"Self-centered" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the gratification of the appetites and passions. The utmost care, therefore, must be exercised by the parents, from the very beginning, if the affections and desires of the child are to be trained away from itself and not permitted to become self-centered. Happy is the child whose mother knows how to direct those earliest manifestations of love. The undisciplined senses and appetites easily degenerate into indulgence of passion, or grow into that moral control ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... fall, and use your forces with discretion. Potterers and scruple-mongers are soon reduced to inaction. It needs but a glimmer of common sense to perceive that man is not made to pass his life in a self-centered trance. ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... hypersuggestible, frequent { in the mild depressions and in all victims of { self-attention. { Retardation { found in most depressions. { Deficiency { as in idiocy—the inability to form new concepts. { Acceleration { as in hypo-mania. { Poverty { as in the abnormally self-centered; { as in melancholia. { Rambling ideas { as in chronic insanity. { Flight of ideas { as in manias, hysterias, and acute deliriums. Disorders / Fixed ideas of < as in paranoia. Ideation Perversions (concepts change their meaning altogether) { as in dementia. { Ideogenous pains { as in ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... man lives all alone and as self-centered as I," the other replied, smiling, "it is fatally easy for him to do that; he may blend himself with his ideals in such a curious way that he never talks about anything else. But if you will excuse that, I will tell you ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... through the easy development of boundless resources, wealth has increased with twofold greater rapidity than numbers, so that we have become secure against the financial vicissitudes of other countries and, alike in business and in opinion, are self-centered and truly independent. Here more and more care is given to provide education for everyone born on our soil. Here religion, released from political connection with the civil government, refuses to subserve ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... development of the qualities that distinguish the civilized man from the barbarian. Nor does the value of these things lie in personal satisfaction alone. There is a culture that is selfish and exclusive, that is self-centered and conceited. The intellectual snob is quite as repellant as any other. But this is true of the moral distortion of all good qualities. The culture that narrows the sympathies, instead of enlarging them, has surely missed the object that should give its ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... though men, and women, too, would have shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone, self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and selfish," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... discharged in the work of redemption, the Scriptural basis underneath such theories is the implication that God, by the very fact of what he is, must act righteously. His power is not his own in such sense that he can act from arbitrary or self-centered motives. The Judge of all the earth must do right, at whatever cost to himself. The Scriptures keep close to the thought of God as a supremely powerful Being under supreme responsibility in the use of his ...
— Understanding the Scriptures • Francis McConnell
... of Earthmen as prisoners, and many of them have agreed to co-operate with us. But, with one single exception, these prisoners have been the moral dregs of your civilization. They have been men who had no pride of race, no pride of society, no pride of self. They have been weak, self-centered, small-minded, cowards who had no thought for Earth and Earthmen, ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... with his reserve, lent him the false attitude of a rather cold, self-centered man, discouraging suggestions at first only to adopt them later in the most inexplicable fashion, and conferring favors in a ready-made impersonal manner which destroyed utterly their quality as favors. In reality his heart hungered for the affection which this false attitude generally repelled. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... faced her, open-mouthed and silent, she went on, still dry-eyed, but with a quaver in her voice that was like a sob: "But, oh, the worst of my blame is for myself! I was a blind, selfish, self-centered egotist. I could have changed things if I had only tried harder. I am paying for it now. I am ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... habit, used to talk. All furniture talks, although the only pieces with voices that we human beings can hear are clocks and wicker-chairs. Everyone has heard a little of the conversation of wicker-chairs, which usually turn upon the last person to be seated in them; but other furniture is more self-centered. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... manifestly difficult to extract from it a rigid and detailed theory as to the nature of God, the manner in which the world was created, the nature of the soul and its relation to man and to God. As long as the Jews were self-centered and did not come in close contact with an alien civilization of a philosophic mould, the need for a carefully thought out and consistent theory on all the questions suggested was not felt. And thus we have in the Talmudic literature quite ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... possessed a sister or anything little of her own to love, and it was a new experience to find a girl, rather small and younger than herself, who clung to her and seemed actually fond of her. Life, which had hitherto been chilly and self-centered, suddenly grew warm. She had been used to pose as one who disliked school, but with this fresh interest her views on the subject underwent ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... not this attitude of self-sacrifice the thing that made their home a real Christian home? If they had put their home first, not the work—if that home had become a self-centered thing, a thing enjoyed for its own sake—would it not have failed to be what they wanted it to be? A home that is absorbed in itself is not a truly Christian home. John was willing to be away so much, and to sacrifice so much, because his love for his Master was the all-consuming ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson
... license to these things instead of subduing them will preach to his own condemnation, however correct his preaching be. Such do not permit the truth to be presented; this is true particularly of temporal honor. These words of the apostle, then, are a fine thrust at ambitious and self-centered preachers and Christians. Not only do they run in vain and fight to no purpose; they become actual castaways with ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... known or imaginable beauty? ... Aye! ... and I will tell thee a secret,—she is mine!—mine from the dark tresses down to the dainty feet! ... mine, all mine, so long as I shall please to call her so! ...—notwithstanding that the foolish people of Al-Kyris think she is impervious to love, self-centered, holy and 'immaculate'! Bah! ... as if a woman ever was 'immaculate'! But mark you! ... though she loves me,—me, crowned Laureate of the realm, she loves no other man! And why? Because no other man is found half so worthy of love! All men must love her, . . Nirjalis loved her, and he is ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Unless he had been self-centered, Balzac could never have left behind him his enormous and prodigious work. In spite of certain unlovely phases of his private character and failure to fulfil his literary and financial obligations, he was a man of great ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... Beasley seemed a forceful personality as well as a rather handsome man of perhaps thirty-five, heavy of build, swarthy of skin, and sloe-black of eye, like that of the Mexicans whose blood was reported to be in him. He looked crafty, confident, and self-centered. If Helen had never heard of him before that visit she ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... and self-centered of the individuals was the camp surgeon, highly trained and educated, and chosen because he seemed to have a way among men. Greeley was several times at the point of having him shot; the surgeon's death by starvation saved Greeley ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... good and the true, every longing of the heart for a higher and better life, every lofty purpose and unselfish endeavor, makes the human spirit stronger, more harmonious, and more beautiful. It is this alone that gives a self-centered confidence in one's heaven-aided powers, and a high-minded cheerfulness, like that of a celestial spirit. It is this which an old writer has called the ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... prayers and at last its sleep. Even Harvey seemed remote and stern and bitter. She reread his letters often, but they were forced. And after a time she realized another quality in them. They were self-centered. It was his anxiety, his loneliness, his humiliation. Sara Lee's eyes were looking out, those days, over a suffering world. Harvey's eyes were turned ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... she said. "Ever since he went to Oxford he has changed completely. He has got into his head that we are a self-centered family, and that I am a prejudiced mother, when it is the only thing I am not. I may be everything else for all I know, I may be daily breaking all the commandments without knowing it! But a prejudiced mother I am not! Before he went to Oxford he came ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... consciousness of being a selfish, self-centered little beast, not half enough grateful to Barney Bill for delivering him out of the House of Bondage and leading him into the Land of Milk and Honey. He was as much stung by the delicately implied rebuke as touched by ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... had been born in the East, he had spent his holidays and vacations with his Eastern relatives. He had gone to an Eastern school to prepare for an Eastern college. Except for this one obsession with regard to her son's education his mother was self-centered. She was an idolized wife, a discontented woman—- she had shown O-liver no heights ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... in turning out men with the correct attitude towards their work. It has also turned out a fair number of self-centered, egocentric horrors." ...
— The K-Factor • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... not to take this self-willed young woman too seriously. She had, at least, the virtue of truthfulness. She was entirely frank in the expression of her opinions. She might have many other redeeming qualities which would quite overbalance the disagreeably self-centered side ...
— Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus • Jessie Graham Flower
... excited by the special interest of the occasion, and too busy with making a racket of their own, for any individual, even the great Roussillon, to gain their eyes or ears. He in turn scarcely heard the tumult they made, so self-centered were his burning thoughts and feelings. A great occasion in Vincennes and he, Gaspard Roussillon, not recognized as one of the large factors in it! Ah, no, never! And he strode along the wall of the stockade, turning the corners and heavily ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... by PHILLIMORE. PHILIP PHILLIMORE is a self-centered, short-tempered, imperious member of the respectable fashionables of New York. He is well and solidly dressed, and in manner and speech evidently a man of family. He is accustomed to being listened to in his home circle and from the bench, and it is practically ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: The New York Idea • Langdon Mitchell
... satisfaction of the Swedish poet. Miss Lord is a cultured, charming woman, attractive in society, and has a rare gift in conversation; she is rather shrinking in her feelings. Miss Mueller, her devoted friend, is just the opposite; fearless, aggressive and self-centered. Miss Lord discharged her duties as poor-law guardian faithfully, and Miss Mueller, as member of the London school-board, claimed her rights when infringed upon, and maintained the dignity of her position ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... would see and hear the things that delight the nature-lover must steal softly and silently along, watching his footsteps, hiding in the shadows, and thus he may see nature as she is. Likewise he who comes to the Bible full of self-importance with mind and heart self-centered sees not the natural beauty of the Bible. We must come to it effacing self, seeking not our own but the things of Christ, and we shall find it a mine of spiritual gold, a fountain of living water, a balm for every sorrow, a light in every ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... the tragedy of overweening pride. The trouble with Coriolanus is not ambition, as is the case with Macbeth. He cares little for crowns, office, or any outward honor. Self-centered, self-sufficient, contemptuous of all mankind outside of his own immediate circle of friends, he dies at last because he refuses to recognize those ties of sympathy which should bind all men and all classes of men together. He leads his countrymen to battle, and ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... clasping fingers up to Rhoda's sweet face. Molly was a squaw, dirty and ignorant. Rhoda was the delicate product of a highly cultivated civilization, egoistic, narrow-viewed, self-centered. And yet Rhoda, looking into Molly's deep brown eyes, saw there that limitless patience and fortitude and gentleness which is woman's without regard to class or color. And not knowing why, the white girl bowed her head on the squaw's fat shoulder and ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... went into the making of his strong and self-reliant character. He never said, "My mother's religion is good enough for me." He despised her religion, and that of the Friars Gray who punished boys to make them good. His mind turned inward—he became silent, secretive, self-centered, and his repulsive exterior served him well as a tough husk to hide ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... never concealed his strength. He shrunk above all things from pushing himself forward and demanding public notice, and yet few ever met him without feeling the force of character that lay behind his gentle and almost retiring demeanor. It was easy to recognize that here was a man, self-centered and whole. ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... him sorry and there were things which made him glad. On the whole, however, his isolated contemplation of what for so long he had taken as a matter of course depressed him. Life was unutterably and intensely selfish. Every little unit in that seething mass was so entirely, so strangely self-centered. None of them had any real love or friendliness for the millions who toiled around them, no one seemed to have time to take his eyes from his own work and his own interests. Burton became more and more depressed as the ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... children are dears and turn out well; but the second life is one's very own, the duty is to one's self, and, such is the ineradicable selfishness of human nature after long years of self-denial and devotion to others, there is a distinct, if reprehensible, satisfaction in being quite natural and self-centered. If, on the other hand, circumstances are such that the capable middle-aged woman, instead of living entirely for herself, in her clubs, in her increasing interest in public affairs, and her chosen work, finds herself with certain members of her family dependent upon her, ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... director, delivered in impersonal kindness, the Sans found hard to swallow. Self-willed and self-centered, they bore honest criticism very badly. Neither were they appreciative of his offer to aid them in ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... craving for light, especially in the regions of pain and loss. Historic Christianity has lost out because it has made religion too self-centered, not that the cults are a corrective here, for they are even more self-centered—that is one of their great faults. The individual is not the center of the world; he is part of a larger order concerned for great ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... gesture of dismissal this self-centered young woman rose and walked majestically to the window. Turning her back squarely upon Grace and Elfreda, she appeared to be deeply absorbed in watching what went on in the street, and, divided between vexation and laughter, the two girls left ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... Further, nature is self-centered in its operation; for we behold every agent acting naturally for its own preservation. But nature's operation would not be self-centered were it to tend towards anything else more than to nature itself. Therefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... incredible the metamorphosis! To her flashed a memory of this man, her other-time employer—keen and smooth-shaven, alert, well-dressed, self-centered, dominant, the master of a hundred complex problems, the directing mind ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England |
