"Unselfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... certainly true in the direction it refers to, is also true in the converse direction. The girl admires a man for physical qualities, including what may be called the physical virtues, like energy and courage. She rates highly certain moral attractions, such as unselfishness and chivalry, but perhaps she attaches far more value to intellectual attractions than the man does in her case, doubtless because they are ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... father's character was more admirable than his utter unselfishness. He denied himself many things, that he might give the greater pleasure to his wife and children. He would scarcely take part in any enjoyment, unless they could have their fair share of it. In all this he was ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... Jasper? I did not notice you until this moment," said Rivers. He gave the other man a sharp glance, which suddenly made him feel queer and small. "The only thing old-fashioned that I notice about Judy," he said, "is her noble unselfishness. She has gone home because—because—I think you can both guess why; an explanation would only be disagreeable. She begged me to tell you, Mrs. Quentyns, that she meant to be really perfectly happy at home, and she hoped you and Jasper would follow her ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... going to do it as an act of unselfishness," she moaned. "You were going to die in order to mend it all. Did you think of me in that? Did you think I would or could consent to that? You believed in me, of course, when you wrote it. But did you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... yen. Moved by the poverty of his neighbours, he devoted his substance to improving their condition. Now many of them are well off, the village has been "praised and rewarded" by the prefecture for its "good farming and good morals," and the philanthropist is worth only 50,000 yen. Impressed by his unselfishness, the village has raised a great slab of stone ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... UNSELFISHNESS. To be able to read of a neighbor's success without reaching for the harpoon. A man who will give his last cigar to a stranger and then go home and kick his wife on the shins because she spent forty cents for ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... settled his colossal work, and remained unmarried for life. He may have been foolish: but I prefer his behaviour to that of a man who treats his father with contumely and ingratitude even while he is living upon him. We hear much of Shelley's unselfishness, but it does not appear that he ever denied himself the indulgence of a whim. The "Ode to the West Wind," the "Ode Written in Dejection near Naples," and "The Skylark" are unsurpassed and unsurpassable; but I can hardly pardon a man for cruelty and turpitude merely ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... to Shakespeare. Even "Rockefeller" seems too formal for his grandeur. Plain "John D." is best suited to express the admiration of his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about his head. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential and concrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a true artist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given him nothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotion which a lover shows to his mistress. Like ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Such unselfishness as this was more than I could appreciate, and rather more, I thought, than was called for by the circumstances. How could she love me so, and still not care if I never were to know her again? Was she the same Mona, after all, who had so provokingly eluded my love during my former visit? These ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... there, making preparations for the evening. The concert-room had been beautifully decorated, and the supper-table tastefully arranged. Very pretty did Ada (as she was called) look. Her finely-cut features and graceful appearance all proclaimed her high birth, and the innate purity and unselfishness of her spirit were stamped on her face. Adeline Stanford was a truly Christian girl whose great desire was to make those around her happy. One thing she had often longed for was to have a companion of her own age to live with her and be as a sister to her. Her parents often tried to get such ...
— Little Frida - A Tale of the Black Forest • Anonymous
... purity and innocence quail before unwomanly self-assertion and voluptuousness, so manly loyalty and unselfishness give way before unmanly treachery and self-seeking. It is true that the bad men do not finally triumph, but they triumph over the good with whom they happen to come in contact. In "King Lear," what man shows any virtue who does not receive punishment for the same? Not Gloucester, whose ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... an extraordinary fashion for so young and presumably selfish a girl she immediately forgot herself. She was living in an atmosphere of unselfishness and devotion to others, so the thought that the object of her present care was not a worthy object did not at the ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... seaside with the fishermen was described, but the beatitudes brought out to the fullest his deep, melancholy voice, as by the light of the lamp upon the low table the chief intoned the thrilling gospel of humility and unselfishness. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... them—" the preacher paused for a moment then went on—"the glory of reward which, I think, God loves best to bestow upon those who, with steadfast unselfishness, have lived simple lives and left their fellows better for having lived. I do not know how God measures the deeds of men, or with what degrees of reward he fixes their place in Paradise; but I feel that I stand on holy ground as my eyes wander here and fall upon these graves where the Burtons ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... thing. At present the child in the street invariably connects death with sordid accidents. I think they should have stories of death coming in heroic form, as when a man or woman dies for a great cause, in which he has opportunity of admiring courage, devotion and unselfishness; or of death coming as a result of treachery, such as we find in the death of Baldur, the death of Siegfried, and others, so that children may learn to abhor such deeds; but also a fair proportion of stories dealing with death ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... bloom!" The beautiful significance of the term seemed to occupy her mind to the exclusion of the personal application. She had a vision of love as the apotheosis of human affection, a wondrous combination of kindliness, sympathy, courtesy, patience, unselfishness—all these, and something more—that mysterious, intangible quality which Geoffrey Hilliard had so aptly described. Given "the bloom," affection became idealised, patience a joy, and selfishness ceased to exist, since the well-being of another ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... might slide off at any moment. Fay's violet eyes were her greatest charm. She looked at you with a deprecating, timid, limpid gaze, in which no guile existed, any more than steadfastness, any more than unselfishness, any ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... in Hawkeye. Whether he ever thought that if he could save her from ruin, he could give her up himself, is doubtful. Such a pitch of virtue does not occur often in real life, especially in such natures as Harry's, whose generosity and unselfishness were matters of temperament ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... his blood and even with his life if need were; that he who now did not feel ashamed to shrink from blows could exist without blushing in after years, or could incite his pupils to do something noble, something calling for sacrifice and for unselfishness, without exposing himself to their derision and contempt. Such was the second main reason which ...
— Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel • Friedrich Froebel
... greatest friend was a certain Fraulein Sonnenthal, the German governess. She was a kind-eyed Hanoverian, homely and by no means brilliantly clever, but there was something in her unselfishness and in her unassuming humility that won Erica's heart. She never would hear ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... that fetich word. Honour? There was no breach of honour where there was no deception, no pretence. Consideration for others? Who on earth ever dreamt of considering him—when to do so would cost them anything, that is? Unselfishness? Everybody was selfish—everything even. What had he ever gained by striving to improve upon the universal law? Nothing—nothing good; everything bad—bad and ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Paris all the time I was at school there, though she did not like Paris as a residence. She would make any sacrifice for me that a mother would make for a daughter. She has been mother and sister to me. I cannot overpay her devotion by any unselfishness of mine." ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... you are going to leave us, Miss Mulrady," said the young fellow, lightly, "you will comprehend my unselfishness, since I frankly admit your departure would be a positive relief to me as an editor and a man. The pressure in the Poet's Corner of the 'Record' since it was mistakingly discovered that a person of your name might be induced to seek the 'glade' and 'shade' without being 'afraid,' 'dismayed,' ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... should want to let her off, and she would feel in honour bound to hold on, and really of all the things I can't abide self-sacrifice is.... Well, Lady Gwendolen, only consider the feelings of the chap on the altar! Hasn't he a right to a little unselfishness for his own personal satisfaction?" This was a sad wet ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... were the turning point of Antonia's life. Here, in company with twenty other girls, somewhat above her in station, she learnt, among other things, the virtues of gentleness, quietness in voice and movement, unselfishness, and many kindred things; and those years of happy, monotonous toil, broken only by pleasant, friendly treats, or gentle, old-fashioned punishments, were full of use and ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... sage in his hand shaking. They looked at each other, the yellow light clear on both faces. Hers was hard and combative, as if his suggestion had outraged her and she was ready to fight it. Its expression sent a shaft of terror to his soul, for with all his unselfishness he was selfish in his man's longing for her, hungered for her till his hunger had made him blind. Now in a flash of clairvoyance he saw truly, and feeling the joy of life slipping from ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... the characteristics of General Lee which made him so successful was his exalted and unmatched excellence as a man, his unselfishness, sweetness, gentleness, patience, love of justice, and general elevation of soul. Lee much loved to quote Sir William Hamilton's words: "On earth nothing great but man: in man nothing great but mind." He always added, however: "In mind nothing great save devotion to truth and ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... was one of those men whose intuitive sense is as fine as a woman's; of delicate physique, strong brain, and a sensitive temperament that might have gone off on a morbid tangent but for the common sense, cheerfulness, and unselfishness that held it true to the course. The last man in the world to lead a lonely life, but there was an invalid mother and a delicate sister in a pretty little country town home some two hundred miles away, and that was why Steve had no home of his own. Loving nature as I think most men of fine, ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... and concern for self is often the cause of nervous conditions that produce worry and ill-health. The best cure is the cultivation of complete unselfishness. To be interested in the happiness of others is the surest road to happiness for one's self;—if you get feeling tired of yourself make a visit to some congenial friend, and there forget self and your troubles. "It is more blessed to give than receive" is a truth ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... it, then? Or, if you must, remember that in his surpassing unselfishness he saved you much anxiety; for you ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life. Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of its own. The passion of justice might have ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... devout piety, and to witness her husband's cheerful and manly profession of religion. This was the point in his character which had attracted her most, and had been most likely to bind her to him. Not his passionate love to herself, but his unselfishness toward others, his apparently happy religion, his energetic interest in all good and charitable schemes—these had reconciled her more than anything else to the step she had taken, the downward step, in ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... the silk's own sake, I find none; for the test of that enjoyment is, that they would like it also to sit well, and look well, on somebody else. The pleasure of being well dressed, or even of seeing well-dressed people—for I will suppose in my fair hearers that degree of unselfishness—be that pleasure great or small, is quite a different thing from delight in the beauty and play of the silken folds and colors themselves, for their ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... so far as it relates in moral heroism and spiritual attainment. High and noble action is hindered and baulked by the social conditions in the midst of which we live; and those who would live grandly and purely, and in a supreme unselfishness devote themselves to the world, find that their efforts are in vain. Dorothea has longings after a life of love and service; she would live for high purposes and give herself for others' good. Her hopes end in disaster almost; and she is cramped and baulked on every ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... alike, as if all men had the moral instinct equally developed; and yet Hugh had met not a few men who were restrained by absolutely no scruples, except prudential ones, and the dread of incurring conventional penalties, from yielding to every bodily impulse. If truth and purity and unselfishness were the divine things, if happiness lay there, why were there such multitudes of people created who had no implanted desire to attain ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... for life, she would not part with him, but kept him at home, and his abilities uncultivated. And there was a shrewd boy of nine years, instead of learning to work and obey, playing about and learning selfishness from their infinite unselfishness, and tyrannizing with a rod of iron over two women, both of them sagacious and spirited, but reduced by their fondness for him to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... alliances with Austria and Turkey, the two most decadent of their three historic enemies, in order to stem the onrush of Russia, their third and most powerful antagonist. They are a people ever faithful to their alliances even to the point of unselfishness. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... later times that the altruistic principles involved in these teachings contain the highest wisdom—that they form the basis of a true social science, and that a high stage of civilization will never be reached until these principles are recognized as the foundation of human conduct Unselfishness, purity of life, and the brotherhood of man will never be realized so long as man shifts the responsibility of his wrong-doing ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... that a woman is a human being; but the clerical theory is that she is a dangerous beast, to be kept in subjection, and used for domestic purposes only. Married life is made up to a great extent of the most heartless abuse of a woman's love and unselfishness. Submission, you know—!" ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... man to such an extent that he was unfit to be a minister or to touch holy things. The Catholic Church still prohibits either party who is so unholy as to marry from profaning its pulpit'; but the Protestant Churches divide up, giving women the disabilities and mon the offices. The unselfishness of such a course is quite touching. It says to women: "You support us and we will damn you; there is nothing ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... my lips to her hand in silence. I felt overwhelmed by the suggestion, by the unselfishness, by the grandeur of it. I saw that the proposition stood before her mind in a totally different light from that in which it would present itself to most women. But, then, the outlook of an artist upon life and all the things in life ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... young men gripped hands as the great bateau swung inshore at the Point of Rocks on the Kentucky side of the Ohio. They needed not to do more, these two. The face of each told the other what he felt. Their mutual devotion, their generosity and unselfishness, their unflagging unity of purpose, their perfect manly comradeship—what wonder so many have called the story of these two ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough
... superiority of our culture, to rebuke the masses for their want of intellect, their want of character, their greed, and to keep insisting on the unchangeability of human character, on the virtues of rulership and leadership, on the spiritual unselfishness and intellectual priesthood of the classes born to freedom. Where was this heaven-nurtured priestly virtue sleeping when Wrong straddled the land and the great crime was wrought? It was composing feeble anthologies and pompous theories, cooking its culture-soup, confusing, ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... character. Of every farthing thus advanced, the minister had been defrauded, and within a month the trader had declared himself a bankrupt. That the minister should have acted so inconsiderately and prodigally, might seem strange to any one who did not thoroughly understand the extreme unselfishness of his disposition. Towards me he had behaved with an equal liberality, and I, at least, had no right to question the truth of every word he spoke. The conduct of the man appeared odious and unpardonable, and I regretted that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... woman with a masculine mind is not a being of superior efficiency; she is simply a phenomenon of imperfect differentiation—interestingly barren and without importance. Dona Emilia's intelligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest of Sulaco, simply by lighting the way for her unselfishness and sympathy. She could converse charmingly, but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or demolition of theories any more than with the defence of prejudices, has no random words at its command. The words it pronounces have ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... in his arms, and with difficulty and labor gained the temple. He bore her to the remoter and more sheltered part of the portico, and leaned over her, that he might shield her, with his own form, from the lightning and the showers! The beauty and the unselfishness of love could hallow even that ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... To him all great warriors were greedy time-servers like John Churchill; all statesmen plausible placemen; all reformers self-seeking pretenders. Nor did Captain Paget wish that it should be otherwise. In his ideal republic, unselfishness and earnestness would have rendered a man rather a nuisance than otherwise. With the vices of his fellow-men the diplomatic Horatio was fully competent to deal; but some of his most subtle combinations on the chess-board of life would have ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of my life," said Amidon, grasping the little man's hand warmly, "I'm going to take the liberty of holding you as my friend. I know faithfulness and unselfishness when I see it, no matter if I don't quite fall in with ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors—I ask you for her but a fair trial ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... had ruled the Church during the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... operas given in Berlin, and Marietta was entirely unoccupied; for some time she had been giving singing lessons—perhaps for distraction, perhaps to increase her income; she had, however, carefully preserved this secret from Ranuzi—in the unselfishness of her love she did not wish him to know that she had need of gold, lest he might ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... we cannot easily estimate the destructive force and the extent, it is also for multitudes of souls an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness? ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... apostle is exactly the reverse of that which this interpretation attributes to him: he does not say that Christ died in order that men might not die, but exactly for this very purpose, that they might die; and this death he represents in the next verse by an equivalent expression—the life of unselfishness: "that they which live might henceforth live not unto themselves." The "dead" of the first verse are "they that ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... a good idea. I shall, for it was pure unselfishness which prevented me running away last week with the rest of the party. Mother would have given in if I'd persisted, and I wanted to so dreadfully badly." She sighed, and looked quite dejected, ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... those of Howard and Wilberforce. It will not go very far anyway. In this age of millionaires, a millionaire more or less does not count very much, and only the good millionaires who baptize and beautify their wealth in the eternal sunlight of unselfishness will have ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... side. The poor man is often able to do the very best charitable work, acting, with a full knowledge of the circumstances, with quick sympathy, and entire unselfishness. On the other hand, when considerations of public welfare, or conditions outside his personal experience complicate the situation, his charity is sometimes ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... seven. No; his good looks were due to the simple outward expression, through his features, of a certain noble inward quality which would have made the homeliest face attractive. Selfishness will spoil the handsomest features; unselfishness will glorify. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... not counting a few minor ailments of second childhood which attacked him occasionally when he saw a stiff hill ahead, or when he had heard me say I was in a hurry. The Vannecks were perfection as chaperons, not through supernatural tact and unselfishness, but because Maud feared the effect upon Fred of too much Barrie. She laid herself out to charm her husband. Never an "I told you so!" Never a nagging word or look. She chatted to Fred in the car, and saw sights with him out of the car. This, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... for attaining favor with the gods, no reference has been made to morality as their object. The purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the favorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are capable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness, unselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial duty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected with religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian, like other ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... as strong and unhesitating the certainty and dread nature of future punishment, were men also who, more than any who have ever lived, loved their fellow-men, wept like their Divine Master for their sins, and devoted their lives, with untiring unselfishness, to rescue them from present evil and future woe. Now, if this be so far a true, if not a full, representation of the teaching of Christ and His apostles on this momentous theme, I may be permitted to ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... progress towards the harmonious adjustment of their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of sex cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... in purpose and the soldier always exhibits unselfishness of high order, but, as a rule, conflicts are ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... kinder-hearted man than Admiral Darling never saw the sun. There was nothing about him wonderful in the way of genius, heroism, large-mindedness, or unselfishness. But people liked him much better than if he combined all those vast rarities; because he was lively, genial, simple, easily moved to wrath or grief, free-handed, a little fond, perhaps, of quiet and confidential brag, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... better social life on earth. Charity was common but it was purely individual and remedial; it did not seek to understand or to cure the causes of social maladjustment; it was sustained by no expectation of better conditions among men; it was valued because of the giver's unselfishness rather than because of the recipient's gain, and in consequence it was for the most part unregulated alms-giving, piously motived but inefficiently managed. In the eighteenth century a new outlook and hope emerged. ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... even the appearance of approval. He knew that Warfield must feel himself in rather a desperate position, else he would never trouble to make his motives so clear to one of his men. Indeed, Warfield had protested his unselfishness in the matter too much and too often to have deceived the dullest man who owned the slightest suspicion of him. Lone could have smiled at the sight of Senator Warfield betraying himself so, had smiling been possible to ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... common with the Fielding of fact, the indefatigable student, the vigorous magistrate, the great and serious artist. You hear but little of him from himself; for with that mixture of intellectual egoism and moral unselfishness which is a characteristic of his large and liberal nature he was as careless of Henry Fielding's sayings and doings and as indifferent to the fact of Henry Fielding's life and personality as he was garrulous in respect ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... self is UNselfishness," replied Santoris— "But anything in excess of reasonable care is pure vice. A man should work for his livelihood chiefly in order not to become a burden on others. In the same way he should take care of his health so that he may avoid being a troublesome invalid, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... Sir Robert Borden, was due the splendid response to the call to arms of the Canadian people. He put duty before public applause of petty politics like a true Canadian. Future generations will do full credit to his unselfishness. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... sloughed off the conventions, that are conventions simply for convention's sake, and who are reaching out towards the realities. Most of them haven't an idea what those are, but dumbly they know. Tommy knows, for instance, who is a good chum and who isn't; that is, he knows that sincerity and unselfishness and pluck are realities. He doesn't care a damn if a chap drinks and swears and commits what the Statute-Book and the Prayer-Book call fornication. And he certainly doesn't think there is an ascending scale of sins, or at any rate that you parsons ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... very nature transitory and precarious. For the first time he was led to doubt whether his scheme of life was indeed a wise one; or, rather, he began to be aware that he had never laid out any scheme of life at all. But with that unselfishness which was the key to his character and to much of his career, (resembling in its quality what we sometimes admire in a woman, rather than what we ever detect in a man,) he took successful pains to conceal his distress from those ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the feeble, and wins the regard of the inattentive. There are, however, far nobler interests mingling, in the Gothic heart, with the rude love of decorative accumulation: a magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to reach the fulness of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which would rather cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in the market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness and wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism whose operation we ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... said, "you are wrong, and moreover you owe all of us an apology for speaking in such a way of a lady in our presence. I fully indorse all that Captain Prescott says of Miss Catherwood—I happen to have seen instances of her glorious unselfishness and sacrifice, and I know that she is one of God's ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... the event with a dozen knockdowns and a general cramming of the station-house with drunken vagabonds overnight. It is said that when the immense majority for Caesar at the polls in the market was declared the other day, and the crown was offered to that gentleman, even his amazing unselfishness in refusing it three times was not sufficient to save him from the whispered insults of such men as Casca, of the Tenth Ward, and other hirelings of the disappointed candidate, hailing mostly from the Eleventh and Thirteenth and other outside districts, who were overheard speaking ironically ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... prompted, it would have been. Her war with Willoughby sprang of a desire to love repelled by distaste. Her cry for freedom was a cry to be free to love: she discovered it, half shuddering: to love, oh! no—no shape of man, nor impalpable nature either: but to love unselfishness, and helpfulness, and planted strength in something. Then, loving and being loved a little, what strength would be hers! She could utter all the words needed to Willoughby and to her father, locked in her love: walking in this world, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... morals there is no more important topic. Unselfishness is too often only the most exasperating form of selfishness. Here is ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... the Church from the worldly side, and infected its unworthy servants. Francis perceived that the only hope or relief possible to that age lay in a decisive spiritual revolution, to be effected without violence, which would recall people to the primitive simplicity, unselfishness, and absolute devotion of the time of Christ and the apostolic period. This revolution could be accomplished, he saw, only by a personal example so strong, so undeviating, so entirely free from self-seeking, that all men would be ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price. For all women there is something nobler than to be recognized as the queen of heaven. Let woman be content to be what God made her, to fill the sphere God appointed for her, in unselfishness, and humbleness, and purity, rejoicing in God her Saviour, content that He had regarded the lowliness of His handmaiden, and rejoicing that God has honored the characteristics regarded as feminine, which she possesses, and which she may use for the glory of God and the good of the race. Now, ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... called forth, and God only knows how much the consequent progress of the work was due to their faith, supplication, and self-denial. The practical knowledge of the exigencies of their common experience begat an unselfishness of spirit which prompted countless acts of heroic sacrifice that have no human record or written history, and can be known only when the pages of the Lord's own journal are read by an assembled universe in the day when the secret things ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... they loved each other so much; she knew that he was good because he loved her; and he believed that he must have a great deal of good in him, if such a girl loved him so much. They thought it a virtue to exist solely for one another as they did; their mutual devotion seemed to them a form of unselfishness. They felt it a great merit to be frugal and industrious that they might prosper; they prospered solely to their own advantage, but the advantage of persons so deserving through their frugality and industry seemed a kind of altruism; it kept them in constant good ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... matter to-day now that the police have found her out. She has been forced into hiding, and, if alone and without any friend to help her, her situation, to put it mildly, must be desperate in the extreme. You befriended her last night, and I honor you for the unselfishness with which you laid yourself open to the future attentions of that animal Rorke, but that very fact has deprived her of what might otherwise have been a refuge and a quite secure retreat here with you. I do not wish to intrude, or force myself upon her, but I believe I could be of ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in my life. Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with the intensity of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... to be a simple act of unselfishness, I endeavor to persuade him to take the other, pointing out that he has three mouths to fill while I have only one. My importunities are, however, wasted on so polite and disinterested a person, and so I reluctantly take possession ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... with a light heart. She never before had possessed so much money. Five dollars! the sum seemed inexhaustible, and she began to devise a thousand plans to expend it to advantage—and the fact that she herself was not included in any of those plans, was a beautiful illustration of the unselfishness of her character. Not for a moment did she dream of appropriating it to the purchase of a good warm shawl or dress for herself, although, poor girl! she so much needed both. She would buy a nice comfortable rocking-chair for her grandfather; ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... every form is dissipation, weakness, death; unselfishness in its spiritual aspect is conservation, power, life. As you grow in spiritual life, and become established upon principles, you will become as beautiful and as unchangeable as those principles, will taste of the sweetness of their immortal essence, and will realize the eternal ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... that which is at its head, of that which is on its head. Do you think of that? Does it think of that? O army of the republic! army that had for captains, generals paid with four francs a day; army that had for leaders, Carnot, austerity, Marceau, unselfishness, Hoche, honour, Kleber, devotion, Joubert, probity, Desaix, valour, Bonaparte, genius! O, French army, poor, unfortunate, heroic army, gone astray in the train of these men! What will they do with it? whither will they lead ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... States Senate must have seemed a large prize to Lincoln just then—possibly the largest he might ever hope to gain; and it must have been a hard trial to feel it so near and then see it slipping away from him. He did what few men would have had the courage or the unselfishness to do. Putting aside all personal considerations, and intent only on making sure of an added vote against slavery in the Senate, he begged his friends to cease voting for him and to unite with those ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... could be more charming. She had spent a great deal of her life abroad, and her easy, well-bred manner, her savoir-faire and broad, sagacious views on every subject, had been gained in the world's academy. In spite of her goodness of heart and real unselfishness, she was essentially a woman of the world. Little as Malcolm guessed it at that time, she was Elizabeth Templeton's greatest friend; indeed, both the sisters were devoted to her, and some of Elizabeth's happiest and gayest hours had been spent ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... through the nights, because she had used the blanket to blindfold the horse. She had hollowed out a place for my hips to lie more easily, and pulled grasses for my bed. In all ways thoughtfulness and unselfishness had been hers. As I realized this, I put my hands over my face and groaned aloud. Then I felt her ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... seeking their reward. Man is not given that godlike unselfishness that thinks only of others' good. But in working for themselves they are working for us all. We are so bound together that no man can labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes in his own behalf helps to mold the universe. The stream in struggling onward turns ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... pray, to become Conservative, and to give thanks. Good is so often done for the sake of doing good, not to right a social wrong—which should be the end of all goodness. Even then, so many people are content to do good from a distance; or if, perhaps, they do come among the objects of their unselfishness, they do so with, as it were, the dividing-line well marked—with them, but not of them, and with the air of regarding themselves as being extremely kind-hearted to be there at all. It is their "bit"—not to help on the peace, of course, but to help themselves ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... it all again. She was so certain of its impossibility; he was so confident of his success. With the sentiment of his humility, the unselfishness of his devotion, he might have won her even then. The pity in a woman is often minister to her heart. But pity left her when he made ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... splendid examples to follow, especially Stewart and Gough, if one may select when all did so nobly. Both these officers took their turns with the men, Stewart with his gunners, and Gough with his Gurkhas, in carrying the guns, and both, with utter unselfishness and with complete disregard for their own personal comfort, gave their snow glasses to sepoys who, not having any, were suffering from the glare experienced on the first day. It is by these small acts that ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... whose smile of cheer And voice in dreams I see and hear,— The sweetest woman ever Fate Perverse denied a household mate, Who, lonely, homeless, not the less Found peace in love's unselfishness, And welcome whereso'er she went, A calm and gracious element, Whose presence seemed the sweet income And womanly atmosphere of home,— Called up her girlhood memories, The huskings and the apple-bees, The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... be fenced with, and generally avoided as a living entity. He rose in his time, did Vladimir de Windt, to be the Premier of Russia. But never again, throughout his magnificent career, did he find in the eyes of any man the clear truthfulness, the unselfishness, and the pathetic faith that he had known and so loved in ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... to look at her sadly and jealously. "There's a power over us which is too strong for girls," said she, "and you've come under it, Ellen, and you can't help it." Then she added, with a great, noble burst of utter unselfishness: "And I'm glad, I'm glad, Ellen. That man can lift you out ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... continued for hours. Every contingency was fully discussed, and Allan was much pleased with David's prudence and unselfishness. "I think you will make a good minister," he said, "and we will all yet ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... Cecil, and now he goes off with Percy and doesn't want me!' thought the poor little maiden, in rather an injured way, as she sat forlornly in the wide window-seat on Wednesday morning, watching the retreating figures of her brothers. Spite of all her unselfishness, that sense of injury would come, and was ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... bravery and cheerfulness with which the people of San Francisco bore their cruel fate gave a lesson in courage and unselfishness to humanity. The magnificent generosity with which not only the people of southern and northern California, but of the whole country, sprang to the relief of the unhappy city gave a silver lining to the ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... I cried. "The morning's earliest gleams Will soon dissolve this pageantry of dreams. The New Year's at our portals. Unselfishness, and purity, and hope, Dawn with it through the dream-world's cloudy cope, Even ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... parties concerned in Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and child-like submission as the goal ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... preferring her wishes to his own touched Fay more than any pleading could have done. She was convinced of his unselfishness, and her confidence in him remained unshaken. For some time after the scene in the boat she was very shy; but seeing he avoided the forbidden subject, and unconsciously growing each day fonder of his society, she allowed herself to drift into that closer ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... means satisfactory political conditions of the times with which he spiced them. I also became sincerely attached to Friederichs, and it made me happy to be able to requite him in some small degree in Egypt for the kindness and unselfishness he had shown me ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... had been said. She was tall for her age, and had the quiet steadfastness of gaze that was characteristic of her father. He was exceedingly fond and proud of her, for, with very little schooling, she had learned to read and write. Even as a child she had much of his patience and unselfishness, thus making herself very useful at home. She looked unshrinkingly at the minister, but trembled slightly, for she felt ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will wish to do nought but what is right. He is not ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... fell once more into a kind of dream, an argumentative dream. She went back over the earlier rows, re-living them, exaggerating unconsciously the noble unselfishness of her own acts and the pointed effectiveness of her speeches, until the scenes were transformed. They now appeared in other hues, in other fashionings. This is what volatile minds are able to do with all recent happenings whatsoever, re-casting them in form altogether more exquisite ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... numerous little things which every woman understands. Now, oddly enough, the effect upon her was only a little less disturbing than upon him, for this first boy-love was a thing which no good woman could have treated lightly: its simplicity, its purity, its unselfishness were different to anything she had known—so different, for instance, to that affection which Count Courteau had bestowed upon her as to seem almost sacred—therefore she watched its growth with gratification not unmixed with apprehension. It was flattering and yet it ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... old and grey-haired, but still retaining her girlish slimness of figure, petite, dainty as a Dresden figure, her face lined with the care of years, but softened and ennobled by the unselfishness of those years, holding up my big hand, which would outweigh her whole arm; sitting dainty as a pretty old fairy beside a recumbent giant—for my bulk never seems so great as when I am near this real little good fairy of my life—seven ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... self-denial this homely woman had put aside her own hopes of happiness for the sake of the sickly creature dependent on her! She had owned her affection for Duncan with the utmost simplicity; but in her unselfishness she refused to burden him with her responsibilities. If she married him she must do her duty by him and his children, and she felt that Phoebe would be a drag on ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... but for herself it meant release from a haunting dread—escape. To renounce those six weeks by the sea on the sunny, shining coast of France, was almost more than this little woman, even with her unselfishness, ...
— The Man Whom the Trees Loved • Algernon Blackwood
... Of Tecaughretanego, his unselfishness, his piety, his common sense, his wisdom, we already know something from Smith's narrative, which I wish every boy and girl might read; and of Logan's noble spirit we have had a glimpse in the story of Kenton's captivity. He was the son of Shikellimy, a Cayuga chief who lived at Shamokin, Pennsylvania, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... a book. You could look at it as no more than a very hard-hitting sermon on the theme of Selfishness, but it is well-written enough, with various episodes of selfishness leading to disaster, and unselfishness leading heavenwards. ...
— Working in the Shade - Lowly Sowing brings Glorious Reaping • Theodore P Wilson
... just as long as you enjoy it. If you hurry home one hour sooner for the thought of me, I shall be wretched." It really seems almost as if the longer he stayed away,—hours, days, weeks even,—the happier she were. By this sweet and wise unselfishness she has succeeded in realizing the whole blessedness of wifehood far more than most women who have health. But we doubt if any century sees more than one such ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Excellency in one of your La Rochefoucauld fits (in Lent say, after too many balls) that not merely maternal but conjugal unselfishness may be a very selfish thing? There! you toss your little head at my words; yet I wager I have heard you say that other women may think it right to humor their husbands, but as to you, the Prince must learn that ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... in their sermons, August 30, was Rev. Dr. Spalding, who thanked God for raising up a man whose life was remarkable "for its large consecration to Church and people, for its high earnestness, its sacrifices and unselfishness, its purity and truthfulness. God grant unto us all," he continued, "a desire to imitate this life in its devotion to others, and its ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... (who had a boy's full share of the little beast and the young monkey in his natural composition) was none the worse, at his tender years, for learning some maidenliness,—so far as maidenliness means decency, pity, unselfishness, and pretty behavior. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... that all the important elements of character are tried out in games and sports. Enthusiasm, self-confidence, the adventurous spirit, alertness, promptness, unselfishness, cooperation, quick judgment—all these have their training and discipline on the game field. They comprise those fundamental native qualities that have gone to make humanity what it is. The young should have this training, and, if of the right ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... even the Irish vices were the counterfeit of virtues, contrived so cunningly that it was hard to distinguish their true texture. The fidelity of the clansmen to their leaders was faultlessly beautiful; extravagance appeared like generosity, and improvidence like unselfishness; anarchy disguised itself under the name of liberty; and war and plunder were decorated by poetry as the honourable occupation of heroic natures. Such were the Irish with whom the Norman conquerors found themselves in contact; and ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... for clothes; would hardly tell her good-by for desolate devotion; tracked her with letters full of loneliness, ailments, discomforts. When she had cut short her plans and hurried back, a bit quiet and unresponsive perhaps, "How truly gracious your unselfishness is, my dear!" he observed. "If it comes so hard to show me a little consideration, you would really better keep ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... jealousy and Schadenfreude, i.e., the malicious joy over calamities that befall others, are impartially balanced against German self-reliance, sturdiness, love of truth, sense of duty, sincerity, unselfishness, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... and so faithful, and long-enduring, I did in my dream ... in my dream, you mark ... something very un-maidenly ... and immediately we were both on the other side; and I awoke as you put me down at last and found you by my side, having, in your knightly unselfishness, ruined your hat to give me a drink of milk. And because you are the best man on earth, and also a blind silly goose, Oliver, and I must take some risk or lose my all, I am going ... to do the unmaidenly thing I did in my dream ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... ever before, we know the aspirations of humankind, and share them. We have come to a new realization of our place in the world and a new appraisal of our Nation by the world. The unselfishness of these United States is a thing proven; our devotion to peace for ourselves and for the world is well established; our concern for preserved civilization has had its impassioned and heroic expression. There was no American failure to resist the attempted reversion of ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... instincts of sovereignty are not outgrown in one day however eventful, and the young duchess has shown herself amply endowed with them. The Prince's offer promised much, and it held still more. The time may come when she will need that crowning memory of her husband's unselfishness and truth, not to ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... his never-failing confidante and friend. His love and admiration for her were unbounded, as for her courage, unselfishness and constant thought for others, more especially for the poor and insignificant among her neighbours. Though the humblest minded of women, she could, when occasion demanded, administer a rebuke with a decision and a fire that must have won the heartfelt ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... of the need for such wholesome care, would come a growing realization of the morbidness of all self-centred care, and a clearer, more definite standard of unselfishness. For the self-centred care takes away life, closes the sympathies, and makes useful service obnoxious to us; whereas the wholesome care, with useful service as an end, gives renewed life, an open sympathy, and growing power for ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... more than 1000 new graves in the cemetery testify to the severity of the epidemic. No men in the campaign served their country more truly than the officers and men of the medical service, nor can any one who went through the epidemic forget the bravery and unselfishness of those admirable nursing sisters who set the men around them a higher standard of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... help in the councils of war, these ladies were of great assistance in training the knights to be tender and courteous. They taught the little pages good manners and unselfishness. They assisted the knights in removing their armor when they came in tired from riding or fighting. They sat with Arthur and the knights in the evening in the dining-hall, singing or playing upon harps, or listening ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... not reached man's estate and who died as the bravest of men, I speak of all his brothers-in-arms and hail thousands like him in his name, which name becomes a great and glorious symbol; for at this time, when a prodigious wave of unselfishness and courage, surging up from the very depths of the human race, uplifts the men who are fighting and giving their lives for its future, they all resemble one another ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... said that Jane's only fault was that she was too good. I think she carried her unselfishness too often to a short-sighted excess, breaking down her health, and thus abridging her opportunities for more permanent advantage to those whom she would have died to serve; but it was solely on her own responsibility, and in consequence of her ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... should ever be happy again, but with her usual sweet unselfishness, and thoughtfulness for others, she tried to dry her tears, so as not to distress her companion, and when the latter suggested that she go out and look at the docks of Liverpool and the shores as they passed, she pulled up her hood and tied on her vail, ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... glimmer of reason then, a trace of decency and unselfishness. For the first time I thought of her. I remembered that she, too, had loved Little Frank; that she, too, ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible. He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makes a man admirable, with courage, with perfect unselfishness! How handsome he was, and then his passion for her! She had read something of passion, but she never knew till now what the white intensity of its flame in a man could be. She was committed, too, happily committed; it ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... not help at this time dwelling secretly on one or two actions of hers, could not help saying to herself now and then: "I have been some good in the world. I am capable of unselfishness sometimes. I did leave my happiness for Emile's sake, because I had a great deal of friendship and was determined to live up to it. My impulses are not always crazy ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... to us. Whatever opinion might be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there could be but one about the value of the example he had set to men of science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work. Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to Mr. Darwin ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler |
