"Self-denial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... second will be favored by sane men for the simple reason that it makes the world seem more rational. To choose the first view under such circumstances would be an ascetic act, an act of philosophic self-denial of which no normal human being would be guilty. Using the pragmatic test of the meaning of concepts, I had shown the concept of the absolute to MEAN nothing but the holiday giver, the banisher of cosmic fear. One's ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... embellished, through the accomplishments of Muse and Grace, would have seemed the narrow-minded asceticism of a bigot. But now, amid the direful calamities of the time, the beauty of both natures became visible to each. To the eyes of Isaura tenderness became predominant in the monastic self-denial of Raoul. To the eyes of Raoul, devotion became predominant in the gentle thoughtfulness of Isaura. Their intercourse was in ambulance and hospital-in care for the wounded, in prayer for the dying. Ah! it is easy to declaim against the frivolities and ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of which I had met the author face to face would have been for me in those days an impossible act of self-denial. When I returned to Oxford for the Christmas Term I had duly secured 'Negations.' I used to keep it lying carelessly on the table in my room, and whenever a friend took it up and asked what it was about I would say 'Oh, it's rather a remarkable book. It's by a man whom I know.' ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... face and person very good, only inclining a little too much to be fat. She had been married young by her relations to an old Turkey merchant, who, having got a great fortune, had left off trade. With him she lived without reproach, but not without pain, in a state of great self-denial, for about twelve years; and her virtue was rewarded by his dying and leaving her very rich. The first year of her widowhood was just at an end, and she had past it in a good deal of retirement, seeing only a few particular ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... actual want. The machines here are not run by steam, but by foot power. I noticed weary limbs that were beating time to work! work! work! Mrs. Binns, a kind motherly woman, spoke earnestly of the industry, trustworthiness, self-denial, loyal affection for parents, and general kindliness that ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... rather to glory in being governed by reason. They should be instructed, that the only possible means of maintaining their opinions amongst persons of sense, is to support them by unanswerable arguments. They should be taught, that, to secure respect, they must deserve it; and their self-denial, or self-command, should never obtain that tacit admiration which they most value, except where it is exerted for useful and rational purposes. The constant custom of appealing, in the last resort, to their own judgment, which distinguishes the proud ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... happy to have escaped with so gentle an admonition, returned to Lantza to resume his command. He was indeed more circumspect than in the past; but he found and seized the occasion to revenge himself on the town for the compulsory self-denial the Emperor had imposed on him. On his arrival he found in the suburbs a large number of recruits who had come from Paris in his absence; and it occurred to him to make them all enter the town, alleging that it was indispensable they should ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hearts are often far away, or are extracting good from the evil spread before them; and that all the waste of time and talent, so openly and ostentatiously exhibited, is compensated in secret by longer and intenser application to the true object of their pursuit, and by acts of atonement and self-denial, of which the conscious stars of heaven are the only created witnesses. The worst operation of dissolute indulgences on genius is not, perhaps, in producing depravity of heart or habits, for its pure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Self-denial surely means something far greater than some slight insignificant lessening of our self-indulgences! When Peter denied CHRIST, he utterly disowned Him and disallowed His claims. In this way we are called to deny self, and to do it daily, if we would be CHRIST's ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... and Maguire as her male friends, and to treat Mr Rubb simply as a man of business. She was denying herself skittles and beer, and putting up with tea and an old aunt, because she preferred the proprieties of life to its pleasures. Is it right that she should be blamed for such self-denial? But now the skittles and beer had come after her, as those delights will sometimes pursue the prudent youth who would fain avoid them. Mr Rubb was there, in her drawing-room, looking extremely well, shaking hands with her very comfortably, and soon abandoning his conversation on that ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... thought, could induce her to acknowledge the Prince of Orange as rightful monarch, nor to let her lord so acknowledge him. So my Lord Castlewood remained a nonjuror all his life nearly, though his self-denial caused him many a pang, and left him sulky and out ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the Queen; for, to the repeated signs of her grandson, she only replied by laying her finger on her lip. Dr. Lundin was not so reserved. Regret for the handsome gratuity, and for the compulsory task of self-denial imposed on him, had grieved the spirit of that worthy officer and learned mediciner—"Even thus, my friend," said he, squeezing the page's hand as he bade him farewell, "is merit rewarded. I came to cure this unhappy Lady—and I profess she well deserves the trouble, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... work. Secretaries Ruddock and Kirk of our Embassy undertook the uninteresting and arduous work of superintending these payments as well as of our other financial affairs. This work was most trying and they deserve great credit for their self-denial. By arrangement with the British Government, I was also enabled to pay the poorer prisoners an allowance of five marks a week, thus permitting them to buy little luxuries and necessities and extra food at the camp canteen which was early established in the ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... is not an art of youth alone. It is an art of middle age and of the older years. Says William James: "The man who daily inures himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition and self-denial in unnecessary things, will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast." Such a one also will resist the decay of powers and be able to keep young when the years ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... truths, opening his eyes, relieved his stomach, and 221:24 he ate without suffering, "giving God thanks;" but he never enjoyed his food as he had imagined he would when, still the slave of matter, he thought of the flesh- 221:27 pots of Egypt, feeling childhood's hunger and undisci- plined by self-denial and divine Science. ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... grounded; but doth not the person who expends vast sums in the furniture of his house or the ornaments of his person, who consumes much time and employs great pains in dressing himself, or who thinks himself paid for self-denial, labour, or even villany, by a title or a ribbon, sacrifice as much to vanity as the poor wit who is desirous to read you his poem or his play? My second remark was, that vanity is the worst of passions, and more apt to contaminate the mind than any other: for, as selfishness is much more ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... the result of the morning's self-denial, of a day passed quietly in bed, with only the companionship of pillows and dreams. I was forced to choose between Mrs. St. Clare's 'lunch' and Mrs. Tarrant's 'crush,' 'not that I love Caesar less, but ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... neighbors. Some who heard that he had loaned $60,000 to a water company at 12 per cent. interest, regarded him contemptuously as a miser. How else explain his shabby clothes, his old rubber boots, that were out at the toes, his life of toil and self-denial? Palmer never gambled, nor caroused, nor spent money on women. He attended strictly to business, bringing to the bank at Moore's Flat from time to time gold dust of high grade, worth from $19 to $20 an ounce. And those who bought ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... mendicant. It is said that he walked about in a shroud, taken from the body of a female slave. Profoundly impressed with the vanity of all human affairs, he devoted himself to philosophical meditation, by severe self-denial emancipating himself from all worldly hopes and cares. When a man has brought himself to this pass he is able to accomplish great things. For the name by which his parents had called him he substituted that ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... pampered, my passions indulged, and every desire gratified as far as possible. Until that last sad parting, I hardly knew what it was to have a request refused; and now, to experience such a change—such a sudden transition from the most liberal indulgence to the most cruel and rigorous self-denial—Oh, it was a severe trial to my independent spirit to submit to it. Yet, submit I must, for I had learned, even then, that my newly appointed guardians were not to be trifled with. Henceforth, OBEDIENCE must be ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... without degrading the throne of which he is the occupant, and that the principle involved in his impunity was of more consequence in its great and permanent results than any success of theirs. But it would have required more virtue, self-denial, wisdom, and philosophy than falls to the lot of any public man individually in these days to have embraced all these considerations, and it would have been a miracle if a great mob of men calling themselves a party could have been made ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... were rich, perhaps you wouldn't care about it," said her mother. "A little here and a little there, a stitch, a kind word, a small self-denial, these are in the power of all of us, and in course of time they mount up and make a great deal. And, Mary dear, I've always found if you once start in a path and are determined to keep on, somebody's sure to come along and lend a helping ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Ursuline convent, will have an important part to play in the following narrative. Being as hypocritical as Urbain was straightforward, his ambition was to gain wherever his name was known a reputation for exalted piety; he therefore affected in his life the asceticism of an anchorite and the self-denial of a saint. As he had much experience in ecclesiastical lawsuits, he looked on the chapter's loss of this one, of which he had in some sort guaranteed the success, as a personal humiliation, so that when ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... round ... all will come round. All the best actions of war and peace ... all help given to relatives and strangers and the poor and old and sorrowful and young children and widows and the sick, and to all shunned persons ... all furtherance of fugitives and of the escape of slaves ... all the self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks and saw others take the seats of the boats ... all offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend's sake or opinion's sake ... all pains of enthusiasts scoffed ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... up to); but when a woman's heart is full of devout affections and good purposes, when her head devises liberal and Christlike things, when her hands are always open to the poor and always busy with acts of love and self-denial, and when her feet are ever eager to run upon errands of mercy, why, if there be anything worthy of being called Christian Perfection in this world of imperfection, I do not know why such an one does not possess ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... "The state of things in my place here is passable. I've got no outside outlay. The main thing I have to mind is to make provision for a year's necessary expenses. If I launch out into luxuries, I have to suffer hardships, so I must try a little self-denial and manage to save something. It's the custom, besides, at the end of the year to send presents to people and invite others; but I'll thicken the skin of my face a bit, (and dispense with both), and have done. I'm ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... goddesses of air. I still regarded thee as sprung from God; As sent to us from his divine abode, With the sweet sisters, holy Faith and Love, That favored mortals might your virtues prove. Led on by thee, we pass through heavy trial, Requiring ever constant self-denial, Unscathed, yet ridded of defiling dross, To find ourselves the better for its loss. Prompted by thee, we scale vast mountain heights; Or take to Earth's far bounds most rapid flights; Face dreadful storms; yea, greatest dangers brave, And, unappalled, view the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... Our body, we read in 1st Corinthians, is the temple of the Holy Ghost. It is to be holy in things like eating and drinking. How often a Christian comes to the consciousness that he takes or seeks too much enjoyment in that eating, eating for pleasure, with no self-denial or self-sacrifice in his feeding the body! How often we tempt one another to eat, and how often the believer forgets that this body is the very secret temple of the Holy Ghost and that every mouthful we eat and drink ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... SUPERCILIOUS, spends at least half her life in wishing the annihilation of the other half; for as she must only speak in her own Coterie, she is compelled to be frequently silent, and therefore, having nothing to think of, she is commonly gnawn with self-denial, and soured with want of amusement: Miss Larolles, indeed, is better off, for in talking faster than she thinks, she has but followed the natural bent of her disposition: as to this poor JARGONIST, he has, I must ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... do fale so bad,' she used to say. 'I wish some wan would take me by the ear and lade me round to the ould shebeen, and set me down, and fill a noggen of whusky and make me dhrink it—whether I would or no!' Whether I would or no I have to drink the cup of self-denial," Crozier continued, "though Bradley and his gang have closed every door against me here, and I've come back without what I went for at Aspen Vale, for my men were away. I've come back without what I went for, but I must just grin and bear ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... held out his hand kindly. "It was only what I should have expected of you," he said. "I have not forgotten your essay. I am glad to see that you not only have right ideas of duty, but have, what is rarer, the courage and self-denial to put ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... much of you. Seriously, if my good cousin had known what she was sending you to, she would have wished the 'Diana' should sink with you on board, rather than get to the end of her voyage. It is quite self-denial enough to come here—when one does not expect ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... not take it for granted that every man has even a bare forty; but millions of men who have it not, can have it by a little persistent self-denial; and when an able-bodied man has forty acres of ground under his feet, it is up to him whether he will be a comfortable, independent, ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... the less of the noble Christian man; and David Bundle, who was appointed, ever found in Big Tom a wise and judicious counsellor and friend. I was thrilled by the address and the spirit manifested. How few white men in like circumstances would have had grace and self-denial enough to have acted ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... him; his spirits depended on his sensations, and he had no fears but that a few months would remove all danger; and Violet would say no word of misgiving. She would have felt that to remonstrate would have been to draw him back, after his first step in the path of resolute self-denial. ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... father—a freedman, presented late in life, and almost against his will, with the liberty so fondly desired in youth, but on condition of the sacrifice of part of his peculium—the slave's diminutive hoard—amassed by many a self-denial, in an existence necessarily hard. The rich man, interested in the promise of the fair child born on his estate, had sent him to school. The meanness and dejection, nevertheless, of that unoccupied old age defined the leading memory of Flavian, revived sometimes, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... justice, it must be admitted that he had good business capacity, and if he had been able, like his father, to exercise self-denial, and make money-getting his chief enjoyment, he would no doubt have become a rich man in time. As it was, whenever he could make his companions pay for his ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... herself to her innumerable schemes except a lavish expenditure of pens and ink and paper with which to set forth her appeals. Yet in this she is a true altruist. For she knows and tells everybody how delightful and blessed it is to give, and accordingly in the purest spirit of self-denial she permits her friends to dispense the cash, whilst she herself is satisfied ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 24, 1890 • Various
... and even of all men in history, Bolvar is the very one to whom my paternal friend w have preferred to send this present. What else can I say to the great citizen whom South America has honored with the name of Liberator, confirmed in him by two worlds, a man endowed with an influence equal to his self-denial, who carries in his heart the sole love of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... compromises necessary so often between different interests, present to the members of a legislative body of a republic difficulties little understood by the people at large and requiring for their solution the highest order of ability, self-denial, and love of country. I beg you to take my testimony, coming from another land long engaged in grappling with the same kind of difficulties; I beg you to take my testimony that the troubles of your body in ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... confidence on the occasion of her success—with those before the footlights and the orchestra." But this was not all. "Never did any young lady, whose private claims to modest respect were so great as hers are known to be," said the same critic, "with such self-denial fling off their protection in her resolution to lay hold of the public at all risks. Her performances at times approached offense against maidenly reticence and delicacy. When she played Zerlina, in 'Don Giovanni,' such virtue as there was between the two seemed ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... wounded, would have been impossible in his emaciated state. The declivity of the hill enabled him to roll the carcass down to his companions, who were too feeble to climb the rocks. They fell to work to cut it up; yet exerted a remarkable self-denial for men in their starving condition, for they contented themselves for the present with a soup made from the bones, reserving the flesh for future repasts. This providential relief gave them strength to pursue their journey, but they were frequently reduced to almost ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... no parallel amongst men, and whom all other men consider as objects of general detestation, and the severest animadversion of law. When, in the place of that religion of social benevolence, and of individual self-denial, in mockery of all religion, they institute impious, blasphemous, indecent theatric rites, in honour of their vitiated, perverted reason, and erect altars to the personification of their own corrupted and bloody republic;—when schools and seminaries are founded at the public ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... from an excess of delicacy, rarely specifies his personal sufferings; but one really requires to know something of them, in order to make a proper estimate of his magnanimous resolution in fulfilling his instructions, and to entertain a just conception of the self-denial which such an expedition demanded. We shall be aided by the following particulars, which, besides, imply the very extensive distress of the whole crew: "A great number of our people were afflicted with very severe rheumatic pains, which deprived them of the use of their limbs; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... changing ideas and customs of time and place. But for the man with extraordinary powers of mind and body, for one gifted by Nature as Abraham Lincoln was gifted, the pioneer life, with its severe training in self-denial, patience, and industry, developed his character, and fitted him for the great duties of his after life as no other training ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... depraved as any of their dining companions. Any little reserve either might have shown upon ordinary occasions had disappeared after a few cups of wine; and none of them feared the company, which, on its part, stood as little in awe of them. The affectation of sanctity and self-denial was meant only for the simple poblanos and the simpler peons of the settlement. At the dinner-table it was occasionally assumed by one or the other, but only by way of joke,—to give point and piquancy to the relation of some adventure. In the midst of the conversation, ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... flowery beds of ease;" it is not an invitation to the sentimental soul to "sit and sing herself away to everlasting bliss;" it is the clarion of battle; it is the challenge to an enterprise which means struggle and suffering and self-denial. ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... not spare her. The hypocrite's unmasked!—She has deceived The king, all Spain, and me. She loves, I know She loves! I can bring proofs that will make you tremble. The king has been deceived—but he shall not, By heaven, go unrevenged! The saintly mask Of pure and superhuman self-denial I'll tear from her deceitful brow, that all May see the forehead of the shameless sinner. 'Twill cost me dear, but here my triumph lies, That it will cost ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... away in the savings bank, he had felt quite independent. Wealth is comparative, and Dick probably felt as rich as many men who are worth a hundred thousand dollars. He was beginning to feel the advantages of his steady self-denial, and to experience the pleasures of property. Not that Dick was likely to be unduly attached to money. Let it be said to his credit that it had never given him so much satisfaction as when it enabled him to help ...
— Ragged Dick - Or, Street Life in New York with the Boot-Blacks • Horatio Alger
... slickest looking of the whole, and the greatest beggars. A hideous party of nachnees were in attendance, and ready to perform any more pleasing duties they might be required; they were however so ugly, that not much self-denial was required in declining their offers. They were dressed in red, with abundance of cumbrous silver ornaments, and dirty leggings; one was ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... many privileges. It is one of his privileges to watch the steady growth of an institution in which he takes great interest; it is one of his privileges to bear his testimony to the prudence, the goodness, the self-denial, and the excellence of a class of persons who have been too long depreciated, and whose virtues are too much denied, out of the depths of an ignorant and stupid superstition. And lastly, it is one of his privileges sometimes to be called on to propose ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... there are many actions influenced by secret motives known only to the heart that harbors them. Not all are dishonorable. It takes a great deal of guilt to make a person as black as he is painted by his enemies. Many a brave heart has, under the garb of an impropriety, accomplished heroic acts of self-denial. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... resemblance between Civilis and William the Silent, two heroes of ancient German stock, who had learned the arts of war and peace in the service of a foreign and haughty world-empire. Determination, concentration of purpose, constancy in calamity, elasticity almost preternatural, self-denial, consummate craft in political combinations, personal fortitude, and passionate patriotism, were the heroic elements in both. The ambition of each was subordinate to the cause which he served. Both refused ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with constancy, moderation, and wonderful tact, Livia fulfilled her mission. She succeeded in resolving into the admirable harmony of a long existence that contradiction between the liberty conceded to her sex and the self-denial demanded of it by man as a duty. She was assuredly one of the most perfect models of that lady of high society whom the Romans in all the years of their long and tempestuous history never ceased to admire. Even and serene, completely mistress of herself and of her passions, endowed with ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... released and returned to its place, and the little fellow, who with no small amount of self-denial had conquered the intense desire to take the eggs, stood still gazing at the bush. Little Miss Alice now made signs that she wished to be lifted up to see into the nest, and with no small difficulty her sturdy ...
— What the Blackbird said - A story in four chirps • Mrs. Frederick Locker
... former Lehigh hero, official and rule maker. Players have come and gone; the call in recent years has been elsewhere, but Paul Dashiell has remained, and his interest in the game has been manifested by self-denial and hard work. Defeat has come to him with great sadness, and there are many games of which he still feels the sting; these come to him as nightmares in his recollections of Annapolis football history. Great has been his joy in the Navy's ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... stirred in Granger; he suddenly loved this man for the self-denial which that act betrayed. If there was to be a denial of self, however, he was emphatic that his should be the sacrifice. Was it this thought of sacrifice which brought religion to his mind—some haunting, quick remembrance of those ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... domestic life, there is scarcely one that has occasioned more melancholy consequences than that of carrying indulgence towards a favorite child too far; and creating, under the slightest instances of self-denial, a sensitiveness or impatience, arising from a previous habit of being gratified in all the whims and caprices, of childhood or youth. The fate of favorite children in life is almost proverbially unhappy, and we doubt not that if the various lunatic receptacles ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... no aid to the threatened importation; indeed, it was pretty plainly hinted to some of them that they would best prove their patriotism by using their especial knowledge in such a way as would most effectually prevent it. Boston set the example of self-denial and of resistance. In the December of 1773 three ships laden with tea arrived in her port. Their captains soon heard of the hostility to their mission, were soon warned of the dangers that awaited them. Alarmed at their ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Laura admitted. "Think of the struggle, the self-denial, and never a soul to tell him he ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... children in general we were taught grim self-denial, in season and out of season, to mortify the flesh, keep our bodies in subjection to Bible laws, and mercilessly punish ourselves for every fault imagined or committed. A little boy, while helping his sister to drive home the cows, happened to use a forbidden word. "I'll have to tell ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... to cover his disinterestedness with a harmless fiction. To pacify the indignant Chiefs and the many persons who sympathized with them, he pretended that though he had declined intentionally the gifts of the Chancery barristers, he had not designed to exercise the same self-denial with regard to ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... about the horse was, she thought, unfortunate, since, though Guy had exercised great self-denial, it was no wonder Philip was annoyed. Mr. Edmonstone's vexation was soon over. As soon as she had persuaded him that there had been no offence, he strove to say with a good grace, that it was very proper, and told Guy he would be a thorough book-worm ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very daring act for one man to tell another that he is fond of him. And you would not wonder at my regard, if you only knew what a pure-minded, noble fellow this Cormac is,—so thoughtful, so self-sacrificing, for, you know, it must have cost him—it would cost any one—a terrible effort of self-denial to dwell in such a solitude as this for the sole purpose of nursing a stranger, and that stranger a doomed leper, as I thought at first, though God has seen ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... West to the full, but he profited by them as well. They broadened and deepened his knowledge of what the American people were and meant. They made vivid to him the value of the simple, robust virtues of self-reliance, courage, self-denial, tolerance, and justice. The influence of those hard-riding years was with him as a great asset to the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... place of wealth a universal pressure for money was felt; not enough for common expenses; the price of all property down; the country drooping and languishing; towns and cities decaying, and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of universal self-denial for the preservation of their family estates." What was the cause of all this misfortune and misery? Benton found it, and other Southern leaders also, in the unequal action of federal fiscal legislation. "Under this legislation," he shrewdly ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... himself." "Deny himself"—what does that mean? Well, deny means to say "no," plainly and positively. Himself is the smoother English word for his self. Let him say "no" to his self. Please notice that Jesus is not speaking of what is commonly called self-denial. That is, repressing some desire for a time, sacrificing something temporarily in order to gain an advantage later. That sort of thing is not peculiar to the christian life, but is practiced by all classes, even among the lowest. He is not speaking of that, but ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... "'Thank you, but self-denial is another duty of mine,' she remarked when I offered her a glass of the wine. 'I live in a tipsy world and drink—water. I live in a merry world and keep a stern face. It is a vile world and yet I ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... to me of love—dare not approach the sister of your victim with proffers of affection. The death of Edgar may leave me penniless—nearly friendless—I have been tenderly nurtured, but I would sooner embrace a life of sternest self-denial, of utter poverty, than link myself with infamy in your person. Leave me—and dare not approach the room of my brother, to imbitter his last ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... to the sense she should have of his honor, to show that he stood in need of no strengthening at her hands; and it seems legible enough, between the lines, that he had rather to resist the pull of her weakness, or her interest, than to look for encouragement in the path of hardship and self-denial. It is certain, too, that some days before Blackwood arrived, Nelson understood that he might be wanted soon, and avowed his entire willingness to go, while not affecting to conceal his hope that circumstances might permit him to remain until October, the time ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... increasing wants of our growing city demanded more churches, but how many in the Second Presbyterian could obtain their own consent to exchange the comfort and ease of this elegant temple, which at length, after much self-denial of its members, was almost free from debt, and whose pulpit was adorned with the gifted and talented Dr. Potts! who could give up their cushioned and carpeted pews, the choice choir, the grand organ, and the ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... nervousness, and a calmer, more equable mood seemed to have come over him, as his state of health daily improved. But the nameless shadow of a hidden grief seemed to hang over him. For his wants he needed but little; self-denial and sacrifice had grown to be a second nature to him, his one earthly wish seeming to be to have a house where he and Carmen could live alone together; but as regards others, he was open-handed and generous to help wherever ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... to a daughter, two months later, gives us another illustration of the self-denial and anxiety for the salvation of the soul, with which Mrs. Graham personally ministered to the needy and the suffering, and how skilfully she improved these scenes for the ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... for his self-denial, and I was about to propose leaving True with him, when the dog settled the point by jumping in. John and I shoved off, and paddled on with all our might. Now that we had fewer people on board, we made much better way than before, and floated buoyantly over the mimic seas ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... But her self-denial was strained to breaking as the interminable minutes grew, and, at last, she abandoned her principles to her woman's curiosity, and slipped into the room. She knew well enough that none of those present would resent her intrusion. And, anyway, it was hard to stand by when ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... overthrow of the palaces which had been reared without labor; it is not satisfied with the dissipation of mere fancies and dreams; but, being itself a most real thing, it carries with it many a stately structure, which the toil, the economy, the self-denial of years had hardly raised. Extraneous causes,—a short crop,—a reduced tariff,—a peculiar mania of enterprise,—may hasten or retard the various steps of the process which has been described; but its cause and its course are almost always the same, and the discerning eye ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... and stole the bread out of their own mouths in order to increase the funds of their organization, in the blind conviction that eventually something miraculous would come of it all. The poor achieved power by means of privation, tears, and self-denial, and had the satisfaction of feeling that they were rich through their organization. When many united together they tasted of the sweets of wealth; and, grateful as they were, they regarded that already as a result. A sense of well-being lifted them above the unorganized, ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... Salmon's court of Great Britain, and are in as much danger of melting away, by too near approaching the fire, which they for that reason carefully avoid, though 'tis now such excessive cold weather, that I believe they suffer extremely by that piece of self-denial. The snow is already very deep, and the people begin to slide about in their traineaus. This is a favourite diversion all over Germany. They are little machines fixed upon a sledge, that hold a lady and gentleman, ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... reason probably was, that like all high functionaries, he deemed it indispensable religiously to sustain his dignity; one of the most troublesome things in the world, and one calling for the greatest self-denial. And the constant watch, and many-sided guardedness, which this sustaining of a Commodore's dignity requires, plainly enough shows that, apart from the common dignity of manhood, Commodores, in general possess no real ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... have recommended them to the care of Mr. Charles Montgomery, president of the board of prison commissioners, who, through great self-denial, toil, and energy, succeeded in establishing, little more than two years ago, a beautiful home and mission for discharged prisoners. It is located in San Francisco. To it they may go and be well provided for until employment is procured for them. Truly this is ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... remember this, the thought of sacrifice, that our lives to be truly Christian must have the spirit of the Cross worked into them. It was by offering Himself in sacrifice that Christ redeemed us, and it is by offering ourselves to Him in sacrifice, by self-denial for His cause, and by doing good (at some cost to ourselves) to others for His sake, that we make the response He asks to His love. That offering of ourselves must be made not only by our lips in the act of worship, but also by our ...
— The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... year's almanack. Looked at from the point of view of Emmett who really believed that something might be gained at this eleventh hour from a study of the more recent volume, it had been a fine piece of self-denial. It showed that Emmett had Christian talents which surely ought not to be wasted because he was handicapped ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... is rubbish from beginning to end. It would sell, because every word of it would foster in the reader the illusion that the community of which he is a member is invincible under all circumstances, that effort and self-denial and suffering are spared him alone out of all mankind, and that a little pleasurable excitement, preferably that to be obtained from his favourite game, is the ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... to the polls in a mood of exalted self-denial. They knew that they were voting away their own rights, but they also knew that their private ideals would be more than realized in the legalized frenzy of their representative. Bleak, appearing on the balcony of his hotel, smiled affectionately ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Congress, and during its sessions to appoint a committee to receive and despatch all executive business, so that Congress itself should meddle only with what should be legislative. But I question if any Congress (much less all successively) can have self-denial enough to go, through with this distribution. The distribution, then, should be imposed on them. I find Congress have reversed their division of the western States, and proposed to make them fewer and larger. This is reversing the natural order of things. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... answer to my question. I need not tell such an assembly that there are joys of the intellect as well as joys of the body, or that these pleasures of the spirit constituted the reward of our great investigators. Led on by the whisperings of natural truth, through pain and self-denial, they often pursued their work. With the ruling passion strong in death, some of them, when no longer able to hold a pen, dictated to their friends the last results of their labours, and then ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... tried at all it must be fairly tried. We must stand entirely apart and see what saving virtue lies in self-denial and self-help." ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... and rejoicing: a fair is held, and minstrels, jugglers, and merchants of all kinds add to the liveliness of the scene. Why such demonstrations should be made in honour of two persons whose lives were spent in solitude and self-denial, it is somewhat difficult to understand; and how the dull, dreary, desolate, and ruined town can ever be made to wear a brilliant aspect, is equally difficult of comprehension; but such is said to be the case. On ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... book-learning, did not become infidels, but exhibited a practical faith throughout life, and died in the odor of sanctity. Divine faith does not require as a companion, in the individual Catholic, a knowledge of profane literature, but humility, compunction, self-denial, and a contempt of the world. Schools are therefore not absolutely necessary ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... and Scorne, For your Renown we have those Trumpets found, Shall ev'n this Deed your highest Glory sound. That spight of the ill-judging Worlds mistake, Your Soul still owns those Temples you forsake: Onely by all-commanding Honour driven, This self-denial you have made with Heav'n: Quitting our Altars, cause the Insolence Of prophane Sanedrims has driven you thence. A Prince his Faith to such low Slaves reveal! 'Twas Treason though to God to bid You kneel. And what though senseless ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al.
... Gypsy's stock was small. When Joy wanted to make a present, she had only to ask for a few extra dollars, and she had them. Gypsy always felt as if a present given in that way were no present; unless a thing cost her some self-denial, or some labor, she reasoned, it had nothing to do with her. If given directly out of her father's pocket, it was his gift, ...
— Gypsy's Cousin Joy • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... self-pride, that bind the soul to earth,—whose implacable edge may divide a man from family, from friends, from whatever is nearest and dearest,—and which hovers before him like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, beckoning him, not to crime, but to the legitimate royalties of self-denial and self-sacrifice, to the freedom which is won only by surrender of the will. Christianity has never been concession, never peace; it is continual aggression; one province of wrong conquered, its pioneers are already in the heart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... careful watching and wise management would, doubtless, have ere long led to a return of confidence, a reappearance of money and a resumption of business; but these involved patience and self-denial, and, thus far in human history, these are the rarest products of political wisdom. Few nations have ever been able to exercise these virtues; and France was not then ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... one of the original covenanters; but Lismahago was the family surname, taken from a place in Scotland so called. He likewise dropped some hints about the antiquity of his pedigree, adding, with a smile of self-denial, Sed genus et proavos, et quoe non fecimus ipsi, vix ea nostra voco, which quotation he explained in deference to the ladies; and Mrs Tabitha did not fail to compliment him on his modesty in waving the merit of his ancestry, adding, that it was ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... for snowy linen. But, were we to go on with our praises and commendations of this best of men, we should fill a large volume full to overflowing, and still leave the better half unsaid: so we must exercise a little self-denial, and forego such pleasing thoughts for the present, as it now behooves us to bring our minds to bear upon matters we have more nearly ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... Joanna's self-denial, Ellen and Arthur were able to meet Sir Harry Trevor and his sister at luncheon at Ansdore. The luncheon did not differ in any respect from the dinner as at first proposed. There was soup—much to Ellen's annoyance, as Arthur had never been able to master the etiquette of its ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... and Hugh were three strong, willful, boisterous boys, but you seldom see such tenderness, devotion, thought for others and self-denial in lads of their years. A quarrel or a hot word is almost unknown in this house. Why? Carol would hear it, and it would distress her, she is so full of love and goodness. The boys study with all their might and ...
— The Birds' Christmas Carol • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... court of life And pass through the hours of trial; He shall tested be by the rules of strife, And tried for his self-denial. Time shall bruise his soul with the loss of friends, And frighten him with disaster, But he shall find when the anguish ends That of all ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest
... me to marry," Molly inquired; "one can't be sure of the widowhood, and if one has courage and self-denial a life of single blessedness is attainable for ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... early painters than that of "sacred history." Of all the virtues commonly found in the higher orders of human mind, that of a stern and just respect for truth seems to be the rarest; so that while self-denial, and courage, and charity, and religious zeal, are displayed in their utmost degrees by myriads of saints and heroes, it is only once in a century that a man appears whose word may be implicitly trusted, and who, in the relation of a plain fact, will not allow his ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... Her self-denial seemed to be a most natural thing; indeed, they hardly considered her in the light of a living person; she was no longer ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... landscapes of his mountain home, so he enjoyed to the utmost the life and love which had fallen to his lot, and thanked God for that capacity for happiness with which his nature was so largely gifted. Yet it cannot be said that he practised no self-denial. His life, in many respects, was one of constant self-discipline, and when his time came to sacrifice himself, he submitted without a murmur. But in his creed fear had no place. His faith was great. ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... was a beginning, but it was a very good beginning. If, on the following day, Mary had given the children a command which it would be irksome to them to obey, or one which would have called for any special sacrifice or self-denial on their part, they would have disregarded it. Still they would have been a little less inclined to disregard it than if they had not received their first lesson; and there can be no doubt that if Mary were to continue her training in the same spirit in which she commenced it she would, ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... the beach. These boats, in a country without roads, are as much a necessity to a man as the house which shelters him. They often represent the hoardings of years, and are not seldom the result of a stern frugality and self-denial; they constitute, indeed, the only wealth of Samoa, and in them is invested the united savings of the whole population. In Oa these boats numbered perhaps a hundred, or a hundred and twenty in all, which, under the direction of a red-faced boatswain with a ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... guests, and confronting from her sofa Mr. Bemis, who still remains sunken in his armchair, has apparently closed an exhaustive recital of the events which have ended in his presence there. She looks round with a mixed air of self-denial and self-satisfaction to read the admiration of her listeners in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by, success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad—ready to fling ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... with wondering admiration of unlimited power, an agitation of gratitude, sympathy, and astonishment, such as nothing else could ever excite, sprang up in them; and when, turning from his deeds to his words, they found this very self-denial which had guided his own life prescribed as the principle which should guide theirs, gratitude broke forth in joyful obedience, self-denial produced self-denial, and the Law and Lawgiver together were enshrined in their inmost ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... thought of Patrick, and what he might have been, if he had lived. I wrote to that potential personage, telling him of all the facts of the case, except the poverty, which might be omitted as essentially a slight and temporary circumstance. I reported of his life of industry and simple self-denial,—of his prospects, his friendships, his sweet and gay decline and departure, and his honorable funeral. No answer was needed; and I had supposed there would hardly be one. If there should be one, it was not likely to be very congenial to the mood of Patrick's friends: but I could hardly have ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... together with a strong personal affection for the holy man who showed religion to be a most happy as well as most reasonable service of God. To his penitents in the confessional he was ever most kind and patient. "No school of perfection," he once said, "can equal the self-denial necessary to hear confessions well." God is now rewarding him, we trust, for the cheerful, often even bantering, words of encouragement he gave to the multitudes of poor sinners who knelt at his feet during the toilsome ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... from home to study, but, like a true son, staid by to help the family. That must have been a great self-denial ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... opposite exaggerations. That was impossible. They did not see that the only possible eclecticism had been already accomplished;—the eclecticism of temperance, which, by the restraint of force, gains higher force; and by the self-denial of delight, gains higher delight. This you will find is ultimately the case with every true and right master; at first, while we are tyros in art, or before we have earnestly studied the man in question, we shall see little in him; or perhaps see, as ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... announcement of angels of what had taken place in some other world was his actual life among you, going about doing good, shedding around him the spirit of love and self-denial, showing you the way to live, the way ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... theories of his own. We will, therefore, present them with a few instances of the skill and fairness which he shows when he undertakes to pull down the theories of other men. The doctrine of Mr Malthus, that population, if not checked by want, by vice, by excessive mortality, or by the prudent self-denial of individuals, would increase in a geometric progression, is, in Mr Sadler's opinion, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that she should take the house of Mr. Miller in her road, and the information excited an emotion that brought all her lustre to her eyes, and bloom to her cheeks. Charles thought it was a burst of generous friendship, and admired the self-denial with which she urged her aunt to relinquish the idea. But Julia was constitutionally generous, and it was the excess of the quality that made her enthusiastic and visionary. If she did not deserve all of Charles's admiration, she was ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... about this, as I had witnessed more than once among believers in England the injurious effects of doing things because others did them, or because it was the custom, or because they were persuaded into acts of outward self-denial, or giving up things whilst the heart did not go along with it, and whilst the outward act WAS NOT the result of the inward powerful working of the Holy Ghost, and the happy entering into our fellowship with the ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... of self-denial, True obedience and the cross, We may pass the fiery trial, Which does separate the dross. If we bear our crosses boldly, Watch and ev'ry evil shun, We shall find a body holy, And ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... invitation, yet the season was in their favor. Lent had entered upon its last week, and even the largest functions clothed themselves in penitential and becoming shades of violet. Accordingly, it had been a source of little self-denial for Bobby and Sally to give up their other engagements for the evening. As for Thayer, he invariably went his own way, invited everywhere and appearing only in the places which suited his mood of the hour. It was the one professional luxury that ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... only partially understand what taking up their cross was, but they would apprehend that a martyred master must needs have for followers men ready to be martyrs too. But the requirement goes much deeper than this. There is no discipleship without self-denial, both in the easier form of starving passions and desires, and in the harder of yielding up the will, and letting His will supplant ours. Only so can we ever come after Him, and of such sacrifice of self the cross is the eminent example. We cannot think ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... our Halls we have had what we call Altar Services. At such times, and more especially during the Self-Denial and Harvest Festival efforts, Soldiers, friends, and others who are interested in God's work are invited to come forward with gifts of money to lay upon the special table which, for that occasion, serves the purpose of an altar. Those who have been present ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Wimp was thrown to one side, and the invaders formed a ring round Tom's chair. The platform people scampered like mice from the center. Some huddled together in the corners, others slipped out at the rear. The committee congratulated themselves on having had the self-denial to exclude ladies. Mr. Gladstone's satellites hurried the old man off and into his carriage; though the fight promised to become Homeric. Grodman stood at the side of the platform secretly more amused than ever, concerning himself no more with Denzil Cantercot, ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... about the fourth; but no, he was a human being,—no brute. He thrust the remainder into his watcher's hands, and turned his back upon him, so as not to be tantalized. Beasts indeed! Here were two instances of self-denial, nowhere to be matched in the whole animal creation, except in that race which is but ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the most rigid tests upon certain occasions is afterwards detected in simulating, very clumsily, the results which he had once successfully accomplished. The real power having failed, he has not the moral courage to admit it, nor the self-denial to forego his fee which he endeavours to earn by a travesty of what was once genuine. Such an explanation would cover some facts which otherwise are hard to reconcile. We must also admit that some ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... succeeded Helen's marriage afforded a topic of conversation for the bon ton of three cities, May was quietly preparing to leave the old house, beneath whose roof she had learned so many lessons of self-denial, patience, and constancy; while she found time, each day, to pay her accustomed visit to old Mabel, who was approaching nearer and nearer her eternal rest. In serving her, May felt richly rewarded by the edification ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... know or see a noble character that was not built by the Individual himself, by personal effort, by self-control, by self-denial, by justice and kindness to others; often in the face of Poverty; often in spite of wealth; often in the face of sickness, pain and deformity; perhaps deaf and dumb and blind; and yet, like Helen Keller, the soul ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... struggle against inexorable destiny. Sustaining hunger and cold, vigils and incessant toil, anxious for his soldiers, unmindful of himself, he set, even to the forest-trained red men, an example of self-denial and endurance, and in the midst of corruption made the public good his aim. Struck by a musket ball, as he fought opposite Monckton, he continued in the engagement, till, in attempting to rally a body of fugitive Canadians in a copse near St. John's ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... "Because God willed it so"; and it is well for us in most cases to enjoy Shakspeare in the same pious way,—to smell a rose without bothering ourselves about its having been made expressly to serve the turn of the essence-peddlers of Shiraz. We yield the more credit to Mr. White's self-denial in this respect, because his notes prove him to be capable of profound as well as delicate and sympathetic exegesis. Shakspeare himself has left us a pregnant satire on dogmatical and categorical esthetics (which commonly in discussion soon lose their ceremonious tails and are ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... as inviolable, her resolves, if once declared, as beyond recall. She quite understood Lord and Lady Harlow's long resentment against their son, and she knew instinctively that her uncle's extreme self-denial for the purpose of improving the Harlow estate was to say to his heir, "See how I have loved you, in spite of ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... All that high-strung piety—that life of prayer—those unswerving admonitions to consider the vanity of earthly treasures, and to prepare for death—which had sounded so unreal amidst the perfumed elegances of the chateau, came back now with a reality gained from experiment. The daily life of self-denial, the conversation garnished from Scripture and from the Fathers, had not, after all, been mere priestly affectations. In no symbolic manner, but literally, he had "watched for the coming of his Lord," and "taken up the cross daily;" and so, when the cross was laid on him, and when the voice spoke ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... of the phenomena presented to his observation; and unless this desire has been granted for the express purpose of having it repressed, unless the attractions of natural phenomena be like the blush of the forbidden fruit, conferred merely for the purpose of exercising our self-denial in letting them alone; we may fairly claim for the study of Physics the recognition that it answers to an impulse implanted by nature in ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... be no safer lesson. But we must hope that some may be saved even if they have not practised at all times that grand self-denial. Who comes up to that teaching? Do you not wish for, nay, almost demand, instant pardon for any trespass that you may commit,—of temper, or manner, for instance? and are you always ready to forgive in that way ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... to the piety of those saints who controlled the opinions of the Christian world. The world was full of misery and poverty, and it was these evils they sought to relieve. The leaders of Pagan society were abandoned to gains and pleasures, which the Christians would fain rebuke by a lofty self-denial,—even as Stoicism, the noblest remonstrance of the Pagan intellect, had its greatest example in an illustrious Roman emperor, who vainly sought to stem the vices which he saw were preparing the way for the conquests ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... suddenly cast a rich glow of warm colour over the long, grey road of Sir Archibald's youth of self-denial and struggle. The mild indulgences of his early years, under the transforming influence of that same arch and accusing smile, took on for Sir Archibald such an aspect of wild and hilarious gaiety as to impart a tone of hesitation to his voice while ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... bitter scorn for the pretexts on which Spain and Portugal had been torn from a commercial system that brought them considerable prosperity and many comforts, in order that they might be incorporated, under foreign princes, into another system, which not only required serious self-denial, but brought stagnation, disorganization, and the presence of an armed soldiery. One weakness of the Spanish monarchy had always been the absence of centralization, but that very fact had been the national strength in fostering local attachments. ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... our author. He tries to give us a due incentive to awake from our apathy, and enter on a Missionary Crusade with a spirit of self-denial and zeal never yet known. He quotes two passages, which he presents as a very strong incentive. But neither of these passages has any force, on the theory either of extinction or of torment. Otherwise, they are pregnant ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... carelessness, and shabbiness are not at all beautiful ornaments in a holy life. But quietness, modesty, and reticence are gems which sparkle in a holy life like diamond sets in a band of gold. Give attention to your words, your thoughts, your tone of voice, your feelings, the practise of self-denial, of little acts of benevolence, of promptness, of method and order. These are auxiliaries to holy living. Are there not many little things in your home life that you can improve upon? Seek God for help ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... price of strength, as any college athlete will tell you. Self-denial is the road to wealth, as any banker will tell you. Self-denial is the method of all excellencies, as all human experience will tell you. But this ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... agent sobbing as he stole away; but when he knocked at Mrs. Everett's door she answered petulantly, and at first she refused to rise. She had little self-denial; it would pain her to enter a dying chamber; and she would have left Wait to perish, had not some strange passage from the romance entered her head of dead folk, with secrets on their minds, haunting the living. It would be very terrible to be haunted, and the old woman was frightened into obedience. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... had given up all that most men value, to seek peace in secluded study and self-denial. Failing to attain his object by learning the wisdom of others, and living the simple life of a student, he had devoted himself to that intense meditation and penance which all philosophers then said would raise men above the gods. Still ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... been saved by economy and self-denial. Wouldn't my wife be surprised if she knew her husband ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... equipages, to dress, to sightseeing, to dancing, to any thing of which the whole stimulus and excitement was earthly and physical. At times, too, he remembered that she had talked a sort of pensive sentimentalism, of a slightly religious nature; but the least idea of a moral purpose in life—of self-denial, and devotion to something higher than immediate self-gratification—seemed never to have entered her head. What is more, John had found his attempts to introduce such topics with her always unsuccessful. Lillie ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... it with the school-building for additional school-rooms, and then, on the vacant site, to erect a new home with proper foundations. If any benevolent person should offer us the means for making these changes, we fear we have not the self-denial to refuse, unless the churches or benevolent individuals for whom we act shall command us to do so. We await the response they ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various
... strength of heart and hand, the doing of human justice among all who came within their sphere. And finally, for your own teaching, observe, although there may be need for much self-sacrifice and self-denial in the correction of faults of character, the moment the character is formed, the self-denial ceases. Nothing is really well done, which it costs ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... for her as a dying Anarchy, is what nobody will claim for him; consummate talent in executing the Partition of Poland (inevitable some day, as he may have thought, but is nowhere at the pains to say),—great talent, great patience too, and meritorious self-denial and endurance, in executing that Partition, and in saving IT from catching fire instead of being the means to quench fire, no well-informed person will deny him. Of his difficulties in the operation (which truly ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the Major's secret, Mrs Shepherd had given up all friends, all acquaintance. She had not known a woman-friend for years, and the affinities of sex drew her to accept the sympathy with which she was tempted. The reaction of ten years of self-denial surged up within her, and she felt that she must speak, that her secret was being dragged from her. Ethel's eyes were fixed upon her—in another moment she would have spoken, but at that moment Nellie appeared climbing up the steep bank. 'Is that your little girl? Oh, what a pretty child!' ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... beneath, and only little spats of smoke and dying bits of ashes in evidence! Even the message of his Chief about her not getting a new bonnet all summer seemed a godsend under the circumstances. Had there been any basis for her self-denial he would not have told her, knowing how much anxiety she had suffered an hour before. But there was no real good reason why she should economize either in bonnets or in anything else she wanted. McGowan, of course, would be held responsible; for whatever damage had been done he would have ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... bridegroom's going to sup with her, when he places himself in the middle of the apartment with his eyes shut, and without tasting a morsel. His going to the synagogue, and then repairing to breakfast with the bride, where he practises the same self-denial - the washing of the bridegroom's plate and sending it after him, that he may break his fast - the binding his hands behind him - his ransom paid by the bride's mother - the visit of the sages to the bridegroom - the mulct imposed in case he repent ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... that time, whose names have never been remembered, or even recorded, and who were yet heroes of a quality not inferior to their commanders and leaders. All men of that age whose calling led them to adventure and enterprise could scarcely fail to find opportunity for heroism, self-denial, and sacrifice, and thus the Elizabethan Englishman of whatever station stands out to us of these later days as a great figure—the type and emblem of the England that was to be. It is this fact that makes the Elizabethan period so fascinating and so ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... means, to value the actions men ought to perform more than the ends which such actions serve.... Hence most of what they value in this world would have to be omitted by many moralists from any imagined heaven, because there such things as self-denial and effort and courage and pity could find no place.... Kant has the bad eminence of combining both errors in the highest possible degree, since he holds that there is nothing good except the virtuous will—a view which simplifies ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana |
