"Self-created" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her Henry's entire regard. Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had with such causeless terror felt and done, nothing could shortly be clearer than that it had been all a voluntary, self-created delusion, each trifling circumstance receiving importance from an imagination resolved on alarm, and everything forced to bend to one purpose by a mind which, before she entered the abbey, had been craving to be frightened. She remembered with what feelings she had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... fiend of the darkness—the only way to counteract his mischief is by guile; by snatching a brief oblivion in the hours of day, when the demon is far afield, tormenting pious Aethiopians at the Antipodes. How well one rests at such moments of self-created night, merged into the warm earth! The extreme quietude of my present room, after Florentine street-noises, may have contributed to this restlessness. Also, perhaps, the excitement of Corsanico. But chiefly, the dream—that ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... himself to bow to his fate, and accept with equanimity the painful lot of a poor, plain, commonplace man. At last, to guard against the temptations of wickedness, he plunged into ideal goodness, and sought refuge in a self-created sphere of absolute truth and justice. It was then that he became a republican, entering into the republican idea even as heart-broken girls enter a convent. And not finding a republic where sufficient peace and kindliness prevailed to lull his troubles to sleep, he created one ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... by these same masses grow more and more rabid. But it must be borne in mind that although the masses, carried away by flagellant impulses, assist in the creation of these laws, in the main, they are laws, self-created platitudes which give birth to new platitudes. Logic is the most pernicious of the Holy Ghosts responsible for ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... phy nor reason attempts to find one; but all should con- ceive and understand that Spirit cannot become less than [5] Spirit; hence that the universe of God is spiritual,—even the ideal world whose cause is the self-created Principle, with which its ideal or phenomenon must correspond in quality ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... credit by Admiral Lawless. Feeling the indignity of what he believed was the cause of the gift, Lawless neither acknowledged it nor used it, not any penny of it. Five years have gone since then, and Lawless has wandered over two continents, a self-created exile. He has learned much that he didn't learn at Oxford; and not the least of all, that the world is not so bad as is claimed for it, that it isn't worth while hating and cherishing hate, that evil ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... government, or even permanently to terrify it; so that the government was by no means sure of its aid. Gaius Gracchus had not understood the fall of the oligarchy as implying that the new master might conduct himself on his self-created throne, as legitimate cipher-kings think proper to do. But this Cinna had been elevated to power not by his will, but by pure accident; was there any wonder that he remained where the storm-wave ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... nor place, nor art, have mov'd it; Then wherefore should we sigh, and whine, With groundless jealousy repine. With silly whims, and fancies frantic, Merely to make our love romantic. Why should you weep like Lydia Languish, And fret with self-created anguish. Or doom the lover you have chosen, On winter nights, to sigh half frozen: In leafless shades, to sue for pardon, Only because the scene's a garden. For gardens seem by one consent (Since SHAKESPEARE ...
— Fugitive Pieces • George Gordon Noel Byron
... dwelling rather on the grand and frightful than on the beautiful and soft; deep, but seldom long-continued feeling; at times far-darting thoughts, original images, stormy vehemence; and generally a glowing, self-created, figurative diction. He never wrote to show his art; but poured forth, from the inward call of his nature, the thought or feeling which happened for the hour to have dominion ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... applied to but few people I knew. He was not hard, unimaginative, fenced in by stupidity and self-righteousness from unhappiness and doubt, as were some of the men accounted successful whom I knew. No, it was something positive, some self-created light, some stirring of hidden force, that emanated from him, such as ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... genius for living, for being vital. Many people merely exist, are kept alive by others, or continue to vegetate because the persistent action of normal functions will allow of their doing no less. Bettina Vanderpoel had lived vividly, and in the midst of a self-created atmosphere of action from her first hour. It was not possible for her to be one of the horde of mere spectators. Wheresoever she moved there was some occult stirring of the mental, and even physical, air. Her pulses beat ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... dream that dismal Chance has framed All that the eye perceives, or tongue has named The spacious world, and all its wonders, born Designless, self-created, and forlorn; Like to the flashing bubbles on a stream, Fire from the cloud, or phantom ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... forbearance to press prosecutions was misinterpreted into a fear of urging the execution of the laws, and associations of men began to denounce threats against the officers employed. From a belief that by a more formal concert their operations might be defeated, certain self-created societies ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... two counsellors, Komerkansquy and Zetto, each received 4,000 rix-dollars, with a promise of double the sum if Trenck were acquitted; there was a formal contract drawn up, which a certain noble lord secretly signed. Trenck was defended by the advocate Gerhauer and by Berger. They began with the self-created daughter of Marshal Schwerin; and, to conceal the iniquitous proceedings of the late court- martial, it was thought proper that she should appear insane, and return incoherent answers to the questions put by ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... failure of service in a meal, will plunge the hostess into a dumb and incommunicable despair. The slightest lapse of the conventional order becomes a cloud that intercepts the sun. But the right attitude to life, if we desire to set ourselves free from this self-created torment, is a resolute avoidance of minute preoccupations, a light-hearted journeying, with an amused tolerance for the incidents of the way. A conventional order of life is useful only in so far as it removes from the mind the necessity of detailed planning, and ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... now hung back momentarily in a new dread, self-created in their superstitious minds, Rebecca turned again to the chase, but was sorely put out to find that her pause had given the supposed Droop the advantage of a considerable gain. He was now not far from the river side. Hoping he could go ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye |
