"Self-love" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the knowledge that there is a being in existence who holds us dearer than aught else in the whole wide world. But not even a misogynist would have dared to assert that, in the present instance, love was but an excess of self-love; for if ever there was a true attachment that honestly sprang from the purest feelings of the heart, it was that which existed between Miss Patty Honeywood and Mr. ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... be upon his head. It was true that he had signed under compulsion, but who would believe that, for had they not taken down his talk word for word? For once Adrian saw himself as he was; the cloaks of vanity and self-love were stripped from his soul, and he knew what others would think when they came to learn the story. He thought of suicide; there was water, here was steel, the deed would not be difficult. No, he could not; it was too horrible. Moreover, how dared he enter the other world so unprepared, so ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... of human nature, one of the most general, serious, and incurable, is certainly that of jealousy. Being the essence of a disordered self-love, it presents several aspects, according to the different social positions of those whom it afflicts, and the degree of goodness of the people. It might, in my mind, almost be called the thermometer of the heart. But of all the jealousies, that which has done most harm on earth ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... restless and unquiet and more independent. Soul and body become better balanced and nature no longer asks for more movement than is required for self-preservation. But the love of power does not die with the need that aroused it; power arouses and flatters self-love, and habit strengthens it; thus caprice follows upon need, and the first seeds of ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... and boast more loudly than before. This was the vanity and the strategy of the man. He would have thrust his hand into the fire sooner than confess himself beaten by Mr. Harley to the San Reve. She must continue to wonder at and worship him; it was the incense demanded by the nostrils of his self-love. ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... unceremonied, or call it unmannered, Americans the receiver of a letter probably knows no better than the sender how it should be addressed; but in the rarer case in which he does know, his self-respect or his self-love is wounded if it is misaddressed. It is something like having your name misspelled, though of course not so bad as that, quite; and every one would be glad to avoid the chance ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... ruin. Beware, therefore, now that you are coming into the world, of these preferred friendships. Receive them with great civility, but with great incredulity too; and pay them with compliments, but not with confidence. Do not let your vanity and self-love make you suppose that people become your friends at first sight, or even upon a short acquaintance. Real friendship is a slow grower and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit. There is another kind of nominal friendship among young people, which is warm ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... after our birth. Again, the word idea seems to be commonly taken in a very loose sense by Locke and others, as standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations and passions, as well as thoughts. Now in this sense I should desire to know what can be meant by asserting that self-love, or resentment of injuries, or the passion between the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... the injury they do, and perhaps with just intentions, who feed this appetite for undue praise. Others, for mere popularity or the applause of the day, minister with adroitness the sweet though poisonous morsel for which our vanity and self-love are open-mouthed; which (to carry on the simile,) puffs us up with the comfortable notion that we are superior in every respect to all other nations, ancient or modern. It would be well to turn a deaf ear to this syren's song: let us learn if possible to know ourselves; let us remember ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... much easier, and more pleasant, to obtain needed information from him. As regards the intellectual character of his mind, however, I do not think it was of the highest stamp. Of all practical things he had a decided opinion. His judgment was sound. Not marred by prejudice, nor warped by self-love, or self-praise, or self-aggrandisement, he was enabled coolly to exercise his powers of mind in forming a just estimate of men and things. He possessed strong common sense, which, being balanced by a high moral ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless
... otherwise be contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoken by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a transplanted self-love." ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... would also be too painful to peruse. Honest people would feel shame to see the judgments before which many a great mind has had to bend; and how often party spirit, either religious or political, moved by the basest passions—such as hatred, envy, rivalry, vengeance, fanaticism, intolerance, self-love—has been a pretext for disfiguring in the eyes of the public the greatest and noblest characters. It would then be seen how some censor (profiting by the breach which circumstances, or even a slight fault on the part of these great minds, may have made, and joining issue ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... as a man born under Sol, that loveth honor; nor under Jupiter, that loveth business (for the contemplative planet carrieth me away wholly); but as a man born under an excellent Sovereign, that deserveth the dedication of all men's abilities. Besides, I do not find in myself so much self-love, but that the greater parts of my thoughts are to deserve well (if I were able) of my friends, and namely of your Lordship; who being the Atlas of this commonwealth, the honor of my house, and the second founder ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... into hate. Hurstwood was still worthy, in a physical sense, of the affection his wife had once bestowed upon him, but in a social sense he fell short. With his regard died his power to be attentive to her, and this, to a woman, is much greater than outright crime toward another. Our self-love dictates our appreciation of the good or evil in another. In Mrs. Hurstwood it discoloured the very hue of her husband's indifferent nature. She saw design in deeds and phrases which sprung only from a ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... a responsive chord vibrating; the passion inspired in another may be unwelcome, but it will always be gratifying to self-love; this was the case with the old bachelor. After generously pardoning Madeleine, he extended his forgiveness to the other servants, promising to use his influence with his cousin the ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... others what becomes of us,—when one thinks that even this round earth is so small, that, if it should fall into the arms of the sun, the sun would just open his mouth and swallow it whole, and nobody ever suspect it, (vide Tyndall on Heat,) one must see that this self-love, self-care, and self-interest play a most important part in the Divine Economy. If one did not keep himself afloat, he would surely go under. As it is, no matter how disagreeable a person is, he likes himself,—no ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... became grey and dismal about me. Next morning it was just the same. It was as if I had waked in the middle of some chaos over which God had never said: 'Let there be light.' And the next day was worse. I began to see the bad in everything—wrong motives—and self-love—and pretence, and everything mean and low. And so it has gone on ever since. I wake wretched every morning. I am crowded with wretched, if not wicked thoughts, all day. Nothing seems worth anything. I don't care ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... will only last a few days," the jailer replied: "I grieve to say that the Queen's orders are to the contrary; anger not the Queen by any bravado, else you will be placed in the irons, and if these fail we can have recourse to sharper means." To the excessive self-love, intemperance, conceitedness, and want of foresight which had characterized all his actions, the unhappy Albert had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... watch the helplessness of infancy, the interest with which we see the ingenuous and young profiting by our care, the pride of improvement, and the magic of hope, create an intensity of sympathy in their favor, that almost equals the identity of self-love. There is a mysterious and double existence, in the tie that binds the parent to the child. With a volition and passions of its own, the latter has power to plant a sting in the bosom of the former, that shall wound as acutely as the errors which arise from mistakes, almost ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... than that of Bacon. In politics, his theory is that of uncontrolled absolutism, subjecting religion and morality to the will of the sovereign; in ethics he resolves all our impulses regarding right and wrong into self-love. His reasoning is close and consistent, and if his premises are granted, it is hardly possible to avoid his conclusions. Other departments in the prose literature of this period were amply filled and richly adorned. Speculations upon the Theory ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... Lady Carbury, still suffering in every fibre of her self-love from the soreness produced by ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... is so much presumption, self-conceit, self-love, that they are, in the nullity of their lofty pride, a worship unto themselves, an idolatry of their own reason. They have deified it,—that poor, frail reason; and this, while mutilating it, while proclaiming it independent ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... storm. Le Brusquet, however, was not to be seen. He had stolen in, thrown his apple of discord, and stolen forth again like a ghost. None knew or understood better than he the wayward character of Vendome, and that never was the prince capable of acting with decision unless his self-love were hurt. So he had made his plan, and acted, and now stood in the shadow of a pillar in the courtyard waiting for the prince. He had not long to wait, for Vendome came storming out, almost on his heels, and called for his horse. There were quite a hundred or more gentlemen ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... she continued, "is now arrived when reflections of this sort cannot too seriously occupy me; the errors I have observed in others, I would fain avoid committing; yet such is the blindness of self-love, that perhaps, even at the moment I censure them, I am falling, without consciousness, into the same! nothing, however, shall through negligence be wrong; for where is the son who merits care and attention, if Mortimer from his parents deserves not ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... smile and help and sympathy, that every man, woman, and child in the vessel adored him before the third day was over. Previous to that day, many of the passengers, owing to internal derangements, were incapable of any affection, except self-love, and to do them justice they had not much ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... before, at, or after our birth. Again, the word idea, seems to be commonly taken in a very loose sense, by LOCKE and others; as standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations and passions, as well as thoughts. Now in this sense, I should desire to know, what can be meant by asserting, that self-love, or resentment of injuries, or the passion between the sexes ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... know this. So, except for those occasional cooling and divine moments of blaming herself, she scorched and shriveled in the flames of self-love. And as usual, she was speechless. There were many of these silent hours (which were such a matter of course to Maurice that he never noticed them!) before she gathered herself together, and decided that she would not leave him. She would fight! How? "Oh, ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... the youth grew older, as his mind expanded and his fame rose, he appreciated both himself and Wycherley more correctly. He felt a just contempt for the old gentleman's verses, and was at no great pains to conceal his opinion. Wycherley, on the other hand, though blinded by self-love to the imperfections of what he called his poetry, could not but see that there was an immense difference between his young companion's rhymes and his own. He was divided between two feelings. He wished to have the assistance of so skilful a hand to polish his lines; and yet he shrank ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pains I have taken to be strictly impartial, it cannot be denied that, in publishing a work of this description at a time when the self-love of most men is mortified, and their resentment awakened, I run no small risk of displeasing all parties, because I attach myself to none, but find them all more or less deserving of censure. Without descending either ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... do but loathe Things base or mean, I must confess I'd very freely take my oath, Self-love's a fault he ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... then the Flattery of others is sure of Success. It awakens our Self-Love within, a Party which is ever ready to revolt from our better Judgment, and join the Enemy without. Hence it is, that the Profusion of Favours we so often see poured upon the Parasite, are represented to us, by our Self-Love, as Justice done to Man, who so agreeably ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... form, ever hovered before them; in which cause they neither shrunk from suffering, nor called on the earth to witness it as something wonderful, but patiently endured, counting it blessedness enough so to spend and be spent. Thus the "golden calf of self-love," however curiously carved, was not their Deity, but the Invisible Goodness, which alone is man's reasonable service. This feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams refreshed into gladness and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise too desolate ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... necessity a term of reproach. Perhaps we are all prigs at some season in our lives, if we happen to have any inherent power of doing great things. There are lovable prigs, who grow into admirable men and women; but, alas! for the prig whose self-love coils round him like a snake, until it crushes out the ingenuous fervor of youth, and perverts the noblest ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... you. Ah!" continued he, with bitter melancholy, "one may be horribly deceived in oneself, and by oneself, in this life. There is no one in this world who, if he rightly understand himself, has not to deplore some infidelity to his friend—his love—his better self! The self-love, the miserable egotism of human nature, where is there a corner that it does not slide into? The wretched little I, how it thrusts itself forward! how thoughts of self, designs for self, blot actions which ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... granted, and had asked for no demonstrative affection; but her manner and her words now cut him very deep. He was not aware how very uncouth his own manner had been; that instead of reasoning with her gently he had begun by sneering at her lover, that he had taken the very course to offend her self-love, and that therefore Feemy was quite as convinced at the end of the meeting that she had a right to be angry, as he was that he was the ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... he realized this change in her, and was touched with the wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his responsibility deepened, and he heard her voice but dimly as she ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... up the momentarily rejected burden of her motherhood, so Julius now, with a movement of supreme self-surrender, took up the momentarily rejected burden of the isolation of the religious life. Self-wounded by self-love, he had sought comfort in the creature rather than the creator. And the creature turned and rebuked him. It was just. Now Julius gave himself back, bowed himself again under the dominion of his fixed idea; and, so doing, gained, unconsciously, precisely ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... for all other cares, and imaginations, how thou mayest ease thy mind of them. Which thou shalt do; if thou shalt go about every action as thy last action, free from all vanity, all passionate and wilful aberration from reason, and from all hypocrisy, and