"Self-will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her eyes lost in the sunny distance. "I did wrong," she said, as though she were speaking to herself. "I should not have allowed that quarrel with your father. I regret it now very deeply. But we always see too late the consequences of our proud self-will." ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... narrow minds, which found real pleasure in worrying the poor child, passed insensibly from outward kindness to extreme severity. This severity was necessitated, they believed, by what they called the self-will of the child, which had not been broken when young and was very obstinate. Her masters were ignorant how to give to their instructions a form suited to the intelligence of the pupil,—a thing, by the ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... [Footnote 30: The self-will of Lord Byron was in no point more conspicuous than in the determination with which he thus persisted in giving the preference to one or two works of his own which, in the eyes of all other persons, were most decided ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... represented, soon realized that it was Napoleon himself who alone deserved serious consideration. Through Napoleon's character, and helping to make it great, there ran an imaginative vein which at times bordered on the fantastic; and this joined with his imperious self-will, brutality, and energy to make him eager to embark on a scheme which, when he had thought it over in cold blood, he was equally eager to abandon. For some time he seemed obstinately bent on taking possession of Louisiana, heedless of the attitude which this might cause the Americans ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... curiosity had suddenly been roused in him, and would not be repressed any longer. There must be some truth in it, or how could they have taunted him like that? And he must know the truth; he had a right to know it now. His figure grew taller. Self-will and defiance engraved deep, firm lines round his mouth. And even if it were ever so terrible, he must know it. But was it terrible? The lines round his lips became softer. "Here have we no continuing ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... to the septic materials swallowed. It would not, however, be fair to say that all indigestion is thus caused; not infrequently indigestion is due to errors of diet, and here the blame must be divided between the poverty and ignorance of many parents and the self-will of adolescents. The foods that are best for young people—such as bread, milk, butter, sugar, and eggs—are too frequently scarce in their dietaries owing to their cost; and again, in the case of many ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... "he is a red man through and through. He defies his whole nation in his fearlessness, his lawlessness. Even I bow to his bravery, his self-will, but that bravery is hurting me here, here!" and the ancient chief laid ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... viewless servants to enrich The fretted splendour of each nook and niche. Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first, Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees, 140 And with the larger wove in small intricacies. Approving all, she faded at self-will, And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still, Complete and ready for the revels rude, When dreadful guests would come to spoil ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... shall be our masters. It is the battle of the evil spirit, who is the Devil, fighting with the good spirit, who is God. Nothing less than that, my friends. Yes, in those hateful and shameful moments of pride, or spite, or contempt, or self-will, or suspicion, or sneering, on which when they are past we look back with shame and horror, and wonder how we could have been such wretches even for a moment,—at such times, I say, our heart is a battle-field, on which no less than the Devil himself, and God Himself are fighting for our ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... actually granted his request. But the strangest thing he did was to cut off the tail of his beautiful dog, that, as he said, the Athenians might have something to talk about. In truth he made everything give way to his freaks and self-will; and he was a harsh and unkind husband, and insolent to his father-in-law; and, as time went on, he offended a great many persons by his pride and rudeness and selfishness, so that his ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to see that I had done absolutely nothing of any good whatever—that nothing had really cost me anything; and that the things I was proud of were simply self-will—my leaving Cambridge, and all the rest. They were theatrical, or romantic, or egotistical; there was no real sacrifice. I should have minded much more not doing them. I began to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... reputation of not being amenable to reason, it is liable to sudden convulsions and headstrong distempers, or to unreasonable cringings, in which your welfare, and that of those whom you rule, are sacrificed to the apprehension of provoking your self-will. Moreover, the fear of irrational opposition on your part, often tempts those about you into taking up courses, which, otherwise, they might have thrown aside upon reflection, or after reasonable converse with you on the subject. You may have, in the end, to oppose yourself ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... subjected to a rule such as we are capable of conceiving, and such as may flatter the pride of men. Some famous theologians believe that God offers more grace, and in a more favourable way, to those whose resistance he foresees will be less, and that he abandons the rest to their self-will. We may readily suppose that this is often the case, and this expedient, among those which make man distinguishable by anything favourable in his nature, is the farthest removed from Pelagianism. But I would not venture, notwithstanding, to ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... magnanimity; reason and discipline had not imbued him with that solidity and equanimity which enter so largely into the virtues for the statesman. He had never learned how essential it is for any one who undertakes public business, and desires to deal with mankind, to avoid above all things that self-will, which, as Plato says, belongs to the family of solitude; and to pursue, above all things, that capacity so generally ridiculed, of submission to ill-treatment. Marcius, straightforward and direct, stand together, and come in to their assistance. ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... here, commissioned by a black self-will, The sons the father kill, The children chase the mother, and would heal The wounds they ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and a lawless love of ease, had endangered his own obedience, and neglected the plain task laid upon him. That fear of proselytism, that humble dread of his own influence, which had once determined his whole attitude towards those about him, began now to seem to him mere wretched cowardice and self-will—the caprice of the servant who tries to better his ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is just this conflict between the innate rectitude of Shelley's over-daring nature and the circumstances of ordinary existence, which makes his history so tragic; and we may justly wonder whether, when he read the Sophoclean tragedies of Oedipus, he did not apply their doctrine of self-will and Nemesis ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... thank God, only 'apparently,' conflicting duties, whose rival claims it is not always easy to measure. And it is not till some stages later in our journey that we come to see how our own prejudices or shortsightedness or self-will are really at the root of the perplexity. For God demands no impossibilities. As has been quaintly said, 'He neither expects us to be in two places at once, nor to put twenty-five ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... more or less delightful, pleasantries uttered in good taste, pretty purses and caresses might accompany and might decorate the handing over of this monthly gift; but the time will come when the self-will of your wife or some unforeseen expenditure will compel her to ask a loan of the Chamber; I presume that you will always grant her the bill of indemnity, as our unfaithful deputies never fail to do. They pay, but they grumble; you must pay ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... momentary, intense, as if each was the present moment. And in each of these scenes I saw what I had never seen before. I saw where I had taken the wrong instead of the right step, in what wantonness, with what self-will it had been done; how God (I shuddered at the name) had spoken and called me, and even entreated, and I had withstood and refused. All the evil I had done came back, and spread itself out before my eyes; and I loathed ...
— The Little Pilgrim: Further Experiences. - Stories of the Seen and the Unseen. • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... curiously near the expression on the face of her own little child. Innocent, tender, pure,—something like that. Grave, but with no clouds at all; strong and purposeful, yet with an utter absence of self-will or self-consciousness. It had always been, to a certain degree, innocent and pure, but that was negative; and this was positive,—the refined gold that had been through the fire. And no baby's face is sweeter than Diana's was now, all blossoming as it were with love and humility. If her ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the tears thrilled warm into Mrs. Ponsonby's eyes at the thought of Louisa's fond clinging to her, in spite of many an admonition and even exertion of authority, for she alone dared to control the spoilt child's self-will; and had far more power than the husband, who seemed to act as a check and restraint, and whose presence rendered her no longer easy and natural. One confidence had ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I said hastily. 'It is enough that your infernal egotism and self-will have ruined my happiness. I have allowed you to usurp the rule, to reverse our natural positions. I shall do so no more. I intend to teach you a ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... barren of such characters. Not but that many precious children of God suffered in much patience and charity. But those who suffered with very much of a different spirit, found no pastor to discountenance their self-will and false zeal: a sure sign that the true spirit of martyrdom was less pure than it had formerly been. Moreover the prevalence of superstition on the one hand, and the decay of evangelical knowledge on the ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... resolved that his niece's first visit to her father's grave should not be spent in fruitless dreams of him or of his presence, alluring because involving neither self-reproach nor resolution; but in thoughts which might lead to action, to humility, and to the yielding up of self-will. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... them display these extreme forms of evil. Neither of the last two does so. Antony and Coriolanus are, from one point of view, victims of passion; but the passion that ruins Antony also exalts him, he touches the infinite in it; and the pride and self-will of Coriolanus, though terrible in bulk, are scarcely so in quality; there is nothing base in them, and the huge creature whom they destroy is a noble, even a lovable, being. Nor does either of these dramas, though the earlier depicts a corrupt civilisation, include even among ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... subdued, and knew what was coming. She sat down, and waited. Had he looked in her face, instead of in the fire, he would have seen an expression there which he would little have liked—a smile of obstinacy and self-will. ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... true in connection with our minds. We all see the fallacy of the old-fashioned hustlers' cry, "Make your work your hobby; think of nothing else; let every moment be subordinated to the dominating idea of your career; put aside all sentimentalism, all laziness and self-will, all enthusiasm about things not in ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... real accident which happened among my acquaintance.[82] A young gentleman of a great estate fell desperately in love with a great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. However, my young spark ventures upon her, like a man of quality, without being acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, till it was a crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with possession; and the charms of this lady soon wanted the support ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... evil with good, but practically no process is more involved, or more tedious, than to find actual means to accomplish this end. It is much easier to say what one shall not do than what one must do to change self-will into strength of character, slyness into prudence, the desire to please into amiability, restlessness into personal initiative. It can only be brought about by recognising that evil, in so far as it is not atavistic or perverse, is as natural ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... aunt was her father's sister, an austere dignified old party who resided most exclusively in her ancestral home on Beacon Street, and lived in a rut worn ages deep by tradition, conviction and self-will. Virginia was, so-to-speak, heiress-presumptive. Not that she was likely to be supplanted by the birth of some one having greater claim to her aunt's fortune. Her possible rivals for the very substantial income which her aunt enjoyed were foundling asylums, a new religious cult just ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... abilities, and might do much for himself, but is too like the father, but with this difference, Edward was good-natured and careless to a fault; this boy is haughty and petulant, with the unmanageable obstinacy and self-will of old Geoffrey. He is not grateful for the many obligations he owes to me, and gives me frequent cause to regret that I ever adopted ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... call it, Philip?" said Miss Marston, lifting her eyebrows. "It seems to me more like that love of practical joking and the self-will that your mother was so constantly warning you ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... vainly he labored to sully with blame The white bust of Penn, in the niche of his fame! Self-will is self-wounding, perversity blind On himself fell the stain for ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... be supposed, however, that her self-will was a passionate, moody absolutism. She had outgrown that, and was too well-bred ever to show much temper. The tendency of her mature purposes and prejudices was to crystallize into a few distinct forms. With the feminine logic of a narrow mind, she made her husband an exception to the people ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... attempt; and he who in one moment of life could by a manly effort become a conqueror, and enter on a life of principle and peace, may, by yielding, very soon sink down into a degraded slave, who is held fast by the iron chain of habit, each link of which he has himself forged by his own self-will. ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... if I were to give her to you to wife: this being, this child, that I cannot help loving so dearly, that I fold up with remorse and sorrow in my heart, would go to wreck like others amid the pleasures of the world, in self-will and frivolity, in dissipation and recklessness. You would indulge her out of love in all sorts of follies, and so make her and yourself miserable. No, it cannot be on any terms; and you yourself will thank me hereafter ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... judgment. They could not show what they had not: and it was now too late for the king to become prompt and active, and for the queen to learn to view people and things as the rest of the world did, brought up, as she had been, in ignorance and self-will. She often complained (and we cannot wonder) at having to live and act among people who showed no presence of mind and good sense: but, really, the king, and everybody concerned, might well have complained of the ruin which her folly and self-will brought upon the present scheme,—the ...
— The Peasant and the Prince • Harriet Martineau
... The light He gave and gives through nature, and within every man's breast, has been awfully darkened through refusal and neglect to use it, through stubborn self-will. It is so darkened that ofttimes it seems to have been quite put out. His coming amongst us as one of ourselves, living our life, dying on our behalf to free us from sin, rising again victorious over death, sending His Holy Spirit to make all this real and living ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... ordered, the more determined he grew. There he stood, his proud, dark eye fixed on a picture on the wall, his lip curled with a sort of disdain, and an expression in his whole motionless figure that, had his cause but been good, would have been resolution, whereas it now was only indomitable self-will and pride. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... appreciate literature, he would have discovered that it is the unruliness not of the democracy but of the aristocracy against which Ulysses—or, if you prefer it, Shakespeare—inveighs in this speech. The speech is aimed at the self-will and factiousness of Achilles and his disloyalty to Agamemnon. If there are any moderns who come under the noble lash of Ulysses, they must be sought for not among either French or Russian revolutionists, but in the persons of such sound Tories as Sir Edward Carson and such sound ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... storm Lower'd at safe distance. When the clouds frown'd darker, Fear'd for yourself and left them to their fate. Oh, I have mark'd thee long, and through the veil Seen thy foul projects. Yes, ambitious man, 100 Self-will'd dictator o'er the realm of France, The vengeance thou hast plann'd for patriots Falls on thy head. Look how thy brother's deeds Dishonour thine! He the firm patriot, Thou the foul ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... kissed me. "We will both pray, my dear heart, to be kept out of temptation; but let us watch likewise that we slip not therein. They be safe kept that God keepeth; and seeing that not our self-will nor folly, but His providence, brought us to this place, I reckon we have a ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... nine o'clock, Mrs. Seraphin came to know why I was not yet up. I said that I was so ill, that I begged her to let me remain in bed all day; the next day I would quit the house, since M. Ferrand sent me away. At the end of one hour he came himself. 'You are worse; this is the consequence of your self-will,' said he. 'If you had profited by my offers, to-day you would have been established with kind people, who would have taken every care of you; however, I will not be so inhuman as to let you suffer; to-night Dr. Vincent will come to see you.' At ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... him—a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth! Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil! The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The apprehension that Solomon ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... very few ideas, he cherished those he had Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him Tyranny of the ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... written his panegyric on the Protector and the Protectorate in his Defensio Secunda. Even then he had made his reserves, and had ventured to express them in advices and cautions to Cromwell himself. He can hardly have professed that in those virtues of the avoidance of arbitrariness and self-will, the avoidance of over-legislation and over-restriction, which he had especially recommended to Cromwell, the rule of the Protector through the last three years had quite satisfied his ideal. Many of the so-called "arbitrary" measures, and even the ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... inevitable reaction from nursery-government, the child finds joyous relief in sheer riot and self-will. The behavior of our boys in college shows well their previous uneducated and ill-educated condition. The persistence of "hazing" among twentieth century persons old enough to go to school, shows the weakness of nursery culture. This is a custom prevalent among low ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... ingeniously expurgated to meet the case. The wall, he perceived at once, was the Sabbath—the Jews' one last protection against the outer world, the one last dyke against the waves of heathendom. Nor did his complacency diminish when his intuition proved correct, and the preacher thundered against the self-will—ay, and the self-seeking—that undermined Israel's last fortification. What did they seek under the wall? Did they think their delving spades would come upon a hidden store of gold, upon an ancient treasure-chest? ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... with great exaggeration as a condition of abandoned wickedness. But from childhood his abnormally active dramatic imagination had tormented him with dreams and fears of devils and hell-fire, and now he entered on a long and agonizing struggle between his religious instinct and his obstinate self-will. He has told the whole story in his spiritual autobiography, 'Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners,' which is one of the notable religious books of the world. A reader of it must be filled about equally ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... by a sudden impulse I stopped, and in the bitterness of my heart spoke to her. 'Mademoiselle,' I said, bowing low—for, as I have stated, she was small, and more like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed both pride and self-will—'Mademoiselle,' I said sternly, 'such as I am, I have fought for France! Some day you may learn that there are viler things in the world—and have to bear them—than a ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... for me, and yet she loved me—all she did was for love of me. She managed with so much address, that I had no suspicion of my being the subject of any speculation—otherwise, probably, my imagination might have revolted, my self-will have struggled, my pride have interfered, or my delicacy might have been alarmed, but nothing of all that happened; I was only too ready, too glad to believe all that I was told, all that appeared in that spring-time ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... or suns exhibit or suggest. My reader, is he the Sun to you? Do you count all that to be darkness which does not come form and accord with His light: all that to be disorder which does not implicitly accept and delight in His rule? "O LORD of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth to Thee!" Self-will is unmingled folly, and can only ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... frames, and lay me low before God in tears of sorrow. I often think what a happiness it would be if his love were so fixed in my heart that I might willingly obey him with alacrity and delight, and gradually mortify the power of self-will, passion, and pride. This can only arise from a good hope through grace that we are washed in that precious blood which cleanses us from every sinful stain, and makes us new creatures in Christ. ...
— The Annals of the Poor • Legh Richmond
... Bob's mother died—twelve years, and his father died also, leaving him the lion's share of the money. During this time Bob had worked away at Ballawag and earned enough to set up as lawyer on his own account. But because a man cannot play fast and loose with the self-will that God gave him and afterwards expect to do much in the world, he was a moderately unsuccessful man still when the inheritance dropped in. It gave him a fair income for life. When the letter containing the news reached him, he left the office, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... suggests, first, how the people that have any right to expect any kind of guidance from God are those who have their feet upon a path which conscience approves. Many men run into all manner of perplexities by their own folly and self-will, and never ask whether their acts are right or wrong, wise or foolish, until they begin to taste the bitter consequences. Then they cry to God to help them, and think themselves very religious because they do. That ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... the house of assembly in Lower Canada. He considered their course to be so much the same with that which other popular assemblies had followed in similar circumstances, that instead of an act of self-will, or caprice, or presumption, it seemed to be rather the obligation of a general law which affects all these disputes between a popular assembly on the one hand, and the executive government on the other. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... between parents is to be the great cause of pride of birth, I, too, have reason to be ashamed of mine, for I think my mother's love was worn out before many years of married life were over, and my father's never was anything but self-love and self-will. But whatever our birth may be, we are all God's children, and equal in His eyes, in that respect at least.——Did Madame Lenoir speak ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... perfect excellence of the mind with which Louisa's could so ill bear comparison; or the perfect, the unrivalled hold it possessed over his own. There he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind; there he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there had begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had kept him ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... character sadly marred, its simplicity gone, its confidence chilled, its tenderness hardened; where there was gentleness, we see roughness and coarseness; where there was obedience, we find murmuring, and self-will, and pride; where there was a true and blameless conversation, we find now something of falsehood, something of profaneness, something of impurity. I can well conceive what it must be to a parent to see his ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... being the more spirited course, without any mixture of gravity and self-restraint, virtues so necessary for political life. He had never learned how essential it is for one who undertakes to deal with men, and engage in public business, to avoid above all things that self-will which, as Plato says, is of the family of solitude, and to become longsuffering and patient, qualities which some foolish people hold very cheap. Marcius, plain and straightforward, thinking it to be the duty of a brave man to ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... hour. It might be well to accustom himself to the sight of her. There would be the less chance of his being abashed to-morrow before those sorceress eyes. And moreover, to tell the truth, his self-dependence, and his self-will too, crushed, or rather laid to sleep, by the discipline of the Laura, had started into wild life, and gave him a mysterious pleasure, which he had not felt since he was a disobedient little boy, of doing what he chose, right or wrong, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... youthfulness, he, as already hence anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; rejoicing in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself, through the fumes of that invisible wine of its self-will, turning aside and bowing down to the very basest things. But in my mother's breast Thou hadst already begun Thy temple, and the foundation of Thy holy habitation, whereas my father was as yet but a Catechumen, ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... then, was entirely wanting in consistency, in self-will; and her mind, be it observed, however brilliant and acute, had nothing that was calculated to counterbalance that defect of character. One may possess the faculty of right perception without strength ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... said gentle Mrs. Leigh. "Such self-conceit—and Heaven knows we have the root of it in ourselves also—is the very daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying out about I, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for all devils, and the broad road which leads ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... the will subjects the soul to God, conforms it to all His pleasure, causes self-will gradually to die. Lastly in drawing with it the other powers, by means of the charity with which it is filled. It causes them gradually to be reunited in the Center, and lost there as to their ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... home—the boy whom she had reared from the time that she took his sister from his dying mother's arms. Some deadly fear constrained her to lock the door behind her. For the lad's looks were terribly altered. There was a sullen, callous dourness where bright self-will had once had its dwelling. His clothing had once been fashionable, but it was now torn at the buttonholes ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... somewhat coarsely, but the ground is good. That the obstinacy of a young and untamed girl, possessed of none of the attractions of her sex, and neither supported by bodily nor mental strength, must soon yield to the still rougher and more capricious but assumed self-will of a man: such a lesson can only be taught on the stage with all the perspicuity of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... was observant also. He observed, on nearing the age of ten years, that in the great river of life which daily flowed past him, there were certain faces which indicated tender and kindly hearts, coupled with defective brain-action, and a good deal of self-will. He became painfully shrewd in reading such faces, and, on wet days, would present himself to them with his bare little red feet and half-naked body, rain water, (doing duty for tears), running from his weak bloodshot eyes, and falsehoods ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... unfrequent, and, in some cases, more apparent than real, as depending upon the relative position of the observer,—were those contrarieties and changes not less startling, which his character so often exhibited, as compared with itself. He who, at one moment, was seen intrenched in the most absolute self-will, would, at the very next, be found all that was docile and amenable. To-day, storming the world in its strong-holds, as a misanthrope and satirist—to-morrow, learning, with implicit obedience, to fold a shawl, as a Cavaliere—the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... this time about eighteen years of age—a beautiful, black-haired, bright-eyed little brunette, full of fire, spirit, strength, and self-will. She was a law to herself. No one, not even her aged father, had the slightest control over her except through her affections, when they could be gained, or her passions, when they could be aroused; but this last means was seldom tried, for no one cared to ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... lawlessness." Her marriage, after the initial act, had in it nothing whatever of lawlessness. She believed there exists a higher rule than that of Parliament, and to this higher law she submitted. To her this was not a law of self-will and personal inclination, but the law of nature and social obligation. That she was not overcome by the German individualistic and social tendencies may be seen in the article on "Weimar and its Celebrities," in the Westminster Review, where, in writing of Wieland ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... stay there and die unless concessions were made to him, and certain things never brought up again? Didn't even his iron-shod father have to give way before he would come home? Ah! Andrew is light-hearted, but he is an Indian in self-will!" ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... injudicious—miserably ill-judged in Dorrance not to acquaint you with this. I have always feared lest his indulgence might not be the most salutary method of repressing your self-will and pride of opinion. You, more than any other woman I know, require the tight rein of vigilant discipline. I intimated as much to Dorrance when he asked my consent to your engagement. But this is his lookout, not mine. What I began to say was that, ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... in the kitchen, I believe. Miss Deyncourt most good-naturedly offered to take her with her; but,"—with a shake of the head—"the poor child's totally unrestrained appetites and lamentable self-will made her prefer to remain where ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... himself to the continent. But though ingenious and scientific, he had not the business capacity of the elder, whose rebukes led to a sharp quarrel between them; and they parted in bitter estrangement—never to meet again as it turned out, owing to the dogged obstinacy and self-will of the younger man. He, after this, seemed to lose his moral ballast altogether, and after some eccentric doings he was reduced to a state of poverty, and took lodgings in a court in a back street of a town we will call Geneva, considerably in doubt ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... over something the other has done or left undone! Yet we profess there are no failures in love in our homes. These things happen every day and we think nothing of them. They are all of them the opposite of love, and the opposite of love is hate. Impatience is hate, envy is hate, conceit and self-will are hate, and so are selfishness, irritability and resentment! And hate is SIN. "He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in the darkness even until now." What tensions, barriers and discord it all causes, and fellowship with both God ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... and almost destroyed for ever by the interference of Ferdinand Lopez. But Mrs. Lopez never for a moment forgot that she had done the mischief,—and that the black enduring cloud had been created solely by her own perversity and self-will. Though she would still defend her late husband if any attack were made upon his memory, not the less did she feel that hers had been the fault, though the punishment had come upon ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... around him, had wakened to the vigor of a previous century; but it was so different from Vesta's nature that, while it but made nobler her soul of tranquil piety and ease of ladyhood, Vesta was interested in Rhoda's self-will and business coquetry. ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... it was on the whole well for him and for mankind, that he should think that he saw them, and tremble before the spiritual and the invisible; confessing a higher law than that of his own ambition and self-will; a higher power than that of his ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... well, I think so too. For she is particularly sensible for her age, especially since she has got her head clearer of fairy-tales and witches and enchantments and ogres and all the rest of it; and even then, there was a good deal of sense and reasonableness below her self-will ...
— Peterkin • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... great towns beside this same, The priests and parishioners be in the like case, Which to the churchwardens may be a shame. How should the priest his office fulfil, Accordingly as indeed he ought, When that the clerk will have a self-will, And always in service-time must be sought? Notwithstanding at this present there is no remedy, But to take time, as it doth fall, Wherefore I will go hence and make me ready, For it helpeth not to ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... counterbalance the dreadful anxieties of the past night. What a pure pleasure I now tasted a few moments! In a freak, I sat down and sketched The Demons' Palace, laughing defiance upon it all the while, with the wayward self-will and harmless spite of a child, I took this vengeance on the ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... least expected to be more reverent than other men to those divine beings of whose nature he partook, whose society he might enjoy even here on earth. He might be unfaithful to his own high lineage; he might misuse his gifts by selfishness and self-will; he might, like Ajax, rage with mere jealousy and wounded pride till his rage ended in shameful madness and suicide. He might rebel against the very gods, and all laws of right and wrong, till he perished his ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... see in me nothing Christian: like many other Protestants, I revelled in the pride and self-will of paganism." ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... amusement, there was, on the other hand, great devotion; the Princess, as a child, had that peculiar combination of self-will and warm-heartedness which is apt to win for a child a special love from its elders. The Princess Feodore wrote to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... prodigal was pierced to the core by the great mercy shown by his parents, and the brilliancy of his own original good heart was enticed back to him. The sunlight came forth, and what became of all the clouds of self-will and selfishness? The clouds were all dispelled, and from the bottom of his soul there sprang the desire to thank his parents for their goodness. We all know the story of the rush-cutter who saw the moon rising between the trees on a moorland hill ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... but too well the child would keep her word. No power, save God, could stay the turbulent current of the ungovernable self-will which would drag her on to her doom. No human being could hold in subjection the fierce, untamed will of the beautiful, ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... be at the lower external surface, behind Irritability, (as Religion is before Patience,) but before Acquisitiveness. The tendency of such a faculty must be toward a lawless defiance of everything sacred, a passionate, impulsive self-will and selfishness, resulting in lawless profligacy. Profligacy would, therefore, be the name for its predominance (Pr.), while executive independence and energy for selfish purposes would be ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother's eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... ancestors. The next year Mrs. Byron was placed on the Civil List for a pension of L300 a year. Removing to London, she placed George at school with Dr. Glennie at Dulwich, but thwarted the progress of his education with her fondness and self-will, until Lord Carlisle gave up all hope of ruling her. It was at this period that a boyish love for Margaret Parker, his cousin, who died shortly after, led Byron into ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... light silk one. 'Misfortunes never come alone,' it is said; and though I am not myself a firm believer in this proverb, it certainly proved true with regard to Mabel Ellis, though these misfortunes were entirely the results of her pride and self-will, so she does not deserve ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... said Faith at last, "and much better than you deserve to look, after leading me such a dance by your self-will. But one thing must be settled before we go back—are we to speak of this matter, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Maryllia's eyes flashed with a sudden fire that made them look brighter and deeper than ever and revealed a depth of hidden character not lacking in self-will,—"Well, we shall see! At any rate, I have given my orders, and I expect them to ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... haughty, though so sweet; Her very nod was not an inclination; There was a self-will even in her small feet, As though they were quite conscious of her station— They trod as upon necks; and to complete Her state (it is the custom of her nation), A poniard decked her girdle, as the sign She was a Sultan's bride (thank Heaven, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... a letter would find you, I have not written. I don't know whether you have heard any of the details from Ireland, but the conduct of the Irish is beyond all conception of loyalty and adulation, and I fear will serve to strengthen those feelings of self-will and personal authority which are at all times uppermost in The Mind. The passage to Dublin was occupied in eating goose-pie and drinking whiskey, in which his Majesty partook most abundantly, singing many joyous songs, and being in a state, on his arrival, to double in sight even ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... who is more despicable in our eyes than the decided villain. There are the irretrievably wretched education, and the unquenchably manly instincts, both contending in the confirmed roue, which melt us to the tenderest pity. There is the selfishness and self-will which the possessor of great wealth and fawning relations can hardly avoid. There is the vanity and fear of the world, which assist mysteriously with pious principles in keeping a man respectable; there are combinations ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only now making his first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the doctor. "Unless indeed," he went on with a humorous play of the lips—"you mean that my orders to you to lie still, merely gave zest to your triumphant knowledge that you could get up if you had a mind. A riotous degree of self-will that I believe I do not possess. Was that what good Mrs. Derrick meant when she said she wondered ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... of good, grace, and peace, [1] comes through affliction rightly understood, as sanctified by the purification it brings to the flesh,—to pride, self- ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet, indeed, are these uses of His rod! Well is it that the [5] Shepherd of Israel passes all His flock under His rod into His fold; thereby numbering them, and giving them refuge at last ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... of the individuals for one another's company. The tendency of individuals to over self-assertion is kept down by fighting. Even in these rudimentary forms of society, love and fear come into play, and enforce a greater or less renunciation of self-will. To this extent the general cosmic process begins to be checked by a rudimentary ethical process, which is, strictly speaking, part of the former, just as the "governor" in a steam-engine is part of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... it; and we look in vain for any elucidation, in his doctrine of sin, of the dark places in his doctrine of God.[245] In fact, he adds very little to the Neoplatonic doctrine of the nature of evil. Like Dionysius, he identifies Being with Good, and evil, as such, with not-being. Moral evil is self-will: it is the attempt, on the part of the creature, to be a particular This or That outside ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... another way. Our real life is life in God, and the way into it is always the way of surrender. To say with utter sincerity and absence of self-will, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" is to begin to find deliverance at once. We could not and should not surrender thus to anybody else. He alone perfectly understands. But when we have put ourselves into His hands without ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... hesitating a little. 'You must remember this is only my second visit, and I have not made much way with her. She is in a state of bodily and mental discomfort very painful to witness. If I am not mistaken, she is driving herself half-crazy with introspection and self-will. You must not give way to this morbid desire to increase her own wretchedness. She needs firmness as ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... vanquished, and who had tasted the triumph of defeat. But in all her exaltation she knew—though for the moment the knowledge could not hurt her—that her heart would be broken by Christopher's death. Through the long night of her ignorance and self-will and unsatisfied idealism she had wrestled with the angel that she might behold the Best, and had prayed that it might be granted unto her to see the Vision Beautiful. At last she had prevailed; and the day for which she had so longed was breaking, and transfiguring the common ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... on from the first, obedience will come easily to the child; but woe be to both mother and child if egotism, self-will and selfishness secure a fast ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... but mine was based on inclination, the result was that Sophie and I were "remainder," and Mary Leighton, Charlotte, and Henrietta drove away with Kilian quite jauntily, at half-past seven o'clock. But before she went, Charlotte, who was really good-natured with all her sharpness and self-will, went into the library to speak to Mr. Langenau, and to show she did not resent the noonday slight, whatever that had been. But presently she came back looking rather anxious, and said to Sophie, ignoring me (whom she always ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... choices are immature and premature, and all carnal courses are mistaken and unspiritual. God is often moved to delay that we may be led to pray, and even the answers to prayer are deferred that the natural and carnal spirit may be kept in check and self-will may bow before the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... in St. Petersburg with rage. The persistent reluctance of human beings to be parted almost for life from those near and dear to them, or to see their little ones carried off to an early grave or to the baptismal font, was regarded as a manifestation of criminal self-will. Accordingly, the former measures of "cutting short" and "curbing" this self-will were improved upon by new ones. In December, 1850, the Tzar gave orders that for every missing Jewish recruit in a given community three men of the minimum ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... — N. obstinateness &c adj.; obstinacy, tenacity; cussedness [U.S.]; perseverance &c 604.1; immovability; old school; inflexibility &c (hardness) 323; obduracy, obduration^; dogged resolution; resolution &c 604; ruling passion; blind side. self-will, contumacy, perversity; pervicacy^, pervicacity^; indocility^. bigotry, intolerance, dogmatism; opiniatry^, opiniativeness; fixed idea &c (prejudgment) 481; fanaticism, zealotry, infatuation, monomania; opinionatedness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... had seen how ministers and parties ruled in England (S534), resolved that her son should have the control. Her constant injunction to the young Prince was, "Be King, George, be King!" so that when he came to power George was determined to be King if self-will could ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Self-will, love of pleasure, quick excitability, and consequent irritability, are the marked ingredients in every strong character; its strength must be employed against itself to produce any ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... honour how shall we repay? How treat our guest divine? The sacrifice supreme be slain! Let self-will die: resign. ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... wherever we find it. If the 'brother of high degree' needs to be exhorted to beware of arrogance and imposing his own will on his fellows, the 'brother of low degree' needs not less to be exhorted to beware of letting envy and self-will hiss and snarl in his heart at those who are in higher positions than himself. If the chief of all needs to be reminded that in Christ's household preeminence means service, the lower no less needs to be reminded that in Christ's ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... assault upon his perfect loyalty to God. The world he was to seek to save was swayed by passions; his own people were longing for a Messiah, but they must have their kind of a Messiah. If he would acknowledge this actual supremacy of evil and self-will in the world, the opposition of passion and prejudice might be avoided. If he would own the evil inevitable for the time, and accommodate his work to it, he might then be free to lead men to higher and more spiritual views of God's ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... of conflict and anguish, such as he little knows; I was almost shipwrecked; yet I will still say to the last that what I loved in him was a better self,—something really noble and good, however concealed and perverted by pride, ambition, and self-will. Though all the world reject him, I still have faith in this better nature, and prayers that he may be led right at last. There is at least one heart that will always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... a strong and rather a masculine voice, and it grated on one slightly, being scarcely expected from so beautiful a face. In it was power, self-will, ambition—but no tenderness nor that voice, soft and low, which "is an excellent thing ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... open waters of domestic strife. While what it shows of human nature in general is the most important thing, what is shown of Russian life is of great interest. The position of the countess, and the habit of her mind with its over-bearing self-will and ingenious self-approval, are studies possible, of course, anywhere, but pretty sure to be found especially in a land like Russia, where the habit of command was until recently so strongly fostered by the existence ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... he spoke, yet was beautiful in every change. The usual expression of his eyes was soft, though at times he could make them even glare with ferocity; his complexion was colourless; and every trait spoke predominate self-will; his smile was pleasing, though disdain too often curled his lips—lips which to female eyes were the very throne of beauty and love. His voice, usually gentle, often startled you by a sharp discordant note, which shewed that his usual low tone was rather the work of study than nature. ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... a few moments, and then raised her abashed eyes to Major Van Zandt. A single glance satisfied her that he knew nothing of the imposture that had been practised upon her,—knew nothing of the trap into which her vanity and self-will had ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... to be otherwise described as the working of God the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit that dwelleth in us and directs us to right judgments if we will listen. Our danger is that self-will constantly crops up and complicates the case by representing that the line suggested by the Holy Spirit is not in reality in accord with our interests. This opposition between the seeming interests suggested by self-will, which indeed often contribute to our immediate ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... a peremptory command. "I—I have forgiven you long ago, my son; only pride and self-will stood in the way. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... holding the poor dog in his arms, he felt wretched indeed. At that moment all the sulkiness and self-will were crushed out of his little heart. It seemed to him that never, never had there lived upon the earth another ...
— Captain Horace • Sophie May
... as water, be for ever vile, Because thou did thy father's bed defile. Simeon and Levi 're brethren. Instruments Of cruelty lodged in their tents. Come not, my soul, their secret councils nigh, My honour, with them have no unity: For in their wrath they caused a man to fall, And in their self-will digged down a wall. Curs'd be their anger, fierce, yea cursed be Their wrath, for it was full of cruelty. In Jacob therefore let their seed be spread, And every where in Israel scattered. Judah shall have his brethren's praise, and they Shall bow before ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... husband, "your self-will is getting up very strong to-night! What if? Dolly's future does not depend upon us; though we will do what we can ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... movements are languid rather than brisk like her mother's, and she either has, or is desirous of having, more of the fine lady in her manners and appearance. We discern, as she talks, more of obstinacy than reason, and more of pride than sense, in her conversation, and the face rather expresses self-will than intellect, although ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... his wrath Huon took heart of grace, and, confessing his folly, prayed for pardon, which Oberon granted him for very pity, knowing, he said, that Huon would have much to suffer, some things through the wicked ways of others, but more from his own pride and self-will. Then, bidding the young man farewell afresh, the fairy king rode back to ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... turn against her, that would be worse than all! She went up to her room and sat herself down to think. All that passed through her brain on that night I may not now tell; but the grief which pressed on her at this moment with peculiar weight was the self-will and obstinacy of her boy. She said to herself that she would be willing now to die,—to give back her life at once, if such might be God's pleasure; but that her son should bring down her hairs with shame and sorrow to the grave—! In that thought there was a bitterness of agony ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... moral offence of a Catholic in denying some recondite doctrine, does not lie merely, and need not lie at all, in the immediate bad effects that such a denial would necessitate; but in the disobedience, the self-will, and the rebellion that must in such a case be both a cause ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... in its normal condition moves and works by law. When self-will, blinded by passion or lust, enters her realm, and breaks her protecting laws, mind then loses her sweet liberty of action, and becomes a transgressor. Chaos usurps the throne of liberty, and mind becomes at enmity with law. How many, many times the words of the poet have ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... neighbours sought, Content with equity unbought; To him the venerable priest, Our frequent and familiar guest, Whose life and manners well could paint Alike the student and the saint; Alas! whose speech too oft I broke With gambol rude and timeless joke; For I was wayward, bold, and wild, A self-will'd imp, a grandame's child; But, half a plague and half a jest, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... opera "Radamisto" was ready early in 1720, and produced at the Royal Academy of Music, as the theater was now called. The success of the production was tremendous. But Handel, by his self-will had stirred up envy and jealousy, and an opposition party was formed, headed by his old enemy from Hamburg, Buononcini, who had come to London to try his fortunes. A test opera was planned, of which Handel wrote the third act, Buononcini the second and a third musician the first. When the ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... of the book. The paradox, probably nowhere else discussed, of man's thinking and willing to all appearance all by himself, and of the fact that volition and thought come to him from beyond him, receives a similar, cumulative answer. The tension between the divine will and human self-will is a subject that pervades the book; to that subject the profoundest insights into the hidden activity of providence and into human nature are brought. On the question, "Is providence only general or also detailed?" the ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... autobiography of such a man was more needed than that of any other; but we could not expect an autobiography from Shelley. He felt nothing but pain and sorrow in the retrospect of his life, and, like Byron, shrank from the task of explaining the mixture of self-will, injustice, falsehood, and impetuous defiance that made up the greater part of his history; and when he died, he left everything at sixes and sevens, as regarded his place and acts in the world. Accordingly, until lately, no ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... wish, for Barbara did not often give the rein to her self-will so freely, and her objectionable traits of character had been inherited from her mother. She was a good girl at heart, and how much pleasure and favour her beautiful gift brought, how much honour came to him and his ancient name through this rare child! Yet at that time he was not aware of the new ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee: Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... in the morning he would thank him for having spared them to see the light of another blessed day); he besought him to pardon anything which that day they had done amiss; to deliver them from disobedience and self-will, from pride and waywardness (he had inserted this clause ten years ago for Gwendolen's benefit) as well as from the sins that did most easily beset them, for the temptations to which they were especially prone. This clause covered all the things he couldn't mention. It covered his wife, ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... he rendered to his time consisted, not merely, as it is sometimes thought, in soothing and refining it, but in bracing it. He was the preacher and example of manly hardness, simplicity, purpose in the religious character. It may be that his hatred of evil—of hollowness, impurity, self-will, conceit, ostentation—was greater than was always his perception of various and mingled good, or his comprehension of those middle things and states which are so much before us now. But the service cannot be ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... fury of his self-will had been scattered, for want of concentration[19] on one object only, manhood, like a flash of lightning, suddenly revealed to him that very object, in the form of woman: and he discovered, in the storm of his delight, that women were the very victims for whom he had been ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... ourselves. We are hampered by our ignorance and we are deeply involved one with the other. The orthodox theology which blames everything upon sin as an abstraction is not convincing, but sin as the projection of wrong desires, through self-will, into the field of human action is a fact to be constantly reckoned with. The individual and social consequences of it are enormous, nor can they be confined either to one individual or one generation. Heredity continues weakness as well as strength. A vast deal ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... call to join the dance, or by the presentation of the stimulating cordial, and my remorse and my hopeless desires would be drowned for the time being. Once, in utter disgust, I made a resolution to abstain from such amusements; but it was made in self-will, and did not stand long, though I was so earnest that I gave away much of my finery. I cannot look back to those years without a blush of shame, a feeling of anguish at the utter perversion of the ends of my being. But for my tutelary ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... that they are. What you wish to be you shall be. There will be no pent-up energies here to burst out into disaster for yourself and others. You shall be trained to self-control—that is, if you ever develop self-will, dear child—every faculty shall be educated, every school of life you desire knowledge through shall be opened to you. You shall become that finest flower of civilization, a woman who knows ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... opinions and judgments kept fluctuating all his life long, too much obedient to the gusts of whim and caprice, or oftener still to the irregular influences of an impatient spirit, that could not brook any opposition from any quarter to its domineering self-will. For in not many months after, in the Prologue to "Aurengzebe," are these ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... acknowledge the possibility of discomfiture; his soul raged mightily against the hint of bafflement. Humour would not come to his aid; the lighter elements of race were ousted; he was solid insolence, wooden-headed self-will. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... where rest and oats awaited him; and it evidently seemed to Him the height of injustice and unreason to be asked to go all the way back to Salem again. Mistress Ann, however, knew nothing of these previous experiences of the animal, but imputed his insubordinate behavior entirely to self-will and obstinacy. And thus, as the great globe moves around the sun in a perpetual circle, as the result of the two conflicting forces of gravitation and fly-off-it-iveness, so Sweetbriar circled around and around, like a cat chasing his tail, as the result of ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... have been victorious. They are not fond of keeping up a remembrance of their defeats. There was a good picture of the late Emperor, with his haughty brow, fierce eyes, and determined lips, the very impersonification of self-will and human pride, now brought down to the very dust; but, haughty as was that brow, the expression of the countenance gave no sign of talent or true genius. It was indeed wanting. He had the sense to take ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... deep glooms enringing Tartarus! Then ponder this: the threat is not growth Of vain invention—it is spoken and meant! For Zeus's mouth is impotent to lie, And doth complete the utterance in the act. So, look to it, thou! take heed! and nevermore Forget good counsel to indulge self-will! ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... are awake to the wickedness of unnecessary war, and are disposed, as a general rule, to seek first, and where admissible, the counterpoise of an impartial judge, where such can be found, to correct the bias of national self-will; but there is an absolute indisposition, an instinctive revolt, against signing away, beforehand, the national conscience, by a promise that any other arbiter than itself shall be accepted in questions of the future, the import of which cannot yet be discerned. Of this feeling ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... the loftiest ground on this question. We have found that only on that could we stand. When the very foundations of what we held most awful and reverential have been assailed by mad traitorous hands, as though they were vulgar things, when frenzied self-will has laid its profane grasp upon the Ark of the Covenant, we have been forced back to those strong foundations on which nations stand, for hope and confidence, to those tremendous sanctions that girdle in, as with the fires of God, the sanctity of Law, the majesty of Order, and established Right. ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... unusually great means—their very wealth forbids faithful friendships. For not only is Fortune blind herself; but she generally makes those blind also who enjoy her favours. They are carried, so to speak, beyond themselves with self-conceit and self-will; nor can anything be more perfectly intolerable than a successful fool. You may often see it. Men who before had pleasant manners enough undergo a complete change on attaining power of office. They despise their old friends: ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... of the fellow," said Peters, with assumed contempt. "Why, he is a mere obstinate boor, whose self-will and vanity led him to set up and persevere in a defence in which he knows there is ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... person cited.. By such absence the absentee discredits himself; whatsoever may be the justice of his cause, it is prejudiced at the outset. But how to persuade of this truth a man so blind with pain and rage and so dogged in self-will as Adone had become, Don Silverio did not see. He shrank from renewing useless struggles and disputes which led to no issue. He felt that Adone and he would only drift farther and farther apart with ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... of self-inspection with that carefulness and sedulity with which they ought. Hence men generally, and unrenewed men always, are unacquainted with much that goes on within their own minds and hearts. Though it is sin and self-will, though it is thought and feeling and purpose and desire, that is going on and taking place during all these years of religious indifference, yet the agent himself, so far as a sober reflection upon the moral ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... an anticlimax. Even Nero, nerveless in his latter days, when self-will and debauchery had pouched his eyes and stomach, had possessed the Roman gift of standing like a god. Vespasian and Titus, each in turn, was Mars personified. Aurelius had typified a gentler phase of Rome, a subtler dignity, but even he, whose worst severity was tempered by the philosophical ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy |
