"Selfish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... England, sir, has not been a leader in this policy. On the contrary, she held back herself and tried to hold others back from it, from the adoption of the Constitution to 1824. Up to 1824 she was accused of sinister and selfish designs, because she discountenanced the progress of this policy.... Under this angry denunciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now the imputation is of a precisely opposite character.... Both charges, sir, are equally without the slightest ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and took out her purse. "Don't!" she pleaded. "Please don't! I—I'm upset already. Take this, and please—oh, please, don't spend it in getting drunk or gambling or anything horrid," Miss Hugonin implored him. "You all do, and it's so selfish of you ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... pride or petulance repressed, A selfish inclination firmly fought, A shadow of annoyance set at naught, A measure of disquietude suppressed, A peace in importunity possessed, A reconcilement generously sought, A purpose put aside, a banished thought, A word of self-explaining unexpressed,— Trifles they ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... the royal party, on the very morning when this selfish request was made, was not at all calculated to remove the prejudices to which their previous behaviour had given rise. The Prince had obtained a firman to see the mosques, which would have admitted four hundred as readily as four; yet he had not the good feeling or politeness ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... part unsolved; on the subjects of tariff, finance and the civil service, neither party was prepared to present a united front; and the lack of foresight and statesmanlike leadership in the parties had given selfish interests an opportunity to seize control. Nor did the circumstances surrounding the election of Hayes tend to simplify his task, for the disappointment of the Democrats was extreme, and they found a natural difficulty ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... ball cannot be "cut" or driven with any real brilliancy of style when there is a likelihood of its abruptly "shooting" or bumping. No; if we would leave as little as possible to chance, our grounds cannot be too good. Even from a purely selfish point of view, apart from the welfare of our side, the pleasure derived from a good "innings" on a first-rate cricket ground is as great as that bestowed by ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... dared you? Don't come near me! Your beautiful hair that I've never been too tired to brush for hours! To have realized those gorgeous curls in you and for—for this! You horrid, selfish girl—selfish—selfish!" ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... that effective attention-getter, the quick appeal to the problems that are of most concern to the reader. The one great trouble with the majority of letters is that they start out with "we" and from first to last have a selfish viewpoint: ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... the acts of the viceroy ruinous to their selfish interests, and the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed, seized upon his person, and sent him to Spain to give an account ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... gone. I should be that wretched if I thought my own was goin' to turn out the same. But there's John, he ain't a wasteful man; no one can't say it of him. He's got his fancies, but they've never made him selfish to others, as well you know, Sidney. He's been the best 'usband to me as ever a poor woman had, an' I'll say ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Satan would not thus easily be dispossessed or driven out. Old conjurers and medicine men, faithful followers of the enemy, quickly began their opposition. Their selfish natures were aroused. They were shrewd enough to see that if I succeeded, as I was likely to do, they, like Demetrius, the shrine-maker of Diana, would soon be without an occupation. So at this afternoon gathering they were there to oppose. But they ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... the Bible, so I prayed and read. It was right to try to save others, so I labored for their salvation. I never had any fear of punishment or hope of reward all these years." She was tormented with doubts. "What has the Son of God done which the meanest and most selfish creature upon earth would not have done? After making such a wretched race and placing them in such disastrous circumstances, somehow, without any sorrow or trouble, Jesus Christ had a human nature that suffered and died. If something else besides ourselves will do all the ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... a letter to Darwin (May 23rd, 1881) Hyatt regrets that he had no opportunity of a third visit to Steinheim, and goes on: "I should then have done greater justice to Hilgendorf, for whom I have such a high respect."), but it is some selfish comfort to me that I always felt so much misgiving that I never quoted his paper. (257/2. In the fifth edition of the "Origin" (page 362), however, Darwin speaks of the graduated forms of Planorbis multiformis, described by Hilgendorf from certain beds in Switzerland, by which we presume he ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... you do not remember the pleasure this sport gives to the men and the dogs; you look at it from an entirely selfish point of view." ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... so; and it is a very kind and generous interpretation which you give of it, Charley. Let that part of the subject pass, then; but, again, regarding this marriage. The principle upon which he and his mother are proceeding is selfish, heartless, and perfidious in the highest degree; and d—— me if I think it would be honorable in me to stand by and see such a villainous game played against so excellent a family—against so lovely and so admirable a girl as Alice Goodwin. It is a union between the kite and the dove, Charley, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... mean to be selfish about it. I've got some venison in my knapsack, Henry, an' I reckon you hev some too. I'd like to hev it warm, but it's too dangerous to build a fire. S'pose ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mademoiselle," he said gently, "to accede to my request, which was perhaps presumptuous. But, you see, I am leaving this house to-day, and I had a selfish longing to hear your voice ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... not have been like me to leave this interesting creature in her distress, but my devotion to her cause had no merit, since I was madly in love with this new M—— M—— with black eyes; and love always makes men selfish, since all the sacrifices they make for the beloved object are always ultimately ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Spanish, and was going to poison her in their interests. She is always fancying that some one wants to poison her. Oh, yes, my friend, a most diverting character, for she thinks of nothing but herself, and her Self is a selfish, hysterical, cruel, ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... Not the mere selfish desire to see her again, however, would take him in quest of Reddy. He was one of those superior characters, was Tommy, who got his pleasure in giving it, and therefore gave it. Now, Reddy was a worthy girl. In suspecting her of overreaching him ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... us," answered Dave, bowing, "and I feel certain that I am running counter to Miss Meade's wishes. But I have so little opportunity to talk to her that I'm going to beg you to excuse us. I'm going to be selfish and entice Miss Meade away to the ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... know what you're talking about. She isn't a lady, but she's as gentle and as modest as you are yourself. She's sweet, and kind, and loving. She's the most unworldly and unselfish creature I ever met. All the time I've known her she never did a selfish thing. She was absolutely devoted. She'd have stripped herself bare of everything she possessed if it would have done me any good. Why, the very thing you blame the poor little soul for, only proves that she hadn't a thought for herself. It would have been better for her ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... the number of representatives allotted to the other twenty-five million inhabitants of France. What was much worse, it seemed impossible that any important reforms could be adopted in an assembly where those who had every selfish reason for opposing the most necessary changes were given two votes out of three. Necker, whom the king had recalled in the hope that he might succeed in adjusting the finances, agreed that the third estate might have as many deputies as both the other orders put together, namely six hundred, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... at one another again. It was a most singular thing that the arrest was our embarrassment and not Mr. Skimpole's. He observed us with a genial interest, but there seemed, if I may venture on such a contradiction, nothing selfish in it. He had entirely washed his hands of the difficulty, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... bring in the remuda which contained our best saddle horses. It was after dark when they returned with the mounts wanted, and warning Tiburcio that we would call him at an early hour, every one retired for a few hours' rest. I would resent the charge that I am selfish or unsympathetic, yet before falling asleep that night the deplorable accident was entirely overlooked in the ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... its scheme of political administration, the West-India Company exhibited too often a mercantile and selfish spirit; and in encouraging commerce in Negro slaves, it established an institution which subsisted many generations ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... potions have the effect of drawing a departing spirit into its body with the force of a catapult, to remain and to suffer for sometime longer. Investigators of conditions beyond have heard many complaints of such treatment. When it is seen that death must inevitably ensue, let not selfish desire to keep a departing spirit a little longer prompt us to inflict such tortures upon it. The death chamber should be a place of the utmost quiet, a place of peace and of prayer, for at that time, and for three and one-half days after the last breath, the spirit is passing through a Gethsemane ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... life; and if one can arrive at that in a good humour, things are all right for a little while. But when one perceives how few things hold water, when one observes the terrible superficiality, the incredible thoughtlessness, the selfish desire for pleasure, which inspire every one, one's own earnestness appears often in a very comic light. This consideration is to me, at least, the only one which sometimes puts ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... because he had dimly foreseen it. The child he had petted, the girl he had indulged after the fashion of a father who seeks to make the world pleasant to a young life just entering it, she, even she, was, or seemed to be, practically as selfish as any experienced member of the particular set of schemers and intriguers who compose what is sometimes called "society" in the present day. He had no wish to judge her harshly, but he was too old and knew ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... did not see the twinkle; he read Julia a lecture on selfishness and ended up by saying, "You are utterly selfish and ingrain lazy, that's what you are; you don't want to do a stroke of ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... unsuccessful. The refusal to restore to the emigrants all that the State possesses takes from the recall all its generosity and dignity of character. I wonder how you could yield to such an unreasonable and selfish opposition."—"The revolutionary party," replied he, "had the majority in the Council. What could I do? Am I strong enough to overcome all those obstacles?"—"General, you can revive the question again, and oppose the party you speak of."—"That would be difficult," he ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... unwonted thrill touched the selfish heart of the old man at these words, as they fell gravely from the young lips, formed in their perfect sweetness for the happy curves of joy ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... young man's mind with his work that he was blind to the discontent arising in the State. To the young, governments and institutions are imperishable. Piero by his selfish whims had been digging the grave of the Medici. From sovereignty they were flung into exile. The palace was sacked, the beautiful gardens destroyed, and Michelangelo, being regarded as one of the family, was obliged to flee for his life. He arrived in Bologna penniless and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... principle. And he acts on principle, which it's not every—some water, please! Thank you, sir. It's very hot, and yet one's feet get uncommonly cold. Oh, thank you, thank you. He's no fire-eater, but he has a trained conscience and a tender heart, and he'll do his duty when a braver and more selfish man might fail you. But he wants encouragement; ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... "I'm a selfish beast, guzzling here when those poor devils think they're smothering down below. Well, O'Ruddy, will you let ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... multitude laid down their arms, submitted to his guidance, dispersed at his command. Herein let us imitate him. Our countrymen are, I fear, at this moment, but too much disposed to lend a credulous ear to selfish impostors. Let us say to them, "We are your leaders; we, your own house of Commons; we, the constitutional interpreters of your wishes; the knights of forty English shires, the citizens and burgesses ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the highest pinnacle of these mountains. Sometimes we get our wish and find it a weapon that wounds our flesh. 'Any price,' King Robert prayed—'any price for my son's life.' And life came back to the dying child, but it seemed like a new life, selfish and vain and cruel. Weary of his father's simple rule and quiet court, he went oversea to his duchy of Naples and lived there an evil life. The King's ministers tried to keep knowledge of this from the good King's ears, but ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... come to possess in time a peculiar significance and to yield a peculiar pleasure. I have hobbies, Mr. Hamel. I frankly admit it. Without my hobbies, I shudder to think what might become of me. I might become a selfish, cruel, misanthropical person. Hobbies ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the United States: "Thank God, these treasures are in the hands of an intelligent people, the Democracy, to be used for the general good of the masses, and not made the spoils of monarchs, courts, and aristocracy, to be turned to the base and selfish ends of a privileged hereditary class." It would be hard to find a more rigorous assertion of democratic doctrine than the celebrated utterance, attributed to the same man, that he should feel it a disgrace ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... but I derived a new lesson now, and learned that it is possible for humanity to undergo the direst misfortunes without losing heart and hope—to drain the cup of misery to the dregs without becoming utterly selfish—and to be long immersed in the lowest depths of necessity, and yet be human still. I shall describe one or two of these hapless claimants upon the benevolence of their wealthy fellow-citizens, premising that a few of them only are the recipients ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... exclaimed the doctor, rejoicing that his stratagem had succeeded so well. He held her tightly to his heart as he went on. "He would have killed you, selfish that he is! He wants you to die because he is unhappy. He cannot learn to love you for your own sake, little one! We forgive him, do we not? He is senseless; you are only mad. Never mind; God alone shall take you to Himself. We look upon you as unhappy because you no ...
— Farewell • Honore de Balzac
... knows I didn't mean that. You're not their kind, soulless, cynical, selfish and narrow social parasite who poison what they fee don and live in the idleness that better men and women have bought for them. Call them your crowd if you like. I know better. You've only taken people as you've found them—taken life as it was planned for you—moved ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... going along a muddy road on a starlight night, and who look down on the foul, dirty path, and never upwards to the bright sky above. My brother, turn your eyes from this world's dirty ways, look away from your selfish work, and your selfish pleasure, look up from the things which are seen and are temporal, from the fashion of this world which passeth away, and gaze through the open door of Revelation at the things which shall be hereafter. I said that many people never think of Heaven at all. These ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... "You're selfish," said Mister Woodchuck, "and you're cruel to poor little animals that can't help themselves, and have to eat what they can find, or starve. There's enough for all of us ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... been a selfish man, would have started all inquiries with himself. He was his own best example—sitting in the rain, a human creature of sex and pride, foiled by chance and his own temperament of the balm of love and children, preserved to help ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... is sometimes so interpreted, the theory that classes are based upon commonality of interests does not imply that men are never actuated by other than selfish motives; that a sordid materialism is the only motive force at work in the world. Marx and Engels carefully avoided the use of the word interests in such manner as to suggest that material interests control the course of ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... in words which the preacher had taken down, my fellow-sinners, and would read to you from this piece of paper. I must confess that to me, as one of an uninstructed audience, they did not appear particularly edifying. I thought their tone extremely selfish, and I thought they had a spiritual vanity in them which was of the before-mentioned ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... what I do mean—except, except that I have simply felt, well, as though I have no right to be altogether my own selfish self—in the way I used to be, I mean; that I have no longer an absolute right—— Oh, how can I explain it clearly? Let us say that I have a conviction that any serious change I might wish to make in ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry
... swung aboard and proceeded to gather his baggage together. He had scarcely finished when the train slowed up at the end of his journey. He stepped out with a feeling of expectation. Home at last! The thought was predominant, and he let it sway him with a selfish disregard to other influences. Everything had changed during his twenty years of absence; and the strangeness broke in upon him as if in condemnation. Here again was the chattering, light-hearted throng, and their presence only added additional pangs. Not a familiar face to greet him. Even ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer
... to demand. Emeline loved the baby, too, although she accepted as a martyrdom the responsibility of supplying Julia's needs. But the Pages themselves rather drifted apart with the years. Both were selfish, and each accused the other of selfishness, although, as Emeline said stormily, no one had ever called her that before she was married, and, as George sullenly claimed, he himself had always been ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... with their complaints and inefficiency. I don't know whether it is a dream, or heaven or hell, or the work of some black magic; I only know that if it is a punishment it has been commuted, in that you share it. And yet how selfish that sounds, as selfish as love itself. I ought to wish you were in a better, happier place, where you could carry out your ambitions—" She ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... and it will be at once my bliss and my punishment. Take your triumph—tell her that her erring knight came back, and paid her the highest homage of his soul." Then, in a sudden, changed tone, freighted with a pain that pierced the other's heart, he cried, "Jack Darcy, I have made amends for that selfish blunder of my young manhood. For weeks I have endured such pangs, that Heaven grant you may never know! I have walked by her side with polar wastes between us; I have touched her hand with fingers that have had no ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... his wife. As I stood there alone, with no one by to irritate me by assertions of the man's absolute supremacy, I acknowledged that I had come to the final resting-place of a great and good man,—of a man whose patriotism was, I believe, an honest feeling, untinged by any personal ambition of a selfish nature. That he was pre-eminently a successful man may have been due chiefly to the excellence of his cause, and the blood and character of the people who put him forward as their right arm in their contest; but that he did not mar that success by ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... at the bar; tact, triumphantly: this is complimented by the bench; that gets the fees. 2. Charles XII. and Peter the Great were sovereigns: the one was loved by his people; the other was hated. 3. The selfish and the benevolent are found in every community; these are shunned, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... oratory is music to the ear and witchery to the breast. The eloquent lawyer went on to answer himself, and painted in glowing colors a character which history sees in a colder light. But though Blennerhassett was not the ideal that Wirt imagined, he was the generous victim of a cold and selfish man's ambition, and the ruin of his happy home and gentle hope is none the less pathetic because his own folly was ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... different point of view; and would have said that the poor little creature had been visited suddenly by some "divine afflatus"—an expression quite as philosophical and quite as intelligible as most philosophic formulas which I read now-a-days—and had been thus raised for the moment above his abject selfish monkey-nature, just as man requires to be raised above his. But that theory belongs to a philosophy which is out of date and out of fashion, and which will have to wait a century or two before it comes ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... majority regarded Him with extreme aversion. They could not imagine that the son of a carpenter was to be the Saviour of their country, for they expected the Messiah to appear surrounded with all the splendour of secular magnificence. They were hypocritical and selfish; they had been repeatedly rebuked by Christ for their impiety; and, as they marked His increasing favour with the multitude, their envy and indignation became ungovernable. They accordingly seized Him at the time of the Passover, and, on the charge that He said He was the Son of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that's what women are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... it, it would serve me roight. I wonder whether it would do her any good to let her thrash me. If it would she'd be welcome. Look here, Harry, she bain't angry wi' you. Do thou go across to her and tell her how main sorry I be, and that I know I am a selfish brute and thought o' myself and not o' her, and say that if she likes I will cut her a stick any size she likes and let her welt me just as long as she likes wi'out saying ...
— Facing Death - The Hero of the Vaughan Pit. A Tale of the Coal Mines • G. A. Henty
... bank to be one of those difficult and complicated questions about which men's minds may always be divided, and that there are reasons on either side, sufficient, if not to convince, to perplex and bewilder, and to afford pretexts for those who seek some sinister or selfish ends—and of such character are most constitutional questions—we would ask, if this is never to have a termination? Are questions of this kind to be always unsettled, so that no length of time, however sufficient to ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... chanced that the light fell for a moment on his face, and she was startled by perceiving the effects of anxiety and want of sleep. In vain he assured her there was nothing the matter. She accused herself of having been exacting and selfish, and would not be comforted, till he had promised to take a good night's rest. He left her, at length, nearly asleep, to carry the tidings to his brother, and enjoy his look of heart-felt rejoicing. Never had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... being hand-cuffed, so it was equally apparent that a merchant would make a better bargain for himself when he could have things all his own way than when his enterprise and industry were shackled by the impertinent and selfish interposition of the interests of others. In conclusion there was an eloquent description of the demoralizing consequences of smuggling, and a pungent attack on the tendencies of taxation in general. I have written and said some ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... our great cities, so egotistic in ordinary times, were visited to-morrow by some calamity—a siege, for instance—that same selfish city would decide that the first needs to satisfy were those of the children and the aged. Without asking what services they had rendered, or were likely to render to society, it would first of all feed them. Then ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... well-regulated mind. That condition becomes a normal one, under the circumstances. I am very much ashamed of some people for retaining their reason, when they know perfectly well that if they were not the most stupid or the most selfish of human beings, they ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... his life there were two sides to his character. Private grief, much disappointment, and a long solitary existence, contributed to make him a melancholy philosopher, and a sometimes austere critic of a selfish world, but beneath this crust were a genial and generous disposition that did not disdain the lighter side of human nature, a heart too full of kindness to cherish wrath for long, and an almost boyish love of fun that could scarcely be repressed. If this ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... you will be settled down in Germany. I am sorry you have left London for one reason, and that a purely selfish one. I shan't be able to imagine you in your new surroundings, and in London I knew pretty well what you would be doing every minute of the day. Knowing, as we do, many of the same people, when you wrote "I have been dining with the Maxwell-Tempests to meet the So-and-sos," I could picture ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... loose tongue, twinkling and glittering like a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness! Did never this reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the precipices and abysses would be much farther from our admiration if we were less inconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will not however stop thee long, for thou wert going on quite consistently. As thy great men are fighters and wranglers, so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea are troublesome and intractable encumbrances. Thou ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... Russia, all should proceed pari passu. Our ministers marching in phalanx on the same line, and intercommunicating freely, each will be supported by the weight of the whole mass, and the facility with which the other nations will agree to equal terms of intercourse, will discountenance the selfish higglings of England, or justify our rejection of them. Perhaps with all of them it would be best to have but the single article gentis amicissimae, leaving every thing else to the usages and courtesies of civilized nations. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... "You shall come here," she said. "I thought when my little Dorothy died I could never bear to hear a child's voice again, knowing that hers was still. But such grief is selfish. We will help each other bear ours together. Would you ...
— Big Brother • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... State puritanism done for us—so well has it succeeded in materializing and binding down to the earth the imagination of men, for which God has made another world (which certain statesmen take but too little into account)—that fair and beautiful world of heart, in which there CAN be nothing selfish or sordid, of which Dulness has forgotten the existence, and which Bigotry has endeavored ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... — N. misanthropy, incivism; egotism &c (selfishness) 943; moroseness &c 901.1; cynicism. misanthrope, misanthropist, egotist, cynic, man hater, Timon, Diogenes. woman hater, misogynist. Adj. misanthropic, antisocial, unpatriotic; egotistical &c (selfish) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... remarkable occasion—just the same title, at all events, no better. For Heaven's sake, gentlemen, let us act for the good of the country! let us give to every section its rights—to every man his rights, and let this be remembered through all time as the Convention of Patriots which sacrificed every selfish and personal ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... real pearls of lyric melody in this tragedy, which, totally different from Kirke's selfish passion glorifies Nausikaa's pure love for Odysseus, her death of sacrifice and the hero's resignation;—it might be called ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... Froude's recent volumes, casually remarking, as if it admitted of no more doubt than the day's price of consols, that Carlyle was a greater man than Johnson. It is a good thing to be positive. To be positive in your opinions and selfish in your habits is the best recipe, if not for happiness, at all events for that far more attainable commodity, comfort, with which we are acquainted. "A noisy man," sang poor Cowper, who could not bear anything louder than the hissing of a tea-urn, "a noisy man is always in the right," and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... uncleanliness and dishonesty, which solidify into circumstances of foulness and beggary: hateful and condemnatory thoughts crystallize into habits of accusation and violence, which solidify into circumstances of injury and persecution: selfish thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of self-seeking, which solidify into circumstances more or less distressing. On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystallize into habits of grace and kindliness, which ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... and loosely bound together by past habits or interests, which are destined, sooner or later, to clash. All intellectual or economic development among them,—unregulated by a great conception supreme over every selfish interest,—instead of being equally diffused over the various members of the national family, leads to the gradual formation of educated or financial castes, but obtains for the nation itself neither recognized function, position, dignity, nor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... collect firewood for the home, to draw water from the well and struggle along with the heavy bucket whose weight made her arms and her back ache with pain. Sometimes, too, her white arms were scarred with bruises, for her cruel and selfish step-sisters did not hesitate to beat her. Often they went out to parties, or to dances, and on these occasions she had to act as their maid and help them to dress. Rosy-red did not mind; she was only happy when they were out of the house. Then only did she sing softly to herself, and ...
— Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends • Gertrude Landa
... public business. But here this great man was interested by the subject he discusses, and by the whole course of his experience and conduct, to refute the dogmas of that pusillanimous sophistry and selfish indulgence by bringing forward the most glorious examples and achievements of patriotism. In this strain he had doubtless commenced his exordium, and in this strain we find him continuing it at the point in which the palimpsest becomes legible. He then proceeds to introduce ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... improves a man to get married," said Halleck, with a long, stifled sigh. "It's improved the most selfish hound I ever knew." ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... and confined him for some time to his own house, his friends hoped that he would have time and leisure to make some useful reflections. But they were deceived; sickness and suffering only made him more selfish and irritable: poor Jane had already paid a heavy penance for her duplicity, and her obstinacy in marrying him. Mr. Taylor had quarrelled with his partners; and it was the object of his present visit to New York, to persuade his father ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... turned around, and altered by an anti-semite? Are you in doubt what he will substitute for "aristocracy," and do you not know that he will repeat every twist and turn of speech with which Mr. Bamberger's sheet imputes selfish ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... more mischief has probably been wrought in the world by honest fools in high places than by intelligent rascals. Once your shrewd rogue has attained the height of his ambition, and has no longer any selfish end to further, he may, and often does, turn his talents, his experience, his resources, to the service of the public. Many men who have been least scrupulous in the acquisition of power have been most beneficent in the use of it, whether the power they aimed at and won ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... the most of them were nothing; or at best, mere suits of good clothes; men made, as it were, to pattern by the dozen; selfish, frivolous, without any earnest pursuit, or desire to have one; ornamental drawing-room furniture, no more distinguishable in memory than ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... similar sensations when he flew heavenward between the rustling pinions of the eagle. He was now experiencing the deep and mighty emotion for which he had always longed, and he had obtained it by emerging from his selfish seclusion and finding a point of ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau
... one of the least selfish and most devoted of human beings, yet she must be forgiven if at that moment her resolution faltered, and the overpowering thought of being in reality his forever flashed upon her mind. It passed from her the moment it was ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... that he was softened, and that he had derived some improvement from the year and a half that his wife had been with him. It might not have lifted him up a step, but it had arrested him in his downward course. Selfish and indolent he was as ever, but there had been a restraint on his amusements, and a withdrawal from his worst associates, such as the state of his health might continue, above all if Gregorio could be dispensed with. The man himself had become aware of the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been a play. The love of Mizora women for their children is strong and deep. They consider the care of them a sacred duty, fraught with the noblest results of life. A daughter of scholarly attainments and noble character is a credit to her mother. That selfish mother who looks upon her children as so many afflictions is unknown to Mizora. If a mother should ever feel her children as burdens upon her, she would never give it expression, as any dereliction of duty would be severely rebuked by the whole community, if not punished by ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... temperament; but how seldom it goes with the practical! Poor Sam had just enough talent to tempt him away from a useful business life, and not enough to make his family comfortable. How I do hope his daughter hasn't inherited his happy-go-lucky, selfish nature; for there is that girl for us to deal with, Calvin." Martha Lacey flashed an ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... began a series of slights and rebukes which hardly justified rebellion, yet were so irritating that after enduring them for a little, Umi retired to the hills and resumed his old, lonely, wandering life. Not for long, however. Hakau developed into a tyrant, narrow-minded, selfish, suspicious, cruel. One by one his followers left him; treasons were rumored in his own household; his very priests connived against him. At last, reports came to him of a resort to arms,—of a company advancing from the other side of Hawaii, led by Umi and Maukaleoleo, the latter a ...
— Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate • Charles M. Skinner
... was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to his own; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof from all the hustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on; he bore life's disappointments—and he was disappointed in some reasonable hopes—with good nature and fortitude; he cast no burden upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... have place," is, with Browning, the condensed expression of an experience, a philosophy, and an art. Like the lovers of his lyric, he has renounced the selfish serenities of wild-wood and dream-palace; he has gone up and down among men, listening to that human music, and observing that human or divine comedy. He has sung what he has heard, and he has painted what he has seen. If it should ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... determined to have Cardinal Mazarin back, and the Prince was equally resolved to keep him out, while as to the Parliament, I had no patience with it; it went on shilly-shallying between the two, and had no substance to do anything by hang on to some selfish Court party. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was not without good natural impulses, but his education and experience had been such as to develop only the sharp and selfish traits of his character. An orphan at the age of eleven years, he was placed in a shop under the charge of a grasping, unscrupulous man, where he learned the rules of business which he followed afterwards with so much success. The old-fashioned ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... themselves at the same time, we could hardly have exceeded the fisherman's definition of a walk, "two steps and overboard." I am ashamed to say I was more or less ill all the way, but, fortunately, F—— was not, and I rejoiced at this from the most selfish motives, as he was able to take care of me. I find that sea-sickness develops the worst part of one's character with startling rapidity, and, as far as I am concerned, I look back with self-abasement upon my ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... with a frank, outward look. He always went handsomely dressed, and wore diamond shirt-studs, an expensive seal-ring, a substantial watch-chain with two or three costly charms. He had not a flashy look, but the sign and seal of gentlemanliness was wanting in that intensely selfish face. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... return to her old love, etc., etc., for eight closely-written pages. From an artistic point of view, it was very neat work, but an ordinary Philistine, who knew the state of Phil's real feelings—not the ones he rose to as he went on writing—would have called it the thoroughly mean and selfish work of a thoroughly mean and selfish, weak man. But this verdict would have been incorrect. Phil paid for the postage, and felt every word he had written for at least two days ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... infant Henry VI. was proclaimed King of France as well as of England, at both Paris and London, while Charles VII. was only proclaimed at Bourges, and a few other places in the south. Charles was of a slow, sluggish nature, and the men around him were selfish and pleasure-loving intriguers, who kept aloof all the bolder spirits from him. The brother of Henry V., John, Duke of Bedford, ruled all the country north of the Loire, with Rouen as his head-quarters. For seven years little was ...
— History of France • Charlotte M. Yonge
... as he turned to her. "I have been selfish to keep you here; I might have known! But I saw Corrie just for a moment, then father sent me to you. Go to Corrie; ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... 'but you forget that I have prepared the kettle for you before, though it was true I was then certain that you would come.' 'I had not forgotten your doing so, young man,' said Belle; 'but I was beginning to think that you were utterly selfish, caring for nothing but the gratification of your own strange whims.' 'I am very fond of having my own way,' said I, 'but utterly selfish I am not, as I dare say I shall frequently prove to you. You will often find the kettle ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... He knew the nature of his chum, and that Frank had not a selfish bone in his body. If there was any sport going around he wanted every one to have their full share of it, nor could he rest happy ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... human emotion, at a time when a selfish or thoughtless spirit would have leaped in exultation, touched the heart of England deeply, and was rightly held of happy omen. The nation's feeling is aptly expressed in the glowing verse of Mrs. Browning, praying Heaven's ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... that he was bringing home a bride. She was young, hardly more than a child, indeed, and marvellously beautiful"—Keith moved impatiently; he found these family details tedious and uninteresting—"a radiant soulless creature, whose only law was her own selfish enjoyment, and whose coming brought pain and bitterness to La Glorieuse. These were her rooms. She chose them because of the rose garden, for she had a sensuous and passionate love of nature. She used to lie for hours on the grass ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... heaven be my witness, not my own," resumed the Earl, "I have blotted my conscience and sullied my truth. My country alone can redeem me, by taking my life as a thing hallowed evermore to her service. Selfish ambition do I lay aside, selfish power shall tempt me no more; lost is the charm that I beheld in a throne, ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... until lately the King's favourite adviser, added to his influence, which, as was natural with a foreigner, inclined towards the attractive and gainful course. Long afterwards the saviour of Prussia, Baron vom Stein, classed him among the narrow, selfish, insincere men who had been the ruin of nations.[342] Certainly he helped to ruin Poland; and now his conduct at Vienna clogged the efforts of Morton Eden and Malmesbury to strengthen the Coalition against France. Eden complained that he behaved ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Selfish brooding sears the soul, Fills the mind with clouds of sorrow, Darkens all the shining goal Of the sun-illumined morrow; Wherefore should our lives be spent Daily growing blind and blinder— Let us, as the Master meant, Make ...
— De La Salle Fifth Reader • Brothers of the Christian Schools
... with revulsion. Although he had the ability to work for the ultimate good of mankind, this creature intended, instead, to use his newly found power for selfish aggrandizement. ...
— Rex Ex Machina • Frederic Max
... the Holy Scriptures became known through the press and the pulpit, interpreters arose on all sides. Here it was simplicity, there presumption, and in the majority passion or selfish projects, which prompted them. By this means the people, a short time before so sensible and quiet, were evidently disturbed and excited. Most pernicious dogmas like these—that learning was superfluous, that Christians ought to own no property, that a nation ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... preserve their moral balance by plunging into the stream of practical life. Yet Hawthorne necessarily sympathises with the abnormal being whom he creates. Septimius illustrates the dangers of the musing temperament, but the dangers are produced by a combination of an essentially selfish nature with the meditative tendency. Hawthorne, like his hero, sought refuge from the hard facts of commonplace life by retiring into a visionary world. He delights in propounding much the same questions ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the following day declared that he had apparently been quite indifferent to the disagreeable incidents of his position. But his indifference had been mere acting. His careless manner with his wife had been all assumed. Selfish as he was, void as he was of all principle, utterly unmanly and even unconscious of the worth of manliness, still he was alive to the opinions of others. He thought that the world was wrong to condemn him,—that the world did not understand the facts of his case, and that the world ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... at me, brother?" he said to him, with a well-feigned irritability. "I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious about such trash; but you mustn't think me selfish or grasping for that, and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you just now that the silver watch, though it's not worth a cent, is the only thing left us of my father's. You may laugh at me, ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... bitterness and tears. I go out to your burning jungle land, with neither hope to allure, nor fear to repel. The whole world is the same to me. That I have a purpose, I admit; and even you may know me better by and bye! Till then, no professions, no promises, no pledges. I use you for my own selfish purposes, that is all; and you can frankly study your own self-interest. We are two clay jars swept along down the Ganges of life. For a few threads of the dark river's current, we travel on, side by side! You have frankly taken me at my word! I have taken you at yours! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... but, abandoning the unperceived perceptions and the inactive activities of ultimate reality, it has canonized its own functions and deified its own subjective universe. So complete, indeed, is this separation that he can scarcely be called selfish, since for him there exists no objective field for ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... mulberry badge—a humorous shrewdness almost, which makes him one of the most delightful rogues in history, just as he was one of the most debonair and cultured. He may indeed be considered as one of the types of the subtle, crafty, selfish politician that was ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... whom he had deprived of his inheritance. Albert married Elizabeth, daughter of Meinhard IV., count of Gorz and Tirol, who bore him six sons and five daughters. Although a hard, stern man, he had a keen sense of justice when his selfish interests were not involved, and few of the German kings possessed so practical an intelligence. He encouraged the cities, and not content with issuing proclamations against private war, formed alliances with the princes in order to enforce his decrees. The serfs, whose wrongs ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... selfish," Iglesias went on gently; "but you have been good enough to tell me that my poor friendship is of value to you. Does it not occur to you that yours is of far greater value to me? And that for many and obvious reasons—these among ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... green grass was broken, and the sweet wild flowers were trampled down, that a grave might be made in the dark, moist earth for her father, who had died in early manhood, leaving his wife and only child to battle with the selfish world as best they could. Since that time, life had been long and dreary to the poor widow, whose hours were well-nigh ended, for ere to-morrow's sun was risen, she would have a better home than that dreary, cheerless room, while Dora, ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... the secret which he himself had learned for the first time. No, she did not read it, she was not looking at him, she too seemed to be thinking. There was a chance for him yet. He must be a man, a decent man, not a fool and a selfish beast. She did not know—and she should not. Then, or at ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... English, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, German, Italian, Greek, Danish, Hungarian, Roumanian, Indian, and Japanese. Taking them all round, the only difference that I found between old and young women is that the older ones are less selfish, and more complaisant, and less inclined to resent one's being unable to attain to the height of their desire, for from time to time I have been unable to "come up to the scratch" after a heavy night's labor, or when I was afraid of being ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... coming to the discussion with a feeling of its importance, and with a deep interest in the class of people whom it concerns. I trust that this expression of interest will not be set down as mere words, or as meant to answer any selfish purpose. A politician who professes attachment to the people is suspected to love them for their votes. But a man who neither seeks nor would accept any place within their gift may hope to be listened ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various |