self-love, and dislike of those things, which by the fates or appointment of God have happened unto thee. Thou seest that those things, which for a man to hold on in a prosperous course, and to live a divine life, are requisite and necessary, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Infinite, Eternal Love—alone of all beings devoid of self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... quibble out of the use of it. In many cases a person makes an honest beginning and presents what he is sure is a solution. By conference with others he at last feels uneasy, fears the light, and puts self-love in the way of it. Dishonesty sometimes follows. The speculators are, as a class, very apt to imagine that the mathematicians are in fraudulent confederacy against them: I ought rather to say that each one of them consents to the mode in which the rest are treated, and fancies conspiracy ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... through all society. First comes the principle of self-care and self-love. Each man is given charge of his own body and life. By foresight he is to guard against danger. By self-defense he is to ward off attack. By fulfilling the instincts for food, for work and rest he is to maintain the integrity ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... The self-love theory of Hobbes, with its subtle perversions of the motives of ordinary humanity, led to a reaction which culminated in the utilitarianism of Bentham and the two Mills; but their theory, though superior to the extravagant egoism ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of a man," says the inspired writer, "are those of his own household."(38) That is to say, the most potent evils which we suffer, the chiefest foes to our present and future welfare are from ourselves—our own waywardness, our tendencies to evil, our wilfulness, our self-love and self-seeking, our own sins. It is from these and like causes that we suffer most. Hard and trying it surely is to bear persecutions and contradictions from others; severe is the strain to nature when, in the face of our noblest efforts, proceeding from noblest motives, we meet with misunderstanding ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... could ever make the relation between them what it had been. No tenderness of affection, no length of association, no faithfulness of service, could stand for an instant against a single one of the many blows that his morbid self-love had received. For self-love like his is an incurable disease of sensibility, a spreading canker which poisons the whole character, as an unsound spot in the flesh poisons the whole body. To those who have not come in close contact with this form of morbidity, it may seem impossible ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... principle; but whenever the electoral sheep, left to their own instincts, can persuade themselves that they are voting from their own intelligence and their own lights, we may be certain to see them following that line eagerly and with a sentiment of self-love. Now to know a man's name, electorally speaking, is a good beginning toward a knowledge ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... are all for lording it, and trampling under foot." This man imagined that he "was singled out alone to give his testimony for Christ, discovering Antichrist's marks." "If any," he cried out, "will be faithful for Christ, they must witness against Antichrist, which is self-love, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The witnesses are now slain, but shortly they will rise again," &c. He tried to get up "private Christian meetings," to run an opposition to "pulpit preaching." After going about from house to house, declaiming ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... cross with the true poodle. It has all the sagacity of the poodle, and will perform even more than his tricks. It is always in action; always fidgety; generally incapable of much affection, but inheriting much self-love and occasional ill temper; unmanageable by any one but its owner; eaten up with red mange; and frequently a nuisance to its master and a torment to ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... not," Mrs. Mason returned, smiling. "I do not see that the case need be very different with men. Subserviency never won anybody's respect or love either. Neither does willful opposition, any more. Proper self-respect and a fair share of self-love is more sure of winning admiration, from men or women, than too little self-assertion or ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... incessant repetition of which could not fail at last to make an impression upon a weak mind. In the end the King grew wearied, and vexed, especially at the reports relating to such a ridiculous marriage, to a matrimonial project which wounded his self-love as a man as well as his royal dignity, and tormented besides by the exigencies of a temperament, in which the flesh was far too predominant over the spirit—"Find me a wife," said he, one day to Madame des Ursins, "our tete-a-tetes scandalise ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... is a sufficient society of children. It is only in the society of equals that the social instinct can be gratified, and come into equilibrium with the instinct of self-preservation. Self-love, and love of others, are equally natural; and before reason is developed, and the proper spiritual life begins, sweet and beautiful childhood may bloom out and imparadise our mortal life. Let us only give the social instinct of children its fair chance. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... she had been called upon to live with him. "I hadn't a word to say in society," she writes; "I didn't even know its language. Obliged, as a woman, to captivate people's minds, I was ignorant how many shades there are of self-love, and I offended it when I thought I was flattering it. Always striking wrong notes and never hitting it off, I saw that my old ideas would never accord with those I was obliged to acquire; so I have hid my little ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Count de Guiche, was a victim: he had in truth, offended the Count de Grammont, by having supplanted him in the affection of the Countess de Fiesque, whom he loved afterwards for the space of twelve years. Here was enough to irritate the self-love of a man less persuaded of his own merit." Hamilton does not describe the exterior of the count, but accuses Bussi-Rabutin of having, in the following description, given a more agreeable than faithful portrait of him: "The chevalier had laughing eyes, a well-formed ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... close hid; Must I then flatter my own mind? And must (which laws of shame forbid) Blind love of you make self-love blind? ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... round. Those who have the gift of speaking well desire an audience; they like to talk, even if they sometimes weary others. To satisfy the requirements of her mind Madame Rabourdin took a weekly reception-day and went a great deal into society to obtain the consideration her self-love was accustomed to enjoy. Those who know Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her temperament suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the scantiness of her pecuniary means. No matter what foolish declarations people make about money, they one and all, if ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... A friend may be too exacting, and may make excessive demands, which strain the bond to the breaking point. There is often a good deal of selfishness in the affection, which asks for absorption, and is jealous of other interests. Jealousy is usually the fruit, not of love, but of self-love. Life is bigger than any relationship, and covers more ground. The circles of life may intersect, and part of each be common to the other, but there will be an area on both sides exclusive to each; and even if it were possible for the ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... Self-love, the spring of motion, acts the soul; Reason's comparing balance rules the whole. 1631 POPE: Essay on Man, ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various
... letters written about the engagement, there are sufficient evidences that his self-love was flattered at the preference accorded him by so superior a woman, and one who had been so much sought. He mentions with an air of complacency that she has employed the last two years in refusing five or ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as the love of committing adultery, of taking revenge, of defrauding, of stealing, of acting cruelly, indeed, in the worst men, of blaspheming the holy things of the church and of inveighing against God. The fountainhead of those enjoyments is the love of ruling from self-love. They come of lusts which obsess the interiors of the mind, from these flow into the body, and excite uncleannesses there which titillate the fibers. The physical pleasure springs from the pleasure which the ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... rescued from vapid commonplaces, from uninteresting tattle, from trite communications, from frivolous earnestness, from false sensibility, from a warm interest about things of no moment, and an indifference to topics the most important; from a cold vanity, from the overflows of self-love, exhibiting itself under the smiling mask of an engaging flattery; and from all the factitious manners of artificial intercourse. We do wish to see the time passed in polished and intelligent society considered ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... the same imperfect means of studying them. But we can do with them what we cannot do with real people: we can unfold the whole character before us, stripped of all pretensions of self-love, all disguises of manner. We can take leisure to examine, to analyze, to correct our own impressions, to watch the rise and progress of various passions—we can hate, love, approve, condemn, without offence to others, ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... in the eyes and began to burn. At every new unfolding of his confidence I had let my own vanity, pride, self-love be more and more flattered, and here at length was getting ready to esteem him less for showing such lack of reserve as to use me as an escape-valve for his pent-up thoughts, when all at once I fancied I saw what he was trying to do. I believed ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... readers to avoid it. Like Cicero, he averred that the best source of wealth or well-being was economy. He called it the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the mother of Liberty. his mind, his character. Self-respect, originating in self-love, instigates the first step of improvement. It stimulates a man to rise, to look upward, to develop his intelligence, to improve his condition. Self-respect is the root of most of the virtues—of cleanliness, chastity, reverence, honesty, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... house, which was but a few steps from the store, he was greeted by Mary Jessup with that peculiar welcome so charming between those who love each other, yet which to him was pleasing only because it gratified his animal nature and his self-love. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... so forget her birth That it should fruitless home return to earth! Love is the fruit of beauty, then love one! Not your sweet self, for such self-love is none. ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... some sense of themselves, and if that did not influence them to love themselves and what belongs to them. From which it ought to be understood that it is from the animal itself that the principle of self-love in it is derived. But among these natural principles of self-love most of the Stoics do not admit that pleasure ought to be classed; and I entirely agree with them, to avoid the many discreditable things which must ensue if nature should appear to have placed pleasure among those ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... which Truth or Freedom wages With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, Hate and malice and self-love mar The notes of triumph with painful jar, And the helping angels turn aside Their sorrowing faces the shame to bide. Never on custom's oiled grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and grinds with friction hard On granite ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... flashes." Could there be a more subtle, covert way of saying of a man that he is hardened by self-esteem than the following on M. Guizot: "The consciousness that he has of himself, and a natural principle of pride, place him easily above the little susceptibilities of self-love." M. Sainte-Beuve is not an admirer of Louis Philippe, and among other sly hits gives him the following: "Louis Philippe was too much like a bourgeois himself to be long respected by the bourgeoisie. Just as in former times the King of France was only the first gentleman of ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... successful, prosperous man of business, head of a firm which sold artistic and ecclesiastical furniture in the Rue Bonaparte. She was about to have a child when her husband was ordered to the front. There could be no doubt of her ardent patriotism; for self-love includes one's country. Clerambault would never have expected to find any sympathy in her for his theories of fraternal pity. She had little enough for her friends, but none at all for her enemies. She would have ground them ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... mistaken in supposing that by "baseness" is meant "self-love" here assigned as the motive of all human actions. Shakespeare meant only to observe, that a minute analysis of life at once destroys that splendour which dazzles the imagination. Whatever grandeur can display, or luxury enjoy, is procured by "baseness", by offices ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... Chorley,—Kindnesses are more frequent things with me than gladnesses, but I thank you earnestly for both in the letter I have this moment received.[109] You have given me a quick sudden pleasure which goes deeper (I am very sure) than self-love, for it must be something better than vanity that brings the tears so near the eyes. I thank you, dear ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... who, if he was ignorant of the law of England, was yet well versed in the laws of nature. He perfectly well understood that fundamental principle so strongly laid down in the institutes of the learned Rochefoucault, by which the duty of self-love is so strongly enforced, and every man is taught to consider himself as the centre of gravity, and to attract all things thither. To speak the truth plainly, the justice was never indifferent in a cause but when he could ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... very near, and we stepped in. Putting her arm through mine, she drew me to the mirror. Without resistance remonstrance, or remark, I stood and let her self-love have its feast and triumph: curious to see how much it could swallow—whether it was possible it could feed to satiety—whether any whisper of consideration for others could penetrate her heart, and moderate ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... still bound that man to life—power, honors, wealth, all the magnificence that surrounded him—must have seemed to him to be already far away in an irrevocable past. It required courage of a very exceptional temper to resist such a blow without the slightest outburst of self-love. No one was present save the friend, the physician, the servant, three intimate acquaintances, who were familiar with all his secrets; the lights being turned low left the bed in shadow, and the dying man could have turned his face to the wall ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... through my eyes, are none the less dear to me. The thoughtless blame of those who leave me does not make me consider them as enemies. All friendship unjustly withdrawn remains intact in the heart that has not merited the outrage. That heart is above self-love, it knows how to wait for the awakening of ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... manhood, it is my infirmity to look back upon those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love himself, without the imputation of self-love? ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades; but still desire ascends that God May free me from self-love, ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... roads. Just as the various roads are, so are the ears and the understandings, the affections and the inclinations of those who walk and ride and drive upon them. Some of those men's ears are impassably stopped up by self-love, self-interest, party-spirit, anger, envy, and ill-will,—impenetrably stopped up against all the men and all the truths of earth and of heaven that would instruct, enlighten, convict or correct them. Some men's ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... flattered by M. du Chatelet, discerned in him the superior qualities lacking in the men of their own sect, and the insurrection of self-love was pacified. These ladies all hoped to succeed to the Imperial Highness. Purists were of the opinion that you might see the intruder in Mme. de Bargeton's house, but not elsewhere. Du Chatelet was fain to put up with a good deal of insolence, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... hence proceeds desire; then the spark bursts forth into a flame, the head swims, the body wastes, and the soul turns giddy. If we look on the bright side of love, we must acknowledge that it has at least one advantage; it annihilates pride and immoderate self-love; 364 true love, whose aim is the happiness and equality of the beloved object, being ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... me in a way I think correct, and so do my friends: 'A mild, obliging, gentle, amiable person, with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close friendships. There is much that is firm, steadfast and industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little that is subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with those you dislike. There is a serious and sad side to your character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative when in these moods. But you are not pessimistic. You have superior ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... La Fontaine seldom, if ever, appeals to our highest moral sense. The highest chords he strikes are those of reason and self-love. Through all the fables runs the thought that man's morality springs wholly from self-love, and that if that self-love is directed and restrained by reason, happiness must follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... secular and sensual goods; violent passions, urging the prosecution of what men affect; wrath and displeasure against those who stand in the way of compassing their desires; emulation and envy towards those who happen to succeed better, or to attain a greater share in such things; excessive self-love; unaccountable malignity and vanity, are in some degrees connatural to all men, and ever prompt them to this dealing, as appearing the most efficacious, compendious, and easy way of satisfying such appetites, of promoting ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... all with the tints which surprise and captivate. He was not a martyr to forgive his persecutors. He was not a hero to endure in silence, and without an effort at escape. His character had many earthy streaks. His self-love was enormous. He could be shifty, wheedling, whining. His extraordinary and indomitable perseverance in the pursuit of ends was crossed with a strange restlessness and recklessness in the choice of means. His projects often ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... common spirit runs through them all. 'Vanity of vanities! All is vanity!' such is the perpetual burden of La Rochefoucauld's doctrine: but it is vanity, not in the generalized sense of the Preacher, but in the ordinary personal sense of empty egotism and petty self-love which, in the eyes of this bitter moralist, is the ultimate essence of the human spirit and the secret spring of the world. The case is overstated, no doubt; but the strength of La Rochefoucauld's position can only be appreciated ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... openly, and does it with such an implied sympathy and avowal of kindred weakness in himself, that offence was impossible. Above all, he possessed in perfection what Mr Disraeli happily calls "the rare gift of raillery, which flatters the self-love of those whom it seems not to spare." These characteristics are admirably indicated by Persius (I. 116) in speaking ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... nasty, low spirit of jealousy that matters. The retiring young man was not pleased when they got the better of him, you see! His vanity, don't you see? He wanted revenge. Then, those thick lips of his suggest passion. So there you have it: wounded self-love and passion. That is quite enough motive for a murder. We have two of them in our hands; but who is the third? Nicholas and Psyekoff held him, but who smothered him? Psyekoff is shy, timid, an all- round coward. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... constitutional expounders had arisen around him. Brother justices, with modern constructions, and more liberal notions of national law, were by his side. In many decisions he was now a sole dissenter. His pride was invaded; his self-love tortured; his adoration of certain legal constructions which he had deemed immutable in their nature, was desecrated. And, for many years previous to his decease, he had contemplated resigning from the federal judiciary, and living alone for his ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... than met the ear, but Mittie's omnipotent self-love felt wounded. She had been too easy a conquest, whose value was ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... study of nature and the uncompromising practice of art. To struggle, to face nature, to find fresh solutions, and give expression to facts which have not yet been adequately or not yet elegantly expressed, is to run a little upon the danger of extreme self-love. Difficulty sets a high price upon achievement; and the artist may easily fall into the error of the French naturalists, and consider any fact as welcome to admission if it be the ground of brilliant handiwork; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... such practical rectitude, thus determined by natural affection or self-love or fear, he may notice that there is a remnant of right conduct, what he does, still more what he abstains from doing, not so much through his own free election, as from a deference, an "assent," entire, habitual, unconscious, to custom—to ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... The creation of the Legion of Honour, the decree enabling Buonaparte to appoint his successor, and other leading measures, had accordingly been carried through far less triumphantly than could be agreeable to the self-love of the autocrat. ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... remarked the profound sense of safety in a true priest when he has given himself to the Lord, when he listens to his voice, and strives to make himself a docile instrument in the hand of Providence? He has no longer vanity or self-love,—nothing of all that which wounds continually the hearts of the world. His quietude is equal to that of the fatalist; his resignation does truly enable him to bear all. The true priest, such a one as the Abbe de Veze, lives like a child with its mother; for the Church, my ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... Pulpit-Orators." Those who, by "nipping Strokes of a Side-wind Satyr, have endeavour'd to tickle Men out of their Follies," have been welcomed and caressed by the very people who were most abused. Since self-love waves the application, satire, unless bluntly direct, can fail as completely ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... laws for action as it is the province of pure reason to determine the conditions of thought, though the practical reason can define only the form of action which shall be in the spirit of duty. It cannot present duty to us as an object of desire. Desire can be only a form of self-love. In the end it reckons with the advantage of having done one's duty. It thus becomes selfish and degraded. The identification of duty and interest was particularly offensive to Kant. He was at war with every form of hedonism. To do one's duty because one expects ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... was astonished at the multitude of people he knew, at the numbers of faces that smiled upon him. Presently, after half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of surprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had told Marcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was an outcast from his class. ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... design of their life, or any greater happiness in this World, then to pleas themselvs; bestow all the rest of their time and thoughts, as their natural inclinations lead them, which is commonly to nothing els but to self-love and Pride, which became a Provocation unto others, to discover mutually their corruptions, which by reaction make them all full of envie, of hatred, of evil surmises, and of malicious practices one against another: so that no where Satan doth dwel and rule more effectually, then in those Religious ...
— The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) • John Dury
... me to you by awakening the motive of my self-love?" asked Vesta. "That is not the way to preserve my heart ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... of yours, is so extremely agreeable to me that you recur to me in it constantly, and as often I execrate your bonnet. How much I do love beauty! How I delight in the beauty of any one that I love! How thankful I am that I am not beautiful! my self-love would have ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... touch of self-pity at his own imperfectness; and the power of his will and his confidence in himself, of which he was so proud, seemed misplaced and little. And then he wondered if he had not neglected chances; but in answer to this his injured self-love rose to rebut the idea that he had wasted any portion of his time, and he assured himself that he had done the work that he had cut out for himself to do as best he could; no one but himself knew with what courage and spirit. And so he sat combating ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... more difficult—she succeeded. Twice a week she received the bourgeoisie of Provins at her house in the Upper town. This intelligent young woman of twenty had not as yet made a single blunder or misstep on the slippery path she had taken. She gratified everybody's self-love, and petted their hobbies; serious with the serious, a girl with girls, instinctively a mother with mothers, gay with young wives and disposed to help them, gracious to all,—in short, a pearl, a treasure, the pride of Provins. ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... mixed marriages, of secret societies, of intemperance, and the indulgence of self-love in ardent and enthusiastic youth, find here the record of their fatal influence on social life, reflected through the medium of historical facts. Therefore we present to the young a chapter of warning—a tale of the past with a deep ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... a poet, but not a great poet. And as the singular pursuit of the realistic is almost always bound up with pride, because realism does not carry us beyond ourselves into the infinite where we are humbled, the realistic poetry loses imagination; its love of love tends to become self-love, or love of mere cleverness. And then its poetic elements ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... says Juvenal, "that a man will not believe in his own favour." Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers in the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him entreated and implored; and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... welfare; and the more so, as I always feel some apprehension for the destiny of those who in youth addict themselves to the composition of verse. It is a very seducing employment, and, though begun in disinterested love of the Muses, is too apt to connect itself with self-love, and the disquieting passions which follow in the train of that our natural infirmity. Fix your eye upon acquiring independence by honourable business, and let the Muses come after rather than go before. Such lines as ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... a correct estimate of his own writings is another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a just critique; whatever should be deducted on the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the subject; ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... however, shone out again, though with subdued power, Maskull's curiosity rose once more. "Your fellow countrymen, then, Spadevil, are sick with self-love?" ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... the active Dick could do. Her walls were soon covered with fairies; but, as Lubin observed, no one could think the cottage of Head well furnished with a paper so poor and thin,—you could almost see the bricks through it. Matty was, however, well pleased; and even, in the blindness of self-love, had some hopes of the silver crown. Pride flattered her skill and her quickness, and was always a welcome guest at her cottage as well as in Dick's. Neither the brother nor the sister yet knew the evils that might arise from their using ...
— The Crown of Success • Charlotte Maria Tucker
... modern as well as in ancient times which have a family likeness to the speculations of Glaucon; e.g. that power is the foundation of right; or that a monarch has a divine right to govern well or ill; or that virtue is self-love or the love of power; or that war is the natural state of man; or that private vices are public benefits. All such theories have a kind of plausibility from their partial agreement with experience. For human nature oscillates between good and evil, and the motives of actions and the origin of ...
— The Republic • Plato
... to point out the causes of the pleasure given by this extravagant and absurd diction. It depends upon a great variety of causes, but upon none, perhaps, more than its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet's character, and in flattering the Reader's self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character; an effect which is accomplished by unsettling ordinary habits of thinking, and thus assisting the Reader to approach to that perturbed and ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... that vigour of intellect which had marked the whole of her career. In spiritual life also she continued to develop year by year. In a letter written to an old ministerial friend on April 26, 1790, she says, "Here (in my heart) every wild and warm imagination, intoxicated by pride and self-love, must end; and submit, not only to learn of the poorest and most afflicted Man in our nature, but also to find in Him, and in Him alone, a suitable relief for all our misery; and, through the same medium, a free access to all divine and heavenly wisdom, whenever a sense ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... importunate Prayers for its Recovery, had been answered. It is indeed well, if that beloved Creature be fallen asleep in Christ[h]; if that dear Lamb be folded in the Arms of the compassionate Shepherd, and gathered into his gracious Bosom. Self-love might have led me to wish its longer Continuance here; but if I truly loved my Child with a solid, rational Affection, I should much rather rejoice, to think it is gone to a heavenly Father[i], and to the World of perfected Spirits above. Had ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... disappointment, with which you seem more touched than I should expect a man of your resolution and experience to have been, did I not know that general truths are seldom applied to particular occasions; so that the fallacy of our self-love extends itself as wide as our interest and affections. Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful, and patrons capricious; but he excepts his own mistress and his own patron. We have all learned that greatness is negligent and contemptuous, and that in courts, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... with his soft, sad smile, "have these ladies only been waiting for me in order to feel their heart palpitate? I seek mind and entertainment, but I fly from all those who display a desire to exercise a control over my heart; in this I see nothing but self-love, and I hold ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... to the ground without your Father,' 'He who dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto' condescends to provide for the minutest of our wants, directing, guarding, and assisting in each hour and moment, with an infinitely more vigilant and excellent care than our own utmost self-love can ever attain to. With the ever-watchful, loving eye constantly upon me, I may surely follow my bent, and go among the heathen in front, bearing the message of peace and good-will. All appreciate the statement that it is offensive to our common Father to sell and kill his children. ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... perfectly agree with Mr Mac Laurel in his definition of self-love and disinterestedness: every man's actions are determined by his peculiar views, and those views are determined by the organisation of his skull. A man in whom the organ of benevolence is not developed, cannot be benevolent: he in whom it ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock
... full of exultation, of triumph; she knew she had been admired by Dan's family, and she experienced the sweetness of having pleased them for his sake; his happy eyes shone before her; but she was touched in her self-love by what her mother had coarsely characterised in them. They had regarded her liking them as a matter of course; his mother had ignored her even in pretending to decry Dan to her. But again this was very remote, very momentary. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... O Giant-like Ambition! marryed to Cymmerian darkness! inconsiderate Fool, (Though flatter'd with self-love) could'st thou believe, Were all Crowns on the Earth made into one, And that (by Kings) set on thy head; all Scepters, Within thy grasp, and laid down at my feet, I would vouchsafe a kiss to ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... To say that the Fathers would not receive him, wounded his self-love sorely. Notwithstanding the ignorance and innocence of his age, he felt that there was something humiliating to his mother in this avowal, as well as to himself; and then this recital, on which he had so heedlessly entered, carried him back to the only serious trouble of his life. Why had they ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... to ask of Me? Give Me, if thou wilt, a list of all thy desires, all the wants of thy soul. Tell Me, simply, of all thy pride, sensuality, self-love, sloth; and ask for My help in thy struggles ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it." And this is no empty declaration on his part. It is the thought which of all in his book is nearest to his heart; and hence he energetically assails those philosophers who look upon self-love and the refinements of self-love as the universal cause of all our sentiments, and seek to explain ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... bow which was returned by a stare from one and all. Diana eyed him in amazement, Ruth in hope; Richard averted his glance from that of his brother-in-law, whilst Sir Rowland met it with a scowl of enmity—they had not come face to face since the occasion of that encounter in which Sir Rowland's self-love had been so rudely handled. Albemarle's face expressed a sort of satisfaction, which was reflected on the countenances of Phelips and Luttrell; whilst Trenchard never thought of attempting to dissemble his profound dismay. And this dismay was shared, though not in so ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... forth queries as to the probability of this or that with a semblance of interest that disarmed Cedric and made him wonder if this woman loved to such an extent, she could fling aside her own interests and submerge all jealousy, all self-love into the ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... and very fervent devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing which is most necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the same. Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee, and ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... about your conversation,' he remarked; 'it heals my self-love—which really was wounded by the things ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... made an ungracious return for my allowing him to inspect the stone with the aid of my own glasses (he having by accident left his at home) and in my own study. The heathen ancients might have instructed this Christian minister in the rites of hospitality; but much is to be pardoned to the spirit of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious who can make out the words her hrilir from any characters in the inscription in question, which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not mortuary. And even should the reverend gentleman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... once more resumed, "that there is a higher immortality than art's,—the immortality of love. The immortality of art indeed is one of those curious illusions of man's self-love which a moment's thought dispels. Art, who need be told, is as dependent for its survival on the survival of its physical media as man's body itself—and though the epic and the great canvas escape combustion for a million years, they must burn at last, burn with all the other accumulated ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne
... ambition of a priest, who, considering himself on the highroad to eternity, can wish for nothing in this world but good lodging, good food, clean garments, shoes with silver buckles, a sufficiency of things for the needs of the animal, and a canonry to satisfy self-love, that inexpressible sentiment which follows us, they say, into the presence of God,—for there are grades among the saints. But the covetous desire for the apartment which the Abbe Birotteau was now inhabiting (a very harmless desire in the eyes of worldly people) had been to the ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... mind through all their fantastic windings as they groped for the truth so clearly revealed to us. He praised his wife for her appreciation of such intellectual food, and rejoiced that he had been so successful in winning the affection of a truly intellectual woman. Her self-love was gratified, and her diligence in diving deeper into ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... character. Whilst I contemplate the sublimity of his sentiments and the tenderness of his soul, I cannot help thinking how few would believe that so many admirable qualities could belong to one mind, and that mind remain unacquainted with the throes of ambition or the throbs of self-love." ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... book entitled "De l'Esprit," which was condemned by the Parlement of Paris for views advocated in it that were considered derogatory to the dignity of man, and which exposed him to much bitter hostility, especially at the hands of the priests; man he reduced to a mere animal, made self-love the only motive of his actions, and the satisfaction of our sensuous desires the principle of morals, notwithstanding which he was a man of estimable character ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... way as comfortable and agreeable as we can. He who preaches integrity to those in the kitchen, (see "Advice to Cooks,") may be permitted to recommend liberality to those in the parlour; they are indeed the sources of each other. Depend upon it, "True self-love and social are the same;" "Do as you would be done by:" give those you are obliged to trust every inducement to be honest, and ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... His self-love and self-conceit had received a pretty deep wound, his eyes were opened to the fact that Elsie avoided being alone with him, never appearing on deck without her brother, and he did not trouble her much during the remainder of the voyage, did ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... loved for their own sakes; not because of the benefits they confer; and he wished to exalt the characters of these islanders by representing them as acting on it. This, however, is as irrational in itself, as it is impracticable by such a creature as man. Self-love, directed by wisdom, is perhaps the best principle that can actuate him. Considering scripture as an authority, there is a high degree of commendation implied in what is said of Moses by an apostle, when speaking of his faith and obedience, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... the primary laws of existence in the physical world is self-love; that is, an instinct in every creature to procure its own good, even at the expense of others, so that the preservation of one is attended with the destruction of some others. All nature is in a perpetual struggle within itself, and every component part receives the elements of its own life and ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... are prepared over them. By comparing the imitation with the original, you see what you have done, and how much you have still to do. The test of the senses is severer than that of fancy, and an over-match even for the delusions of our self-love. One part of a picture shames another, and you determine to paint up to yourself, if you cannot come up to Nature. Every object becomes lustrous from the light thrown back upon it by the mirror of art: and by the aid of the pencil we may be said to touch and handle the objects of sight. The ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... extremely attentive to methodical sciences, moderately so as to others; well versed in mathematics and geography; silent, a lover of solitude, whimsical, haughty, excessively prone to egotism, speaking but little, pithy in his answers, quick and severe in repartee, possessed of much self-love, ambitious, and ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... well refuse to go since the fellow asks me," said Roden, grandly. He might as well have displayed his grandeur to a statue. If love is blind, self-love is surely half-witted as well, for it never sees nor understands that the world is fooling it. Roden failed to heed the significant fact that Von Holzen did not even ask him what line of conduct he intended to follow with regard to Cornish, nor ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... have given us more pleasure, and we revile him for it. The book may do what the legacy cannot; it may be pleasurable and serviceable to others as well as ourselves: we would hinder this too. In fact, all other love is extinguished by self-love: beneficence, humanity, justice, philosophy, sink under it. While we insist that we are looking for Truth, we commit a falsehood. It never was the first object with any one, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... not travel, but they were clear and precise thoughts, and with much subtlety and insinuative force she applied herself to the task of overcoming her daughter's weakness and strengthening her in this overthrow of vanity and self-love. But to the tennis-party they must go. Milord, too, was of opinion that they could not absent themselves, and he had doubtless been able to arrive at a very clear understanding with Lady Sarah and Lady Jane concerning the future of Protestantism in the parish, for on ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... ex-merchant, showed Canalis his own maladroitness, and determined him to select a special role. The great poet resolved to pretend indifference, though all the while displaying his seductive powers; to appear to disdain the young lady, and thus pique her self-love. Trained by the handsome Duchesse de Chaulieu, he was bound to be worthy of his reputation as a man who knew women, when, in fact, he did not know them at all,—which is often the case with those who are the happy victims of an exclusive ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... for himself. He was irritated by the audacity of the enemies of the Republic, and he saw plainly that the majority of the councils had an evident ill-will towards him. The orators of the Club of Clichy missed no opportunity of wounding his self-love in speeches and pamphlets. They spared no insults, disparaged his success, and bitterly censured his conduct in Italy, particularly with respect to Venice. Thus his services were recompensed by hatred or ingratitude. About ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... the upper town to the signing of the marriage contract. The comparative poverty of the young couple and the absence of a corbeille quickened the interest that people love to exhibit; for it is with beneficence as with ovations, we prefer the deeds of charity which gratify self-love. The Marquise de Pimentel, the Comtesse du Chatelet, M. de Senonches, and one or two frequenters of the house had given Francoise a few wedding presents, which made great talk in the city. These pretty trifles, together with the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... did the great masters of tune and tone Discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well-trained finger-tips. They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love! The finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable impertinence, both to the great masters ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... replied, and left him to divide the responsibility between the paucity of the rooms and the enormity of the rent as he best might. But their self-love had received a wound, and they questioned each other what it was in their appearance made him doubt their ability to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... With all his experience of Courts, Hyde never learned the arts of a courtier. He was naively unconscious how little the steadfast honesty of his purpose could render his blunt plainness of diction palatable to a master, the chief feature of whose character was callous selfishness, and whose self-love might for the moment allow him to overlook, but never permitted him to forget, the liberty that presumed to curb his caprices ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... if I can still apply this name to something, lies in the work of breeding genius . from such training everything is to be hoped. All consolation comes from art. Education is love for the offspring; an excess of love over and beyond our self-love. Religion is "love beyond ourselves." The work of art is the model of such a love beyond ourselves, and a perfect model ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... flatters the self-love of M. Bonaparte to be seized by history, if perchance, and truly one would imagine so, he cherishes any illusion as to his value as a political miscreant, let him divest ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... right and wrong. O beauteous Bacchus, I will not rouse thee against thy will, nor will I hurry abroad thy [mysteries, which are] covered with various leaves. Cease your dire cymbals, together with your Phrygian horn, whose followers are blind Self-love and Arrogance, holding up too high her empty head, and the Faith communicative of secrets, and more transparent ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... magnanimously resolved that Lady Merton should not be blamed if he could help it, by anyone except himself. And he had no intention at all of playing the rejected lover. The proud, well-born, fastidious Englishman stiffened as he walked. It was wounding to his self-love to stay where he was; since it was quite plain that Elizabeth could do without him, and would not regret his departure; but it was no less wounding to be dismissed, as it were, by Anderson. He would not be dismissed; ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... say!" cried he, ironically, and went out with an air of hard indifference, not at all flattering to my self-love. ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... wild when he was young; a long while ago, to be sure; but in the law of God there is no statute of limitations. Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace: punishment coming, pede claudo, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the fault." And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there. His past was fairly blameless; few men could read the rolls of their life ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and brocatelle,—it would not do not to. And so we go on getting hundreds of things that we don't need, that have no real value except that they soothe our self-love; and for these inferior articles we pay a higher proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young man just entering business will spend an eighth of a ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... his amiability shines through all; for he abuses the absent friend only to gratify the self-love of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... with whom Herbert Arnest was conversing, "it is your wounded self-love, more than your high regard for principle, that speaks ...
— Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them • T. S. Arthur
... my pen smack of old age and my genius flag, don't fail to advertise me of it, for I don't trust to my own judgment, which may be seduced by self-love." After a fit of apoplexy, Gil Blas ventured in the most delicate manner to hint to his grace that "his last discourse had not altogether the energy of his former ones." To this the archbishop replied, "You are yet too raw to make proper distinctions. Know, child, that I never composed a ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... and necessity. You mean self-love and self-interest. Man, be honest. Because this woman is an obstacle in your career, you would sacrifice her. It is boundless, pitiless selfishness. Suppose you abandon her, dare you think of her without shame! She loves you, she trusts you, and she has given you proof of her love and trust. Hold ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... zest to any partiality I might have inspired in his mind; while the manner in which I had sought this reparation, free as it was from resentment or defiance, left nothing painful to remember in the transaction between us,—no compromise or concession that could wound self-love, or take away from the grace of that frank friendship to which he at once, so cordially and so unhesitatingly, admitted me. I was also not a little fortunate in forming my acquaintance with him, before his success had yet reached its meridian burst,—before ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... this purpose, a convenient house was hired at Little Chelsea, and furnished for a ladies' boarding-school. Assistants of every kind were engaged, and I," says Mrs. Robinson, "was deemed worthy of an occupation that flattered my self-love, and impressed my mind with a sort of domestic consequence. The English language was my department in the seminary, and I was permitted to select passages both in prose and verse for the studies of my infant pupils; it was also my occupation to superintend ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... light, the light of the poetic faith which he cannot put off him, into those dark places, "the abode of worms and pismires," peering round with a boundless curiosity and no fear; noting the various casuistical considerations of men's last form of self-love; all those whims of humanity as a "student of perpetuity," the mortuary customs of all nations, which, from their very closeness to our human nature, arouse in most minds only a strong feeling of ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... is found only in one class of efforts, namely, those whose result is continuity, persistence, in fine, preservation. This may be toward the individual, self-love, whose object is the continuance of personal existence; toward the other sex, where the hidden aim is the perpetuation of the race; toward one's fellows, where the giving of pleasure and the prevention ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton |
