in Lubbock's last chapter. I had not heard that Huxley had backed up Lubbock about Parliament...Did you see a sneer some time ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... devotedly, not only because she fed him well at the farm, as were his forefathers, the "Cave Men," fed by their mates in years gone by, but he loved her first for her sweetness of disposition and lovable ways; later, for her quiet unselfishness and lack of temper over ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... achieve the kind of mutual love for which it is human to yearn, whose passion is naturally transmuted into a feeling that may be even finer, but I am inclined to think, even in such a case, that some effort and unselfishness are necessary. At any rate, that has been denied to us, and we can never know it from our own experience. We can only hope that there is such a thing,—yes, and believe in it ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... merely nominal salary of a Fellow of an Indian College. She maintained her connection with the College simply from love to the College and the work. During her College career both she and her sister had given evidence of their unselfishness by declining, on more than one occasion, scholarships to which their position in the University examinations would have entitled them, in order that poorer students less high in the lists might have the ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant
... itself is full of charm and one enters right into the very life of Tweedie and feels as if he had indeed been lifted into an atmosphere of unselfishness, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... sad hearts. Tall, stately, comfortable Helen walked composedly by his side, softly shared his cigar, and thought what a splendid pleader he would make. Perhaps to her it sounded rather finer than it was, for its tone of unselfishness, the aroma of self-devotion that floated about it, pleased and attracted her. Was not here a youth in the prime of being and the dawn of success, handsome, and smoking the oldest of Havannahs, who, so far from being enamoured of his own existence, was anxious and careful about ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... along had shown great devotion and unselfishness, took advantage of the strength he had left, and resolved to procure by hunting some food for his companions. He took his gun, called Duke, and strode off for the plains to the north; the doctor, Johnson, and Bell saw ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... Jane's only fault was that she was too good. I think she carried her unselfishness too often to a short-sighted excess, breaking down her health, and thus abridging her opportunities for more permanent advantage to those whom she would have died to serve; but it was solely on her own responsibility, ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... evidences to Alison not of wavering or relenting, but of confidence in Ermine's own sense of impossibility. She durst not give him any hope, though she owned that he merited success. "Did she think his visits bad for her sister?" he then asked in the unselfishness that pleaded so ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... undoubtedly read with the profoundest feeling and admiration, as it took shape in the author's hands. There were indications even in the first fervor of the embarkation, that even here some among them thought "every man upon his own," while greater need of unselfishness and self-renunciation had never been before a people. "Only by mutual love and help," and "a grand, patient, self-denial," was there the slightest hope of meeting the demands bound up with the new conditions, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... missions are permeated with the elements of love, unselfishness and self-sacrifice. This talk may be used, therefore, as a missionary day topic or on any occasion in which it is appropriate to dwell ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... care, retain an appearance of youth and charm into middle life; but she who would pass that dreaded meridian, and still remain a goodly sight for the eyes of men, must possess, in addition to all the secrets of the toilet, those divine elixirs, unselfishness and love for humanity. Faith in divine powers, too, and resignation to earthly ills, must do their part to lend the fading eye lustre and to give a softening glow to the paling cheek. Before middle life, it is the outer woman ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dominates the whole life, as in the case of Frederick Norman—passion in itself is not a form of mental derangement in the medical sense. And it does not produce acute selfishness, paranoiac egotism, but a generous and beautiful kind of unselfishness. Not from the first moment of Fred Norman's possession did he wish to injure or in any way to make unhappy the girl he loved. He longed to be happy with her, to have her happy with and through him. He represented his plotting to himself as a plan to make ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... tried to do her best always. Her loving tenderness to the children committed to her care and her pure gentle life were remarked by those around her before there was any thought of her dying a heroic death. So, when the great trial came, she was prepared; and what seems to us Divine unselfishness appeared to her but ...
— Beneath the Banner • F. J. Cross
... these things—conflict, unselfishness, sympathy—do not our hearts condemn us? Instead of conflict, how easy-going have been our prayers! Instead of unselfish, how self-centred, instead of sympathetic, how contracted! Thus the Apostle searches and tests us as we dwell on ...
— The Prayers of St. Paul • W. H. Griffith Thomas
... This spirit of unselfishness and of a sublime charity runs through all his work. Every man, black or white, was "neighbor" to him, and he ever fulfilled the command of his Lord, to "love his neighbor as himself." Against oppression he could, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller |
