"Self-esteem" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... everything she did not know, the other's quick appreciation and ready intelligence. His heart sank when he thought that he might have been tied for life to such a woman as Mildred. One evening he told Norah the whole story of his love. It was not one to give him much reason for self-esteem, and it was very pleasant to receive such ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... within cycle without end,—yet all revolving around one far-distant centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically suppose in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... than a piece of court furniture. Any one who is familiar with the appalling frankness and unvarnished brusquerie of grown-up Danes can judge whether the hazing and horse-play on a Danish man-of-war was agreeable, and whether it was medicinal in a case of congenital self-esteem. Prince Karl lived the life of an ordinary middy, scrubbed decks, mended his own clothes, slept in a hammock, and ate provender which was anything but fit to set before a king. It is recorded of ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... fineness of his genius. It is strange how much the lack of a single ingredient in a man's moral constitution—and that, too, an ingredient in itself of a low and vulgar cast—may affect one's whole destiny. It was the grand defect of this gifted man, that that sentiment of self-esteem, which seems in many instances so absurd and ridiculous a thing, and which some, in their little wisdom, would so fain strike out from among the components of human character, was almost wholly awanting. As the minister of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... however he might admire the art of Ovid and poets of Ovid's sort, he soon learnt to dislike their morals and turned from them to the "sublime and pure thoughts" of Petrarch and Dante. And his "reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was or what I might be (which let envy call pride) . . . kept me still above those low descents of mind beneath which he must deject and plunge himself that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitutions." ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... really unaccountable manner. So that, frankly, he fought shy of finding himself alone with Damaris again. She seemed so constantly to betray him into ill-regulated feeling, ill-considered speech and action, which tended to endanger the completeness of his self-esteem. Therefore, although admitting his attitude to be scantily heroic, he welcomed the prospect of the ferryman's chaperonage until such time as her father or her discarded lady-in-waiting, the innocent and pink-nosed Bilson, should ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bladdery swell of management.' It is already passing away. He does not speak from jealousy, for nobody ever courted fame 'with less solicitude than I.' But for all that, there will come a time! He knows it on a surer ground than vanity. Let us hope that this little salve to self-esteem never lost its efficacy. Surely of all prayers the most injudicious was that of Burns, that we might see ourselves as others see us. What would become of us? Richardson, as we might expect, was highly esteemed by Young of the 'Night Thoughts,' and by Johnson, to both of whom ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... test in a manner which would not have been possible to any man unless endowed not merely with great abilities, but with the highest degree of moral courage and honesty of purpose. He preserved his own self-esteem, and by his unswerving honesty and loyalty gained that of the partisans on both sides ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... his cousin, in all the insolence of her young beauty and vigorous self-esteem, had shown for him had been mutual. He had instinctively felt that she was an enemy, and more than that—a danger to him. This danger was now removed from his path, and by no intervention or even desire ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... good deal of a fellow already, but at the sight of her welcoming smile his self-esteem almost caused him to explode. What magic there is in a girl's smile! It is the raisin which, dropped in the yeast of male ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... and the aim of Mr. Adams was to point out to his countrymen the danger to be apprehended from factions and ill-balanced forms of government. In these essays he maintained that as the great spring of human activity, especially as related to public life, was self-esteem, manifested in the love of superiority and the desire of distinction, applause, and admiration, it was important in a popular government to provide for the moderate gratification of all of them. He therefore advocated a liberal ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... in such a manner, would have been a proud memorial at any time, but at such a time, 'when all the world and his wife,' as the proverb goes, were trying to trample upon me, was something still more complimentary to my self-esteem. Had it been a common criticism, however eloquent or panegyrical, I should have felt pleased, undoubtedly, and grateful, but not to the extent which the extraordinary good-heartedness of the whole proceeding must induce in any mind capable of such sensations. ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... the party from Italy had arrived in England. Nora had explained everything about herself,—how impossible it had been for her not to love Hugh Stanbury; how essential it had been for her happiness and self-esteem that she should refuse Mr. Glascock; how terrible had been the tragedy of her sister's marriage. Lady Milborough spoke of the former subject with none of Lady Rowley's enthusiasm, but still with an evident partiality for her ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... of madness have presented themselves as yet. You may, I think, produce him at the Trial, without fear of consequences. He may say and do all sorts of odd things; but he has his mind under the control of his will, and you may trust his self-esteem to exhibit him in the character of a ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... scientific natural history as distinguished from comic story telling. His author is not throwing a stone at a creature of another and inferior order, but making a confession, with the effect that the stone hits everybody full in the conscience and causes their self-esteem to smart very sorely. Hence the failure of Lever's book to please the readers of Household Words. That pain in the self-esteem nowadays causes critics to raise a cry of Ibsenism. I therefore assure them that the sensation first came to me from ...
— Bernard Shaw's Preface to Major Barbara • George Bernard Shaw
... Could it have been Charlie Rush? Charlie Rush was in St. John's to ship for the ice with the sealing fleet. Pausing on the crest of Black Cliff to survey the crossing to Scalawag Run, he came to a conclusion in relation to Peggy Lacey's letter that was not at all flattering to his self-esteem. ...
— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan
... lower than his own, and marriage may only be contracted within the limits of his own caste. This rule he observes strictly, at any rate in public, from the earliest childhood onwards. But it conveys no moral obligation. On the contrary, it tends to self-esteem and selfishness. Nor does it often cause any serious inconvenience. Or when it does, as for instance when travelling, the exigences of modern life have brought about a number of small concessions to the strictness of the rule concerning food ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... "during the last nine months my self-esteem has been perforated with wounds, each large enough to kill the poor creature. My life here has shown me horrible faults in myself of which I never dreamed. I feel as if I had been ironed all over since I came here, and all kinds of ugly words in invisible ink are coming ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... favors from railroad managers and in return do their bidding, however humiliating this may be. The shipper, realizing that the manager's displeasure or good will toward him finds practical expression in his daily freight bills, finally loses, like the serf, all self-esteem in his efforts to propitiate an overbearing master. He is intimidated to such an extent that he never speaks openly of existing abuses, lest he lose the special rates which have been given him, or, if he is not a participant of such privileges, lest additional ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... ourselves with an effort, we easily make mistakes. We "call evil good, and good evil;" and self-esteem easily deceives us. But when we remain exposed to the searching gaze of God, that Divine Sun brings to light even the smallest atoms. We must then, for self-examination, ...
— A Short Method Of Prayer And Spiritual Torrents • Jeanne Marie Bouvires de la Mot Guyon
... and incontinently. "I imagine Reverend Pat wouldn't thank you for referring to him that way," he said. "He is a very high Anglican, and his dignity is marvelous—to say nothing of his self-esteem. Well, we'll see, we'll see. But, don't go yet! We're ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... vex Miss Dolly—which happened pretty often, for he could not stop to study much her little prejudices—she addressed him as if he were a Frenchman, never doubting that this must reduce him sadly in his self-esteem. ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... made Salt River so renowned in story, were such as to demand a less summary notice. He was stout, bandy-legged, broad-shouldered, and bull-headed, ugly, and villanous of look; yet with an impudent, swaggering, joyous self-esteem traced in every feature and expressed in every action of body, that rather disposed the beholder to laugh than to be displeased at his appearance. An old blanket-coat, or wrap-rascal, once white, but now of the same muddy brown hue that stained ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... of the Plumville Sewing Society were pinching the self-esteem of Phil Merritt and his two friends, and Phil's father and his uncle and his two grown-up brothers had gravely expressed their entire sympathy, even to the extent ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Devereaux who had received the rebuke with bowed head, "deal with me as you list. There is no penalty too severe to be visited upon me. There is naught that can restore self-esteem to Edward Devereaux. But, I beseech you, believe me when I say that I knew not until now that yon maiden was a boy only in attire. My lord, believe this, and you may do with ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... his self-esteem, and sheathed his sword. "I am destined not to fight to-night," he answered. "One adversary turns out to have a damaged arm, which would make it a disgrace to kill him, and the other puts me under obligation for my life. But, M. de Quelus, your arm ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... and the strange experiment in reconciling individualism with love apparently succeeded. Mrs. Godwin, for all her revolutionary independence, leaned affectionately on her husband, and he, in spite of his rather overgrown self-esteem, regarded her with reverence and pride. She was quick in her affections and resentments, but looking back many years later Godwin declares that they were "as happy as is permitted to human beings." ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... men's pride in ships. "Ships are all right," as my middle-aged, respectable quartermaster said with much conviction and some irony; but they are not exactly what men make them. They have their own nature; they can of themselves minister to our self-esteem by the demand their qualities make upon our skill and their shortcomings upon our hardiness and endurance. Which is the more flattering exaction it is hard to say; but there is the fact that in listening for upwards of twenty years to the sea-talk that goes on afloat and ashore I ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... revolving around one far-distant centre which is the Godhead, may we not analogically suppose, in the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring through self-esteem in believing man, in either his temporal or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which he denies a soul, ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... week or two he was ill, but he did not let Hermione know, and she thought he was sulking; there was a complete estrangement between them. She became rapt, abstracted in her conviction of exclusive righteousness. She lived in and by her own self-esteem, conviction of ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Through the dark medium of life's feverish dream; Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan, If but that little part incongruous seem. Nor is that part perhaps what mortals deem; Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise. O, then, renounce that impious self-esteem, That aims to trace the secrets of the skies: For thou art but of dust; be humble, ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... numerous documents which the Commission had to present devolved upon him, a labor for which he was well fitted in all respects save, perhaps, a tendency to prolixity. He did not, however, succeed in satisfying his comrades, and the criticisms to which they subjected his composition galled his self-esteem severely, so much so that erelong he altogether relinquished this function, which was thereafter performed chiefly by Mr. Gallatin. As early as August 21, Mr. Adams says, not without evident bitterness, that though they all were ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... a burglar! Maitland regained something of his lost self-esteem, applauding himself for entertaining a motive so laudable. And he chose his course, for better or worse, in these few seconds. Thereby proving his incontestable title to the name and repute ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Audacious self-esteem, with good ground for it, is always imposing. What resplendent beauty that must have been which could have authorized Phryne to "peel" in the way she did! What fine speeches are those two: "Non omnis mortar," and "I have taken all knowledge to be ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public work for nothing. Now that the Squire had resuscitated the stocks, and made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish to put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been wounded by the Parson's opposition; and it would be a justification to his own forethought, and a triumph over the Parson's understanding, if he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the stocks had not been repaired ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... longer looked as if she belonged to any respectable person. She had not the appearance of a virtuous woman's maid. She lost the aspect of a servant who, by dint of displaying her self-esteem and self-respect even in her garb, reflects in her person the honor and the pride of her masters. From day to day she sank nearer to the level of that abject, shameless creature whose dress drags in the gutter—a ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... pretty well pleased with myself as I drove home. It seemed to me that I had solved the mystery of who killed Simon Varr, and it didn't injure my self-esteem any to think I had nailed the crime on the very person I had first suspected. Great work! I finally appeared before Jean all covered ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... over the evening newspaper, from the witty courtier down to his philosophic lackey, each one revises Montesquieu with the self-sufficiency of a child which, because it is learning to read, deems itself wise; where self-esteem, in disputation, caviling and sophistication, destroys all sensible conversation; where no one utters a word, but to teach, never imagining that to learn one must keep quiet; where the triumphs of a few lunatics entice every crackbrain from his ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... temptations worth counting, no interests to conflict with study, no vices—such vices as it offered were coarsely stripped of any imaginative glamourfull drunkenness, clumsy leering shameful lust, no social intercourse even to waste one's time, and on the other hand it would minister greatly to the self-esteem of a conspicuously industrious student. One was marked as "clever," one played up to the part, and one's little accomplishment stood out finely in one's private reckoning against the sunlit small ignorance of that agreeable place. One went with an ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... an easy one,' says an amiable lady-friend of mine, who has just become a grandmother. 'Gudbrand's wife is the one to imitate, not only on account of her prudence, but for her worth. You men are much more amusing than you fancy: when your own self-esteem is at stake, you love truth and justice about as much as bats love a glare of light. The greatest enjoyment these gentlemen experience is in pardoning us when they are guilty, and in generously offering to overlook our errors when they alone are in the wrong. The wisest thing we can do ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... table, and read in them a sign of warning. Did it awaken a sense of danger and put him on his guard? No; it rather stirred a feeling of anger. Could she not trust him among gentlemen and ladies—not trust him with Blanche Birtwell by his side? It hurt his pride and wounded his self-esteem. ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... the talk everywhere is of a new railroad and other improvements. One needs only to shut one's eyes and listen, to imagine that the town is already a real city. Mr. Elkins seems to be the center of this new civic self-esteem. The air is full of it, and I admit that I am affected ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... delightful, and the workings of his mind Have never shown the slightest trace of self-esteem behind; Nor has he had at any time a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... a strong appeal to every womanly woman. She sees in them a call to her nobility of soul, to the mother that is a part of her spiritual nature—a call that gives her pleasant good-angel sensations, that soften her heart and flatter her self-esteem. To the Widow Clemm, with her self-reliance and her highly developed maternal instinct, the appeal was irresistible and between her and The Dreamer the ivy and oak relation was promptly established, while in the little Virginia he found a heartsease blossom ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... cling fast to the God of their forefathers, and to the righteousness which is sometimes slow in acting, but which never slumbers or forgets. "It proceeds according to eternal laws, unmoved by human pride and ambition. As the Greek poet of old said, it permits the tyrant, in his boundless self-esteem, to climb higher and higher, and to gain greater honour and might, until he arrives at the appointed height, and then falls ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... as free as the hills?" The quiet voice of Jean searched out the tenderest places in the self-esteem of Robert Grant Burns. She tossed the blank-loaded gun back upon the ground and turned to her horse. "It does seem hard to impress it upon city people that we savages do have a few rights in this country. We should have policemen ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... were disconcerted because he towered above their heads, and the halo with which they had surrounded him dazzled their eyes. They had wished to make a lion of James, and his modest resistance wounded their self-esteem; it was a relief to learn that he was not worth making a lion of. Halo and pedestal were quickly demolished, for the golden idol had feet of clay, and his late adorers were ready to reproach him because he had not accepted with proper humility the gifts ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... contemplation of the world to come, and the cultivation of his relation to it, (pure religion.) The other sentiments may be briefly enumerated, their names being sufficient in general to denote their functions— firmness, hope, cautiousness, self-esteem, love of approbation, secretiveness, marvellousness, constructiveness, imitation, combativeness, destructiveness, concentrativeness, adhesiveness, love of the opposite sex, love of offspring, alimentiveness, and love of life. Through these faculties, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... Ferdinand at Madrid. Such was the adversary, with such advantages of nationality and of person, against whom Francis I., without any political necessity, and for the sole purpose of indulging an ambitious vision and his own kingly self-esteem, was about to engage in a struggle which was to entail a heavy burden on his whole life, and bring him not in triumph to Constantinople, but in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... questions were proposed to her on points of casuistical divinity; two-edged questions which not one of themselves could have answered without, on the one side, landing himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the other, in some presumptuous expression of self-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican that pressed her with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every one of its miracles with unsoundness. The monk had the excuse of never having read the Bible. M. Michelet has no such ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... self-esteem for kindly gentleness is but a fancy vain! Thy charms that they can match the olea or orchid, but thoughts inane! While an actor will, envious lot! with fortune's smiles be born, A youth of noble birth will, strange to say, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... endurance of another kind. For from the setting of the sun till it had come again to the eastern horizon, he stood all night with hands uplift to heaven, neither soothed with sleep nor conquered by fatigue. But in toils so great, and so great a magnitude of deeds, and multitude of miracles, his self-esteem is as moderate as if he were in dignity the least of all men. Beside his modesty, he is easy of access of speech, and gracious, and answers every man who speaks to him, whether he be handicraftsman, beggar, or rustic. And from the ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... He dissembled his diminished self-esteem, however, most successfully, as he proceeded to the desk of the auctioneer's clerk, filled in a cheque for the amount of his purchase, and gave instructions for ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... Caroline lacks intellect, she is dull, she can neither joke nor reason, sometimes she has little tact. You are frightened. You find yourself forever obliged to lead this darling through the thorny paths, where you must perforce leave your self-esteem in tatters. ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... is a yet greater thing, a benefit, by the side of which even these—great as they are—appear almost insignificant. To take a man who is sinking in the moral slough and has no courage left to rise out of it; to give him back his lost self-esteem, that jewel without which health and wealth are of little avail; to put him in a position once more to look his fellow-men straight in the eye; to place him morally on the sun-lit levels; to put him morally on his feet—this assuredly is the supreme benefit, and ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... themselves, so that, when they became men, they defended their opinions against imposing opposition. True, a youth must not be too forward in advancing his ideas, especially if they do not harmonize with those of older persons. Self-esteem and self-confidence should be guarded against. Still, in avoiding these evils, he is not obliged to believe anything just because he is told so. It is better for him to understand the reason of things, and believe them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... course he was greatly interested in the life of his own species at that time; he loved part of it, he hated part; but he was no friend to either. By and by he grew older. Age removed a good deal of his vanity, and I suppose it forced him to part with some portion of his self-esteem. But I was growing older myself and no doubt getting physically a little helpless. I suppose I made senile noises when I dressed and undressed, expressive of my decorative labors. This may have been the reason; possibly not; but at any rate about this time he conceived it his duty ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... an occasion to abase myself—" He broke off, conscious of a grossness of allusion that seemed, on a closer approach, the real obstacle to full expression. But the moments were flying, and for his self-esteem's sake he must find some way of making her share the ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... "secretly entrapped" into conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and had since entered a convent. His affections had been deeply wounded by this loss to the range of them. Mr. Emlyn had also his little infirmities of self-esteem rather than of vanity. Though he had seen very little of any world beyond that of his parish, he piqued himself on his knowledge of human nature and of practical affairs in general. Certainly no man had read more about them, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a sense of pleasure impending. It was many months since she had felt so important and so sure of herself. Her self-esteem had received more than one blow of late. Bowman had attempted to persuade her to take "The Bad Little Lady" on the road; Magsie had indignantly declined. He had then offered her a poor part in a summer farce; about this Magsie had not yet ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... self-conceit! That there gas-head of yourn'll take yuh right up amongst the clouds some day, and you won't need no flyin' machine, neither! Skyrider—is—right!" Accidentally Johnny had touched Bud's self-esteem in a tender spot. "And that's no kidding, either!" he clinched his meaning. "Punch a hole in yore skelp, and I'll bet that big haid of yourn would wizzle all up like them red balloons they sell ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... remarked as they drove down, upon the rarity of good humour in life. One friend mentioned by Boswell was, he said, acid, and another muddy. At last, stretching himself and turning with complacency, he observed, "I look upon myself as a good-humoured fellow"—a bit of self-esteem against which Boswell protested. Johnson, he admitted, was good-natured; but was too irascible and impatient to be good-humoured. On reaching Cambridge's house, Johnson ran to look at the books. "Mr. Johnson," said Cambridge politely, "I am going with your pardon to accuse myself, for I ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... true zero hour, desolate, gloom-ridden, and specter-haunted, occurs immediately before dinner while we are waiting for that cocktail. It is then that, stripped for a brief moment of our armor of complacency and self-esteem, we see ourselves as we are,—frightful chumps in a world where nothing goes right; a gray world in which, hoping to click, we merely get the raspberry; where, animated by the best intentions, we nevertheless succeed in perpetrating ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... harsh-featured man, of the middle ago, with an air of corresponding arrogance and assumption. The other, who was still more elderly, was a thick-set and rather portly personage, of that quiet, reserved, and somewhat haughty demeanor, which usually belongs to men of much self-esteem, and of an unyielding, opinionated disposition. The ladies were both young, and in the full bloom of maidenly beauty. But their native characters, like those of their male companions, seemed to be very strongly contrasted. The one seated on the left was fair, extremely fair, indeed; ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... had to study the stock-lists and ask brokers," Harry replied. He looked brighter. This little reinstatement in his self-esteem acted like a tonic. In some fashion Ida always kept him alive to his own deficiencies, and that was not good for a man who was naturally humble-minded. Harry sat up straighter. He looked at Maria with brighter eyes as she continued reading. "Now that is a good investment," ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... felt injured in his self-esteem, and, turning his back upon the hen, addressed himself to a ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... heard. But how she controlled her feelings, how she remained and made no sign, she never knew. But that the instinct of self-esteem was one of her strongest passions, the dread of detection in proportion to it, she never had remained. There she was, and she could not get away again. The subtle dexterity which had served her in coming might desert her in returning. Had their senses been ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... indeed cured, monsieur. A new bit of finery is the best of balms for wounded self-esteem, is it not, Blanche? I confess I am piqued; I had dared to imagine that my squire might remember me still after a month of absence. I should have known it too much to ask of mortal man. Not till the rivers run up-hill ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... scheme of things, the compromises that she might be forced into accepting in order to insure its continuance; not definite and soul-searing compromises, it was true, but petty, irritating trucklings which wear down self-esteem. ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... eyes were deep set and looked at one with great intensity. There was power in his individuality, and, besides shrewd sense, he possessed a considerable gift for mechanics. His boundless self-esteem was not devoid of greatness, and the emphasis with which both body and soul proclaimed themselves made him one of the originals ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... sometimes found more than his match. Some thought it not a very hard matter to "pull the wool over his eyes." The question has more than once been asked, "Is it possible that he can be so befogged?" Why not? He is an old man, between seventy and eighty, of great self-esteem, perhaps entering his dotage. If such a man be placed in so responsible a position, ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... of the spit, supported by his adherents, was bound to succeed in bestowing his bird in the fire-place. It was a genuine battle, although they abstained from striking one another, and there was no anger in it. But they pushed and squeezed one another with such violence, and there was so much self-esteem at stake in that conflict of muscular strength, that the results might be more serious than they seemed to be amid the laughter and the singing. The poor old hemp-beater, who fought like a lion, was ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... was a doctor; and had I been consulted, my father should have been at least an officer in one of his majesty's services, not a treader of dung or artificial manure!" The root of his folly lay in the groundless self-esteem of the fellow; fostered, I think, by a certain literature which fed the notion, if indeed it did not plainly inculcate the duty of rising in the world. To such as he, the praise of men may well seem the patent of their nobility; but the man whom we call The Saviour, ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald
... all went well. The tray was placed safely on a little table beside the bed, and Katy sat watching Cousin Helen eat her supper with a warm, loving feeling at her heart. I think we are scarcely ever so grateful to people as when they help us to get back our own self-esteem. ...
— What Katy Did • Susan Coolidge
... basis. Then he returned to London, wrote more novels, and saved a fortune for his descendants, who promptly spent it. Evidently it was a family trait. More and more he lived on his nerves, grew imperious, exacting, till he separated from his wife and made wreck of domestic happiness. The self-esteem of which he made comedy in his novels was for him a tragedy. Also he resumed the public readings, with their false glory and nervous wear and tear, which finally brought ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the same, and by now Mr. Tebrick had been through all the agonies of wounded self-esteem, disillusionment and despair that a man can suffer. But though his emotions rose up in his heart and nearly stifled him he showed no sign of them to her, neither did he abate one jot his tenderness and consideration for his vixen. At breakfast he tempted ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... these points in his mind, he began to grope that part of his head which had come in contact with Owen Connor's cudgel. He had strong surmises that a bump existed, and on examining, he found that a powerful organ of self-esteem ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... practise of real virtues; its object is the conservation of the human race, the happiness of the individual, the peace of mankind; its recompences are affection, esteem, and glory; or in their default, contentment of mind, with merited self-esteem, of which no power will ever be able to deprive virtuous mortals; its punishments, are hatred, contempt, and indignation; which society always reserves for those who outrage its interests; from which even the most powerful can never ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... perfectly willing to be looked upon as your mistress; it is the only thing that would account satisfactorily to the world at large for your presence in this troupe of strolling players. And why should I care for slanderous reports, so long as I keep my own self-esteem, and know myself to be virtuous and true? If there were really a stain upon my purity it would kill me; I could not survive it. It is the princely blood in my veins doubtless that gives rise to such pride in me; very ridiculous, perhaps, in an actress, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the memory of words, which to them have no meanings, if, indeed, the writers themselves had any to express by them; a fact we regard as questionable, at best. There is hardly a teacher of grammar, whose self-esteem is not enormous, who will not confess himself ignorant on many of the important principles of language; that he has never understood, and could never explain them. He finds no difficulty in repeating what the books say, but if called upon to express an opinion of his own, he has none to give. ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... doubt, the most frequent and the most characteristic result of persistent and excessive masturbation is a morbid heightening of self-consciousness without any co-ordinated heightening of self-esteem.[340] The man or woman who is kissed by a desirable and desired person of the opposite sex feels a satisfying sense of pride and elation, which must always be absent from the manifestations of auto-erotic activity.[341] This must be so, even apart from the masturbator's consciousness ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... Self-esteem was abounding in the young Hebrew, and he did not hesitate to compare himself with others to his own advantage. At twenty-nine he wrote his sister after an evening in the gallery of the House of Commons, "Heard Macaulay's best speech.....but between ourselves I could floor ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... with such a world of longing in her eyes that the skipper, despite a somewhat large share of self-esteem, ...
— Sailor's Knots (Entire Collection) • W.W. Jacobs
... services of O'Connell have never been fully appreciated in this country. Engrossed in our own peculiar interests, and in the plenitude of our self-esteem; believing that "we are the people, and that wisdom will perish with us," that all patriotism and liberality of feeling are confined to our own territory, we have not followed the untitled Barrister of Derrynane Abbey, step by step, through the development of one of the noblest experiments ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... inferiority and reverence; but that, from the operation of a ten years' acquaintance, was considerably changed. Fanny had originally been far before her in literary attainments; this disparity no longer existed. In whatever degree Mary might endeavour to free herself from the delusions of self-esteem, this period of observation upon her own mind and that of her friend, could not pass, without her perceiving that there were some essential characteristics of genius, which she possessed, and in which her friend was deficient. The principal of these ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... gained that he sought nothing for himself; he was entirely free from any desire to be admired, or love of being thought much of, as he was from love of commanding for the sake of being obeyed. The great temptations to missionaries among savage people, as it seems, are to self-esteem, from a comparison of themselves with their European advantages and the natives among whom they live; and to a domineering temper, because they find an obedience ready, and it is delightful to be obeyed. Bishop Patteson's natural disposition was averse to either, and the principles of missionary ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quite unable to do justice. What was almost more wonderful still was the manner in which the Maid held her place among the captains, most of whom would have thwarted her if they could, with a consciousness of her own superior place, in which there is never the slightest token of presumption or self-esteem. She guarded and guided Alencon with a good-natured and affectionate disdain; and when there was risk of a great quarrel and a splitting of forces she held the balance like an old and ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... would not let the least sign of his old weakness pass. At times she felt that she was cruel, but she allowed herself to be harrowed, finding, perhaps, in the pain that she inflicted on both of them, something that was flattering both to her conscience and to her self-esteem. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... to such praises, Mr. Powis," she asked; "praises which only contribute to a self-esteem ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... individual, clad in indescribable clothing. In some former day the man's garments had been elegant and fashionable, but they were now dropping to pieces. Misery and debauchery could be read in every stain upon them, but the wearer seemed not to have lost a particle of his self-esteem. Standing proudly in a pair of boots all run down at the heel and riddled with holes, a greasy and misshapen felt hat perched on one ear, he daintily broke with the extreme tips of his fingers a piece from a penny cake, carried it to his lips with the delicate air of a dandy, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... second generation of Percerins. M. Concino Concini, and his wife Galligai, who subsequently shone at the French court, sought to Italianize the fashion, and introduced some Florentine tailors; but Percerin, touched to the quick in his patriotism and his self-esteem, entirely defeated these foreigners, and that so well that Concino was the first to give up his compatriots, and held the French tailor in such esteem that he would never employ any other, and thus wore a doublet of his on the very day that Vitry ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... The selfish, mean-souled, dull-witted human being, whose huge fortune, coupled with the masculine virtues of physical courage and straightness in matters of sport, made him not only popular but in a small way a personage! Pargeter, no doubt, would suffer, especially in his self-esteem; on the other hand, he, the husband, would feel that so had his own conduct, his coarse infidelity, his careless neglect of his wife, been ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... his comrade, no one rejoices more than I. But, my friends, the highest courage is not displayed upon the battlefield. The soldier's heroism is done under stress of great excitement, and his field of action is one that appeals to the imagination. It usually also touches our patriotism and self-esteem. The real heroes of the world are oftentimes never known. I once knew a man of culture and wealth who owned a plantation in some hot and inaccessible region. Smallpox in its most virulent form became prevalent among the negroes. Everyone ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... When we are confronted with great issues, it is our habit, or so we are fond of saying, to 'muddle through'. Foreign nations, and especially enemy nations, do not so describe our activities. But we are great self-critics, and not free from that kind of inverted self-esteem which makes a man speak of his own achievements with deceitful and extravagant modesty. The business of history is to tell the truth; the truth is that we muddle through with amazing success. This success we affect to regard as an undeserved reward bestowed by Providence on ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... conventional and time-honored nostrum, which is administered with a glow of moral self-esteem, and no more thought about it. When a murderer is sent to jail for life, or a bank burglar or white slaver or financial crook for his specified term, do we not sit back in our chairs and clear our throats ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... you reach the outer air—which will be in about a second—run home and plunge the extremities in hot water, and place a porous plaster on what remains of your self-esteem. ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... caring little for the others,[11] thoroughly trained in mathematics and geography; quiet, fond of solitude, capricious, haughty, extremely inclined to egotism, speaking little, energetic in his replies, prompt and severe in repartee; having much self-esteem; ambitious and aspiring to any height: "the youth is worthy of protection." There is, unfortunately, no documentary evidence to sustain the genuineness of this report; but whatever its origin, it is so nearly contemporary that it ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... great deal to say about himself in answer to the inquiries of Lady Annabel. He spoke with so much feeling and simplicity of his first days at Eton, and the misery he experienced on first quitting Cherbury, that his details could not fail of being agreeable to those whose natural self-esteem they so agreeably mattered. Then he dwelt upon his casual acquaintance with London society, and Lady Annabel was gratified to observe, from many incidental observations, that his principles were in every respect of the right tone; and that he had zealously enlisted himself in the ranks of that ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... Holmes met some cordial greeting at every turn. What a just, clever fellow he was! people said: one of those men improved by success: just to the defrauding of himself: saw the true worth of everybody, the very lowest: hadn't one spark of self-esteem: despised all humbug and show, one could see, though he never said it: when he was a boy, he was moody, with passionate likes and dislikes; but success had improved him, vastly. So Holmes was popular, though the beggars shunned him, and the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... and her unsmiling lips, the young man had a discomfited presentiment that she was laughing at him, and even the farewell she flashed to him over her shoulder had a hectoring quality in it that did not altogether restore his self-esteem. ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... Surgeon withdrew his detaining hand. "I'm not even touching your skirt!" he denied desperately. Nothing but denial and reiterated denial seemed to ease his self-esteem for an instant. "Why, for Heaven's sake, should I want to hold on to your skirt?" he demanded peremptorily. "What the deuce—?" ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... could match and conquer Britons! Indeed, I don't know which of the two deserves the palm, either for bravery or vainglory. We are in the habit of laughing at our French neighbours for boasting, gasconading, and so forth; but for a steady self-esteem and indomitable confidence in our own courage, greatness, magnanimity;—who can compare with Britons, except their children ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assaults of its enemies. Never in history was so sublime a vanity revealed; and it is hard for a stranger to understand upon what it is based. Chicago is Chicago—that is what its citizens say, with a flattered smile, which makes argument useless. Its dirt and dust do not disconcert its self-esteem. The oversized ugliness of its buildings are no disappointment to its candid soul, and if its peculiar virtue escape your observation, so much the worse for you. "The marvellous city of the West"—that is its own name, and it lives up to it without an effort. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... His self-esteem was at a very low ebb when Bob, dismissed from the infirmary, returned to his old quarters. Van was seldom depressed—so seldom, in fact, that the sight aroused in his chum nothing but an anxiety lest he be ill. Surely nothing but sickness could cause Van Blake ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... a series of brilliant and popular hairwashes. He is accustoming his clients to address him as "Professor"—a title which he has actually had conferred upon him from a quarter in which he is, perhaps, the most highly appreciated—for prosperity has not exactly lessened his self-esteem. ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... prompted her to put her in as good a light as possible before this man of the world, and her own self-esteem prompted her to show that, being a friend and relative of this rich lady, she was not ignorant of ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... to herself the good things which she saw others enjoying. It was not for want of being invited to the feast, for several of her father's curates had been ready to grace their frugal boards by her presence, and to crown her with the fillets of their dignity and self-esteem. The prospect held up to her by these worthy men had not allured her in any way; she had not loved their wine and oil, and thus she had remained rich, according to the promise of the seer, with the bread and salt of ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... sent to hawk it through the streets. This was certainly a remarkable achievement for a lad of his years. The eagerness with which both of the ballads were seized by the public must have greatly gratified the self-esteem of the ...
— Benjamin Franklin, A Picture of the Struggles of Our Infant Nation One Hundred Years Ago - American Pioneers and Patriots Series • John S. C. Abbott
... daughter-in-law, then in a dying state abroad. After that day, I met them frequently, and was at their house, when I could go. On occasion of my first visit, I was struck by an incident which explained the ridicule we have all heard thrown on the old poet for a self-esteem which he was merely too simple to hide. Nothing could be easier than to make a quiz of what he said to me; but to me it seemed delightful. As he at once talked of his poems, I thought I might; and I observed that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... could have held out long against the other's skill—for Ross possessed no illusions concerning the type of examiner he now faced—he was never to know. Perhaps the drastic interruption that occurred the next moment saved for Ross a measure of self-esteem. ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... Charlton felt that he had not made much impression on her. There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he should yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his own intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the more that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... natural tendency, Edward O'Connor had an additional motive. He lived amongst a society of sporting men, less cultivated than he was, whose self-esteem would have easily ignited the spark of jealousy if he had seemed to scorn the things which made their principal enjoyment, and formed the chief occupation of their lives; and his good sense and good heart (and there is an intimate connection ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... mean by this that you ever want to drive your men, because the lash always leaves its worst soreness under the skin. A hundred men will forgive a blow in the face where one will a blow to his self-esteem. Tell a man the truth about himself and shame the devil if you want to, but you won't shame the man you're trying to reach, because he won't believe you. But if you can start him on the road that will lead him to the truth he's ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... came to town. There was no one with whom she liked more to drink coffee, no one to whom she gave her confidence in the same degree; they shared the same liking for household management, the same deep-rooted self-esteem and the ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... making no charge for his services; and yet his occasional refusal to appear at certain of these concerts has been attributed—generally by ignorant persons, but sometimes also by others, who, as they knew better, must have been influenced alone by bad motives—to his possession of undue self-esteem, &c. But these unjust criticisms, although often causing him pain, could never swerve him from his chosen path. He would never lower his standard, and he always sought to enter the lists with those who contended for the highest prizes in art. The prominent position ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... strong than herself; at the first word of apology and self-condemnation that I uttered she silenced me by laying the whole blame upon the anxiety and fatigue to which I had been of late exposed; and when at length she had salved the wound inflicted upon my self-esteem by my recent loss of self-control, she set about the task of coaxing me to yield with at least an apparent good grace to the demands of the men— seeing that we were completely in their power, and could do no otherwise—in order ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... hurt immeasurably the self-esteem of the Gascon, who exclaimed, "Father, this woman is but a ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... the types which we have been discussing is the type of woman whom Dr. Leonard Williams's recent letter brought so distinctly before our eyes—the woman who is poisoned by her misplaced self-esteem; and who flies out at every man who does not ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... send sharp arrows of sarkasm and argument through his coat armor of dignified complacency and self-esteem, for truly his idees wuz to her like a red ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... Westray might not yet wish to forget. He had run full counter to his principles. It might be that he was resolved to take the consequences, and wear them like a hair-shirt, as the only means of recovering his self-esteem. No; whatever penance, voluntary or involuntary, Westray might undergo, Lord Blandamer could only look on in silence. His object had been gained. If Westray felt it necessary to pay the price, he must be let pay it. Lord Blandamer could neither inquire nor remonstrate. He could offer ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... The self-esteem seems a little exaggerated here; but, after all, it is only natural; the whole scene is taken from Shakespeare's experience: the man who will chat familiarly with his servant, and jest with him as well, must expect to have to pull him up at times ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... will seem the same as at a distance, or that our feelings, which are merely weaknesses, are naturally so strong that they will not suffer in an attack of the rudest of trials. It is equally as absurd to try the effect of self-esteem and to think it will enable us to count as naught what will of necessity destroy it. And the mind in which we trust to find so many resources will be far too weak in the struggle to persuade us in the way we wish. For it ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... peculiarities that had brought him to regard these Western folk as belonging almost to a distinct species. George Bancroft was an ordinary middle-class Bostonian. He had gone through the University course with rather more than average success, and had the cant of unbounded intellectual sympathies. His self-esteem, however, was not based chiefly on his intelligence, but on the ease with which he reached a conventional standard of conduct. Not a little of his character showed itself in his appearance. In figure he was about the middle height, and strongly ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... my whereabouts, my business in the house being of a sort that necessitated secrecy; whereas, upon the other hand, I could not but misdoubt my Lord's intention toward the unknown fair was of discreditable kinship, and such as a gentleman might not countenance with self-esteem. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... of benevolence in his head and his heart. Without that anterior depression of the sinciput, he could hardly have permitted two friends to walk into the fire in his stead, as they were about to do in the stupendous and horrible farce enacted in the Piazza Gran Duca. There was no lack of self-esteem either in the man or his head. Without it, he would scarcely have thought so highly of his rather washy scheme for reorganizing the democratic government, and so very humbly of the genius of Dante, Petrarch, and others, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... himself could hope to be, but because he understood him better. John knew that there were two tender spots in that moody King, and he knew which was the tenderer, pardieu! So Conrad's gross finger, guided by John's, probed the raw of Philip's self-esteem, and found a rankling wound, very proud flesh. Oh, intolerable affront to the House of Capet, that a tall Angevin robber should take up and throw away a daughter of France, and then whistle you to a war in ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... are silent; their gait is artlessly seductive; their voices unfold the melodious treasures of the most coquettishly sweet and tender tones. Praise of their beauty, based upon comparisons, flatters the most sensitive self-esteem. A movement of their eyebrows, the slightest play of the eye, the curling of the lip, instils a sort of terror in those whose lives and happiness depend upon their favor. A maiden inexperienced in love and easily moved by words may allow herself to be seduced; but in dealing with women ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... medium of life's feverish dream; Yet dare arraign the whole stupendous plan, If but that little part incongruous seem. Nor is that part, perhaps, what mortals deem, Oft from apparent ill our blessings rise. O then renounce that impious self-esteem That aims to trace the secrets of the skies; For thou art but of dust, be humble and ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... pondering upon ideas of the most somber philosophy, and I awoke to resume an existence without worth or dignity, in which I was losing not only my power of carrying out my design of reparation towards the phantom which haunted my dreams but all self-esteem, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... reason of his passing that way, was the first jolt Selwyn had received in his gathering arraignment against English social life. By way of contrast he pictured certain successful gentlemen of his acquaintance in America, and the vision was not flattering to his national self-esteem. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... lost what I am sure you will never lose, her own self-esteem. But, Hermy, you should be good to her. We must all be good to her. Will it not be better that you should stay with us for a ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... cigarette, the delectable frivolity of which contrasted pleasantly with his great age. He nodded affably to other priests as they passed, a pair of young men, and one obese old creature with white hair and an expression of comfortable self-esteem. He removed his hat with a great and courteous sweep when a lady of his acquaintance crossed his path. The priests basking in the warmth were like four great black cats. It was indeed a pleasant spot, and contentment ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... the most lovely girl he had ever seen, and that he was filled with grief at losing the delights of her society, might have been disagreeable to her, or it might not. But to have him even in the lightest way intimate that her housekeeping was preferable to that of his own sister nettled her self-esteem. ...
— The Girl at Cobhurst • Frank Richard Stockton
... crimes, and restore him, a new man, to the bosom of society. This principle is a great agent of morality, and was felt as such in the earlier era of Christianity: no corrupter is so deadly as despair; to reconcile a criminal with self-esteem is to readmit him, as ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her colours or a glove which he asserted that she had given him. Throwing himself in her road on every occasion, he expressed his passion by the most extravagant looks and gestures; and protected from the shafts of ridicule alike by his self-esteem and his prowess, did a hundred things that rendered her conspicuous and must have covered another than himself with ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... that Iago is keenly sensitive to anything that touches his pride or self-esteem. It would be most unjust to call him vain, but he has a high opinion of himself and a great contempt for others. He is quite aware of his superiority to them in certain respects; and he either disbelieves in or despises the qualities in which they are superior ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... they comprised all that was specially droll or quaint in these social gatherings, the members of which were a very commonplace set of men, who discussed their little local topics in very ordinary fashion, slightly elevated, perhaps, in self-esteem, by thinking how little the outer world knew of their dulness ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... their calls, whistles, signs, rally suddenly from no one knows where, and vanish in the alleys, basements, roofs, and corridors they know so well. Their inordinate vanity is well called the slum counterpart of self-esteem, and Riis calls the gang a club run wild. They have their own ideality and a gaudy pinchbeck honor. A young tough, when arrested, wrenched away the policeman's club, dashed into the street, rescued ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... little, walking swiftly the while, he began to make a rough inventory. He sorted out his injuries, catalogued them. It was perhaps his self-esteem that had suffered least of all, for he was by nature modest. He had a savage humility, valuable in a ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... salesman with a generous expense account may be, he went to San Jose on an early evening train that carried a parlor car in which Joe made himself comfortable. He fooled even the sophisticated porter into thinking him a millionaire, wherefore he arrived in a glow of self-esteem, which bred much optimism. ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... as a dove, full of piety and innocence and pure thoughts, my Soul brooded unaffectedly within me—I was only half listening to that shrill conversation. And I began to wonder, as more than once in little moments like this of self-esteem I have wondered, whether I might not claim to be something more, after all, than a mere echo or compilation—might not claim in fact to possess a distinct personality of my own. Might it not be worth while, I now asked myself, to follow up this pleasing conjecture, to retire like ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... either your face or head for X—— What good can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it's your own ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... thus vividly humiliated by the meanness of another, assuredly has in himself the wholesome salt of respect for the erectness of his fellows; he has the rare sentiment that the compromise of integrity in one of them is as a stain on his own self-esteem, and a lowering of his own moral stature. There is more deep love of humanity in this than in giving many alms, and it was not the less deep for being the product of impulse and sympathetic emotion, and ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... upon which I can ask anyone's advice,' he muttered to himself. 'The trouble with Kenyon is, he is entirely too modest; a little useful self-esteem would be just the thing for him.' At last he stopped suddenly in his walk. 'By Jove!' he said to himself, slapping his thigh, 'I shall do it, let the ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... and overweening self-esteem may be shown emphatically by the use of such selections ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... and since Jerry and his other guests were not expected until evening, we had a long afternoon of it together. We took a tramp across the country, and while Jack listened with great interest to my disclosures, I poured out my heart to him, omitting nothing, not even, to salve my self-esteem, my unfortunate experience in eavesdropping. I don't really know why I should have expected his sympathy, but he only laughed, laughed so much and so long that the tears ran down his cheeks and he had ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... returned to his master, who waited expectant in his study. The message was almost an affront,—such was his pride and self-esteem; and for nearly an hour he sat there pondering over the strange characteristics of the girl who, despite the story of her poverty and dependence, had so fascinated him. It cut him to the quick that she should ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... flattering to our self-esteem that the Austrian people should show a greater and a wiser appreciation of the theatrical capacities of Shakespeare's masterpieces than we who are Shakespeare's countrymen and the most direct and rightful heirs of his glorious achievements. ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... that dear idea. He would have dismissed her from his mind with the contempt she deserved, but, alas! he could not: she clung there like a burr not to be dislodged saving by possession or a beating—two shuddering alternatives—for she had become detestably dear to him. His senses and his self-esteem conspired to heave her to a pedestal where his eye strained upwards in bewilderment—that she who was below him could be above him! This was astounding: she must be pulled from her eminence and stamped back to her native depths by his own indignant hoofs; thence ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... themselves as a singular and separate people. In this respect they were not unlike the English puritans, in whom and their descendants, this passion for homogeneousness has always been thought a sort of merit, appealing very much to their self-esteem and pride. In the case of the French colonists, whether the fault was theirs or not, the evil results of being, or making themselves, a separate people, were soon perceptible. They were subjected to various political ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... fair, and say naught to wound their self-esteem, or to menace their authority—they will pardon much, if the last, in ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... could see that he had singled out Moshesh as the particular object of his attack, attracted, no doubt, by His Majesty's scarlet tunic. The king might of course have escaped by promptly wheeling his horse and galloping away; but his pride and self-esteem would have suffered a mortal wound had he been driven to flight in the presence of a white man, although there was a certain quality in his hurried glances to right and left that seemed to tell me that he meditated ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... unapproachable one to ours. We don't amount to anything, simply because we won't understand that we must receive the strength of Heaven into our souls; that it depends upon our degree of receptivity, and our using the added power that comes in that way; not in our taking our few tools, and our self-esteem and satisfaction with ourselves, and doing our little tricks like dancing dogs; proud because the other dogs can do one less than we, or only bark and walk about on their four legs. It is our souls that make our bodies worth anything, and the life ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... stricken with self-esteem at the sight of Gooja Singh's shame (for I always knew him ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... now by strictness of life equal the sanctity of the saints; as hitherto to the King, so did he now attach himself to the interests of the Church. It might, so we may suppose, be some satisfaction to his self-esteem, that he could now confront his stern and mighty sovereign as Archbishop 'also by the grace of God,' for so he designates himself in his letter to the King; or he might feel himself bound to recover the possessions ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... her grandfather consulted together, and while they were so engaged, Mrs Jarley with her hands behind her walked up and down the caravan, as she had walked after tea on the dull earth, with uncommon dignity and self-esteem. Nor will this appear so slight a circumstance as to be unworthy of mention, when it is remembered that the caravan was in uneasy motion all the time, and that none but a person of great natural stateliness and acquired grace could ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... of Fagette's shafts told. Nanteuil, with fiery cheeks, held back her tears. Too young to possess or even to desire the prudence which comes to celebrated actresses when of an age to graduate as women of the world of fashion, she was full of self-esteem, and since she had known what it was to love another she was eager to efface everything unfashionable from her past; she felt that Chevalier, in killing himself for her sake, had behaved towards her publicly with ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... confession once extorted from their antagonists, they ceased warring at once, and the siege of the city was at an end. If, with these facts before my eyes, I seem to be doing all I can to neutralise their high self-esteem, I cannot escape the reflection that personally I may be taught wisdom by a painful process. But with your own idea that under a single general there will be less factiousness than when there were many, be assured ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon |
