"Self-absorption" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pine wood, and thence, by devious windings and turnings, through field and forest, to his old woodland. It was his now; he had purchased it back from the Squire. Then he sat himself down and looked about him out of his silence and self-absorption, and it was as if he had come into a very workshop of nature. The hummings of her wheels and wings were loud in his ear, the fanning of them cool on his cheek. The wood here was very light and young, and the spring sun struck the ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Di or from the Dalziels that I had been doing a little amateur work as a nurse in Belgium, but no one—not even Di herself—expressed curiosity as to details. They had so much to think of that interested them more; and I was thankful for the self-absorption of Kitty and Di which saved me from awkward questions as to how I had contrived to get out of Liege. It was simply taken for granted by my family that, according to my own written account, I had made the journey ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I spent the time. I must have called upon some of my classmates, but I cannot lay hold upon a single word or look or phrase from any of them. Deeply as I felt my distinction in thus riding forth into the world, all the tender incidents of farewell are lost to me. Perhaps my boyish self-absorption prevented me from recording outside impressions, for the idea of travelling, of crossing the State line, profoundly engaged me. Up to this time, notwithstanding all my dreams of conquest in far countries, I had never ridden in a railway coach! Can you wonder therefore that ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... listens and wonders, applauds or condoles, as her stronger-minded friend may give her the cue, too unselfish, and perhaps, also, too timid, to intrude her own less thrilling interests and hopes upon Amy's self-absorption; so that when the latter comes to an end of her confidences, and has leisure and recollection enough to say, "And now, Edith, what have you been doing?" she hastily replies, "Oh, nothing particular," glad to be able to shield her insignificance ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... had real experience, and their roots lay, not upon the surface, but went deep down to the perennial springs, and the articles of their creed became a vehicle for the expression of the most real emotions. Evangelicalism, however, to Mr. Cardew was dangerous. He was always prone to self-absorption, and the tendency was much increased by his religion. He lived an entirely interior life, and his joys and sorrows were not those of Abchurch, but of another sphere. Abchurch feared wet weather, drought, ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... this attitude of mind has not as yet been achieved. A certain self-absorption, not personal, but human, has marked almost all attempts to conceive the universe as a whole. Mind, or some aspect of it—thought or will or sentience—has been regarded as the pattern after which the universe is to be conceived, for no better reason, at ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... people in the world; but in the many strains of blood which go to make up America there is as yet a natural corrective to the narrower kind of patriotism. America has vast spaces and many varieties of type and climate, and life to her is still a great adventure. Americans have their own form of self-absorption, but seem free as yet from the special competitive self-centrement which has been forced on Britons through long centuries by countless continental rivalries and wars. Insularity was driven into the very bones of our people by the generation-long wars of Napoleon. A distinguished ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy |
