"Unselfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clearly the priceless nature of the gift which comes near their hand. No one would dispute the position that love is a purifying and transforming power; but love, conscious of its worth, loses the humility and the unselfishness in which half its power lies. Even Magdalen, the finest character in the book, is not free from a quality of condescension. In the great love-scene where she accepts Lord Lossiemouth, she comforts him by saying, "You have not only come back to me. You have come back to ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... have been a wonderful amount of unselfishness displayed, everybody cheering and trying to help every other body. One of the passengers—a cheery Teuton, named Adolph Herrmann—took a young American lady under his special charge. He helped her up the rigging and ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... friend was a certain Fraulein Sonnenthal, the German governess. She was a kind-eyed Hanoverian, homely and by no means brilliantly clever, but there was something in her unselfishness and in her unassuming humility that won Erica's heart. She never would hear a word against ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... finely-tempered speech by Mr. Justin McCarthy, which confirmed Mr. Dillon's frank expression of the Bill as a final measure of emancipation to the Irish people. The obvious sincerity of the speaker—the high character he has, his long consistency, and, above all, the sense of his thorough unselfishness, procured for Mr. McCarthy a respectful and even a sympathetic hearing from all parts of the House, and he had an audience ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... he did it mainly to save himself. It was the instinct of self-preservation that gave him inspiration to accomplish it. But she remained, and remaining she gave me the only food that fell to her arrow, while she starved. That was divine unselfishness—divine sacrifice." ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... sorrow to ennoble us, to call out in us pity, sympathy, unselfishness, most surely does He send for that end such a sorrow as this, which touches in all alike every source of pity, of sympathy, of unselfishness at once. Surely He meant to bow our hearts as the heart of one man; and He has, I trust and hope, done that which He meant to ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... secret heart to fear had found its limit and died out. Still, Hitty, out of her meek, self-distrusting spirit, never blamed Abner Dimock for his absence or his coldness; rather, with the divine unselfishness that such women manifest, did she blame herself for having linked his handsome and athletic prime with her faded age, and struggle daily with the morbid conscience that accused her of having forgotten his best good in the indulgence of her own selfish ends ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... mastery of mind? I accomplished my undoing! You need not ask how. I will tell you. I made this healthy, glowing Irish lass believe in the beauty of character which I insisted she possessed. I made her believe that she was a noble creature and that she was capable of fine womanly unselfishness. It was like the influence of the hypnotist. My own fanciful conception of her, at first described merely to awake in her the pleasures of admiration, became, when repeated, convincing to myself. I began to feel sure that she had the rare ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... that they should. You will find as you grow older that the first thing needful to make the world a tolerable place to live in is to recognise the inevitable selfishness of humanity. You demand unselfishness from others, which is a preposterous claim that they should sacrifice their desires to yours. Why should they? When you are reconciled to the fact that each is for himself in the world you will ask less ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... endowed her. How perfectly her face expressed the goodness and gentleness of her soul! What a companion she would make to a man! What a lover! What a wife! Always soft, exquisite, tender, womanly to the innermost fibre of her being, and perfect in unselfishness as all womanly women are. How easy it would be to work if she were somewhere within call, ready to fly to him at a word! How glorious to go out into the world if he knew that she sat at home waiting—always waiting, with those eyes ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... to herself, "when the moment comes for me to leave everything, I will go, but he shall know that I am not doing it cheaply, simply for an evening's fun." He felt something of that too, and did not try to persuade her. He hugged his unselfishness; for the first time in his life it seemed to him that he wanted to follow somebody else's will; with the other women it had been so different, if they had not wanted to obey him he had left them. But indeed all through ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... that she never had a need that they were not ready to supply if they could. Not one of them would have thought of going to town without stopping to inquire what was needed at the village. As for Catherine Ford, she was fighting her way with native pluck and maternal unselfishness. If she had feared solitude she did not suffer from it. The activity of her life stifled her fresh sorrow. She was pleasantly excited by the rumors that a railroad was soon to be built near the place, which would raise the value of the claim she was ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... to learn unselfishness; though I sometimes think it would be quite as easy for the owl to learn to respect the independence of a mouse, or a cat to be ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... through reverencing that fetich word. Honour? There was no breach of honour where there was no deception, no pretence. Consideration for others? Who on earth ever dreamt of considering him—when to do so would cost them anything, that is? Unselfishness? Everybody was selfish—everything even. What had he ever gained by striving to improve upon the universal law? Nothing—nothing good; everything ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... sure that he should have mine for the asking. And yet, so perfect was my peace, that I hoped he would postpone the words that were to make us still nearer to each other. We had talked so much of love and of its rapture and unselfishness earlier in our acquaintance, that now it was come to us silence seemed the most ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... word got these painful associations! There are "martyrs" to the truth—witnesses who without dying testify to the divine streak in life; and unconscious "martyrs" who, by their simple sincerity, their unpretentious unselfishness, prove more than a bookshelf of theology. I have found "martyrdom" in the grip of a friend's hand, though if I had told him so he would have apologised for squeezing so hard. And is not every pretty woman a "martyr"—a revelation ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... evolution. At this important stage, he clearly comprehends, that the injury of one is the concern of all; that the perfection of all becomes the highest interest of each; that the unprogressive law of the survival of the fittest, is nullified and replaced by the higher law of unselfishness of the individual for the advancement of the race; that the dual nature of man, physical and spiritual, must be considered as inseparable, when dealing with the practical questions of life; that physical life, as the primary school of existence, is ephemeral, while the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... for their mother had all the tenderness, subtlety, and unselfishness of womanly natures, together with a certain characteristic of the female character. And whither that one defect led them, and by what gradations, it may be worth the ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... her own way she would still have married Ada to Yorke Clayton. When Ada told her that she had got over her foolish love, it was the mere babble of unselfishness. Feel a passion for such a man as Yorke Clayton, look into the depth of his blue eyes, and fancy for herself a partnership with the spirit hidden away within, and then get over it! Edith was guilty here ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... impression. My mother was a woman of a quick intelligence and of a specially attractive personality. To her we children owed a great deal in the matter of manners. My father gave us an excellent example in behaviour and in that gentleness, unselfishness, and sincerity which is the foundation of good breeding. My mother, who was never shy, and very good at mental diagnosis, added that burnish without which good manners often lose half their power. What she particularly ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... life was full of pleasurable excitement; and perhaps it was only natural that, now he had decided to forsake it, the monotonous humdrum fisher's life became almost unbearably irksome to him. Old Bill Maskell was not slow to observe this, and with the unselfishness which was so eminently characteristic of him, though he loved the lad as his own soul, he decided to shorten for him as far as possible the weary time of waiting, and send ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... This absolute unselfishness and extreme consideration for others was characteristic of the man. I saw much of him in the years following, and found in him the most exquisitely refined and gentle nature I have ever known,—one to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... consul, and emperor. Indeed, to them was due, to a certain extent, his later misfortunes, and his fall from power. The more generous he became, the more selfish did his brothers and sisters grow. For their interests he neglected his own safety and the welfare of France. His unselfishness was, indeed, his greatest selfishness; and the boy who uncomplainingly took his sister's punishment for the theft of the basket of fruit, stood also as the scapegoat for all the mistakes and stupidities and ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... in times of peace, the fair flower of her womanhood was forming. Like a white hyacinth she grew,—a lady to look upon, with whom, for loveliness, not a lady of the fort could be compared. Not one of them in courage or unselfishness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... seriously. The situation, however, was inevitably difficult. In his relation to the king, the governor was a feudal sovereign; in his relation to the people he was, by Penn's arrangement, the executive of a democracy. Penn himself reconciled the two positions by his own tact and unselfishness, as well as by a certain masterfulness to which those about him instinctively and willingly yielded. He proved the motto of his book-plate, Dum Clavum Teneam; all went well while he with his own hands held ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
... evening, who can blame them? If they deliberately find enough satisfaction for their needs in the company of a circle of men friends and the casual pleasures of the town, selfishness is the last epithet with which their behaviour can be charged. Unselfishness has been their curse. No sane person would, of his own accord, become the automaton that a Government office requires. Pressure on the part of relations, of parents, has been brought to bear on them. The steady employment, ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... UNSELFISHNESS. To be able to read of a neighbor's success without reaching for the harpoon. A man who will give his last cigar to a stranger and then go home and kick his wife on the shins because she spent forty cents for baby's ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... and three months later Mac himself had been incapacitated for life. Their longing for war had been fulfilled with a vengeance. True, war had brought them no good; but it had had many grand moments, power to strengthen character and inspiration towards great thought, art and unselfishness. Tragedy, crime and disease had also followed in its train, though, for his part, Mac thought that some good ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... of allowing, however. He might object, and did; but he was no match for her either in diplomacy or in fight, and her cajoleries were usually sufficient for her ends, without calling out the reserves behind them. In any contest between selfishness and unselfishness, the result ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... but still retaining her girlish slimness of figure, petite, dainty as a Dresden figure, her face lined with the care of years, but softened and ennobled by the unselfishness of those years, holding up my big hand, which would outweigh her whole arm; sitting dainty as a pretty old fairy beside a recumbent giant—for my bulk never seems so great as when I am near this real ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... out that this idea flattered and pleased him, and it gave her neither shame nor regret to indorse it. She loved no one but Julius, and she made a kind of merit in giving up every one for him. The sentiment sounded rather well; but it was really an intense selfishness, wearing the mask of unselfishness. She did not reflect that the daily love and duty due to others cannot be sinlessly withheld, or given to some object of our own particular choice, or that such a selfish idolatry is a ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... Minister, Sir Robert Borden, was due the splendid response to the call to arms of the Canadian people. He put duty before public applause of petty politics like a true Canadian. Future generations will do full credit to his unselfishness. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... pity of her friends already rang in her ears like scorn, mocking her because the one thing that had made her was now stripped away. Hers was not the nature to see the other side of it—the helpful nobility of self-denial, the heroism of unselfishness, the courage that stoically faces the narrow and sordid effort whose rewards are only in the future. No, indeed!—there was only a savage resentment in her mind, the inexplicable sense that somehow she had been tricked and cheated, and that he alone ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... regarding the consequences in another world instead of consequences in this.[196] Reward and punishment 'presuppose the notions of right and wrong' and cannot be the source of those notions. The favourite doctrine of association, by which the Utilitarians explained unselfishness, is only admissible as accounting for modifications, such as are due to education and example, but 'presupposes the existence of certain principles which are common to all mankind.' The evidence of such principles is established by a long and discursive psychological discussion. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... cheerfulness with which the people of San Francisco bore their cruel fate gave a lesson in courage and unselfishness to humanity. The magnificent generosity with which not only the people of southern and northern California, but of the whole country, sprang to the relief of the unhappy city gave a silver lining to the black ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... worthy object of life, to the service of a beautiful lady, and to winning her affection and grace. The influence of this view of life comes out in numberless ways. Love comes on the scene in shapes which are exquisitely beautiful, in all its purity, its tenderness, its unselfishness. But the claims of its all-ruling and irresistible might are also only too readily verified in the passions of men; in the follies of love, its entanglements, its mischiefs, its foulness. In one shape or another it meets us at every turn; it is never absent; it is the motive ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... enough of the absolute unselfishness and devotion of all the Leyden leaders, whatever their birth or station,—so grandly proven in those terrible days of general sickness and death at New Plymouth,—to be certain that with them, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... been said that Jane's only fault was that she was too good. I think she carried her unselfishness too often to a short-sighted excess, breaking down her health, and thus abridging her opportunities for more permanent advantage to those whom she would have died to serve; but it was solely on her own responsibility, and ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... swiftly becoming so ideal as to have little or no resemblance to the woman who had died. But eagerly she helped him in this building of Amy's memory. She dwelt upon Amy's appealing side, her lovable moods, her beauty and dash, her unerring instinct for pretty things, her unselfishness, her anxious ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... instance of a veritable heroine in history, from Joan of Arc downwards, who was not in her private life as sweet, as gentle, and as womanly as she was high-couraged and undaunted when the moment came that summoned her energies to the encounter. Unselfishness is the cause in both cases, you may depend. People that are always so dreadfully afraid something is going to happen to them think a great deal more of self than anything else; and the same cause which makes them tremble at imaginary danger for ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... were, and abandonment of his rights, which, in the story, is so amazing to the man of the world to whom it is first propounded, drew an exclamation of delight from both ladies—from Clementina because of its unselfishness, from Florimel because of its devotion: neither of them was at any time ready to raise a moral question, and least of all where the heart approved. But Malcolm was interested after a different fashion from theirs. ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... in Hawkeye. Whether he ever thought that if he could save her from ruin, he could give her up himself, is doubtful. Such a pitch of virtue does not occur often in real life, especially in such natures as Harry's, whose generosity and unselfishness were matters of temperament ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... strength, see vol. i.; popular insight, see vol. i., see vol. ii.; reticence, see vol. i., see vol. ii.; shrewdness, see vol. i., see vol. ii.; superstition, see vol. ii.; tenacity, see vol. i., see vol. ii.; unselfishness, see vol. i., see vol. ii.; women, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... He said. "They are making life complicated now. To lead a good life, to be happy, to manage the world only the simplest things are needed—Love, Unselfishness, Tolerance." ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... school, she had all the bright hopes and restless longings of a young girl, and her aunt did all in her power to make life pleasant and bright for her. She went out into society, and was a general favourite, owing to her sweet temper and extreme unselfishness. Then one came on the scene who attracted her heart from the first. He was an earnest, whole-hearted Christian man, a vicar of an East End parish, and it was his influence that made Agatha view life in a different light. She vexed her ...
— The Carved Cupboard • Amy Le Feuvre
... conscientious. She had determined that she would not marry him unless she was certain that he loved her, and to this resolution, as yet, she firmly held. Whatever her faults may have been, Mildred Carr had all the noble unselfishness that is so common in her sex. For herself and her own reputation she cared, comparatively speaking, nothing; whilst for Arthur's ultimate happiness ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... possessed me only an instant. I recalled the old Esquimau's unselfishness in wanting me to escape and leave him when he was wounded, and determined that, if I ever reached the Henry Clay ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... would not part with him, but kept him at home, and his abilities uncultivated. And there was a shrewd boy of nine years, instead of learning to work and obey, playing about and learning selfishness from their infinite unselfishness, and tyrannizing with a rod of iron over two women, both of them sagacious and spirited, but reduced by their fondness for him to the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... for a moment. It was necessary that, at least for a moment, the poison of some aeons should distil. There was need of savagery to say what she proposed to say. The voice of training, of civilization, of unselfishness, of friendship raised a protest. Wait then for a moment. Wait until the bitterness of an ambitious and unrounded life could formulate this evil impulse. Wait, till Mary Connynge could summon treachery ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... revolution, but does not believe that the present industrial system can be Christianised. There must be a fundamental change. Christianity is intensely personal, but its individualism is of the spirit, the individualism of unselfishness. He laughs grimly, in a low and rumbling fashion, on hearing that Communism is losing its influence in the north of England. "I can quite imagine that; the last thing an Englishman will ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... Conservative, and to give thanks. Good is so often done for the sake of doing good, not to right a social wrong—which should be the end of all goodness. Even then, so many people are content to do good from a distance; or if, perhaps, they do come among the objects of their unselfishness, they do so with, as it were, the dividing-line well marked—with them, but not of them, and with the air of regarding themselves as being extremely kind-hearted to be there at all. It is their "bit"—not to help on the peace, of course, ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... philosophic name for "almsdeeds." "A man ought not to hold exterior things as his own, but as common to all, that he may portion them out readily to others in time of need." This sentence, an almost literal translation from the Book of Politics, takes on a fuller meaning and is softened by the unselfishness of Christ when it is found in the Summa Theologica ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... think you live, but you don't. You go through life, seeking only to gratify your appetites, attracted only by material sensual pleasures. You ignore the best part of life—the pursuit of an ideal, a noble ambition, unselfishness, self-sacrifice. Really, Signor, I ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... manners were by no means rare in the rustic West. The manly courtesy of the true American is no exotic product; nor is the universal deference to woman peculiar to any single class. The farmer of the backwoods might be ignorant of the conventionalities, but the simplicity and unselfishness which are the root of all good breeding could be learned in West Virginia as ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... passing in his savage brain? Did he gloat over the unenviable position of his recent tormentor? Did he long to see Sheeta's great fangs sink into the soft throat of the ape-man? Or did he realize the courageous unselfishness that had prompted Tarzan to rush to the rescue and imperil his life for Teeka's balu—for Taug's little balu? Is gratitude a possession of man only, or do the lower orders ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... guests intoxicated; but this was not observed by them. They only believed that his hospitality was pushed a little too far,—so much so as to be rather annoying. But this was a fault they had observed in many, who were only trying to put on their best behaviour, and, considering its unselfishness, ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... all Doucebelle's unselfishness did not prevent her from feeling that she would almost rather have had any thing ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... home there is unselfishness, thoughtfulness, and love expressed. Meal time is joy time; it's the get-together period ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... grateful to us. Whatever opinion might be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there could be but one about the value of the example he had set to men of science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work. Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... brothers, Don Ferdinand, Duc de Soria, and Don Felipe de Macumer. Though betrothed to the latter, she married the former, in accordance with her wishes, the Baron de Macumer having generously renounced her hand in favor of Don Ferdinand. The duchess retained a feeling of deep gratitude to him for his unselfishness, and at a later time bestowed every care on him in his last illness (1829). [Letters of ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... kinder-hearted man than Admiral Darling never saw the sun. There was nothing about him wonderful in the way of genius, heroism, large-mindedness, or unselfishness. But people liked him much better than if he combined all those vast rarities; because he was lively, genial, simple, easily moved to wrath or grief, free-handed, a little fond, perhaps, of quiet and confidential brag, and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... the world for his cousin to be interested in the girl who was about to come into the family. It seemed also natural that Penelope should be attracted by her nobility of nature. He did not know till afterwards that it was this very nobility and unselfishness which Penelope saw could be turned to account for her own purposes. Mrs. Bartlett Glow herself would have said that she was very much attached to Irene, and this would have been true; she would have said also that ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... they pleased, because they knew well that you dare not face the world openly. There was nothing like that at the Walter Griersons'. They lived as people of position ought to live, as he, Jimmy Grierson, might have lived, had he not been a fool. And then, suddenly, he thought of Lalage's unselfishness and courage and tried to tell himself that, after all, it was worth while. But still, he never felt as he had felt at Ida's, that fierce longing to be back at Lalage's side, to fight the world on her behalf. London had broken his nerve rapidly, and was now breaking his health. Somehow, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... 28,696 are in the United States and 2243 in Canada. Another society of great influence, having a membership in America and the Old World of some thirty-five thousand, is the "Ministering Children's League," founded by the Countess of Meath in 1885, and having as objects "to promote kindness, unselfishness, and the habit of usefulness amongst children, and to create in their minds an earnest desire to help the needy and suffering; to give them some definite work to do for others, that this desire may be brought to good effect"; there are also the "Lend-a-Hand Clubs" of the Unitarian ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... "Unselfishness is sacrifice—Jesus was supreme sacrifice." ("Amen," screamed a voice.) "In your dark lives," he cried, "who is the King of Glory? Sacrifice. Lift up your heads, then, ye gates of prejudice and hate, and let the King of Glory come in. Forget ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... woman," he thought, knowing all the time what he owed her, remembering her courage, her unselfishness, her loveliness. "Curse her!" he muttered, amid the shadows confusing his ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... that in their completeness would make him a thousand-fold more effective and powerful in his own life, and hence in the life of real service and influence. And, in a case of this kind, many times the mark of the most absolute unselfishness is a strong and marked selfishness, which will prove however to be a ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Civil War he served under Prince Rupert and was present at Edgehill. On the 3rd of April 1643 during Rupert's attack on Birmingham he was wounded and died from the effects on the 8th, being buried at Monks Kirby in Warwickshire. His courage, unselfishness and devotion to duty ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... of white individuals who are practising with even reasonable approximation the democracy and unselfishness of Jesus Christ is so small and unimportant as to be fit subject for jest in Sunday supplements and in Punch, Life, Le Rire, and Fliegende Blaetter. In her foreign mission work the extraordinary self-deception of white religion is epitomized: ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... involves a continual practice of the presence of God; for we may be come upon at any moment for an almost heroic display of good temper, and it is a short road to unselfishness, for nothing is left to self; all that seems to belong most intimately to self, to be self's private property, such as time, home, and rest, are invaded by these continual trials of patience. The family ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... their reward. Man is not given that godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... poet had no conception of what we call a fanatic. His difficulties arise from this limitation of insight. He begins to write the play by making Brutus an idealized portrait of himself; he, therefore, dwells on Brutus' perfect nobility, sincerity, and unselfishness, but does not realize that the more perfect he makes Brutus, the more clear and cogent Brutus' motive must be for undertaking ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... people? Starving people and slaves, or people who are ugly and hateful, i.e., not really quite bright toward others, who impute mean, inaccurate motives to them, can only be patiently expected to have a very small area or even mote of unselfishness at first. A cross-section of our society to-day represents the entire geological formation of human nature for 40,000 years. We need but look on the faces of the men about us as we go down the street. All history ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the effect on the sinner's Karma would be a matter of minor consequence. The fact that every thought and act through life carries with it, for good or evil, a corresponding influence on the members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and unselfishness so necessary to future happiness and progress. A crime once committed, an evil thought sent out from the mind, are past recall—no amount of repentance can wipe out their results on ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... in Europeans but a long course of well-doing. They believe readily in the supernatural as effecting any new process or feat of skill, for it is part of their original faith to ascribe everything above human agency to unseen spirits. Goodness or unselfishness impresses their minds more than any kind of skill or power. They say, "You have different hearts from ours; all black men's hearts are bad, but yours are good." The prayer to Jesus for a new heart and right spirit at once commends itself as appropriate. Music has great influence ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... was almost more eager for it than my mother. It need not have surprised me, for even in the old days my father, though stern, had never been selfish, and now all the unselfishness of his nature had seemed to grow strong ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness all these other things would naturally come to us. This is what Jesus had in mind when He urged people to give and serve, promising that such giving and serving should be returned to them a hundred fold or more. Jesus never preached unselfishness or talked sacrifice as such, but only urged His hearers to look through to the end, see what the final result would be and do what would be best for them in the long run. Jesus urged His followers to consider the spiritual things ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson
... hearts were alive and our vision quickened, to see the grandeur of the work that lies before. We have some culture among us, but I think our culture lacks enthusiasm. We need a deep earnestness and a lofty unselfishness to round out our lives. It is the inner life that develops the outer, and if we are in earnest the precious things lie all around our feet, and we need not waste our strength in striving after the dim and unattainable. Women, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... appointed to him by his Father. In fact only now and then did he allow his own hunger to appear. Ordinarily he showed himself as the friend longing to help, but not seeking ministry from others; he rather sought to win his disciples to unselfishness by showing as well as saying that he came not to be ministered unto but to minister. He washed the feet of his disciples to rebuke their petty jealousies, but we have no hint that he showed that he felt personal neglect. His own ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... nursing them both. It was an unprofessional thing to do, but I could see they were not well off, and I assured the doctor that I could manage. To me it was worth while going through the double work just to breathe the atmosphere of unselfishness that sweetened those two sick-rooms. The average invalid is not the patient sufferer people imagine. It is a fretful, querulous, self-pitying little world that we live in as a rule, and that we grow hard in. It gave me a new ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... unselfishness of disposition, this loyalty to duty—accepting honors as trusts and burdens as obligations—this union of justice and faith that made William Bradford great and kept ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... days with her. After this visit, Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in Boston, "I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week.... She is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart. In unselfishness and benevolence she has scarcely an equal, and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power, which is something immense. Sometimes she fails in judgment, according to the standards of others, but in right intentions never, nor in faithfulness to her friends.... ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... are not intrinsic and original, they have been marked out by certain investigators as socially fundamental. Thus Heymans and Wiersma, two German investigators, set down as the differentia of feminine mental life (1) greater activity, (2) greater emotionality, (3) greater unselfishness of the female.[1] ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... What could an uncivilized mind say of our railroads, or magnificent cathedrals, our palaces, our splendor, our wealth, our works of art. They would be as difficult of representation as were the lofty aims, the unselfishness in living, the perfect love, honor and intellectual grandeur, and the universal comfort and luxury found in Mizora, were to me. To them the cultivation of the mind was an imperative duty, that neither age nor condition retarded. To do good, to be approved by their ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... street every day of our lives, but this, happily, is untrue. To attain the appalling preeminence in evil which thus involves the entire loss of a personality and the weakening of the developing individuality behind, a man must stifle every gleam of unselfishness or spirituality, and must have absolutely no redeeming point whatever; and when we remember how often, even in the worst of villains, there is to be found something not wholly bad, we shall realize that the abandoned personalities must always be a very small minority. ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... remember, Mr. President, that the American people have not had for fifty years a President who was not at this period in a campaign bending all of his power to purely personal and political ends. Your ideality and unselfishness are so rare that things need to be made particularly ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... his arms, and with difficulty and labor gained the temple. He bore her to the remoter and more sheltered part of the portico, and leaned over her, that he might shield her, with his own form, from the lightning and the showers! The beauty and the unselfishness of love could hallow ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... the two married individuals in their progress towards the harmonious adjustment of their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of sex cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be developed by any ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... unselfishness of the Padre had a greater power to stir Buck's heart than any other appeal. His sacrifice must not be permitted without a struggle. He knew the man, and he knew how useless mere objection would be. Therefore his duty lay ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... solely to revenue, would diminish the participation of their own countries in the commerce of the world, their advocacy and promotion, by speech and other forms of organized effort, of this movement among our people is a rare exhibition of unselfishness in trade. And, on the other hand, if they sincerely believe that the adoption of a protective-tariff policy by this country inures to their profit and our hurt, it is noticeably strange that they should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... the Forestry Department of better seed from the best named varieties. While this would be a long-range program it would be preeminently worth while. The forests of Ohio have all but disappeared. Organizations with vision and unselfishness must ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Thirty-Fourth Annual Report 1943 • Various
... considerable leavening of new members—young, enthusiastic and uncontaminated by the feuds and paltry personalities of an older generation. They brought, as it were, a whiff of the free, democratic air of the country to Parliament with them, and gave an example of fine unselfishness and devotion to duty which did not fail to have their influence on their elder and more cynical brethren. The feud between the Dillonites and Healyites had not, however, been ended with the general treaty of peace. ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... sense of relief and satisfaction. We were out in the open air once more, and I had triumphed; I was quite sure that she would tell the first person she met, for, as I have said before, she was entirely taken up with me, and to have kept me to herself would have required far more strength and unselfishness than she at that moment possessed. She walked slowly through the churchyard, feeling much pleased to see that the curate had just left the vestry door, and that in a few moments their paths ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall
... all the duty of keeping the windows of the heart open to the day and of "finding peace in love's unselfishness." ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... States Senate must have seemed a large prize to Lincoln just then—possibly the largest he might ever hope to gain; and it must have been a hard trial to feel it so near and then see it slipping away from him. He did what few men would have had the courage or the unselfishness to do. Putting aside all personal considerations, and intent only on making sure of an added vote against slavery in the Senate, he begged his friends to cease voting for him and to unite with those five Democrats ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... this morning, on reading of dear Jem's danger and safety. He is less accustomed to talk about his feelings than I am, in which I see his superiority, but partly because our tastes are in several respects different, chiefly because of his exceeding amiability and unselfishness. I am sure we love each other very dearly. Ever since his illness at Geneva, I have from time to time contemplated the utter blank, the real feeling of loss, which anything happening to him would bring with it, and the having it brought home close to me in this way quite upset me, as it well might. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by his sprightly wit and genial manners, made many friends. He had been there but six months when he was attacked by a serious illness. When the illness was at its height, and the life of the young prince was despaired of, an incident occurred which shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the unselfishness and affection of Babar. It is thus related in the ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... later years he did men, the qualities which he found to admire in Turk being vigilance, strength, courage, and constancy. With men, as with dogs, he is not lavishly demonstrative; rarely pats them on the back. But deeds of merit do not escape his notice or want his appreciation. The patience, unselfishness, and true nobility observed in this faithful canine friend of his boyhood days have many times proved to be lacking in creatures endowed with a soul; yet he has never lost faith in mankind, or in the ultimate destiny of his race. This I conceive ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... becoming clothes and smiling occasionally. But you were asking who the people are who draw the line. The nice people here just as everywhere else; the people who have been well educated and have fine sensibilities, and who believe in modesty, and unselfishness and thorough ways of doing things. You must know the sort of people I mean. Some of them make too much of mere manners, but as a class they are able to draw the line because they draw it in favor of distinction of character as opposed to—what shall I call ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... wholesomely, if the tea-napkins are not in order. Now, what is anybody to do with a heroine like that? I have known old maids in abundance, with pathos and sunshine in their lives; but the old maid of novels I never have met, who abandoned her soul to gossip,—nor yet the other type, a lifelong martyr of unselfishness. They are mixed generally, and are not unlike their married sisters, so far as I can see. Then as to men, certainly I know heroes. One man, I knew, as high a chevalier in heart as any Bayard of them all; one of those souls simple and gentle as a woman, tender in knightly honor. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... America which she was to retain for a century and a quarter after his death. His courage amid the difficulties that surrounded him, his fidelity to his church and country, his ability to understand the Indian character, his pure unselfishness, are among the remarkable qualities of a man who stands foremost among the pioneers ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... religion and the moral law are identified, but not in Hinduism. Brahmanical literature contains beautiful moral sayings, especially about unselfishness and self-restraint, but the greatest popular gods such as Vishnu and Siva are not identified with the moral law. They are super-moral and the God of philosophy, who is all things, is also above good and evil. The aim of the philosophic saint is not so much ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... mournful glimpses of the past—the days of his sore bereavement, when the coffin-lid was first shut down over Ellen Day's sweet face, and he was smitten to the earth with anguish. Then Margaret's sympathy and love, so beautiful in its strength, and unselfishness, so unwearying and sublime in its sacrifices, became to him a stay and comfort. And had she not, for his sake, uncomplainingly given up the best years of her life, as it seemed? Had her love ever faltered? Had it ever wavered in ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... a revelation, no matter in what place or land, if only they are in the path of duty, (3) Unselfish service always brings a blessed reward. (4) God's blessing and guidance are not confined to Israel but are extended to other nations also. (5) A noble ambition, courage, unselfishness and childlike faith in God's leadership make men valuable to others in every age and walk of life. (6) A man or nation without spiritual ideal and bent on physical enjoyment will soon become degenerate as did Esau. (7) Even a fugitive, fleeing from his own crimes, is ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... Emerson summed up the whole matter in one sentence: "The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment." Here is the whole secret in a single sentence. The restraining grace is "at last the moral sentiment." It is a fine genuine unselfishness that, observing how all these things may pain and wound, refrains from doing any of them. The man or woman or family who can avoid transgressing in these particulars can do so habitually only as the result of a fine moral sentiment underlying the whole nature. And those who possess ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... found, also, warm faith in the human, ardent idealism, sweetnesses of unselfishness, renunciation, and martyrdom—all the splendid, stinging things of the spirit. Here life was clean, noble, and alive. I was in touch with great souls who exalted flesh and spirit over dollars and cents, and ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... through numerous stages of vegetable, animal and human life, until at length he attained to the highest degree of manhood. Throughout the changing circumstances of his being, he is said to have exhibited a transcendent and ever-increasing unselfishness and charity, which culminated in his freely giving himself to be re-born as Buddha for the world's deliverance. And it is this belief, probably, which has been the most potent factor in exalting the Philosopher and the Guide to a height, which is scarcely, ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.
... is dedicated to the Boys and Girls of America, in the fond hope that herein they will find pleasure, instruction and inspiration; that they may increase and grow in usefulness, self-reliance, patriotism and unselfishness, and ever become fonder and fonder of their country and its institutions, of Nature and her ways, is the cherished hope and wish of the author. ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of amusement, for the attitude she had taken, and a feeling of reverence possessed him as he saw her in the new light which this revelation of her spiritual life gave him. "Nobody is good enough for little Mary Ware," he had said once, when she was a romping child. He was thinking of her unselfishness, her sturdy sincerity, her undaunted courage. Now he repeated it, thinking of her as this letter revealed her, a white-souled vestal maiden who took the stars as a symbol of her duty, and who would not swerve ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... "Rockefeller" seems too formal for his grandeur. Plain "John D." is best suited to express the admiration of his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about his head. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential and concrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a true artist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given him nothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotion which a lover shows to his mistress. Like other great men, Rockefeller has concentrated all his thoughts, all his energies, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... me, and so faithful, and long-enduring, I did in my dream ... in my dream, you mark ... something very un-maidenly ... and immediately we were both on the other side; and I awoke as you put me down at last and found you by my side, having, in your knightly unselfishness, ruined your hat to give me a drink of milk. And because you are the best man on earth, and also a blind silly goose, Oliver, and I must take some risk or lose my all, I am going ... to do the unmaidenly thing I did in my dream ... and ... you ... ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will wish to do nought but what is right. He is not under the law, but ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... stand up for life in general,' he added, rubbing his hands and chuckling, 'it's full of folly; full of something worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all that! Bah, bah, bah! We see what they're worth. But, you mustn't laugh at life; you've got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! Everybody's playing against you, you know, and you're playing against them. Oh! ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... choice he would have sought to preserve the amenities of life; but a meek man he was not, and the thing he now desired was, he considered, well worth the sacrifice of such small pretensions as his in the direction of unselfishness. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... most impractical men that ever lived, but in the exuberance of his nature and in his rare unselfishness he started a dozen social reforms in England, any one of which should have given fame to its founder. He gave away a great fortune in gifts to the public and in private generosity. He founded museums, established scholarships, tried to put into ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch
... always a risk lest a society, through spending its best too freely, end by recruiting its numbers from those in whom the engrained capacity to render social service is weakly developed. To rear a goodly family must always be the first duty of unselfish people; for otherwise the spirit of unselfishness can hardly ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... "The unselfishness of man's love in general, and of this man's in particular," he said; "and, for another thing, yourself. It seems a brutal thing to say, but if you believe that that hotheaded, undisciplined boy is capable of a sustained affection against ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... certain acts of fellowship of comrades who are all in the same boat and have learned unselfishness. When they got up to let you pass and you smiled your thanks, you received a much pleasanter smile in return than you will from many a well-fed gentleman who has to stand aside to let you enter a restaurant. The ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... possession there was nothing more to fear. It was only a question of time when Howard would be set free. But it was not in this girl's nature to be concerned only with herself. If she possessed a single womanly virtue, it was supreme unselfishness. There was some one beside herself to take into consideration—a poor, vacillating, weak, miserable woman who wished to do what was right and had agreed to do so, but who, in the privacy of her own apartments, had gone down on her knees and begged Annie to protect her from the consequences ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... wives of ours a little after the marrying is over. It may be they have deceived themselves, in the first place, but that scarcely affects their disappointment. These dream-lovers of theirs, these monsters of unselfishness and devotion, these tall fair Donovans and dark worshipping Wanderers! And then comes the rabble rout of us poor human men, damning at our breakfasts, wiping pens upon our coat sleeves, smelling ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... after the larger party with so cavalier an abandonment of her, when they knew her chair must go another road. Then she was very sorry that the doctor had seen good to forsake her; and felt that from the thoughtfulness or unselfishness of boys she had little to hope for. Look at them! there they went before her, putting more and more distance between them and the chair every minute. Perhaps they would entirely forget their little convoy? and be out of sight in a trifle more time. And in all that big party of pleasure, everybody ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... him, misunderstanding him, and really farther away from him than the diameter of the solar system. If, then, we wish to get near to God, and to know him, we must become like him. There must be love, tenderness, unselfishness. We must have the divine characteristics and qualities; and then we shall feel his presence, know ...
— Our Unitarian Gospel • Minot Savage
... may be the destiny of man that the social instincts shall grow to control his actions absolutely, even in anti-social situations. But they have not yet done so, and as the rules of law are or should be based upon a morality which is generally accepted, no rule founded on a theory of absolute unselfishness can be laid down without a breach between law ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... former and are absolutely incompatible with the latter. The former is the intensest realisation of which our individualities are capable; the latter is the way of escape from the limitations of individuality. It may be true that a few men and more women do achieve the completest unselfishness and self-abandonment in earthly love. So the poets and romancers tell us. If so, it is that by an imaginative perversion they have given to some attractive person a worship that should be reserved ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... and has bettered the condition of thousands of girls, leading them toward the light, cultivating unselfishness, a love of humanity, and a desire to help the world; it has given to all its members a deeper, truer, purer education than they could otherwise have obtained. While not strictly a beneficiary organization, it disburses several thousand dollars ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... have been comforted by you. You remember it is recorded of the Mary of Bethany; 'She hath done what she could.' For that act of gratitude to the Master, her memory will be cherished long after the sun is cold. We do not know if somewhere all our minutest acts of unselfishness are not recorded, to be met with one day with glad surprise ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... have given a more powerful proof of your unselfishness than by the very fact of attaching your ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... again. She was so certain of its impossibility; he was so confident of his success. With the sentiment of his humility, the unselfishness of his devotion, he might have won her even then. The pity in a woman is often minister to her heart. But pity left her when ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... used to watch Sylvie Barry with an interest and admiration that grew upon him. Her tact was something marvellous, born of a certain exquisite harmony and almost divine unselfishness. But of this last she appeared serenely unconscious. I think, indeed, that she was. A higher love and faith had interpenetrated her soul, her very being. Instead of agonizing introspections and lightning flashes to the inward depths of her nature, she seemed ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... continued very slowly, tracing a pattern on the rug with the point of the scabbard, "who was badly wounded in both thighs, but he held up his hands and begged me to help others first who needed it more than he. I did not at first heed his request, for this kind of unselfishness was very common in the army; but he went on, 'For God's sake, Doctor, leave me here; there is a drummer-boy of our regiment—a mere child—dying, if he isn't dead now. Go, and see him first. He lies over there. He saved more than one life. He was at his post in the panic this morning, and ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... letter was entirely superfluous, in which you mention what opportunities of doing good business in the provinces or the city you let pass at other times as well as in the year of my consulship: for I am thoroughly persuaded of your unselfishness and magnanimity, nor did I ever think that there was any difference between you and me except in our choice of a career. Ambition led me to seek official advancement, while another and perfectly laudable resolution led you to seek an honourable ...
— Letters of Cicero • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... childish faith and joys of children everywhere! Christmas Eve was fairly within view and welcoming hail, at last, in the thickening eastern shadows. Long Day at its close. Day in a perturbation of blessed unselfishness. Day with its tasks of love not half accomplished. And Day near done! Bedtime coming round the world on the jump. Nine o'clock leaping from longitude to longitude. Night, impatient and determined, chasing ...
— Christmas Eve at Swamp's End • Norman Duncan
... ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors—I ask you for her but a ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... infected its unworthy servants. Francis perceived that the only hope or relief possible to that age lay in a decisive spiritual revolution, to be effected without violence, which would recall people to the primitive simplicity, unselfishness, and absolute devotion of the time of Christ and the apostolic period. This revolution could be accomplished, he saw, only by a personal example so strong, so undeviating, so entirely free from self-seeking, that all men would be compelled to pause and consider it, and then to act ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... to finding answers to these anxieties and aspirations. We seek answers which will embody the moral and spiritual elements of tolerance, unselfishness, and brotherhood upon which true freedom ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... selfish motives," deplored Hippy. "How thankful I am that the sweet blossom of unselfishness blooms freely in my heart. It is true that I would eat all the cakes on that plate, but from ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... have known you, and it appears a beautiful dream—anxious sometimes, and troubled, but always with a golden future before it that almost bewildered the eyes. And what am I to say of your goodness, so unvarying and constant; and your thoughtfulness; and your great unselfishness and outspokenness? When was there the least misunderstanding between us? I could read your heart like my own. Only once, you remember, was there a chance of a shadow coming between us—through my own folly; and yet perhaps it was only natural for ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... it was his cheerful obedience to orders, his good-natured smiling alacrity—minus officiousness, mind you—his unselfishness and his bravery, that gained for Jack Mackenzie the proud ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables
... man;—he had been one of the first to attach himself to the unpopular and unworldly ministry of the celebrated Dr. H., and to appreciate the sublime ideality and unselfishness of those teachings which then were awakening new sensations in the theological mind of New England. Katy, too, had become a professor with her husband in the same church, and his death, in the midst of life, deepened the power of her religious impressions. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... unfriendliness to Islam. In fact, they must now endeavour to separate Islamism from politics. With the single exception of the occupation of Cyprus, which, as Lord Goschen very truly said at the time, "prevented British Ambassadors from showing 'clean hands' to the Sultan in proof of the unselfishness of British action," the policy of England in the Near East has been actuated, ever since the close of the Napoleonic wars, by a sincere and wholly disinterested desire to save Turkish statesmen from the consequences of their ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price. For all women there is something nobler than to be recognized as the queen of heaven. Let woman be content to be what God made her, to fill the sphere God appointed for her, in unselfishness, and humbleness, and purity, rejoicing in God her Saviour, content that He had regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden, and rejoicing that God has honored the characteristics regarded as feminine, which she possesses, and which she may use for the glory of God and the good of the race. Now, as ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the household gathers three times a day furnishes the chief opportunity for showing the results of good training, whether received in school or home. We show our unselfishness in preferring one another, ...
— A Little Book for A Little Cook • L. P. Hubbard
... It was of her father, and the heart-breaking sorrow that he would feel at her loss, that she thought at this dread moment! As this idea presented itself to me a world of admiration for such marvellous courage and unselfishness leapt into being within me, and, turning to her, I grasped the hand that still unconsciously rested upon my ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... marriage—with every effort at rejoicing and certainty of Mary's present bliss and probability of future happiness, it was the loss of a sister, and not the gain of a brother, and Mr. Cheviot did his utmost to render the absence of repining a great effort of unselfishness. And even with her father, her possession of Tom's half-revealed secret seemed an impairing of absolute confidence; she could not but hope that her father did her brother injustice, and in her tenderness towards them both this was a new and ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... out because his influence, politically, was a thing to be reckoned with. So Peter followed Judith, pleading Judith's cause; she did not understand, he told her, what she was doing; and while perhaps there was not another man in the country who would not honor her unselfishness in coming to him, Lorimer's chivalry was not a thing to be reckoned with, drunken beast that he was. And Judith, worn with the struggle, tried beyond measure, made reckless by the daily infusion of ill-fortune, pulled up the mare and ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... her spirit leave him, and he strove to follow its leading for the short and evil days left and the hope of the life beyond. I think I have never watched quietly and reverently the traces of one personal character remaining so strongly impressed on another nature. With herself—depreciation and unselfishness she would have been the last to believe how much of him was in her very existence; nor could we have realized it until the parting came. Henceforward, with the mind still there, but with the machinery ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... I don't care what the price is, I shall take it. I can afford it, and I will. Now then, consider this— and you've never thought of it, I'll warrant. Where is the place where there is twenty-five times more manhood, pluck, true heroism, unselfishness, devotion to high and noble ideals, adoration of liberty, wide education, and brains, per thousand of population, than any other domain in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not, then," I said, "believe wholly in the unselfishness of missionaries, the fair dealing of traders, the perfect impartiality of justice, as shown through ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... grew out of them had passed into a tradition. If morals were in reality not pure, nor principles severe, there was at least the vanity of posing as models of good breeding. Honor was a religion; politeness and courtesy were the current, though by no means always genuine, coin of unselfishness and amiability; the amenities stood in the place of an ethical code. Egotism, ill temper, disloyalty, ingratitude, and scandal were sins against taste, and spoiled the general harmony. Evil passions might exist, but it was agreeable to hide them, and enmities slept under a gracious smile. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... Excellency in one of your La Rochefoucauld fits (in Lent say, after too many balls) that not merely maternal but conjugal unselfishness may be a very selfish thing? There! you toss your little head at my words; yet I wager I have heard you say that other women may think it right to humor their husbands, but as to you, the Prince must learn that a ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee |
