"Self" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scratches at his self-respect, this increasing disgust of men and things, were small matters compared to what was going on within him. Augustin had a sick soul. The forebodings he had always been subject to were now become the suffering of every moment. At certain times he was assailed by those great waves of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... she sat there, wondering at the real conviction, the intensity of passion, of hate and of revenge that actuated this newest tool of Doyle's. Doyle and his associates might be actuated by self-interest, but the real danger in the movement lay not with the Doyles of the world, but with these fanatic liberators. They preached to the poor a new religion, not of creed or of Church, but of ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... might as well study their opinion. It may be regrettable, but it is certainly true, that you will have more influence if you are agreeable to look at. You would have more influence over me at this moment if you would kindly walk upstairs and make yourself look—er—a little more like your old self!" ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... malice are self-deceivers, and pretend to discover what no one else can perceive. On this frail foundation the King raised an altar of hatred, on which he swore never to cease till he had accomplished my brother's ruin and mine. ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... blotting-paper. He was a man who seldom hesitated. His greatest coups on the money-market had been in a great measure the result of this faculty of prompt decision. To-day he possessed himself of the blotting-pad, and examined the half-formed syllables stamped upon it with as much coolness and self-possession as if he had been seated in his own office reading his own newspaper. A man given to hesitation would have looked to the right and the left and watched for his opportunity—and lost it. Philip Sheldon knew better than to waste his chances by needless ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... it hard to be sick when I had dear mother hanging over me, doing all she could for my relief, but it is harder to be denied the poor comfort of being let alone and to have to drag one's self out of bed to take care of a baby. Mr. Stearns must know how to pity me, for my real sick headaches are very like his, and when racked with pain, dizzy, faint and exhausted with suffering, starvation and sleeplessness, ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... approaching to Miss Mowcher's wink except Miss Mowcher's self-possession. She had a wonderful way too, when listening to what was said to her, or when waiting for an answer to what she had said herself, of pausing with her head cunningly on one side, and one eye turned up like a magpie's. Altogether I was lost ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... for Torbert had disappointed me on two important occasions—in the Luray Valley during the battle of Fisher's Hill, and on the recent Gordonsville expedition—and I mistrusted his ability to conduct any operations requiring much self-reliance. The column was composed of Custer's and Devin's divisions of cavalry, and two sections of artillery, comprising in all about 10,000 officers and men. On wheels we had, to accompany this column, eight ambulances, sixteen ammunition ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... history, this attitude had been branded as criminal — worse than crime — sacrilege! Society punished it ferociously and justly, in self-defence. Mr. Adams, the father, looked on it as moral weakness; it annoyed him; but it did not annoy him nearly so much as it annoyed his son, who had no need to learn from Hamlet the fatal effect of the pale cast ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... from their direction, which had been elevated upwards to God from God, into a direction more and more oblique, outwardly into the world, and thereby to God from God through the world, and at length inverted into an opposite direction, which is downwards to self; and as God cannot be looked at by a man interiorly inverted, and thereby averted, men separated themselves from God, and were made forms of hell or devils. From these considerations it follows, that in the first ages they acknowledged in heart and ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... between the gloomy Roman palaces, saddened by the grey walls and muddy pavements. Comparisons, involuntary and continual, between Carthage and Rome, made him unjust to Rome. In his eyes it had a hard, self-conscious, declamatory look, and gazing at the barren Roman campagna, he remembered the laughing Carthage suburbs, with gardens, villas, vineyards, olivets, circled everywhere by the brilliance of ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... has never been a greater issue. I said we four, but I should have said we two, Master Leithgow. Captain Carse has commanded a certain respect from me, the respect one must show for courage, fine physical coordination and a remarkable instinct and capacity for self-preservation—but, after all, he is primarily only like the black here, Friday, and a much less splendid animal. It is a brain that receives my respect! A brain! Genius! I do not fear Carse: he is only an adventurer; but your ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore
... passed what was called the "Self-denying Ordinance" (1644) (repeated in 1645). It required all members who had any civil or military office to resign, and, as Cromwell seaid, "deny themselves and their private interests for the public good." The real object of this measure was to get rid ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... endangering those institutions she feels so proud of, but which Irishmen have no reason to respect. To Mr. Butt is due a debt of gratitude by the Irish people which they can never repay, for he has taught them self-reliance and knowledge of their power. If I have felt it my duty to put myself in antagonism with Mr. Butt I hope he will forgive me. If I have said or written harsh things I have never said more nor less than was due to the gravity of ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... to ask the jury," he continued, "to return the only verdict possible for a self-respecting jury, that the men in charge of the German submarine were guilty ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... praises of him. You had better at least commit to memory the colour of his eyes and hair. I believe he has two hairs. He is a huge, fat, overgrown thing with enormous cheeks. When I saw his bloated self-indulgent look yesterday, I confess I wanted to ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... trifling causes [remarks Tamburini, speaking of Sbro...] that stand in the way of his wishes, provoke a fit of rage in which he appears to lose all self-control, like little children, who in resenting any offence show no sense of proportion. The most trivial reasons for disliking anyone awaken in him an irresistible desire to kill the object of his aversion, and if any new blasphemy ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... cunning, to be diplomatic, to play the game of life with the best cards we can draw, is every woman's privilege. But if I can't win honestly, mater dear, I'll quit the game, for even money can't compensate a girl for the loss of her self-respect." ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... spoke respectfully, although he did not fawn over the dignitary or lose his own quiet self-assertion. He was an American. He told of finding the tortured prospector and of the plight of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... Cross?—the kind made of gilded tin which holds itself aloft in pride on the top of the church steeple, or the Cross proclaimed in the challenge of the great Cross-bearer, "Whosoever doth not bear his Cross, and come after Me, cannot be my disciple"? The Cross is the emblem of self-sacrifice for the salvation of the world. Oh, that men really gloried in such self-sacrifice, and held it forth as the worthiest principle of life! Did Sir John Bowring hold aloft such a Cross as this, and, with his Master, recommend it to the ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... would venture across that No Man's Land on such a night?—the five men talked freely, with all the blatant self-assumption of Prussian sabre rattlers, and the wet wind that brought their words to him brought also ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... bought anything from me for a whole year!" said he suddenly to one of the cottagers. Or, "Here's something to take home to your wife, Jens Petersen!" Each time he named them, the man he singled out would laugh self-consciously and make a bid. They felt proud at being known by ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... so characteristically guarded and secretive in the movement that Blake knew it was Copeland even before he let his gaze wheel around to the newcomer. About the entire figure, in fact, he could detect that familiar veiled wariness, that enigmatic and self-concealing cautiousness which had always had the power to touch him into ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... devoted chiefly to Mr. Lincoln's professional career. First we may quote the brief but emphatic words of the distinguished jurist, Judge Sidney Breese, Chief Justice of Illinois, who said: "For my single self, I have for a quarter of a century regarded Mr. Lincoln as the finest lawyer I ever knew, and of a professional bearing so high-toned and honorable, as justly, and without derogating from the claims of others, entitling him to be presented to the profession as a model well worthy ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... Bordin! The man must be remarkable. Our sovereign has an immense self-love, Monsieur le marquis," he said, changing the conversation. "He is about to dismiss me that he may commit follies without warning. The Emperor is a great soldier who can change the laws of time and distance, but he cannot ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... instead of the other way round. It was his joy to be called daddy, and in return for this simple tribute he lavished upon them all the love and tenderness of a true father and a great deal of the consideration that a child deserves, but seldom gets, from its own pre-occupied and self-satisfied parent. ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... children. During this visit I had an opportunity of seeing the king's daughter. She has adopted the civil dress and is polite and affable for a savage. She speaks but little English but speaks French fluently. Her father and self profess the Roman Catholic religion. This Indian is more comely than the rest of the females, but I have never been able to trace any lines of beauty about those children of the forest. This Indian king owns 2,000 acres of the American ...
— Narrative of Richard Lee Mason in the Pioneer West, 1819 • Richard Lee Mason
... money was first used by informers to induce women to commit adultery with them, in order to secure their conviction, fine them, and enroll their abodes as registered brothels. Inspector Jones and Police Sergeant Daly, having spent ten dollars in self-indulgence in native houses, the Government reimbursed ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... But disappointment with the achievements on the Somme was not so bitter as resentment at the failure in Rumania. Was friendship with the Entente doomed always to be fatal to little peoples? One more trusting nation had gone the way of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro, and the blow to our self-respect was keenly felt. The public had little knowledge of the real responsibility, but where knowledge is rare suspicion is rife; and a vicarious victim is always required when the actual culprit is out of reach. Englishmen could ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... to the edge of the wood, stood there, striving for some measure of self-command. His hands opened and shut. Lewis Rand was a perjured traitor, and it only remained to tell ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... raging with misery now, or perfectly numb and, as he sat there a shattered wreck of his former insouciant self, gaunt and haggard and pitifully thin, some of his friends would ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... in a suit before a justice of the peace, to a five-thousand-dollar fee before the Supreme Court of his State, has a long and hard path to climb. Lincoln climbed this path for twenty-five years, with industry, perseverance, patience—above all, with that self-control and keen sense of right and wrong which always clearly traced the dividing line between his duty to his client and his duty to society and truth. His perfect frankness of statement assured him the confidence of judge and jury in every argument. ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... very strength and nervous power of the man constituted his weakness, when brought under the subtle influence of the old tempter, and it is probable that on his recovery, with nerves shaken, old cravings awakened, and self-respect gone, he would have fallen again and again if God had not made use of the paroxysm of rage to destroy the opportunity and the cause of evil. Nobbs did not know at that time, though he learned it afterwards, that safety from the drink-sin—as from all other sin—lies not in strong-man ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... Strictures on the ground that neither he nor his collaborators could have written a tragedy nearly so good. The Critical Review, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, characterized the pamphlet as "the crude efforts of envy, petulance, and self-conceit." "There being thus three epithets," says Boswell, "we, the three authours, had a humourous contention how each should be appropriated."[8] The Monthly Review was hardly less severe. It conceived the author of Critical ...
— Critical Strictures on the New Tragedy of Elvira, Written by Mr. David Malloch (1763) • James Boswell, Andrew Erskine and George Dempster
... altogether. Just set to work and talk new doctrines to people you fancy are fools enough to believe such lies,—why, they think you want to burn their houses down! It is vain for me to tell them that I speak for futurity, for posterity, for self-interest properly understood; for enterprise where nothing can be lost; that man has preyed upon man long enough; that woman is a slave; that the great providential thought should be made to triumph; that a way must be found to arrive at a rational co-ordination of the ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... Allan felt her vague, warm, beautiful presence. Strong was she; vigorous, rosy as an Amazon, with the spirit and the beauty of the great outdoors; the life lived as a part of nature's own self. He realized that never had ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... to courage and self-possession by the sense of her father's presence, Violante again took the hand of the visitor. "Father," she said simply, "it is he—he is come at last." And then, retiring a few steps, she contemplated them both; and her face was radiant with happiness—as if something, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... which now opened out before Sir Richmond of talking about history and suchlike topics with a charming companion for perhaps two whole days instead of going on with this tiresome, shamefaced, egotistical business of self-examination was so attractive to him that it took immediate possession of his mind, to the entire exclusion and disregard of Dr. Martineau's possible objections to any such modification of their original ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... brushed aside—it seems as though this maxim went very low down in the scale of nature, as though it were the one principle rendering combination (integration) and, I suppose, dissolution (disintegration) also, possible. For combination of any kind involves contradiction in terms; it involves a self-stultification on the part of one or more things, more or less complete in both of them. For one or both cease to be, and to cease to be is to contradict all one's fundamental axioms ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... nothing to do with the rest of the story. The attack was very short, I believe. I soon came to something more or less like myself; only, Baron, the singular thing is, that it was to all intents and purposes a new self—whether better or worse, my faulty memory does not permit me to say. I'd clean forgotten who I was and all about me. I found myself called Francis Beveridge, but that wasn't ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... Yes. Bound to sabe dem dar. Loss my ole hat, an nearly loss my ole self; but still I hung on to dem dar lobstas. Tell you what it is now, dey come nigh onto bein de dearest lobstas you ebber eat. I'be done a good deal in de way ob puttin myself out to get a dinna at odd times for you, chil'en; but dis time I almost put myself out ob dis mortial life. So when you get ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... drove Josie, who was sobbing nervously and quite bereft of her usual self-command, to Colonel Hathaway's residence. The woman was unnerved, too, and had little ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... of him that obsessed her. A liar, always. Why not now? Men of his kind were unusual to women of hers, but even in the midst of his confession—as near self-abasement as a man of his type could come, the note of egotism rang clear above the graceful phrases—too graceful to be anything but manufactured in that clear ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... said Rachel, "is one long act of self-abnegation. Another takes all the honor—he all the labor. Thus soldiers fall, and their generals reap ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... in the battle of the 18th. The seven German Corps facing them were exactly 178,818 strong. Thus the French had been driven out of a position of almost unrivalled natural advantages by a numerically inferior force. It is self-evident that the loss of the aggressors must have been much greater than that of the defence; it amounted to 20,584 men, among ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... to be able to draw, or to photograph. The group at the Sheykh-el-Ababdeh's last night was ravishing, all but my ugly hat and self. The black ringlets and dirty white drapery and obsolete weapons—the graceful splendid Sheykh 'black but beautiful' like the Shulamite—I thought of Antar ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... one: so full of fun and mischief and all sorts of pranks; so lively, running hither and yon, teasing me, amusing Agathe, rallying her husband; but on the occasions I mention, so subdued, so thoughtful so—different from her other self: Ciel! she ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... will a young parson deduce false conclusions from misunderstood texts, and then threaten us with all the penalties of Hades if we neglect to comply with the injunctions he has given us! Yes, my too self-confident juvenile friend, I do believe in those mysteries, which are so common in your mouth; I do believe in the unadulterated word which you hold there in your hand; but you must pardon me if, in some ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... imbedded in flakes amid the rocks. To-day we have moved the camp to this spot; and, as we are now beyond the reach of aid from white men, and have begun to feel that we must be, for some time at least, a self-supporting party, our first thoughts are turned towards making arrangements for obtaining a supply of food, and for ensuring our security. Bradley, Joe White, and Jose, are to be our hunters; Malcolm, Lacosse, and McPhail, are to set to work ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... be a housekeeper, and not an instructress of youth; for whilst she performed the duties of the former post in a manner which left absolutely nothing to be desired, it must be confessed that in her self- imposed task of schoolmistress she failed most lamentably. Not through ignorance, however, by any means. She was fairly well educated, having "seen better days," so she was possessed of a sufficiency of knowledge for her purpose had she but known how to impart ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... has always been more particular how we did things than what things we did.... All human beings are under obligations first to themselves. If self-sacrifice seems best, then we should practice that; while if self-assertion seems best, then we should assert ourselves. The abominable doctrine taught in the pulpit, the press, in books and elsewhere, is that the whole duty of women is self-abasement ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... outside world, even when he appears to treat it most objectively, proves upon closer examination to be in the vast majority of cases only a treasure-trove of symbols for the expression of his inner self. Thus, Poor Peter is the narrative of a humble youth unfortunate in love, but poor Peter's story is Heine's; otherwise, we may be sure, Heine would not have thought it worth the telling. Nothing could seem to be less the property of Heine than The Lorelei; nevertheless, he has ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... solemn promise before God to love, honour, and obey, daily and hourly violated,—her unjust hatred of her only son,—her want of charity towards others,—all her duties neglected,—swayed only by selfish and malignant passions,—with bitter tears of contrition and self-abasement, she acknowledged that her punishment was just. With streaming eyes, with supplicating hands and bended knees, she implored mercy and forgiveness of Him to whom appeal is never made in vain. Passion's infuriate reign was ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... piece was over, I saw a form wrapped in a mantle, creeping down the steps: it was the vanquished knight of the evening. The scene-shifters whispered to one another, and I followed the poor fellow home to his room. To hang one's self is to die a mean death, and poison is not always at hand, I know; but he thought of both. I saw how he looked at his pale face in the glass, with eyes half closed, to see if he should look well as a corpse. A man may be very unhappy, and yet exceedingly affected. He thought ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... Union came before Parliament in 1909, Colonel Seely, who had been one of the signatories to the letter of 1906, represented the Colonial Office in the Commons; and Sir Charles, warned by friends of the natives in South Africa, questioned him as to whether the Bill as drafted empowered the self-governing colonies to alter the existing boundaries of the Protectorates. He received a private promise that the matter should be put beyond doubt; and this was done in the Committee stage by a solemn declaration ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... good people, who had been accustomed so long to repeat mechanically their Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to hear their worthy minister maintaining that the dignified attitude of the old Patriarch, insisting on what was reasonable and fair with reference to his fellow-creatures, was really much more respectful to his Maker, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... began to look dark, when suddenly the sultan detecting Captain Katy in the act of munching the cherished provisions, proposed a ten-minute truce, but the invaders with their weather eye on the self-same ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... contemporary with Roland Sefton, remarked upon the resemblance between Jean Merle and their old comrade; but this was satisfactorily accounted for by his relationship to Madame Sefton: for Roland, they said, had always had a good deal of the foreigner about him, much more than this quiet, melancholy, self-effacing man, who never pushed himself forward, or courted attention, yet was always ready with a good sound shrewd opinion if he was asked for it. It had been a lucky thing for old Clifford that such a man had been found to take care of him and ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... their political institutions, and that any attempt at external interference will not merely fail lamentably, but produce the very opposite effect from that which is intended. If the German Emperor insists upon confusing the relative positions of the Deity and some of his self-styled vicegerents upon earth, only the German people can restore him to a sense of proportion and modesty. All believers in human progress hope that after this war the monstrous theories of divine right propounded by the House of Hohenzollern will be relegated to the lumber-room of ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the torch," said another; "we must do it in self-defence. What a strong position against us it ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... angel, and his smile was fair to see, 'Of all the sights on earth is the noblest one to me; No brutelike men are these, nay, rather to my eyes, Men raised to angels' heights of calm self-sacrifice.' Yet he wept, and weeping prayed, 'Oh, may these sons of men Keep faith and strength and patience, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... tempted to his faults, tremble at his punishment; and those whom he impressed from the pulpit with religious sentiments, endeavour to confirm them, by considering the regret and self-abhorrence with which he reviewed in prison his deviations ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... had gradually become the most characteristic and most cherished feature of the national dress. But the bureaucracy of China, which had battened for centuries on corruption and ignorance, had no taste for self-sacrifice. Other vested interests felt themselves equally threatened, and behind them stood the whole latent force of popular superstition and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... people—it goes on month after month, year after year. By secret trials, chastenings, which none but they and God can understand, the Lord is cleansing them from their secret faults, and making them to understand wisdom secretly; burning out of them the chaff of self-will, and self- conceit, and vanity, and leaving only the pure gold of righteousness. How many sweet and holy souls, who look cheerful enough before the eyes of man, yet have their secret sorrows. They carry ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley
... and the total number of offices in which it is now in operation is 159. Experience shows that its adoption, under proper conditions, is equally an accommodation to the public and an advantage to the postal service. It is more than self-sustaining, and for the reasons urged by the Postmaster-General ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... because I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which—. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness, what volumes of similes and conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat to the end again and ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... cat widdee yella eyes Slink round like she atter ah mouse, Den yo' bettah take keer yo'self en frien's, Kase dey's sho'ly a ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... she indicated the crowd with a sweep of her gloved hand, "would have shot him, but it takes a real man to preserve perfect self-control ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... against them the penalty was paid with unflinching firmness. The delivery of the wagered wives, Lescarbot tells us, was not always accomplished with ease, but the attempt would be faithfully made and probably was often successful. Self-contained as these people ordinarily were, it is not a matter of surprise that the weaker among them should have been led to these lengths of extravagance, under the high pressure of excitement ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... in the school were two lads named Gallagher, one of whom, whose name was Matt, became my daily terror. He was two years older than I and had all of a city gamin's cunning and self-command. At every intermission he sidled close to me, walking round me, feeling my arms, and making much of my muscle. Sometimes he came behind and lifted me to see how heavy I was, or called attention to my strong hands and ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... how, when the after-glow dies, it will leave its memory in the red gold that is somewhere in the rich brown her eyes are resting on. Sally was fond of dwelling on her mother's beauty. Perhaps doing so satisfied her personal vanity by deputy. She was content with her own self, but had ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... lowered himself, and gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to take the step. Melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment, as is shown by his letter of June 16 to the philologist Camerarius, his accustomed self-possession. He admitted that married life was a holy state, and one well-pleasing to God, and that its results might be beneficial to Luther's nature and character; but he was of opinion that Luther's lowering himself to this condition was a lamentable act of weakness, ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... instant, the undertow of that vast dashing breaker sucked him back with its ebb again, a helpless, breathless creature; and then the succeeding wave rolled him over like a ball, upon the beach as before, in quick succession. Four times the back-current sucked him under with its wild pull in the self-same way, and four times the return wave flung him up upon the beach again like a fragment of sea-weed. With frantic efforts Felix tried at first to cling still to Muriel—to save her from the irresistible force of that roaring surf—to snatch her from the open jaws of ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... revenues. (i) The province may fix rates for local tax or levy additional tax on the National Taxes. (j) The province shall have a provincial treasury. (k) It may raise provincial public loans. (l) It shall elect a certain number of Senators. (m) It shall fix regulations for the smaller local Self-Governing Bodies. ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... This lucidity may perhaps be regarded as a modification or an exaggeration of the clearness of apprehension occasionally experienced by ordinary persons while immersed in a brown study, or while in the act of waking out of sleep, or when self-consciousness is for ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... companionways and a hatch for'ard. The fact that there is no house to break the strength of the deck will make us feel safer in case great seas thunder their tons of water down on board. A large and roomy cockpit, sunk beneath the deck, with high rail and self- bailing, will make our rough-weather days and ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... throughout the vast congregation—a murmur which sank into silence at the first breathing of solemn music from the choir. The signs of gratulation for the escape of the Deliverer, first heard in the streets, and now witnessed amidst the worshipping crowd, were too much for the self-command of the conspirators. Their attitude became every moment more downcast—their countenances more sullen and wretched. They had a strong impression that their execution was to seal the thanksgivings of this day; and in every ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... unconscious of their behaviour; it is just that there is one woman they want to speak to in a room, so that is all they see; the rest of the people are merely furniture. Now, American men are always polite and unselfish, and almost self-conscious where women are concerned, whereas the French have too polished manners naturally to allow them to ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Dig. Nik. V. The Pancaratra expressly states that Yoga is worship of the heart and self-sacrifice, being thus a counterpart ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... and next morning I go to her and say, 'Katya, I've done wrong, I've squandered your three thousand,' well, is that right? No, it's not right—it's dishonest and cowardly, I'm a beast, with no more self-control than a beast, that's so, isn't it? But still I'm not a thief? Not a downright thief, you'll admit! I squandered it, but I didn't steal it. Now a second, rather more favorable alternative: follow me carefully, or I may get confused again—my head's going ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... and it not only interrupted his words but also destroyed the peace of his self-absorption with the vile pain of a reality intruding upon the beauty of a dream. He couldn't understand whence the sound came. He could see, foreshortened, the tear-stained, dolorous face of the woman stretched ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... natural monster that has complied strictly with the laws of its species. And what a smile of attentive obligingness, of incorruptible innocence, of affectionate submission, of boundless gratitude and total self-abandonment lit up, at the least caress, that adorable mask of ugliness! Whence exactly did that smile emanate? From the ingenuous and melting eyes? From the ears pricked up to catch the words of man? From the forehead that unwrinkled to appreciate and love, or from the stump of a tail ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck
... difficulty. Nothing is worth doing or well done which is not done fairly easily, and some little deficiency of effort is more pardonable than any very perceptible excess; for virtue has ever erred rather on the side of self-indulgence than of asceticism, and well-being has ever advanced through the ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... Ardea, known of men, and of those women who were large-minded enough not to envy her. But the inner Ardea was a being apart—high-seated, alone, self-sufficient in the sense that it saw too clearly to be hoodwinked, infinitely reasonable, with vision unclouded either by passion or the conventions. This inner Ardea knew Vincent Farley better than he knew himself: the small mind, the mask of outward correctness, ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... The man could not be her hero without education, without attributes to be attained no doubt more easily by the rich than by the poor; but, with that granted, with those attained, she did not see why she, or why the world, should go back beyond the man's own self. Such had been her theories as to men and their attributes, and acting on that, she had given herself and all her happiness into the keeping of Ferdinand Lopez. Now, there was gradually coming upon her a change in her convictions,—a ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... of the Good God, which had not been offered as yet to help him on with the simple things of life; the women, the beasts of the fields, the ponies and the war-bands. He could not even protect his own shadow, which was his other and higher self. ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... her fears for her own happiness. One kiss from him would be payment for it all. But all his love, all his sweetness, all his truth, all his eloquence should avail nothing with her towards overcoming that spirit of self-sacrifice by which she was dominated. Though he should extort from her all her secret, that would be her strength. Though she should have to tell him of her failing health,—her certainly failing health,—though even that should be necessary, she certainly would not be won from her purpose. ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... beautiful art (so seldom attained) of making all who came within the sphere of her genial influence, perfectly happy. But her most amiable characteristic was her good heart, which prompted her to entirely overlook every consideration of self, in her desire to benefit others. We have now, in our mind's eye, the exquisite original from whom we imperfectly draw this beautiful character; her pure soul looks gently forth from the azure depths of her soft eyes; lovely in her smile, for it is the glad ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... a punishment for his excessive self-confidence. In his negotiations with Laban, he had used the expression, "My righteousness shall answer for me hereafter." Besides, on his return to Palestine, when he was preparing to meet his brother, he concealed his daughter Dinah in a chest, lest ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Barry's quick look for his hostess discovered her on a low hassock at the painter's knee, looking very young and fresh, in her white frock, with a LaMarque rose at her belt and another in her dark hair. She greeted him very gravely, almost timidly, and in the new self-consciousness that had suddenly come to them both it was with difficulty that even the commonplace words of greeting were accomplished, and it was with evident relief that she turned from him to ask her guests to come into ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... interest. Ford rose painfully, inch by inch, until he was sitting upon the side of the bed, got from there to his feet, looked down and saw that he was clothed to his boots, and crossed slowly to where a cheap, flyspecked looking-glass hung awry upon the wall. His self-inspection was grave and minute. His eyes held ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... effected by means of two large tuns placed side by side, and holding twelve hogsheads of wine each. Pipes from these tuns communicate with a couple of small reservoirs, each of them provided with half-a-dozen self-acting syphon taps, by means of which a like number of bottles are simultaneously filled. Only one set of these taps are set running at a time, as while the wine is being drawn off from one tun the other is being refilled from the casks containing the cuve by means of a pump and leathern hose, ...
— Facts About Champagne and Other Sparkling Wines • Henry Vizetelly
... his eternal chattering; the fifth is Al- Nashshar, the tattler and tale teller; the sixth Shakashik, or many clamours; and the seventh is famous as Al-Samit, The Silent Man, and this is my noble self!" Whilst he redoubled his talk, I thought my gall bladder would have burst; so I said to the servant, "Give him a quarter dinar and dismiss him and let him go from me in the name of God who made him. I won't have my head shaved to day." "What words be these, O my lord?" cried he. "By Allah! I ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... be imagined from the foregoing that hardihood, self-assertion, and other unpleasant characteristics would be indicated in the manner and personality of this lover of freedom and rebel against restraint. Not at all. She was a most lovable and clinging person, when ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in connection with our minds. We all see the fallacy of the old-fashioned hustlers' cry, "Make your work your hobby; think of nothing else; let every moment be subordinated to the dominating idea of your career; put aside all sentimentalism, all laziness and self-will, all enthusiasm about things not in your ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... then she saw a sympathetic upturned face in the front row of the audience staring up at her. Something in the face roused Anna to a determined effort. Throwing herself into her subject, she soon was pouring out a passionate appeal for a broader national life and action. Gone were fear and self-consciousness, gone all but determination to make her audience feel as she felt, believe as she believed, in the interest of humanity and the highest ideals. For over an hour she held that coldly critical mass of New England hearers as if by a magic spell, then the vast ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was on board a ship, and so was not on his viceregal territory; that the rebels had already been tried, and that he had not the power to revoke a sentence which bore the authority of the Crown; that he had not the power to dispose of the Crown property —desperate, agonised shuffling of pride and self-esteem in the coils of trial and difficulty. Enough ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... rising up, led him into a retired apartment of the palace. The supposed dervish then related what had befallen him, the cause of his having abdicated his kingdom, and taken upon himself the character of a religious. The sultan was astonished at his self-denial, and exclaimed, "Blessed be his holy name, who exalteth and humbleth whom he will by his almighty power; but my history is more surprising than thine. I will relate it ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... have to say," she would cry, when reduced to extremities by the obvious unfairness of his silent mode of controversy, "but don't sit there girning like a self-satisfied monkey!" ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... that he could be taken to the room where Sue lay, his self-possession had returned to him and his mind had begun blaming the little dead stranger for the unhappiness of the past months and for the long separation from what he thought was the real Sue. Outside the door of the room into ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... affairs and call upon our best talent to appear in these. Such an opportunity is very valuable experience for you and I am glad for your sake always when I can get you a chance to appear in public or social affairs, to give you self-confidence and inspiration. ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... Vancouver Island, the words k.a'ela, "male infant," and k.a'k.ela, "female infant," mean simply "the weak one." In the Modoc, of Oregon, a "baby" is literally, "what is carried on one's self." In the Tsimshian, of British Columbia, the word wok.a'uts, "female infant," signifies really "without labrets," indicating that the creature is yet too young for the lip ornaments. In Latin, liberi, one of the words for "children," shows on its face that it meant only "children, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... himself in his old age honored by his nation, surrounded by friends, and besieged by visitors and co-workers, seeking his help and advice. He was always very approachable. In his younger days he had frequently been harsh and self-assertive in his judgment of others; but in his latter years he learned that kindness is always more fruitful than wrath. Sitting in his easy chair and smoking his long pipe, he talked frankly and often wittily with the many who came to visit ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... control was vested in a mixed military and civil council, consisting of General Elphinstone, unfitted by disease and natural irresolution from exercising the functions of command, and Sir William McNaghten, the British envoy, whose self-confidence and trust in the treacherous natives made him an easy victim. In the centre of an insurrection which was extending day by day under their eyes and under their own roofs, these representatives of a powerful nation, with a small ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... scalping-knife, which, in the hurry of some recent service it had been made to perform, had missed its sheath, and was thrust naked into the belt that encircled his loins. His countenance wore an expression of malignant triumph; and as his eye fell on the assembled throng, its self-satisfied and exulting glance seemed to give them to understand he came not without credentials to recommend him to their notice. Captain de Haldimar was particularly struck by the air of bold daring and almost insolent recklessness pervading every movement ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... professors were appointed to instruct in those branches with which she was not familiar. His conduct was recorded in a minute daily journal, from which every night questions were read subjecting him to the most searching self-examination. The questions were ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... La Fontaine seldom, if ever, appeals to our highest moral sense. The highest chords he strikes are those of reason and self-love. Through all the fables runs the thought that man's morality springs wholly from self-love, and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness must follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil; but, of course, I may be wrong, for La Fontaine ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... ballast, and they saw Horses at silver mangers eating grain; This man has seen the wind blow up a mermaid's hair Which, like a golden serpent, reared and stretched To feel the air away beyond her head. He begged my pennies, which I gave with joy— He will most certainly return some time A self-made king of some new land, and rich. Alas that he, the hero of my dreams, Should be his people's scorn; for they had rose To proud command of ships, whilst he had toiled Before the mast for years, and well content; Him they despised, and only Death could bring A likeness ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... Love of self-government, plus fighting pluck, both of which are inherent in the Muscular Irish race, are responsible for the ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... had become accustomed to the continual screaming and howling of that naughty boy, just as one accustoms one's self to piano practising or the din of a factory; perhaps too, they comforted themselves with the thought that it was most fortunate that such a morally depraved child had ...
— One of Life's Slaves • Jonas Lauritz Idemil Lie
... anyone more self-controlled. The greatest dangers, setbacks, successes, or defeats, failed to rouse him to any show of emotion. He maintained an icy calm in all situations. It is obvious how useful such a temperament coupled with a taste for study and meditation, might be to a general officer, ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... however, was another gifted woman, who might far more legitimately have been shocked at the utter wreck of every musical means of expression in the singer—who might have been more naturally forgiven, if some humour of self-glorification had made her severely just—not worse—to an old prima donna;—I mean Madame Viardot.—Then, and not till then, she was hearing Madame Pasta.—But Truth will always answer to the appeal of Truth. ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... all others connected with shooting, can be resumed and continued after dinner, and in the smoking-room. Talk of the staleness of smoke! It's nothing to the staleness of the stories to which four self-respecting smoking-room walls have to listen in the course of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... of each other; a chance which Miss Powder improved with manifest satisfaction. She was a wax-Madonna sort of beauty, with a sweet face, fair, pure, placid, but either somewhat impassive or quite self-contained in its character. Her figure was good, her few words showed her not ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... accustomed to think. Her mind resembles a body that is weak, not by nature, but from want of exercise; and the number of years she has passed in a convent has given her that mixture of childishness and romance, which, my making frivolities necessary, renders the mind incapable of exertion or self-support. ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... met. It might have been this morning, so lively and overwhelming is the recollection. I am impatient for his kisses, for his blonde loveliness, for his whole self,—just as if we hadn't loved and kissed ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer
... sorrow was in store for Louise, though she came from the ordeal with flying colours, and once more the grand self-sacrificing nature of the young woman shone out conspicuous amidst its surroundings of sordid self-interest. It was in this way. The nephew of Van Zwanenburg, with the approval of his uncle, wooed and eventually obtained ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... heard of what is called 'European necessity?'" observed the honest Measuring Tape. "One must be able to adapt one's self to time and circumstances, and if there is a law that the 'maiden' is to be called 'hand-rammer,' why, she must be called 'hand-rammer,' and no pouting will avail, ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... business man who is said to understand the "world" and his fellow-men, has commonly no knowledge of human nature in the larger sense, but merely knows from observation how the average man of a certain limited class is likely to act within a narrow prescribed sphere of self-seeking. Town life, then, strongly favours the education of certain shallow forms of intelligence. In actual attainment the townsman is somewhat more advanced than the countryman. But the deterioration of physique which accompanies this gain causes a weakening of mental fibre: the potentiality ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... was the religious brotherhood, or congregation, of men and women brought together in the bonds of a common religious faith. By one of the strange fortunes of history, this institution, founded in the early days of Christianity, proved to be a potent force in the origin and growth of self-government in a land far away from Galilee. "And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul," we are told in the Acts describing the Church at Jerusalem. "We are knit together as a body ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... resignation and softness of the Russian nature that all its characteristic virtues spring. Whereas religion with the English mind is largely an anxiety to be moral, to be right and righteous, to be 'a chosen vessel of the Lord,' religion with the Russian implies a genuine abasement and loss of self, a bowing before the will of Heaven, and true brotherly love. The Western mind rises to greatness by concentrating the will-power in action, by assertion of all its inner force, by shutting out forcibly whatever might dominate or distract or weaken it. But ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... would keep their bellies full, but they were well-nigh worthless even with a leader, and, without a leader, of no good at all. Flitter Bill must find a leader for them, and anywhere than in his own fat self, for a leader of men Bill was not born to be, nor could he see a leader among the men before him. And so, standing there one early morning in the spring of 1865, with uplifted gaze, it was no surprise to him—the coincidence, indeed, became at once one of the articles of perfect faith in his ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... knew that he would have to go and open the front door. Both humanity and self-interest urged him to go instantly. For the visitant was assuredly the doctor, come at last to see the sick man lying upstairs. The sick man was Henry Leek, and Henry Leek was Priam Farll's bad habit. While somewhat of a rascal (as his master guessed), Leek was a very perfect valet. ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... often-repeated writings and declamations. The assertion is true. Christianity furnishes the true basis for raising up character; but the foundation must be laid in a very different manner from that which is commonly practiced. * * * We can, indeed, scarcely conceive of the purity, the self-denial, and the power that might be given to ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew |
