"Disinterestedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in 1848, you were treated as vanquished men. After having branded your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained to consult your sympathies and your wishes, and yet you are the flower of the Nation. To-day, at this solemn moment, I am resolved that the voice of ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... to summon me home. And, would you believe it? my Lucretia consents to accompany me, on condition that I force no gifts upon her acceptance, but allow her to furnish her house in Munich at her own expense. Did you ever hear of such disinterestedness? Now I am about to give you a proof of my confidence, and tell you the name of my mistress. It is the Countess Canossa. Well!—You are not ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... of lesions in the lungs, expressed their delight at going back to work and to a normal life. Coue in the midst of those people whom he loves, seemed to me a being apart, for this man ignores money, all his work is gratuitous, and his extraordinary disinterestedness forbids his taking a farthing for it. "I owe you something", I said to him, "I simply owe you everything. . . ." "No, only the pleasure I shall have from your continuing to keep ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue
... moment she gazed at him astounded, for her mind refused to credit the truth. In despite of his words she believed that he was putting her disinterestedness to a supreme test which she must not fail. She clung to him convulsively. "I love you, you alone," she declared, "and I will go to El Dorado. I will meet you to-morrow at this hour at the water-gate of the palace. I will come in the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... apparent self-seeking shall spoil his service, in the eyes of men or in the judgment of the 'great Taskmaster.' Elisha felt that the honour of his order, and, in some sense, of his God, in the eyes of this half-convert, depended on his own perfect and transparent disinterestedness. Therefore, although he made no scruple of taking the Shunemite's gifts, and probably lived on similar offerings, he steadfastly refused the enormous sum proffered by Naaman. 'The labourer is worthy of his ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... do not know whether you were ever aware of the peculiar love I have felt from childhood for my precious sister, who is now so blest. It has always been enthusiastic and profound. Her still and perfect disinterestedness, her noiseless self-devotion, her transparent truthfulness and all-comprehensive benevolence through life! No words can ever express what a spear in my side it has been to see her year after year toiling for all but herself, and growing thin and pale with too much effort. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Anti-slavery efforts in this State have produced incalculable benefit. The Lord has blessed him into an instrument of great power. He has labored much, and for very inadequate compensation. Lucrative offers for other quarters did not tempt him to a more profitable field. His sincerity and disinterestedness ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb
... his adherents, so brave, so enthusiastic, so faithful, were dead, imprisoned, or exiled. Where, now, was the exalted and high-souled Fergus, if, indeed, he had survived the night at Clifton? Where the pure-hearted and primitive Baron of Bradwardine, whose foibles seemed foils to set off the disinterestedness of his disposition, the genuine goodness of his heart, and his unshaken courage? Those who clung for support to these fallen columns, Rose and Flora, where were they to be sought, and in what distress must not the loss of their natural protectors ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... offices which yielded not only honor but profit; but he declined them all, with the chivalrous independence and loyalty that had marked his character through life. The veteran soon caused this set of patriotic disinterestedness to be followed by another of private munificence, that, however little it accorded with prudence, was in perfect conformity with the simple integrity ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... This proof of disinterestedness in Abou Hassan confirmed the esteem the caliph had entertained for him. "I am pleased with your request," said he, "and grant you free access to my person at all times and all hours." At the same time he assigned him an apartment in the palace, and, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... I have no wish to paraphrase your little homily of two minutes ago, but the heads of my refutation are inevitably suggested by the points of your indictment. To use your own manner of speech, my dear Adrian, I have no wish to assume injured disinterestedness, when speaking of my doings with regard to you and your belongings and especially to this old place of yours, of our family. You have only to look ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... never trims, nor glosses over, nor would veil, a single part of his conduct. He wrote to serve his patrons, but never himself. I preserve the whole of this noble passage in the note.[265] Wood bears witness to his perfect disinterestedness. He never partook of the prosperity of his patron, nor mixed with any parties, loving the retirement of his private studies; and if he scorned and hated one party, the Presbyterians, it was, says ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... cried, with a contempt that did justice to my disinterestedness as well as his own. "I had forgotten I had it. No, Thomas, I should never weigh money against the happiness of living with such a woman as your wife appears to be. But her life I might. Carry out your threat; forget to pay John Poindexter the debt we owe him, and the matter ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... our actions; and, above all—for this is the most striking change—it has ceased to intrude itself into our morality. And is this morality of ours less lofty, less pure, less profound, because of the disinterestedness it has thus acquired? Has the loss of an overwhelming dread robbed mankind of a single precious, indispensable feeling? And must not life itself find gain in the importance wrested from death? Surely: for the neutral forces we hold in reserve within us are waiting ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... enlightenment, lessens ferocity, but also, just as enlightenment takes away the enthusiasm of self-esteem, so perhaps commerce takes away the enthusiasm of virtue. It gradually extinguishes the spirit of magnanimous disinterestedness, and replaces it by that of hard justice. By turning men's minds rather to use than beauty, to prudence rather than to greatness, it may be that it injures the strength, the generosity, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... members of the lobby who, apparently, have come to the capital moved by a patriotic impulse to set erring legislators right on public questions. Their familiarity with public matters, their success in public life, their high standing in political circles, their apparent disinterestedness and their plausible arguments all combine to give them great influence over new and inexperienced members. In extreme cases influential constituents of doubtful members are sent for at the last moment to labor with their representatives, and to assure them that the sentiment of their ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... with the disinterestedness and generosity of his soul. He thinks himself amply rewarded for all his labors and cares, by the love and prosperity of his fellow-citizens. It is true, no rewards they can bestow can be equal to his merits. But they ought not to suffer those merits to be burdensome ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... distinction between love and friendship; in such rarefied and freezing air, upon the mountain-tops of meditation, had he taught himself to breathe. He was, indeed, too accurate an observer not to have remarked that "there exists already a natural disinterestedness and liberality" between men and women; yet, he thought, "friendship is no respecter of sex." Perhaps there is a sense in which the words are true; but they were spoken in ignorance; and perhaps we shall have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... exception to this rule: the mercantile classes illustrate it strikingly. These classes certainly think too exclusively of making money; they are too oblivious of every national consideration but that of extending England's—that is, their own—commerce. Chivalrous feeling, disinterestedness, pride in honour, is too dead in their hearts. A land ruled by them alone would too often make ignominious submission—not at all from the motives Christ teaches, but rather from those Mammon instils. During the late war, the tradesmen ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... France whose approbation could give so much honour. His sermons had advanced him from a very mean and foreign extraction (which was Flemish) to the episcopal dignity, which he adorned with solid and unaffected piety. His disinterestedness was far beyond that of the hermits or anchorites. He had the courage of Saint Ambrose, and at Court and in the presence of the King he so maintained his usual freedom that the Cardinal de Richelieu, who had been his scholar in divinity, both reverenced ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... the firm and precise hand of practice. He forgot that Liberty herself requires the protection of a strong power, and that this power must have a head to conceive, and hands to execute. He believed that the words Liberty, Equality, Disinterestedness, Devotion, Virtue, incessantly repeated, were themselves a government. He took philosophy for politics, and became indignant at his false calculations. He attributed continually his deceptions to the conspiracies of aristocrats and demagogues. He thought that in extinguishing from ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Thou shouldst always keep thy senses, as thou keepest thy horses. They will then prove beneficial to thee, like wealth that is not wasted. Thou shouldst employ only such ministers as have passed the tests of honesty, (i.e., as are possessed of loyalty, disinterestedness, continence, and courage), as are hereditary officers of state, possessed of pure conduct, self-restrained, clever in the discharge of business, and endued with righteous conduct. Thou shouldst always collect information ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... beautiful and perfect hours of his life—those in which the artist, already master of his instrument, having still the abundance and vivacity of youthful sensations, writes the first words that he knows to be good, and writes them with entire disinterestedness, not even thinking that others will see them; working for himself alone and for the sole joy of putting in visible form and spreading abroad his ideas, his thoughts-all his heart. Those moments of pure enthusiasm and perfect happiness ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... qualities as attracting the wonder and reverence of mankind: 1. Disinterestedness; 2. Practical Power; 3. Courage. "I need not show how much it is esteemed, for the people give it the first rank. They forgive everything to it. And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which is esteemed becomes the darling of all men."—There are good and inspiriting lessons for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fix in my mind against my Lord and my God! He who made me capable of such an absorbing, unselfish devotion for my children, so that I would sacrifice my eternal salvation for them, He certainly did not make me capable of more love, more disinterestedness than He has himself. He invented mothers' hearts, and He certainly has the pattern in his own, and my poor, weak rush-light of love is enough to show me that some things can and some things cannot be ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... Mrs. Frost and James, who knew how scrupulously the Earl abstained from seeking anything like a favour at Northwold; and they tried to impress this on Louis, but he was exalted far above even understanding the remonstrance. It was all their disinterestedness; he had no notion of that guarded pride which would incur no obligation. No, no; if Jem would be beholden to no one, he would accept all as personal kindness to himself. Expect a return! he returned ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... expected, that the ultimate consequences of this philosophy of the senses should be drawn by a disciple of Feuerbach, Max Stirner,[1] in whose work, The Individual and His Property, the virtues of egoism are extolled, and contempt is poured upon all disinterestedness and altruism. ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... subject in the House of Lords, and attacked Sugden with all the sarcasm and contumely which he could heap upon him, comparing him to 'a crawling reptile,' &c. Not one of his Tory friends said a word, and, what is curious, the Duke of Wellington praised Brougham for his disinterestedness, and old Eldon defended the place. The following day (Friday) Sugden again brought the matter before the House of Commons, complained bitterly of the Chancellor's speech, was called to order by Stanley, when the Speaker interfered, and, dexterously turning Sugden's attack ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... likely to come there; and partly, if not chiefly, because the activity of his nature made such serving a delight to him. The small church, like the school, had been greatly improved since it had come under his hand, and the disinterestedness of his unpaid ministrations was greatly lauded. He was a very busy, and a successful, man, much esteemed by all who knew him. The New College was expected to become a university; Robert Trenholme hoped for ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... ignore with complacency the shrillest protests of unreasonable subscribers. Through the Pilot it was announced to the public that certain benevolent "Eastern capitalists" were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if the city would grant them a franchise. Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness of whose newspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day, sent his reporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty neglect of the Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared with those used in more progressive cities, as compared with the very ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... power both in the classroom and in the Academic Council. As an outsider, her criticism, both constructive and destructive, was peculiarly stimulating and valuable; and even those who resented her intrusion could not but recognize the noble disinterestedness of her ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse
... to Reconstruction there by the Washington Government's recognition of General Francis T. Nicholls, elected Governor by the people, instead of Packard, declared Governor by the Republican Returning Board of the State. Judge P. H. Morgan had proved his disinterestedness in his report to the President; for the new Democratic regime meant his own resignation from the post of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana which he held under the Republicans. He applied then to himself a piece of advice ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... fund I displayed and exhausted. My audacity shocked those who possessed this fund. My candor was called anything but truthfulness; they named it sarcasm, cunning, coarseness, or tact, as those were constituted who came in contact with me. Insight into character, frankness, generosity, disinterestedness, were sometimes given me. Veronica alone was uncompromising; she put aside by instinct what baffled or attracted others, and, setting my real value upon me, acted accordingly. I do not accuse her of injustice, ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... admitted that he had received immense sums from Meer Jaffier; but he denied that, in doing so, he had violated any obligation of morality or honour. He laid claim, on the contrary, and not without some reason, to the praise of eminent disinterestedness. He described in vivid language the situation in which his victory had placed him: great princes dependent on his pleasure; an opulent city afraid of being given up to plunder; wealthy bankers bidding against each other for his smiles; vaults piled with gold ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... between persons of some elevation of moral character, and its strength and devotion will be commensurate with the degree of this moral elevation. Truthfulness, frankness, disinterestedness, and faithfulness are qualities absolutely essential to friendship, and these must be crowned by a sympathy that enters into all the joys, the sorrows, and the interests of the friend, that delights in all his upward progress, and, when he stumbles or ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... in your generous heart I know it would signify nothing; but we must not expect such disinterestedness in many. As for myself, I am sure I only wish our situations were reversed. Had I the command of millions, were I mistress of the whole world, your brother would be ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... earliest intelligence before any other paper; and at an expense of L200 brought a report of Lord Durham's speech at Glasgow to London at the then unprecedented rate of fifteen miles an hour; nor should we forget their noble disinterestedness during the railway mania of 1845, when, although they were receiving more than L3,000 a week for railway advertisements, they warned the country unceasingly of the misery and ruin that must inevitably follow. The Times proprietors are known to pay the highest sums ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... was not withheld. Mrs. Austin consented freely, and Mr. Austin only reserved the right to inquire into his character. Neither of them mentioned his income or prospects, and Jenkin, overcome by their disinterestedness, exclaimed in one of his letters, 'Are these people the same as other people?' Thus permitted, he addressed himself to Annie, and was nearly rejected for his pains. Miss Austin seems to have resented his courtship of ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... described the kind reception you gave him, and your zeal for the interest of the United States, and friendship for me, which he might have spared, as every one of your letters demonstrates the sincerity and disinterestedness of your friendship, as well for my country as for myself; and as you value your being the first Plenipotentiary of the American States, I equally value myself on your friendship and correspondence in the part I have the honor of acting ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... suppose, of course, you would impart them to me simply out of pure disinterestedness, without a thought ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... mazurkas, with her moustached cousin standing by her side, and turning over the music-leaves, Verdant privately declared, over a chessboard, to Miss Patty, that Mr. Frank Delaval was the handsomest and most delightful man he had ever met. And when Miss Patty's eyes sparkled at this proof of his truth and disinterestedness, Verdant mistook the bright ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... indeed required no slight efforts, and many valuable lives had to be sacrificed; for although no missionary in Fiji has ever met with a violent death, yet the list of those who died in the midst of their labours is proportionately great. The Wesleyans, to whose disinterestedness the conversion of these degraded beings is due, have, as a society, expended 75,000 pounds on this object; and if the private donations of friends to individual missionaries and their families be added, the sum reaches to the respectable ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... mind I should have some difficulty in explaining. I was full of indulgence for her life, full of admiration for her beauty. The proof of disinterestedness that she gave in not accepting a rich and fashionable young man, ready to waste all his money upon her, excused her in my eyes for all her faults in ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... I tell him all about you—your troubles, your struggles, your disinterestedness and all your history since ever I knew you?" answered Herbert, who was totally unconscious that he had left Major Warfield in ignorance of one ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... division before Puerto Cabello, the liberator went to Cucuta, where he resigned once more the office of president of the republic, which, in admiration of his disinterestedness, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... madam,—alas! it does!' said the stranger, who, after a long pause, proceeded.—'But you will allow me to shew my disinterestedness, though not my love, and will accept the services I offer. Yet, alas! what services can I offer? I am myself a prisoner, a sufferer, like you. But, dear as liberty is to me, I would not seek it through half the hazards I would encounter to deliver you from this recess of vice. Accept the offered ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... in Sturatzberg to cope with the danger?" she asked, turning to him with a radiant smile. "I stand alone, Countess; what can one man do? I wonder whether you can credit me with disinterestedness, whether you can believe that I have the welfare of this country at heart while carrying out the policy ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... tradespeople, washer-women, and cart-driving. She revelled in a world of the romances, where everything was made as it ought to be, where the virtuous were always rewarded and the wicked always punished, where high and noble sentiments met with the reception they deserved, and disinterestedness was duly appreciated, where passion and impulse, unmixed with the care of consequences, were held as the glory of both sexes, and everything that was fair and bright and beautiful, and free and elegant and good, shone triumphantly to the glory of the heroes and heroines who figured always ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... and sympathy from Punch—the greater, no doubt, since the "Papal Aggression" had taught him to look askance at the Vatican; but he regarded with extreme and well-justified scepticism the genuineness of Louis Napoleon's alleged disinterestedness in the interests of peace. He is ironically shown (October 13th, 1860) as "The Friend in Need" advising the Pope, "There, cut away quietly and leave me your keys. Keep up your spirits, and I'll look after your little temporal ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... Was Mrs. Tristram simply finding out that she was jealous of her dear friend on the other side of the Seine, and that in undertaking to provide Newman with an ideal wife she had counted too much on her own disinterestedness? We may be permitted to doubt it. The inconsistent little lady of the Avenue d'Iena had an insuperable need of changing her place, intellectually. She had a lively imagination, and she was capable, at certain times, of imagining the direct reverse ...
— The American • Henry James
... showing a disinterestedness equal to her other charms, which allowed this weak corvette to attach its grapnels securely to the larger vessel. Nevertheless, about the end of the first year, she made ignoble noises in the antechamber with her clogs, coming ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... whole drift of opinion has changed, and it is since the trial of Hastings that the change has taken place. The question in Burke's time was whether oppression and corruption were to continue to be the guiding maxims of English policy. The personal disinterestedness of the ruler who had been the chief founder of this policy, and had most openly set aside all pretence of righteous principle, was dust in the balance. It was impossible to suppress the policy without striking ...
— Burke • John Morley
... Christian who has not found that it is the joy and rejoicing of his heart. We need not put too much emphasis and stress upon that side of the truth; but we need not either suppress it or disregard it in our modern high-flown disinterestedness. There are joys worth calling so which only come from possessing this fountain of salvation. How shall I enumerate them? The best way, I think, will be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... and their companions were confined. Many plans were made, meanwhile, for their liberation, and English friends even provided a ship by which they were to escape; but the ship foundered: perhaps fortunately, as Garibaldi, with characteristic disinterestedness, had agreed to direct the enterprise, which could not have been otherwise than perilous, and was not unlikely to end in the loss of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... of the chivalry romances. In all that he says and does he is simply repeating the lesson he has learned from his books; and therefore, it is absurd to speak of him in the gushing strain of the sentimental critics when they dilate upon his nobleness, disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so forth. It was the business of a knight-errant to right wrongs, redress injuries, and succour the distressed, and this, as a matter of course, he makes his business when he ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... to this reality, Ferrand attached great importance. To vulgar eyes, a carelessness of comfort and prosperity passes almost always for disinterestedness; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... brave; in enterprise, hardy and original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to disinterestedness, though ambitious of renown and covetous of distinction; in pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections, natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which assailed his ...
— James Fenimore Cooper • Mary E. Phillips
... lordship's generosity in condescending to marry a poor solitary spinster, I am certainly most duly grateful—and no one can possibly doubt your disinterestedness, who knows I am only heiress to 12,000l. a year—a fortune which, as I take it, nearly doubles the whole of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... and rational. That was Gluck's aim; and because he realised it so well he gained a reputation among the French public which nothing will destroy. Debussy's strength lies in the methods by which he has approached this ideal of musical temperateness and disinterestedness, and in the way he has placed his genius as a composer at the service of the drama. He has never sought to dominate Maeterlinck's poem, or to swallow it up in a torrent of music; he has made it so much a part of himself that at the present ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... to say nothing more of that sort. I do so entirely for your own sake." But O'Brien was not the man to be cowed into submission by this artful representation. Possibly he discerned the motive of the interruption, and estimated at its true value the disinterestedness of Judge Blackburne's "advice." Mr. Ernest Jones in vain used his influence to accomplish the judge's object. O'Brien spurned the treacherous ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... Now, if disinterestedness, faith, patience, piety, have a beauty celestial and divine, then were our fathers worshippers of the beautiful. If high-mindedness and spotless honor are beautiful things, they had those. What work of art can compare with a lofty and heroic life? Is it not better to be a Moses than to be ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rest in it without farther demur. He had even noticed in her, during his few hours in Paris, a tendency to reproach herself for her lack of charity, and a desire, almost as fervent as his own, to expiate it by exaggerated recognition of the disinterestedness of her opponents—if opponents they could still be called. This sudden change in her attitude was peculiarly moving to Durham. He knew she would hazard herself lightly enough wherever her heart called her; but that, with the precious freight of her child's future weighing her down, ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... of the republic. This illustrious personage stood distinguished in his age like a man among children, and was raised above his opponents, as much by the justness of his understanding, and the extent of his penetration, as he was by the manly fortitude and disinterestedness with which he strove to baffle the designs of a vain and childish ambition, that was operating to the ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... self-sacrifice—as countless really devoted men and women not calling themselves Socialists have done—we should still doubt the soundness of their economic theories as applied to society in general, but we should respect their disinterestedness. But with very few exceptions Socialist Intellectuals dine and sup, feast and amuse themselves with as few scruples of ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... with Poets." But his active energies were concentrated on the solution of a metaphysical problem which was destined to possess his brain for many years: in his youthful enthusiasm he was grappling with a theory concerning the natural disinterestedness of the human mind, apparently adhering to the bias which he had received ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... This disinterestedness of phrase is in general commensurate with selfishness of feeling: men old and hackneyed in the ways of the world are scrupulous ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... north of the Great Wall, but also from Shan-hai-kwan to Peking, by the Russian military authorities, and the appropriation of an extensive line of river frontage at Tientsin as a Russian "settlement," were difficult to reconcile with the pacific assurances of disinterestedness which Russia, like the rest of the powers, had officially given. Great anxiety prevailed as to the effect of the flight of the Chinese court in other parts of the empire. The anti-foreign movement had not ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... of her absurd self-deception. What a simpleton she had been—what a little naive, provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was another instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her youth—she vented her emotion in despising that idealism ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... colors; the pretence is public good, the real business is to catch prizes." Lord Hervey divided the Whig party in 1727 into "Patriots and Courtiers, which was in plain English, 'Whigs in place,' and 'Whigs out of place.'"[98] The assertion of disinterestedness met only with ridicule. In an interview with Queen Caroline, "when Lord Stair talked of his conscience with great solemnity, the queen (the whole conversation being in French) cried out: Ah, my Lord, ne me parlez point de conscience, vous me faites evanouir."[99] As personal advancement, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... stranger. Because he is not rooted in the peculiar attitudes and biased tendencies of the group, he stands apart from all these with the peculiar attitude of the "objective," which does not indicate simply a separation and disinterestedness but is a peculiar composition of nearness and remoteness, concern and indifference. I call attention to the domineering positions of the stranger to the group, as whose archtype appeared that practice of Italian cities ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... whatever else he did, he did not act blindly or in the dark. He was sometimes quite wrong; but his errors were purely patriotic; both in the narrow sense of nationalism and in the larger sense of loyalty and disinterestedness. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... consider desirable. The Christian majority would become the slaves of the unchristian minority, and would be at their mercy. Christianity, in so far as it is a social system at all, is the purest kind of socialism, a socialism not of compulsion but of disinterestedness. It is easy, of course, to scoff at the possibility of so far disintegrating the vast and complex organisation of society, as to arrange life on the simpler lines; but the fact remains that the very few people in the world's history, like St. Francis of ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... into question the disinterestedness of your intentions in proposing marriage to this woman; nor, if the information which I am going to give you should possess any influence, shall I ascribe that influence to any thing but a commendable attention to your true interest, and a generous regard to the welfare ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... this Union, the Congress of the United States, in accepting the bequest, will feel, in all its power and plenitude, the obligation of responding to the confidence reposed by him, with all the fidelity, disinterestedness, and perseverance of exertion, which may carry into effective execution the noble purpose of an endowment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... every trivial selfish pursuit, and fix the mind undividedly on the operations of the great source of power, justice, and truth. A new aera commences in the world—May it be remarkable to all succeeding generations for liberal policy, disinterestedness, and general benevolence!—E. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... body was taken back to Florence, and buried in the church of the Carthusians at the public expense, and his daughters were portioned by his fellow-citizens, the fortune he left being, owing to his probity and disinterestedness, very small. He wrote a Latin translation of some of Plutarch's Lives (Florence, 1478); Commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics and Politics; and the lives of Hannibal, Scipio and Charlemagne. In the work on Aristotle he had ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... force but a moral force. He strove to use all the powers of his own genius and the powers of the state for moral purposes and religious. Nevertheless his mission in all its forms was action. He had none of that detachment, often found among superior minds, which we honour for its disinterestedness, even while we lament its impotence in result. The track in which he moved, the instruments that he employed, were the track and the instruments, the sword and the trowel, of political action; and what is called the Gladstonian era ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... observation. The fiscal regulations were very rigidly enforced at Hamburg, and along the two lines of Cuxhaven and Travemunde. M. Eudel, the director of that department, performed his duty with zeal and disinterestedness. I feel gratified in rendering him this tribute. Enormous quantities of English merchandise and colonial produce were accumulated at Holstein, where they almost all arrived by way of Kiel and Hudsum, and were smuggled ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Burgess herself, the hard-working, good-natured woman of fifty who for twenty years had reported the doings of those citizens of Endbury whom she considered the "gentry," had toiled with the utmost disinterestedness to build up a feeling, or, as she called it, a "tone," which, among other things, should exclude her from equality. When she began she was, perhaps, the only person in town who had an unerring instinct for social differences; but, like a kindly, experienced actor ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... require any urging. He detailed the romance of his life, without omitting anything, but with many delicate touches for the filial ears of M. Langevin. The Counsellor heard him patiently, with an appearance of perfect disinterestedness. ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... can learn, we infer that the prominent traits in her character were strong affections, energy, and disinterestedness. Of a slight and delicate frame and constitution, and a sensibility almost amounting to sensitiveness, she at an early age engaged in duties and made sacrifices scarcely expected from the robust and vigorous. ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... brethren, my disinterestedness; I do not sacrifice my belief to any vile interest. If I embraced a profession so directly opposed to my sentiments, it was not through cupidity. I obeyed my parents. I would have preferred to enlighten you sooner if I could have done it safely. You are witnesses to what I assert. I have not disgraced ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... Charles, whose pretensions to moderation and disinterestedness were soon forgotten, deliberated, with the utmost solicitude, how he might derive the greatest advantages from the misfortunes of his adversary. Some of his counsellors advised him to treat Francis with the magnanimity that became a victorious ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... Viner's defenseless state a sympathy profoundly tinged with compunction. But now he was half-conscious of an obscure indignation against her. Superior as he had fancied himself to ready-made judgments, he was aware of cherishing the common doubt as to the disinterestedness of the woman who tries to rise above her past. No wonder she had been sick with fear on meeting him! It was in his power to do her more harm than ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... pointed out to me as Sister Bertha, who has been working here usefully for many years. The ritual is high. I am told that it is above the desires and the comprehension of most of the island episcopalians, but the zeal and disinterestedness of Bishop Willis will, in time, I doubt not, win upon those who prize such qualities. He called in the afternoon, and took me to his pretty, unpretending residence up the Nuuanu Valley. He has a training and boarding school there ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... him like a son, she was but too glad to give him her consent; Mr. Austin reserved the right to inquire into his character; from neither was there a word about his prospects, by neither was his income mentioned. 'Are these people,' he wrote, struck with wonder at this dignified disinterestedness, 'are these people the same as other people?' It was not till he was armed with this permission, that Miss Austin even suspected the nature of his hopes: so strong, in this unmannerly boy, was the principle of true courtesy; so powerful, in this impetuous nature, the springs of self- ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... interview are added others, which somewhat reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel. They rest, however, upon hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly their original signification, some caution must be given before they are credited: yet, even if true, one can scarcely ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... justly attach to your office, and the happy sense of being useful. The actuating spirit of your Board will be a spirit of scrupulous fidelity to every trust reposed in you, and of untiring zeal in promoting the welfare of the University and the advancement of learning. Judged by its disinterestedness, its beneficence and its permanence, your function is as pure and high as any that the world knows, or in all time has known. May the work which you do in the discharge of your sacred trust be regarded with sympathetic and expectant forbearance by the present generation, ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... him was her disinterestedness. She ordered him to buy her a present every day, but it was never to cost above a shilling. If an article could be found that cost exactly tenpence (a favorite sum of hers), she was particularly pleased, and these ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... principles we may easily account for that merit, which is commonly ascribed to generosity, humanity, compassion, gratitude, friendship, fidelity, zeal, disinterestedness, liberality, and all those other qualities, which form the character of good and benevolent. A propensity to the tender passions makes a man agreeable and useful in all the parts of life; and gives a just direction to all his other quailties, which otherwise may become prejudicial to society. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... Mrs. Logan, that you are expecting a detail of the circumstances relating to the death of Mr. George Colwan; and, in gratitude for your unbounded generosity and disinterestedness, I will tell you all that I know, although, for causes that will appear obvious to you, I had determined never in life to divulge one circumstance of it. I can tell you, however, that you will be disappointed, for it was ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... Christianity, how are we to distinguish the truth from the error? I answered thus;—"We have no other means of arriving at the truth, than searching the word of God, with learning, and reason, and inquiry of learned spiritual teachers, with purity of motive, and with disinterestedness of inclination. If the obscurities of the word of God cannot be understood by these means, our ignorance is excusable, and will not prevent our salvation. If the passages, which still remain obscure, concern faith, it is ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... manfully to the wheel. This declaration finds her, as if by some mysterious transport, an object of no end of praise. Sister Scudder adjusts her spectacles, and, in mildest accents, says, "The Lord will indeed reward such disinterestedness." Brother Mansfield says motives so pure will ensure a passport to heaven, he is sure. Brother Sharp, an exceedingly lean and tall youth, with a narrow head and sharp nose (Mr. Sharp's father declared he made ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... learned the military art in the hard and hazardous schools of Indian warfare; they were both such true soldiers in vigilance, that no enemy could ever surprise them; and so equal in undaunted valor, that nothing could ever dishearten them: while as to the still nobler virtues of patience, disinterestedness, self-government, severity to themselves and generosity to their enemies, it is difficult to determine whether Marion or Washington most deserve our admiration. And even in the lesser incidents of their lives, the resemblance between these two great men is closer than common. They were both born ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... chances. >From this premeditated scheme of conquest we ought, in justice, however, to except Maria herself, who, from constitutional gayety and thoughtlessness, seldom planned for the morrow; and who, perhaps, from her association with Charlotte, had acquired a degree of disinterestedness that certainly belonged to no other member of ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... a wildly romantic place, built upon a clearing of forty acres without any decided plan, streets running at random very much like the old cowpaths of Manhattan, and houses grouped in picturesque confusion. Finding the main hotel crowded, the proprietor manifested an unheard-of disinterestedness in a two hours search to find us suitable accommodations elsewhere, an act of magnanimity worthy of especial ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... so good as to take interest in it. I took great care not to take any part in the debate. I have not as yet got a copy of the Duke of Buckingham's letter. I will follow your advice with regard to any answer to it on my part. I will never forget your disinterestedness in this question of 'honor' and nothing will be more agreeable to me than to act in such a way, whenever the opportunity will offer itself, as to show by reciprocal action my thanks and ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... originality of his intellect. Bernard swayed society more by his sanctity than by his learning. The useful life of Socrates was devoted not merely to establish the grounds of moral obligation, in opposition to the false and worldly teaching of his day, but to the practice of temperance, disinterestedness, and patriotism. He found that the ideas of his contemporaries centred in the pleasure of the body: he would make his body subservient to the welfare of the soul. No writer of antiquity says so much of the soul as Plato, his chosen disciple, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... approbation, the protection of his understanding and believing, when for him to understand and believe was for her to be safe and bold. For even the pride of Sally Wimple, overdone, could become arrogance; even her disinterestedness, intemperately indulged in, could take on the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... the poignant intensity of Balzac, the lyric sweep of Hugo, the immense architectural strength of M. Zola, the implacable disinterestedness of Flaubert, the marvellous concentration of Maupassant, but he has more humor than any of them and more charm,—more sympathy than any but Hugo, and more sincerity than any but Flaubert. His is perhaps a rarer combination than any of theirs,—the gift of story-telling, the power of character-drawing, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... considerations suited to our condition; and which, putting it at the very lowest, must be confessed, in our present infirm state, to be an habitual aid and an ever present support to the feebleness of virtue! In a selfish world it produces the effects of disinterestedness, and when public spirit is extinct, it supplies the want of patriotism. Let us therefore with gratitude avail ourselves of its help, and not relinquish the good which it freely offers, from we know not what vain dreams of impracticable purity ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... almost into distraction by the approach of temperance, for they knew it would cut off the sources of their iniquitous gains, and strip them of the vile means of propagating dishonesty and vice, by which they lived. But even this wretched class were not without instances of great disinterestedness and virtue; several of them closed their debasing establishments, forfeited their ill-gotten means of living, and trusting to honesty and legitimate industry, voluntarily assumed the badge of temperance, and joined ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... bulging with books. When he speaks, it is in a strident peacock voice, and there is an abrupt clumsiness in his gestures, especially in drawing-rooms, where he is ill at ease, liable to trip in the carpet and upset furniture. Complete absence of self-consciousness, perfect disinterestedness, are evident in every tone; it is clear that he is an aristocrat, but it is also clear that ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... action. Five of the generals counseled delay. The polemarch, Calimachus, who then had the casting vote, decided for immediate action. Themistocles and Aristides had seconded the advice of Miltiades, to whom the other generals surrendered their days of command—a rare example of patriotic disinterestedness. The Athenians marched at once to Marathon to meet their foes, and were joined by the Plataeans, one thousand warriors, from a little city—the whole armed population, which had ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... we may differ in our view regarding certain matters, there is no man in the country whose frankness, earnestness, and sincere disinterestedness I respect more than yours, and whatever you say always has great ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... he said. "Well, I might put on a pretence of disinterestedness, and say that I was unwilling to bind you to such a fate, and therefore released you from your engagement. It would not be altogether a pretence, for nothing could be more painful to me than to see the brightness of your youth fading away in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... wares. More properly, he insisted that she should write certain things to fit certain publications in which he was interested. They collaborated in writing several books. They met very seldom, and their correspondence has a fine friendly flavor about it, tempered with a disinterestedness that is unique. They encourage each other, criticize each other. They rail at each other in witty quips and quirks, and at times the air is so full of gibes that it looks as if a quarrel were appearing on the horizon—no bigger than a man's hand—but ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... either to the gratitude or confidence of his country.... Our chief object ... is to destroy undue impressions in favor of Mr. Washington." Accordingly it charged that Washington was "treacherous," "mischievous," "inefficient;" dwelt upon his "farce of disinterestedness," his "stately journeyings through the American continent in search of personal incense," his "ostentatious professions of piety," his "pusillanimous neglect," his "little passions," his "ingratitude," his "want of merit," his "insignificance," and ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... done to his memory by the perversions and misrepresentations of the religious publications. No doubt had his views been different on "religious" subjects, he would have been held up as a model of genius, perseverance, courage, disinterestedness of purpose, and purity of life, by the men who now find him no better name than the "Blasphemer." We hope that those not previously acquainted with the facts of his life, will find in the present sketch sufficient reason to think and speak otherwise of a man who made the world his country, ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... coast of Orkney, or that some leading millionaire like Mr. Harmsworth is reported to break a hundred pipes a year. The educated classes, cloyed and demoralized with the mere indulgence of art and mood, can no longer understand the idle and splendid disinterestedness of the reader of Pearson's Weekly. He still keeps something of that feeling which should be the birthright of men—the feeling that this planet is like a new house into which we have just moved our baggage. Any detail of it has a value, and, with a truly sportsmanlike ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... headpiece is none of the best. But I needn't say I am young; and perhaps I shall not grow worse as I grow older. At all events, I hope I have something impressible within me, which feels- -deeply feels—the disinterestedness of your painfully laying your inner self bare, as ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... these sublime, charming, or bizarre things that he knew how to evolve out of himself made him the soul of select society, and there was literally a contest for his company, his noble character, his disinterestedness, his self-respect, his proper pride, enemy of every vanity of bad taste and of every insolent reclame, the security of intercourse with him, and the exquisite delicacy of his manners, making him a ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... — N. disinterestedness &c adj.; generosity; liberality, liberalism; altruism; benevolence &c 906; elevation, loftiness of purpose, exaltation, magnanimity; chivalry, chivalrous spirit; heroism, sublimity. self-denial, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the same manner. He has never been accused of a mistake—he has never been guilty of inquisitiveness or intrigue. Thus the empress has great and firm confidence in him. She is so convinced of his truth, disinterestedness, and probity, that he has gained a sort of influence over her, and as she knows that he is to be won neither by gold, flattery, promises of position and rank, she constantly asks his opinion on matters of importance, and not seldom ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... ideal position; it has financial power and moral prestige; it has disinterestedness of purpose and far-reaching sympathy. When to these qualifications for leadership independence of action is added we can render the maximum ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... followed as rewards to the officers engaged in this most important expedition, the objects of which were so fully attained. As a proof of the disinterestedness of the British, it should be known that of all the slaves liberated few, if any, were English. The Dutch admiral and his officers behaved with the greatest gallantry, each ship taking up her position as close to the enemy's batteries as she could get. ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston |
