"Selfishly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was reduced to this! I threw my pride to the winds," she whispered. "But I don't care. I was determined, selfishly, to take happiness." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... L37,000, and a void which it seemed at first nothing could fill. For of late years the son had drifted out of their horizon, with ideas on religion and the ordering of life so very different from theirs; and had been much away from home—he sometimes said, selfishly, but not without the greatest of all excuses, necessity. And so the two old people had been brought closer than ever together; and she had lived entirely for her husband. But, as Browning said,—"Put a stick in anywhere, and she ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... him, and if I had not been here I do not know what might have happened. Remember, my child, that love is shown not by words but by deeds; and it would be but a poor return for all your father's affection to give way selfishly to your ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... inquired for, and traced even, I reflected, and thus my own existence be brought to light. Selfishly, as well as charitably, would I cherish him. Little children had ever been a passion with me, but this poor, repulsive thing was the "dernier ressort ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... disturbed either selfishly or patriotically by the failure of a neighbor to conserve wheat, have asked why the Food Administration trusts to voluntary methods, why it does not ...
— Food Guide for War Service at Home • Katharine Blunt, Frances L. Swain, and Florence Powdermaker
... plan born of her talk with Hugh Renwick still turned over and over in her mind. Would Renwick still be able to do something to help her? Which way should she turn? If her own efforts to warn Sophie Chotek had been futile, if Hugh Renwick could not do something, and England selfishly held aloof while this horrible conspiracy which seemed to have its very tendrils hidden in the hearts of those who should have been her friends, was under way, what must she do? She felt dreadfully; alone, and fearfully guilty. Her own death or ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... observe this: England, who was so obtrusive and pragmatical in the counsels which she gave, who was always offering advice and suggestions, hung back when the question arose whether the new King should give his assent to the Reform Bill or not. England was selfishly silent, and would incur no responsibility. The excitement in Copenhagen was great, and the King gave his assent to the Bill. But mark! at that moment it was not at all impossible that if Her Majesty's Government had ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... in 1852, which was duly announced by the press, sundry efforts were made by Eastern travelers to visit his grave in Tiflis and gain those particulars concerning him and his writings which Bodenstedt was supposed to have selfishly withheld from the public. Of these, one of the most prominent was Professor H. Brugsch, secretary of the Prussian embassy to Persia in 1860, who in his book of travels thus descants on his futile efforts: "No one could inform us where the last earthly remains ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... communication with America. Now the Greeks had a Muse of Beginning, and the wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... been victorious over a feebler Rome. Pyrrhus failed completely. If the Romans had less dash and a less wide experience of varied warfare than his followers, they had far more of true, heroic endurance. The Greeks had reached that stage of individual culture where they were much too selfishly intelligent to be willing to die in battle. Pyrrhus withdrew from Italy. Grecian brilliancy was helpless ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... quite inconsistent; indeed, that would be a sin against the content of the interest itself upon which the struggle had been localized. On the basis of this common element between the parties—namely, that each defends merely the issue and its right, and excludes from consideration everything selfishly personal—the struggle is fought out without the sharpness, but also without the mollifyings, which come from intermingling of the personal element. Merely the immanent logic of the situation is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... well-merited correction to the much-spoilt eldest born, the Marquis Gustave threw a chair at his head. Between the brothers in after life there prevailed remarkable and unbroken harmony, but it is easy to see that when first grown to manhood Gustave presumed rather selfishly on his role of heir, while Camille took too seriously the supposed discovery that he was "necessary to no one!" Beyond all this, there was the undeclared clash of the new with the old, the feeling of having moved apart, which produces ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... nature, but when we are convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with compunction: if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism (with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy and physiology ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... said he to Quincy. "I once thought that being alone was the height of enjoyment—and I did enjoy myself very selfishly for a good many years. Has Alice told you ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... insolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who "climb," who, by labour and learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become "lords over the heritage," though not "ensamples to ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... of concern, that future, to me who have for so long a time been a dramatic critic. A man soon comes to care, quite unselfishly, about the welfare of the thing in which he has specialised. Of course, I care selfishly too. For, though it is just as easy for a critic to write interestingly about bad things as about good things, he would rather, for choice, be in contact with good things. It is always nice to combine business and pleasure. But one regrets, even ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... precious gift to the world. Seek not to check the outflow of her ardent nature. Thank Heaven that you are the custodian of such a treasure, not to be selfishly monopolized by yourself, but held in trust ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... she said—"your nobility of character. Release me from a promise I made in ignorance; I appeal to your very love for me—release me, that I may be happy. Those who love truly," she continued, receiving no reply, "never love selfishly. If I cared for any one as you do for me, I should consider my own happiness last or all. If you love me, release me, Hugh. I can never be happy ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Howard was the contrast between his own acute and intolerable nervousness, and the entire and radiant self-possession of Maud. He had a bad hour on the morning of the wedding-day itself. He had a sort of hideous fear that he had done selfishly and perversely, and that it was impossible that Maud could really continue to love him; that he had sacrificed her youth to his fancy, and his vivid imagination saw himself being wheeled in a bath-chair along the Parade of a health-resort, with Maud ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the heaviest of her burdens on his own shoulders. He was to live in Mr. Selincourt's house during the winter, and it seemed to him an ideal arrangement, if only Katherine had been willing to live there too. But she could not selfishly take her own happiness while the others needed her so much, and she steadily refused to even think of marriage until the spring came again. By that time Miles would be old enough to assume the government of affairs, and her father ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... was all gone and over. The memory of her past goodness, of those walks through the Trianon woods, was constantly with him. But he had used her recklessly and selfishly, and she had done with him. He admitted it now, as often before, in a temper of dull endurance; bending himself to the task ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... say, 'keep him from you,'" continued Richard, "I mean that, being lonely and friendless (as you see I am but for you three), the society of this bright boy was very dear to me, and I selfishly strove to secure it when he would fain have been elsewhere. I needed, as you may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily for him, I possessed its aid. He now resents, and very naturally, the restraint which my companionship once imposed upon him, and sets down to my account ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... their own brilliancy. Indeed, a man or woman does not have to be brilliant or intellectual to succeed in this most gracious of social arts. The host or hostess who possesses sympathy and tact will surpass in dinner-giving the most brilliant person in the world who selfishly monopolizes conversation at his own table. If guests cannot go away from a dinner-table feeling better pleased with themselves, that campaign of hospitality has been a failure. When the self-satisfaction on ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... the county, had also long been held in the Town-Hall of Horsham; but this privilege was selfishly abstracted from the town, by the inhabitants of Lewes; and even the county gaol, which has been stationed here, for time immemorial, is, we understand, to be removed to the all devouring eastern rival: the quarter sessions however, ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... herself dubiously, took in the bright scarlet sweater which formed the top part of her costume. The girls had first sought a more tailored variety of coat, but peres Merriam and O'Neill were both, selfishly, very large men; Tess had brilliantly bethought the sweater—the English always wore scarlet for hunting, anyway. Missy then had warmly applauded the inspiration, but now her warmth was literal rather than figurative; it was a hot day and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... the patent was near its end, and, next, that no damages in money were ever paid by the guilty infringers, it has been generally believed that Mr. Edison sacrificed the interest of his stockholders selfishly when he delayed the prosecution of patent suits and gave all his time and energies to manufacturing. This belief was the stronger because the manufacturing enterprises belonged personally to Mr. Edison and not to his company. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... fasten the larch timbers with decent strength, would have saved these Savoyards' lives. He would have been maintained equally; (I suppose him equally paid for his work by the owner of the greater house, only the work not consumed selfishly on his own walls;) and the two peasants, and eventually, probably ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... my surprise for confusion. He was a man of good principles, but he was a human being, not a saint, and he pursued a purpose selfishly as most of us who ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... evident from the foregoing that even the sinful life is a quest for God, although it does not know itself to be such, for in seeking life saint and sinner alike are seeking God, the all-embracing life. And the sinner must learn that to seek life selfishly is to lose it; to seek it unselfishly is both to gain and to give it. The good man and the bad man are seeking the same ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... Henry was selfishly pleased, but not ungrateful, and they passed a pleasant and affectionate time: and, as for leaving Hillsborough, the topic ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... came downstairs so early. Isabel had wavering inclinations, and generally followed them. Sometimes, even her father had his cup of strong coffee alone in his study; so the first meal of the day was usually, as perhaps it ought to be, a selfishly-silent one. "Too much enthusiasm and chattering at breakfast, are like too much red at sunrise," the doctor always said; "a dull, bad day follows it"—and Antonia's observation had turned the ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... two ladies, Linton," said the major, "for whom we feel the deepest respect; and, speaking selfishly, I am only too glad that my wife has a couple of ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... not suppose that I should be selfishly considering my own personal feelings at such a time," said Sir Timothy, in a lofty tone of reproof. "I am only desirous of doing what is right in the matter. I am asking your advice because I feel that my self-command ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... land that I have given to my servant Jacob wherein their fathers dwelt, and they shall dwell therein, they and their sons forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever." In such passages as Isaiah 9 and 11 the Davidic ruler is represented as reigning not despotically or selfishly, but in accordance with the principles of justice and mercy, bringing peace to all his subjects. As has already been noted, in the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah and in connection with the rebuilding of the second temple Israel's kingly, nationalistic hope reached its ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... you think, selfishly engrossed though I have been with the Fight for Power, that this love-labour of yours was lost on me? No, 'terrible ambitious' as I was, I could still see I got the blackberries and you little more than the scratches, and the less you began to press your claim upon my heart, the more ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... What joy to find we both were consecrated by a common grief! Ever since that evening when we confided our childhoods to each other, I have known that to lose you would be death,—yes, I have kept you by me selfishly. The certainty felt by Monsieur de la Berge that I should die if I lost you touched him deeply, for he read my soul. He knew how necessary I was to my children and the count; he did not command me to forbid you my house, for I promised to continue pure ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... first interest of every individual or group is self-preservation, and business must pay for itself and produce a surplus for its owner or it is not worth continuing from the economic standpoint; but a business enterprise has no right selfishly to disregard the interests of its employees and of the public. Its social value must be reckoned as small or great, not by the amount of business carried on, but by its contribution ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... breaks out, and the less recording and reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements say:Good gracious! Why cant the paper be ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... nothing but him to consider. He had given her the note amazingly, by his allusion to the pleasantness—that of such an occasion as his successful dinner—which might figure as their bribe for renouncing; so that it was all as if they were speaking selfishly, counting on a repetition of just such extensions of experience. Maggie achieved accordingly an act of unprecedented energy, threw herself into her father's presence as by the absolute consistency with which ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... what would heaven be worth without God? But how many people feel that the curse of this day is, that most people have forgotten THAT? They are selfishly anxious enough about their own souls, but they have forgotten God. They are religious, for fear of hell; but they are not godly, for they do not love God, or see God's hand in every thing. They forget that they have a Father in heaven; ...
— Twenty-Five Village Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... has a set of Sir Walter Scott, ten volumes with gilt edges, while the minds of the heathen dry up and rot for want of the vast treasures contained in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and 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 ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... into the right bank. As we advanced, it became a rock-walled, stonesoled tunnel; winding, contracting and widening, rising and flattening, and generally interesting, compared with the dull flat breadth of such features as the Wady Salm. The overfalls of rock and the unfriendly thorn-trees, selfishly taking up all the room, necessitate frequent zigzags up and down the rocky, precipitous banks. After a number of divides we entered the Wady Hskshah, which was wider and good for riding; and at 8.30 a.m. we passed into the Wady ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... little room in the Camp Street house, I sat shivering over Tennyson and my desk, selfishly rejoicing over the departure of a year that had brought pain and discomfort only to me, and eagerly welcoming the dawning of the New One whose first days were to bring death to George and Gibbes, and whose latter part was to separate me from Miriam, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... went back from the soft rustling peace of the woods, not a careless, selfishly happy girl any more, ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for her in the hour of peril. God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly, or selfishly! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... if to prove his own density, "I am selfishly very glad that you had to come back sooner. Not only on account of the delicacies—I must ask you to believe that. Did my eye brighten at the mention of Fortnum and Mason? I am ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... crossed the heath, meeting an exhilarating high wind that made my blood race: Egoism is not peculiar to any period of life; it is only especially curious in a young man beginning to match himself against his elders, for in him it suffuses the imagination; he is not merely selfishly sentient, or selfishly scheming: his very conceptions are selfish. I remember walking at my swiftest pace, blaming everybody I knew for insufficiency, for want of subordination to my interests, for poverty of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... certainly. It was necessary for my own comfort, speaking selfishly, that the place should be made habitable. My nursing would have been a mere mockery unless we could have got rid of ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... rights has encouraged the belief that marriage is intended for man's and woman's convenience, rather than for the building of normal homes and the development of community life. In too many marriages the contracting parties selfishly refuse to make the mutual concessions necessary in married life and so wreck ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... supposed, however, that this private sorrow induced Mrs Twitter selfishly to forget the poor, or intermit her labours among them. She did not for an hour relax her efforts in their behalf at George Yard and at ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... compromise, the aim being the greatest good of society; and that if that aim is clearly shown to be no longer served by the present structure, if the successful man arrogates to himself too large or too choice a part, if, selfishly, he crowds out others, then, what human hands have built up by the patient work of many centuries, human hands can pull down in ...
— High Finance • Otto H. Kahn
... continually with Bernard, but she had been fond of him, and proud of his good looks. Poor Bessie's grief was selfishly shown, but it was genuine grief ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... men of the world count inheritance, but as the maker and owner of the world has from the first counted it. So different are the two ways of inheriting, that one of the meek may be heartily enjoying his possession, while one of the proud is selfishly walling him out from the spot in it he ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... the society into which we have allowed our poor child to run! I blame myself exceedingly for not having made more inquiries. Grief made me selfishly passive, or I should have opened my eyes and theirs to the danger. My poor Mary, what a shock it will be ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bed, six feet by two and a half, and fall sound asleep and dream of home. Oh! there is much that is really enjoyable in this kind of life; and if the cares of the vessel, management of men, &c., do harass me sometimes, it is very good for me; security from such troubles having been anxiously and selfishly ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of the new passage to the East Indies, had reduced the importance of the mercantile navy of Germany and Italy in the Mediterranean. Where there was any national feeling left, it was a feeling of shame and despair, and the Emperor and the small princes of Germany might have governed even more selfishly than they did, without rousing opposition among ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... laughter—this, too, seems to me a great euthanasia; and I think that for Johnson to have died thus, that night in Fleet Street, would have been a grand ending to 'a life radically wretched.' Well, he was destined to outlive another decade; and, selfishly, who can wish such a life as his, or such a Life as Boswell's, ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... enroll himself among the candidates. He does not seem to have been tempted by this splendid opportunity of obtaining sovereign power and honors, but cheerfully acquiesced in the queen's will that he should remain her loyal subject. She said, rather selfishly, I think, that she "could not consent to lose the jewel ...
— Stories and Legends of Travel and History, for Children • Grace Greenwood
... into thirteen colonies. Each one of the thirteen colonies was jealous of all the others; each was selfishly concerned with its own welfare and quite careless of the welfare of the others. But already the feelings of patriotism had been born. Among the many who cared nothing for union there were a few who did. There were some who were neither Virginians nor New Englanders, ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... autobiography, somewhat egotistically; he was devoted to the forms of his religion, like a mediaeval Prince of the Church and an elegante. But under all the artificialities of personal vanity and exterior grace, he proved to have a cold determination that seemed more selfishly ambitious than religiously zealous. ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet haec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stand till ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... interest, and that having adopted it, they move fatally to realize it. It assumes the existence of a specific class interest. That assumption is false. A class interest can be conceived largely or narrowly, selfishly or unselfishly, in the light of no facts, some facts, many facts, truth and error. And so collapses the Marxian remedy for class conflicts. That remedy assumes that if all property could be held in common, class differences would disappear. The assumption is false. Property might well be held ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... time a friend, who talked always most romantically, and acted most selfishly, and for some time I never noticed the inconsistency between her words and actions. In fact she had two currents in her mind, two selves, one romantic from books, the other selfish from worldly education and love of fashion, and of the goods of this world. ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... blacker than his face, and he took no heed of me as I ran after him, thinking selfishly of the sweetmeats he had promised to bring me—but I thought no more of them when I got to the door of ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the world is very great and its human destiny is in our hands. Half of those who could help to right the wrongs are asleep or too selfishly immersed in their own affairs. We need more helpers like my friend of the skylights. Most of us are far too serious. The slumberers will slumber on, and the worriers will worry, the serious people will go ponderously ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... happy;' and suddenly a new light seemed to reveal itself to him. 'Happiness is this!' he said to himself. 'Happiness lies in living for others. That is evident. The desire for happiness is innate in every man; therefore it is legitimate. When trying to satisfy it selfishly—that is, by seeking for oneself riches, fame, comforts, or love—it may happen that circumstances arise which make it impossible to satisfy these desires. It follows that it is these desires that are illegitimate, but not ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... frame and undermining her strength,—its effect in this respect being greatly heightened by the close, heavy atmosphere in which she chiefly lived. Nature is stronger than man, after all; and when the upper classes selfishly neglect the comfort of their poorer brethren, they will find that inexorable Nature will avenge the infringement of her laws, and will touch their own ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... life of the Exchange, was a sin the sin was his own and he was willing to "stand for it." And, like McTurk, he would see that the sin of the father was not visited upon the child. Ranson was rich, foolishly, selfishly rich; his father was a United States Senator with influence enough, and money enough, to fight the law—to buy his son out of jail. Sooner than his daughter should know that her father was one of those who sometimes wore the mask of the Red Rider, Ranson, for all he cared, ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... said it, Phineas. I accuse him of no dishonesty, no crime, but of weakly yielding, and selfishly causing another to yield, to the temptation of the world. Therefore, as my clerk I retain him; as my ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... forms of iniquity. Nor did he understand the poet. He could read his daughter's flowing verse with pleasure, but there was to his ear a mere jumble of sound and sense in much of the work of the author of "The Tomb at St. Praxed's" and "Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis." Of a selfishly genial but also of a violent and often sullen nature, he resented more and more any friendship which threatened to loosen the chain of affection and association binding ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... uselessly, for no earthly reason, and regardless of another's self-respect and peace of mind, would own to having devoured human flesh. "Why tell?" he cried. "Who was asking him?" It showed Falk's brutality because after all he had selfishly caused him (Hermann) much pain. He would have preferred not to know that such an unclean creature had been in the habit of caressing his children. He hoped I would say nothing of all this ashore, though. He wouldn't like it to get about ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... of the kingdom. Blessed are the poor, who can feel, even in the keenest earthly joy, how there is a fullness of life laid up in Him who gives it, of whose depth the best gladness here is but a glimpse and foretaste! We will not be selfishly or unworthily content, God helping us, ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... supposed, that great grief makes the heart so selfishly absorbed in its own sufferings, as to render it regardless of the sufferings of others; but the conduct of her, who is the heroine of the following tale, will prove to this general ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... too much for any man in about a week. The subordinate police are all interested in keeping up the present system of extortion, and the inspectors and sub-inspectors, who wink at malpractices, come in for their share of the spoil. There is little combination among the peasantry. Each selfishly tries to save his own skin, and they know that if any one individual were to complain, or to dare to resist, he would have to bear the brunt of the battle alone. None of his neighbours would stir a finger to back him; he is too timid and too much in ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... have happened? What terrible thing had he done? What sorrow had fallen upon his beloved while he selfishly slept? But all she would say was that she was weary, while she clung to him in a storm of passion, as if some one threatened to take her out of his arms. Then she left him abruptly and ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... granted, and not to mind in the least. "Would one of you care to sit beside me?" he asked with so wooden an expression that it was impossible to guess whether he would prefer Mrs. James or me to say yes. Selfishly, I wanted him to prefer me, and because he didn't seem to mind, I pretended not to hear, but went on talking to Mr. Douglas as if he were the most important person in the world. Suddenly I felt a kind of power ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a while; for my next recollection is of coughing chaff, and then noticing that it had grown slightly light. The wind appeared to have lulled. John, who was in the middle, felt warm as a kitten. I was but half awake, and so cold that I selfishly crept over between him and Willis. That waked John; he began to crawl back over me into the warm spot, but bumped his head against a sleeper of the barn floor and landed on Willis, who ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... threshold;—a stalwart laboring force, suited to the semi-tropics; if, deaf to the voice of the Zeitgeist, we refuse to use and develop these men, we risk poverty and loss. If, on the other hand, seized by the brutal afterthought, we debauch the race thus caught in our talons, selfishly sucking their blood and brains in the future as in the past, what shall save us from national decadence? Only that saner selfishness which, Education teaches men, can find the rights of all in the whirl ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... choice? He flung up a hand in a gesture of despair. Some metamorphosis had occurred in her; she was not the simple and loving Ruth to whom he had offered himself that day they picked berries in the canon. Or was it that only now her real self was revealed? Was it that she was capable of loving only selfishly? Did ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... gathered also, indirectly, from other acts, interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition showed itself to exercise them selfishly. The city merchants, as I have said, were becoming landowners; and some of them attempted to apply the rules of trade to the management of landed estates. While wages were ruled so high, it answered better as a speculation to convert arable ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... you heartily on your arrangements being completed, with some prospect for the future. It will be a noble voyage and journey, but I wish it was over, I shall miss you selfishly and all ways to a dreadful extent ...I am in great perplexity how we are to meet...I can well understand how dreadfully busy you must be. If you CANNOT come here, you MUST let me come to you for a night; for I must ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... you away from your father?" he asked abruptly. "I am behaving very selfishly—and I only see ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... what must have been the fate of the other schooner's crew, and somehow it seemed that they deserved it. Then I began thinking of my own friends, and then, very selfishly ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... song before the throne, show us that the life to come is one of occupation. There will be, doubtless, growth, progress, experience, work in Heaven. But there we shall be able to do what we so seldom do here—all to the glory of God. Here we work so selfishly, there all work is worship. Here we struggle for the crown that we may wear it, there they cast down their crowns before the Throne of God. When we speak of resting from our labours after death, and ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... piecemeal, and, armed with their spoils, actually have begun to beleaguer fortified towns; and now there is nothing left for us, but to pray that, like Ulysses, we may be devoured the last. What am I doing? I am selfishly pouring out my own sorrows, instead ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... Yesterday—only yesterday—I left home for ever, and here I am back again. I have been wicked, you say, and there is nothing sinful in becoming an actress. Perhaps not: yet I am sure father would think it sinful—even more selfishly sinful than my fault, because it would hurt the careers of Jacky and Charles; and that, as you know, he ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and there is no sign that the hero is identified, as in the Ramayana of Tulsi Das or the Gospel according to St. John, with the divine spirit. The poet clearly feels personal devotion to a Saviour. He dwells on the duty of teaching others and not selfishly seeking one's own salvation, but he does ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... hoped," said the Frenchman, bowing gallantly, "that this most happy reunion might not be allowed to pass uncelebrated. Tell me if I intrude upon other plans, because I am speaking selfishly; but I was on my way to a lonely supper, and apart from the great pleasure which your company would afford me, you would be such very good Samaritans if you ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... England, uncertain whether I should ever come back. If I had loved her less dearly, if her happiness had been less precious to me, I might have given way under the hard restraint I imposed on myself, and might have spoken selfishly at the last moment. ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... a strong antipathy towards him because of the vulgarity of his feelings, his assurance and narrowness, but chiefly because of Nathalie, who managed to love him in spite of the narrowness of his nature, and loved him so selfishly, so sensually, and stifled for his sake all the good that had ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... "Would you then selfishly deprive others of the blessings you enjoy?" he asked. "Would you, who know the gospel, keep back the instrument which brought it to you from presenting it to others? No, no; surely you, dear friends, have not ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... word. I am self-tormentor enough to distrust myself, even now. God knows I have concealed nothing from you; and yet—Am I not selfishly thinking of my own happiness, Stella, when I ought to be thinking only of you? You know, my angel, with what a life you must associate yourself if you marry me. Are you really sure that you have love enough and courage enough ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... dined well on the broad terrace of the hotel, smoked a cigar in defiance of doctor's orders, and after an instructive gastronomical discussion with a comfortable old Bordeaux merchant with whom I had picked acquaintance, went to bed in a selfishly contented ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... me! Let your place all vacant be; Better blankness day by day Than companion torn away. Better bid his memory fade, Better blot each mark he made, Selfishly escape distress By contrived forgetfulness, Than preserve his prints to make Every morn ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... preaching, or to any other service of love, I must follow, although I am in the state of highest contemplation." The hermits of the desert, and too often the monks of the cloister, escaped from all such services, and selfishly gave themselves up to saving their own souls by contemplation and prayer. Ministration to the needy is the external side of the inner religious life. It is the fruit of faith and prayer. The monk sought solitude, not for the purpose of fitting himself for a place in society, ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... place in the President's affections. He was not only a devoted father; his heart went out to all little folk. He had been kind to babies in his boyish days, when, book in hand, and the desire for study upon him, he would sit with one foot on the rocker of a rude frontier cradle, not too selfishly busy to keep its small occupant lulled and content, while its mother went about her household tasks. After he became President many a sad-eyed woman carrying a child in her arms went to see him, and the baby always had its share in gaining her a speedy ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... incarnation of wisdom and rectitude, as of gentleness and beauty, to whom in yesterday's sunset hour of surprise and ecstatic yearning he had implied things so contrary to their "perfect understanding," and who now, not for herself selfishly, but in the name and defence of all blameless womanhood, was punishing him for his wild presumption. O but if she would only accuse him—here—this instant, so that contrition might try its value! But under the shade of her hat her ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden in inaccessible peat-bogs, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard pretender of that family, presented ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... to find out its powers and method of management.. There were some prepared objects sent with the instrument, which gave him enough to work with; and over them he was in an absorbed state for hours; not selfishly, however, for he allowed Eleanor to take her full share of the pleasure of looking, when once he had brought objects into view. At last he broke off and hurried away ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... or the man that selfishly saveth his life shall lose it. He that forgetteth about his own life in eagerly saving others shall find that he has saved his own life, and that it has grown into a new ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... refinement, and his amiable exterior consequently availed him nothing against the fact that he was missed during a raid of the Digger Indians, and lied to account for it; or that he lost his right to a gold discovery by failing to make it good against a bully, and selfishly kept this discovery from the knowledge of the camp. Yet this weakness awakened no animosity in his companions, and it is probable that the indifference of the camp to his fate in this final catastrophe came ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... them what might or should have been. The dumb man is not said to have used his recovered speech to thank his deliverer, nor is there any sign that he clung to Him, either for fear of being captured again or in passionate gratitude. It looks as if he selfishly bore away his blessing and cared nothing for its giver. That is very human, and we all are too often guilty of the same sin. Nor was the effect on the multitudes much better, for they were only struck with vulgar wonder, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... would commission me for a series of articles, we might afford to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather selfishly perhaps. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... accepted than, even in the matter of her art, to be worthy of acceptance—to be the thing she wished to be thought? In that review which, in spite of his own soul, he had persuaded himself to publish, knowing it to be false, had he not actively, most unconscientiously, and altogether selfishly, done her serious intellectual wrong, and heavy moral injury? Was he not bound to make what poor reparation might be possible? It mattered nothing that she did not desire any such reparation; that she would look upon the ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... as if he meant to take his time about it, and let himself down easily." I do not wonder at all that I thus seemed so unkind to a lady, who at that time had never seen me. We were both in trial in our different ways. I am far from denying that I was acting selfishly both towards them and towards others; but it was a religious selfishness. Certainly to myself my own duty seemed clear. They that are whole can heal others; but in my case it was, "Physician, heal thyself." My own soul was my first concern, and it seemed an absurdity to my reason to be converted ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... would only feed the poor child's nervous fancies. I know she feels her parting with you for a week or two as a serious trial, and I dare say it is a trial to her, but she must take it as one, and not selfishly spoil your pleasure. Now we will forget Hatty for a few minutes; there is something else troubling me. How are you to be fitted out for your visit, when I dare not ask your father for ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... a recital which must be trying to your patience, but which is necessary if you are to understand the situation, I may say that our companionship resulted in a proposal of marriage to me, which I, foolishly, perhaps, and selfishly, it may be, accepted. Reginald knew that his father would never consent, but we enlisted the sympathy of the chaplain, and he, mild, unworldly man, married us one day in the ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... Claverhouse was perfectly confident that neither Lady Cochrane nor her family would be able to shake Jean's fidelity. But there were times, and they were her bitterest hours, when Jean was not sure whether she had not done selfishly and was not going to satisfy her love at the expense of her lover. On his part, he could not help being anxious, for it seemed as if every man of his own party had turned his hand against him. With all his severity, Claverhouse had a just mind, and ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... and dark; and that Dr. MacBride slumbered was plainly audible to me, even before I entered. Go fishing with him! I thought, as I undressed. And I selfishly decided that the Judge might have this privilege entirely to himself. Sleep came to me fairly soon, in spite of the Doctor. I was wakened from it by my bed's being jolted—not a pleasant thing that night. I must have ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... discovery was placing upon me. I could no longer keep it secret; each day that I withheld the knowledge of these rays from my fellow beings, hundreds, nay thousands, of lives would be laid to my account. The knowledge had not been given to me that I should guard it selfishly. The hope that, even though I could never call Zarlah my own, I might often spend a few happy hours with her in her Martian paradise was now shattered forever. I must stifle my love or commit a crime against every living soul on Earth; and as I paced my room in agony, with my hands pressed ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... believe in going into mourning at all. There are some who believe, as do the races of the East, that great love should be expressed in rejoicing in the re-birth of a beloved spirit instead of selfishly mourning their own earthly loss. But many who object to manifestations of grief, find themselves impelled to wear mourning when their sorrow comes and the number of those who do not put on black is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death—I've been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of my own affairs, to the exclusion ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... taking the prize. And his reading during the long evenings had been more in the way of education in public matters than he had realized. As for ideals, he had followed the masterful men who preached a gospel that appealed to him, living the life of the open, battling for the weak against the selfishly strong—so it seemed to the one who studied their achievements on the printed page. With his own opportunity now thrust upon him, Harlan Thornton determined to make candor his code, honesty his system. He entertained no false ideas of his personal importance. But his lack of experience did ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... conditioned the very life and survival of the race? Perhaps the evils of excess, called sin, were after all due to defects in social and political institutions that had applied incorrect regulative principles, or to the selfishly imposed religious fears which had driven the healthy instincts into tantrums. Rid man of these erroneous fears and of a political system begot for purposes of exploitation and see whether by returning to an age of primitive ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... solicit her friendship, having lost other claims; and it was then perhaps, that her responsibility in allowing Violet Forde to spoil his life for him began to suggest itself to her. Up to that time she had thought of the matter differently, as she would have said, selfishly. He was not permitted to come again; but he went away lightened, inasmuch as he had ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... His presence blights those on whom it falls. For with the memory of past wrongs, goes the memory of past benefits, of all the mutual kindlinesses of life, and each unit of humanity becomes self-centred and selfish. Two beings alone resist his influence—one, a creature too selfishly nurtured for any of mankind's better recollections; and the other a woman so good as to resist the spell, and even, finally, to exorcise it ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... her hand on my shoulder. "Perhaps, my dear boy, it's just because we've done nothing—nothing otherwise to justify our existence. We're too selfishly, sluggishly happy, you and I and Susan. If we didn't take a share of other people's troubles we should die of congestion ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... voice in pursuit, and splash! went the beast into the surf. He was playing that he was a sea-horse, now, and enjoying it selfishly, without a thought of poor me in the horrid, tottery little box that would be knocked over by a big wave, maybe, in another instant, in a welter of sand and salt water, ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... therefore I must be silent, for their deeds are too mighty to be uttered in words. But the forefathers of the Thebans either joined the barbarian's army or did not oppose it; and therefore he knows that they will selfishly embrace their advantage, without considering the common interest of the Greeks. He thought then if he chose your friendship, it must be on just principles; if he attached himself to them, he should find auxiliaries of his ambition. This is the reason of his preferring them ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... yellow as with jaundice, and kills him, destroying all that is noble, generous, impulsive, quenching his early dreams and enthusiasms, closing his heart to sweet charity, puffing him up with a false sense of Importance, and laying upon him the dreadful responsibility of misused and selfishly employed possessions. And the other man, tried in the same fashion, out of his wealth makes for himself friends that welcome him into everlasting habitations, and lays up for himself treasures in heaven. The one man is damned and the other man is saved by their ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... hawks, and the Lord Ross's hounds, and called himself point devise a gentleman. But the line had been veiled of its splendour in the present proprietor, who cared for no rustic amusements, and was as saying, timid, and retired, as his father had been at once grasping and selfishly extravagant—daring, wild, and intrusive. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... and wealthy class have it in their power so to mould this change as to render it peaceful, gradual and universally beneficent; or they can turn a deaf ear to the calls of humanity, and let the demagogue, the envious, the selfishly discontented, pervert it into an engine of convulsion, destruction and desolation. As in the days of King John, the barons laid the foundations of English political liberty, so in our day the intellectual and philanthropic may guide the car of progress, and in establishing ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... to her neighbors, an exasperated peasant hewed her down with an axe, because she fed the wolves on her own offspring, selfishly saving by ...
— Half Hours in Bible Lands, Volume 2 - Patriarchs, Kings, and Kingdoms • Rev. P. C. Headley
... over, Lucy? Are you sure I am not selfishly depriving you of pleasure by asking you to come away from all your young friends just to talk to me for a few minutes ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... mutual attraction between the sexes that constantly draws them towards each other. It is this mutual love, these invisible ties, that make the world brighter, cheerier, happier. It has been truly said that those who selfishly cut themselves away from these ties, those that lead narrow, lonely, morbid lives, lose most of life's joys. What should we say to the favourite of a King from whom he had received a beautiful house, and fine estates, and who ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... virtue, and therefore summonses to its discharge. And if we regarded our own position individually, so we should find that there were many, many doors that had long been opened, into which we had been too blind or too lazy, or too selfishly absorbed in our own concerns, to enter. The neglected opportunities, the beckoning doors whose thresholds we have never crossed, the good that we might have done and have not done—these are as weighty to sink us as the positive sins, the opportunities ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... family is spent in defiling his body in this place; the money which should be spent, in clothing and feeding his wife and children, is squandered here; until the home loses its hold upon him and he selfishly indulges his appetite, no matter who suffers. We are faced with actual conditions and no substitutes of better kept saloons or purer beverages can help very much. It is a travesty of the truth to call a saloon a working men's club; it is his destruction. What is actually needed is a ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... poor, simple, ill-used folk enough, but who certainly cannot be said to have exercised much influence on the destinies of mankind . . . and all the rest was chaos and the pit. There never had been, never would be, a kingdom of God on earth, but only a few scattered individuals, each selfishly intent on the salvation of his own soul—without organisation, without unity, without common purpose, without even a masonic sign whereby to know one another when they chanced to meet . . . except Shibboleths which the hypocrite could ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... that they are parts of a whole, and that any disease in any other part of that whole, must affect the whole, and consequently themselves. Were this thoroughly understood, even selfishness would lead men to act less selfishly. We should indeed have Heaven upon earth if your pure theories could be ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various |
