"Self-assertion" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat without ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... the wise will profit and be preserved, while the fools only will be destroyed. And meanwhile, what if in these Saturnalia (as in Rome of old) the new sense of independence manifests itself in somewhat of self-assertion and rudeness, often in insolence, especially disagreeable, because deliberate? What if 'You call me black fellow? I mash you white face in,' were the first words one heard at St. Thomas's from a Negro, on being asked, civilly enough, by a sailor ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... etait dans un constant et flamboyant automne. Something of the colour and fever of autumn is in all he wrote. Another writer since Cladel, who has probably never heard of him, has made heroes of peasants and vagabonds. But Maxim Gorki makes heroes of them, consciously, with a mental self-assertion, giving them ideas which he has found in Nietzsche. Cladel put into all his people some of his own passionate way of seeing 'scarlet,' to use Barbey d'Aurevilly's epithet: un rural ecarlate. Vehement and voluminous, he overflowed: ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... uttering her own; possibly also to wait for others' deeds before her own doing. In her small, delicate mouth, which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves, there was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for her own good. She had well-formed eyebrows which, had her portrait been painted, would probably have been done ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Worship's pardon. We do not always get punished for disobeying the laws of nature. Nature's strongest force is self-assertion, and excessive self-assertion is vanity, and ...
— Duty, and other Irish Comedies • Seumas O'Brien
... room for it. You have described a callow fool, a self-sufficient ass, a mere human tumble-bug.... imagining that he is remodeling the world and is entirely capable of doing it right. Ignorance, intolerance, egotism, self-assertion, opaque perception, dense and pitiful chuckle-headedness—and an almost pathetic unconsciousness of it all. That is what I was at 19 and 20; and that is what the average Southerner is at 60 today. Northerners, too, of a certain grade. It is of children like this that voters are made. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Julius, "that generous forbearance, patience, fortitude, and self-renunciation, belong almost naturally to the true wife and mother, and are her great glory; but would she not be stripped of them by self-assertion as ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of those old Greek sages still brooded over them. Their charm lies in the fact that they are civilized without being commercialized. Their politeness is unstrained, their suaveness congenital; they remind me of that New England type which for Western self-assertion substitutes a yielding graciousness of disposition. So it is with persistent gentle upbringing, at Taranto and elsewhere. It tones the individual to reposeful sweetness; one by one, his anfractuosities are worn off; he becomes as ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... intelligent Negroes, encouraged by abolitionists, made so many attempts to organize servile insurrections that the pendulum began to swing the other way. By this time most southern white people reached the conclusion that it was impossible to cultivate the minds of Negroes without arousing overmuch self-assertion. ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... with a tone of self-assertion which grated a little on the Doctor's ear, in spite of his good-humour towards the speaker. "I don't want to go into that," he said. "A man never can say what his intentions ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... doubt, very horrible to see a man trample upon opinions and feelings as easily and carelessly as he would upon the grass, and go on his way undisturbed, but it is more painful to see faltering, trembling incapacity for self-assertion, especially before subordinates. Mr. Furze could not have suffered more than two or three days' inconvenience if Orkid Jim had been discharged, but a vague terror haunted him of something which might possibly happen. Partly this distressing weakness ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... is rotund, and if it were convincing might be impressive; but it fails to some extent in consequence of a certain smack of self-assertion which is unphilosophical. Suppose, now, that we have this matter out in a calm, dispassionate manner, without 'tooth,' or egotism, or prejudice, which tend so powerfully to mar human disputation and render ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... Fisher and their committal to the Tower a few days later caused nothing less than consternation in England and of furious indignation on the Continent. It was evident that greatness would save no man; the best hope lay in obscurity, and men who had been loud in self-assertion now grew ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... to the knight. He fills up, as it were, by his gentleness and self-sacrifice, what is wanting in the manhood of the knight, the slave too often of his own fierceness and self-assertion. The hermit rebukes him when he sins, heals him when he is wounded, stays his hand in some mad murderous duel, such as was too common in days when any two armed horsemen meeting on road or lawn ran blindly ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... sometimes takes on epileptic features and which in a number of recorded cases causes sudden death at its acme, from the strain it imposes upon the system. Its cause is always some form of thwarting wish or will or of reduction of self-feeling, as anger is the acme of self-assertion. The German criminalist, Friedrich, says that probably every man might be caused to commit murder if provocation were sufficient, and that those of us who have never committed this crime owe it to circumstances and not to superior power of inhibition. Of course it may be associated with ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... unable to express his new thought without using their old quaint expressions. Though these essays are all criticisms or appreciations of the life of his age, they are all intensely personal. In other words, they are an excellent picture of Lamb and of humanity. Without a trace of vanity or self-assertion, Lamb begins with himself, with some purely personal mood or experience, and from this he leads the reader to see life and literature as he saw it. It is this wonderful combination of personal and universal interests, together with Lamb's rare old style ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... to wrest my words,' replied Philip, in his own calm manner, though he actually felt hurt, which he had never done before. His complacency was less secure, so that there was more need for self-assertion. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the foil to Mary. His sullen, black selfishness, stretching out hands like talons in eagerness to get, makes more radiant, and is itself made darker by, her shining deed of love. Goodness always rouses evil to self-assertion, and the other Evangelists connect Mary's action with Judas's final treachery as part of its impelling cause. They also show that his specious objection, by its apparent common sense and charitableness, found assent in the disciples. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... with a desire to lessen the pain of the world. All her egotism, her self-assertion, her formless ambitions had got up, or down, to that,—to comfort the comfortless, to keep evil away from little children, to let those who were in any sort of a prison go free. Yet she knew very well that all of this would lack its perfect meaning unless there was some one to say to her—to ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... Panhandle manifested a growing tendency toward self-assertion. He ran away from home. Owing to his short legs and scant breath he did not get very far down over the slope. His will and intention were tremendous. Did the dim desert call to the child? His parents had often seen him stand gazing into the purple distance. But Panhandle on this runaway ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... "you'd have made a great business man if you'd come with me. You refused. I don't understand you—I never did. There's only one thing that's alike in us, and that's a devilish self- respect, self-assertion, self-dependence. There's nothing more to be said between us—nothing that counts. Don't get into a passion, Carnac. It don't become ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... respectfully, although he did not fawn over the dignitary or lose his own quiet self-assertion. He was an American. He told of finding the tortured prospector and of the plight of ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... girl did have the grace to keep reasonably quiet, though occasionally she would feel that this silence was not doing herself justice, and would break into the cheerful conversation of the others with a boldness and self-assertion that ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... find him in Copenhagen, laboring with an intensity of creative ardor which he had never known before. His striking appearance, the pithy terseness of his speech, and a certain naive self-assertion and impatience of social restraints made him a notable figure in the polite and somewhat effeminate society of the Danish capital. There was a general expectation at that time that a great poet was to come, and although Bjoernson had as yet published nothing to justify the expectation, ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... give me no end of yarns about the late war, in which they were engaged; and they tell me (whether true or not, I have no means of knowing), that the captain of the ship we are in was first lieutenant of the "pirate" ship 'Florida.' I have not found amongst my companions as yet any of that self-assertion or pride of nationality said to distinguish the Yankee; nor have I heard a word from them of hostility to John Bull. Indeed, for the purpose of drawing them out, I began bragging a little about England, but they let me have my own way without contradiction. They say nothing about politics, ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... power. In His earthly life He asserted that His relation both to physical death and to resurrection was an entirely unique one. 'I have power,' said He, 'to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again'; and yet, even in this tremendous instance of self-assertion, He remains the obedient Son, for He goes on to say, 'This commandment have I received of My Father.' If these claims are just, then it is vain to stumble at the miracles which Jesus did in His earthly life. If He could strip it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... true, Mrs. and Miss Arthuret had been duly called upon and invited about by the neighbourhood; but it was a scanty one, and they had not wealth and position enough to compensate for the girl's self-assertion and literary pretensions. It was not a superior or intellectual society, and, as the Rockstone Merrifields laughingly declared, it was fifty years behindhand, and where Bessie Merrifield, for the sake of the old stock and her ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which impregnates all our culture, is liable to have disastrous consequences politically, as well as for the civilization of mankind. We must make room for Asia in our thoughts, if we are not to rouse Asia to a fury of self-assertion. ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... are divinely commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking, esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others—and what, after all, is a great artist, but ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... is a strange gentleness. He told me, in that manner of his, that he would take only a minute of my time, and while I sat perfectly tongue-tied before him, as if I were a schoolgirl, this is what he said, without any passionate declaration, or any self-assertion. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... child, she had never seen such a man. He had, or seemed to have, all the high-bred grace of Frank, and yet he was cast in a manlier mould; he had just enough of his nation's proud self-assertion to make a woman bow before him as before a superior, and yet tact enough to let it very seldom degenerate into that boastfulness of which the Spaniards were then so often and so justly accused. He had marvels to tell by flood and field as many and more than Amyas; and he told ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... possession. So it is in many of the oldest towns founded by the American colonists of the seventeenth century. In their centres the parish churches, 'First,' 'Second,' or otherwise, stand forth challenging everybody's attention. There is no lack of self-assertion here, nothing at all like the shrinking of the Old English Presbyterian into obscure alleys and corners. Spacious, well appointed, and secure, these Unitarian parish churches, in the words of a popular Unitarian poet, 'look the whole ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant
... one thing that must be seen at the outset of the study of humility from an intrinsic and eternal point of view. The new philosophy of self-esteem and self-assertion declares that humility is a vice. If it be so, it is quite clear that it is one of those vices which are an integral part of original sin. It follows with the precision of clockwork every one of the great joys of life. No one, ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... other member of the party of whom we will make mention just now, because she appears again somewhat prominently in our tale. This was a little elderly female who seemed utterly destitute of the very common human attribute of self-assertion, and in whose amiable, almost comical, countenance, one expression seemed to overbear and obliterate all others, namely that of gushing good-will to man and beast! Those who did not know Reni-Mamba thought her an ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... the best answer to such confident self-assertion. The tongue of Fame will suffice of itself to convince you that I was a great prince, and my opponent a petty adventurer. But I would have you consider the distance between us. Called to the throne while I was yet a boy, ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... quick glances, and had soon learned to know his way. And he had neither gambled nor drank,—which are the two rocks on which gold-miners are apt to wreck their vessels. All this gave him an air of power and self-assertion which might, perhaps, have been distasteful to an indifferent acquaintance, but which at this first meeting was very pleasing to the father. His son was somebody,—had done something, that son of whom he had been so thoroughly ashamed when the dealings with Davis had first been brought to light. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... when the girls were going to bed—whether the inspiration still lingered, in spite of soapsuds, about the red frock, and was by it imparted to its owner, or whether it was merely the prompting of that demon of self-assertion that had been tormenting her of late—Baubie Wishart volunteered a song, and, heedless of consequences, struck up one of the two which formed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... particularly angry at him because, as she thought, "he hadn't nothing to say fer himself." Sadly to his disadvantage, she compared his simplicity and honest diffidence with the bold self-assertion and easy familiarity of the young fellows with whom she had come in contact during the winter. Their impertinences had offended her grievously at the time, but, woman-like, she permitted herself to forget that now, in order to accentuate ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to an individual centre predominates over helpless gravitation. First, aggregation about a centre, as in the crystal,—then, arrangement of the parts, as upper, under, and lateral, as in the plant,—then, organization of these into members. Form is the self-assertion of the thing as no longer means only; this makes its attractiveness to the artist. The root of his delight in ideal form is that it promises some finality amid the endless maze of matter. But this higher completeness, which is beauty, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... insoluble, they are also negligible problems. To all such stupid moralizing it prefers the click of the castanets! The law, then, of this naturalism always and everywhere is the law of rebellion, of ruthless self-assertion, of whim and impulse, of ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... endowed his ideal Protector 'with the virtue to create belief,' by the force of self-assertion, which still finds its imitators, by pouring out contempt on all who differ from him, and by implying that, as all other Cromwellian authorities are 'stupidities and falsities,' he alone was wise and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... thing as luck? Is the Golden Rule practicable in the modern business world? Is modesty rather than self-assertion regarding his own merits and abilities the better policy for an employee? Are substantial, home-keeping girls or girls rather fast and frivolous the more likely to obtain good husbands? Is it desirable for a young man to take out life insurance? Is self-education ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... in athletic games has its reaction upon every mental condition. Many boys who are hampered by unreasonable diffidence, a lack of normal self-confidence and self-assertion, find unexpected ability and positiveness through this avenue alone and, on the other hand, the physical test and encounter of the game serves to bring a proper ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... our personality moves in a narrow circle of immediate self-interest. And therefore our feelings and events, within that short range, become prominent subjects for ourselves. In their vehement self-assertion they ignore their unity with the All. They rise up like obstructions and obscure their own background. But art gives our personality the disinterested freedom of the eternal, there to find it in its true perspective. To see our own home in flames is not to see fire in its verity. But the fire ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... spoke and led the way to the dining-room alone. Dr. Maclure absently offered his arm to Miss Petterick. He was puzzled to know what this sudden fit of self-assertion, combined with an unaccountable burst of high spirits on Beth's part, might portend. To conceal a certain uneasiness, he became extra facetious, not to say coarse. There was a public ball coming off in a few days, and he persisted in speaking of it ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... exclaimed, badgered into self-assertion, "I was wonderin'; but since you two lads come in I been thinkin'. Since them two twins o' mine come in, Davy," he repeated, turning to me, his eyes sparkling with fatherly affection, "I been thinkin' 'twould be a fine plan t' ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... to manners the transition is obvious and direct. Be the explanation what it may, the whole atmosphere of this school is evidently fatal to selfishness and self-assertion; and in such an atmosphere good manners will spring up spontaneously among the children, and will scarcely need to be inculcated, for the essence of courtesy is forgetfulness of self and consideration of others in the smaller ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... it was, to posture and use grandiose words! Why did she shrink from the complete submission that her presence here implied? No amount of self-assertion would do away with the natural law of which he had contemptuously reminded her, the law which distinguishes man and woman, and denies to one what ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... letters received, highly appreciative of the undertaking, is very encouraging to those who have inaugurated the movement, and indicate a growing self-respect and self-assertion in the women of this generation. But we have the usual array of objectors to meet and answer. One correspondent conjures us to suspend the work, as it is "ridiculous" for "women to attempt the revision of the Scriptures." I wonder if any man wrote to the late revising committee of Divines to stop ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... case the balance of effectual public opinion hitherto is to all appearance quite in doubt, but it is also quite unsettled. The first response has been a display of patriotic emotion and national self-assertion. The further, later and presumably more deliberate, expressions of opinion carry a more obvious note of apprehension and less of stubborn or unreflecting national pride. It may be too early to anticipate a material shift of base, to a more neutral, or less exclusively national footing in ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... lucky if we merely look stiff and self-conscious. I should fancy there would be an opening for some clever woman to teach people how to dress for the occasion and how to sit, what to avoid and how to avoid it. As it is, we go in a state of nervous agitation, obsequiously costumed; our last vestige of self-assertion vanishes before the unwinking Cyclops eye of the instrument, and we cower at the mercy of the thing and its attendant. They make what they will of us, and the retoucher simply edits the review with an eye to the market. So history is falsified ...
— Select Conversations with an Uncle • H. G. Wells
... of political issues assumed by his party, Mr. Buchanan could always be found two paces to the rear, but in the hour of triumph he marched proudly in the front rank. He was not gifted with independence or self-assertion. His bearing towards Southern statesmen was derogatory to him as a man of spirit. His tone towards administrations of his own party was so deferential as almost to imply a lack of self-respect. He was not a leader among men. He was always led. He was led by Mason and Soule into the imprudence ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... excellences as courage, temperance, and justice did not attain to their true meaning or yield their full implication. Paul, as we have seen, did not disparage heroism, but he thought that it was exhibited as much, if not more, in patience and forgiveness as in self-assertion and retaliation. What Christianity really revealed was a new type of manliness, a fresh application of temperance, a fuller development of justice. It showed the might of meekness, the power of ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... turned sixty, handsome, grey-haired, healthy, somewhat florid, and carrying in his face and person external signs of prosperity and that kind of self-assertion which prosperity always produces. But they who knew him best were aware that he did not bear trouble well. In any trouble, such as was this about the necklace, there would come over his face a look of weakness which betrayed the want of real inner strength. How many faces one ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... and proper place in the world as a great man's wife—and a good and beautiful woman—was always conceded to her with due honor, even by the most impertinent among the highly placed of her own sex, without any necessity for self-assertion on her part whatever—without assumption of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... in the glow of the club-parlour, sometimes reviving for a minute, when the little mirror that sloped forward from the wall, showed him a passing portrait of his grand wig and toggery. And it was pleasant to observe how the old fellows unconsciously deferred to this temporary self-assertion, and would call him, not Tom, nor Toole, but 'doctor,' or 'Doctor Toole,' when ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... her bright head and gave Pere Beret a look of frank welcome, which at the same time shot a beam of willful self-assertion. ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... to Germany that her methods of self-assertion be such as will not hinder mutual discussions by arousing British ...
— Secret Armies - The New Technique of Nazi Warfare • John L. Spivak
... being, it is possible for me to suppress and quell in my consciousness every movement of self-assertion, every notion and opinion that is merely mine, every desire that belongs to me as this particular Self, and to become the pure medium of a thought that is universal—in one word, to live no more my own life, but ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... like being the first to give in, and actually does foreshadow serious dangers. And yet the time will come when we shall have to face danger for the sake of brotherhood, as we do now for the sake of self-assertion. The orders to avoid friendship with the enemy were, even in these circumstances, not always obeyed. "For months after German and British soldiers in neighbouring trenches fixed up secret treaties by which they fired at fixed targets at stated periods to ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... the Revolution. It could seem for a moment as if, with the proclamation of the freedom and independence of the individual, all the barriers were down that hemmed in his free motion, as if there were no limits to his self-assertion. His separate personal life got a new amplitude, its possibilities expanded infinitely, and its interest was vastly increased. The whole new world of ideas and impulses urged the individual to pursue and to ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... down certain fundamental marks of a social group, such as a common impulse to get together, common sentiments, ideas, and beliefs, reciprocal service. From the discovery of habitual planes of interest (self-maintenance, self-perpetuation, self-assertion, self-subordination, etc.) it is a simple step to show diagrammatically how each interest impels an activity, which tends to precipitate itself into a social habit ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... her for this unnecessary act. "I don't like my sister to do such things," said Tom, "I'll take care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way." Surely there was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom's rebuke as one of her outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long night-watchings,—to her who had always loved him so; and then she strove to be contented with that hardness, ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... her ear; there was deference in his smile. But somehow Lydia was conscious of a note of stormy self-assertion in him, which was new to her; something strong and stubborn, which refused to take her ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... moment, did but serve to make him aware of the latent resources of his mind, the full command of which he was far from having yet attained. To a friend, an older practitioner, who addressed him with some expression of condolence and encouragement, Pierce replied,—and it was a kind of self-assertion which no triumph would have drawn oat,—"I do not need that. I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine cases, if clients will continue to trust me, and, if I fail just as I have today, will try the thousandth. ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... bring his usual iron rule to bear upon this new element in the household, else her impertinent self-assertion will be unendurable. Will you be at Mrs. ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... having little form, except in the first movement of utterance, when an unpleasant curl took possession of the upper lip, which I afterwards interpreted as a doubt disguising itself in a sneer. There was also in his manner a degree of self-assertion which favoured the same conclusion. His hands were very large, a pair of merely blanched plebeian fists, with thumbs much turned back—and altogether ungainly. He wore very tight gloves, and never shook hands when he could help it. His feet were scarcely so bad in form: still by no ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... bright neckcloth, or the high pickardil—which may vary with the time or the individual, you will ever find clearly displayed to your eyes the obvious and unmistakable spiritual reason for and cause of the dandy—and it is always self-assertion pushed beyond the bounds ...
— The Story of a New York House • Henry Cuyler Bunner
... solve this dilemma: the rulers find it more difficult than the ruled. The whole of school life is stimulated by the principle of competition, and kept together by a healthy and, on the whole, a kindly self-assertion which is hard to reconcile with the ideals that are upheld in the New Testament. Yet at school, quite as much as in the World, competition and self-assertion are tempered by abundant friendliness and generosity; and at school if not in the world, there are an increasing ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... is easy to Hafiz. It gives him the opportunity of the most playful self-assertion, always gracefully, sometimes almost in the fun of Falstaff, sometimes with feminine delicacy. He tells us, "The angels in heaven were lately learning his last pieces." He says, "The fishes shed their pearls, out of desire and longing, as soon as the ship ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... taking an apple from a garden of the Hesperides? And as England cultivates those golden, if sometimes wrinkled, fruits, it would have seemed to him, in thinking about it, an entirely lucky thing for the finder; while a question of blood would have fired his veins to rival heat of self-assertion, very loftily towering: there were Kings in Ireland: cry for one of them in Uladh and you will hear his name, and he has descendants yet! But the youth was not disposed unnecessarily to blazon his princeliness. He kept it in modest reserve, as common gentlemen keep their physical strength. His reluctance ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Eddy, as her beautiful complexion and changeful expression cannot thus be reproduced. At once one would perceive that she had the temperament to dominate, to lead, to control, not by any crude self-assertion, but a spiritual animus. Of course such a personality, with the wonderful tumult in the air that her large and enthusiastic following excited, fascinated the imagination. What had she originated? ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... success, only bring upon themselves an unnecessary amount of embarrassment and ridicule. Yet there is one quality always possessed by such persons, among a savage people as elsewhere—namely, great perseverance and tenacity in their self-assertion. So the blessing of ignorance kept Slow Dog always cheerful; and he seemed, if anything, to derive some pleasure from the endless insinuations ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... between these two passionate aspiring spirits, who never attained to Goethe's serenity. Both were melancholy, and fled from their fellows; both strove for perfect liberty and unlimited self-assertion; both felt with the wild and uproarious side of Nature, and found idyllic scenes marred by ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... independence and carelessness, conveyed in a hundred intangible but significant little incidents and looks—a something which, without being open to formal rebuke or remonstrance, yet bordered, in effect, upon impertinence, and even insolence. This indescribable and provoking self-assertion, implied in glances, tones, emphasis, and general bearing, surprised Mrs. Marston far more than it irritated her. As often as she experienced one of these studied slights or insinuated impertinences, she revolved in her own mind all the incidents of their past ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... contains better work than these pieces of self-assertion. The two love-lyrics Natural Magic and Magical Nature have each of them a surprise of beauty; the one tells of the fairy-tale of love, the other of its inward glow and gem-like stability. Bifurcation is characteristic of the ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... which the most patient of wives might find it hard to submit. A role of complete self-effacement was not one it was in her power long to sustain, and the utter moral solitude into which she was thrown consolidated those forces inclining her to the extreme of self-assertion. For together with trials without came the growing sense of superiority, the ennui and unrest springing from mental faculties with insufficient outlet, and moreover, denied the very shadow of appreciation at home, where she saw the claim to her deference and allegiance ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... motives that one shares perhaps with some social beasts, but far more so as a conscious thing with men alone. These desires and motives all centre on a clearly apprehended "self" in relation to "others"; they are the essentially egotistical group. They are self-assertion in all its forms. I have dealt with motives toward gratification and motives towards experience; this set of motives is for the sake of oneself. Since they are the most acutely conscious motives in unthinking men, there is a tendency on ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... fastening the anchor—I remember, I say, what a figure she made. There is a certain purity in this Cragthorpe air which I have never seen approached,—a lightness, a brilliancy, a crudity, which allows perfect liberty of self-assertion to each individual object in the landscape. The prospect is ever more or less like a picture which lacks its final process, its reduction to unity. Miss Blunt's figure, as she stood there on the beach, was almost criarde; but how lovely it was! Her light muslin ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... beginning of the Valley campaign some of them thought him mad; before it was over they believed him to be a genius. He lived with his military family on the most intimate terms, and his unfailing courtesy, his utter absence of self-assertion, his sweet temper, and his tactful consideration for others, no matter how humble their rank, were irresistible. On duty, indeed, his staff officers fared badly. Tireless himself, regardless of all ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... his own life clogged his feet; to act was like wading in treacle. He had an impulse of utter wild rebellion, of ferocious self-assertion. Then: ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... Toy Bull-terriers have fallen in popularity. This is a pity, as their lilliputian self-assertion is most amusing. As pets they are most affectionate, excellent as watch-dogs, clever at acquiring tricks, and always cheerful and companionable. They have good noses and will hunt diligently; but wet weather or thick undergrowth will deter them, and they are too small to do serious harm ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... complications, its infinite possibilities of beauty and joy. Your life is, as ever, a sacrifice; all life is, as ever, a sacrifice; but it is a sacrifice to man—a sacrifice to the best. Once your task was self-abnegation, and that was easy; now it is self-assertion, and that is hard. Knowing what you are, you will dare to live, not for your own sake, but that strength and beauty may be in the world. Knowing what you might be, you choose infinite toil for your portion, and in the humility of toil you find your holiest peace. Your enemy you resist with all your ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... new century began. The bitter feeling of the nascent nation toward Great Britain was intensified by the War of 1812. The Napoleonic Wars had threatened to break the last threads of our friendship for France, and suspicion of the Holy Alliance led to an era of national self-assertion of which the Monroe Doctrine was only one expression. The raw Jacksonism of the West seemed to be gaining upon the older civilizations represented by Virginia and Massachusetts. The self-made type of man began to pose as the genuine American. ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... of his sacrifices to one of her own sex. Women liked that sort of thing. It aroused at once their emulation and their condemnation of each other. He seized the opportunity, but—for some reason, he knew not why—awkwardly and clumsily, with a simulated pathos that was lachrymose, a self-assertion that was boastful, and a dramatic manner that was unreal. ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... will be profitable to you, not hurtful. A man is called to let his light shine before men; but he ought to understand better and better what medium it is through, what retinas it falls on: wherefore look there. I find in this, as in the two other Speeches, that noblest self-assertion, and believing originality, which is like sacred fire, the beginning of whatsoever is to flame and work; and for young men especially one sees not what could be more vivifying. Speak, therefore, while you feel called to do it; and when you feel called. But for yourself, my ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... is always a grand sensation to me; it is like cutting through the isthmus and letting the two oceans swim into each other's laps. The trouble is, it is so difficult to let out the whole American nature without its self-assertion seeming to take a personal character. But I never enjoy the Englishman so much as when he talks of church and king like Manco Capac among the Peruvians. Then you get the real British flavor, which ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... patriotism may degenerate into a vice is shown by the invention of a name for the vice: chauvinism. It is a name for boastful and truculent group self-assertion. It overrules personal judgment and character, and puts the whole group at the mercy of the clique which is ruling at the moment. It produces the dominance of watchwords and phrases which take the ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... labor is cheapest and most helpless and profit is most abundant. This labor is kept cheap and helpless because the white world despises "darkies." If one has the temerity to suggest that these workingmen may walk the way of white workingmen and climb by votes and self-assertion and education to the rank of men, he is howled out of court. They cannot do it and if they could, they shall not, for they are the enemies of the white race and the whites shall rule forever and forever and ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... toward those who fought their country's battles. These are sentiments con|"ion to all good citizens. They lead to the most benevolent care on the part of the Government and deeds of charity and mercy in private life. The blatant and noisy self-assertion of those who, from motives that may well be suspected, declare themselves above all others friends of the soldier can not discredit nor belittle the calm, steady, and affectionate regard of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... great mass of work with a rare continuity of growth in depth and reach of vision. Nothing certainly went very deep, or reached very high—but such as the work was, it was thorough, conscientious, and complete. And, remembering his father's utter absence of "side" or self-assertion, the chaffing humility with which he had always spoken of his own efforts, ever calling himself "an amateur," Jon could not help feeling that he had never really known his father. To take himself seriously, yet never bore others ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... oblivion of ourselves our highest wisdom. Surely he has best learned his true place and the worth of Jesus Christ, who abides with unmoved humility at His feet, and, like the lonely, lowly forerunner, puts away all temptations to self-assertion while joyfully accepting it as the law of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... any page of the six volumes of his works. A certain strength and grandeur of personality is prominent in all his speeches. When he says "I," or "my," he never appears to indulge in the bravado of self-assertion, because the words are felt to express a positive, stalwart, almost colossal manhood, which had already been implied in the close-knit sentences in which he embodied his statements and arguments. He is an eminent instance ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... could have been more tender than Lopez. Every word and every act, every look and every touch, had been loving. Had she known the world better she might have felt, perhaps, that something was expected where so much was given. Perhaps a rougher manner, with some little touch of marital self-assertion, might be a safer commencement of married life,—safer to the wife as coming from her husband. Arthur Fletcher by this time would have asked her to bring him his slippers, taking infinite pride in having his little behests obeyed by so sweet a ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Miss Grant was undoubtedly characterized by a certain grace and now and then by an elusive hint of stateliness. It was a thing quite apart from self-assertion; a gracious quality, which he had hitherto noticed only in the bearing of a few elderly ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... the detested order that he should defer to Montcalm on all questions of war; and moreover that he should not take command in person except when the whole body of the militia was called out; nor, even then, without consulting his rival.[694] His ire and vexation produced an access of jealous self-assertion, and drove him into something like revolt against the ministerial command. "If the English attack Quebec, I shall always hold myself free to go thither myself with most of the troops and all the militia and Indians I can assemble. On arriving I shall give ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... is on trial. Self-assertion and dictation bring their own penalty with them. That so experienced a leader as Colin Robertson, who had been in both Companies, who knew the native element, and was acquainted with the daring and recklessness of the Nor'-Wester leaders, ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... I am,—that would be too much self-assertion"—she answered—"But I hope I am! I long to see the world endowed more richly with health and happiness. See how gloriously the sun has risen! In what splendour of light and air we are sailing! If we can do as much as this we ought to be able to ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... high places of the government of the city of New York; and the aggressively dressed and too abundantly jewelled female companions of these men, heavily built, heavy browed, with faces marked in hard lines, and with aggressive eyes schooled to look out upon the world with a necessarily emphatic self-assertion, were of a type that, without special knowledge of American ways, was entirely recognizable. Albeit Miss Lee, having spent much time in the mixed society of various European watering-places, was not by ...
— The Uncle Of An Angel - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... tendency to overbearing insolence that not infrequently browbeats cautious wisdom. When applied to a man like Hawke, strong in natural temper and in conscious mastery of his profession, the tone characteristic of Pitt provokes an equally resolute self-assertion, as far removed from subjection as it is from insubordination; but friendship becomes ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan |
