"Disinterested" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who is a prince and prefers to drop the title need not seek popularity in London. The very respectable reader probably knows as well as his humble servant, the writer, that in London there is always a social circle just a little lower than one's own which opens its doors with noble, disinterested hospitality, and is prepared to lick the blacking from ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... have had three proposals of marriage, and on each occasion my aunt pressed me to accept the offer. I refused to do so, unless I were allowed time and opportunity to make the most exhaustive inquiries as to my disinterested lover's antecedents. My heart not being touched, I was able to do so dispassionately, and in each case I discovered something dishonourable in their characters. One I found was on the brink of pecuniary ruin, I therefore ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... to retain her with him, by bribing his chief counselor to advise him to do so. His counselor's name was Canidius. Canidius, having received Cleopatra's money, while yet he pretended to be wholly disinterested in his advice, represented to Antony that it would not be reasonable to send Cleopatra away, and deprive her of all participation in the glory of the war, when she was defraying so large a part of the expense of it. Besides, a large portion of the army consisted of Egyptian troops, who ...
— Cleopatra • Jacob Abbott
... there never was a man whose love of knowledge was more disinterested. He used to send curious specimens to Hugh Miller, editor of "The Witness" as well as a geologist, and Mr. Miller would acknowledge the gifts in his paper; but Robert Dick entreated him not to ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... strange to see with what a fury we fell to. The men had now nothing to expect; the mere idea of great sums inspired them with disinterested ardour. Mats were slashed and disembowelled, the rice flowed to our knees in the ship's waist, the sweat ran in our eyes and blinded us, our arms ached to agony; and yet our fire abated not. Dinner came; we were too weary to eat, too hoarse for conversation; and yet dinner was scarce done, before ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hundred and twenty millions of men, more or less? What is quiet in comparison with riches? or digestion and long life in comparison with knowledge? When we are added up in the universal reckoning of races, there will be small mention of individuals. Let us be disinterested. Let us sacrifice ourselves, and, above all, our children, to raise the general average of human invention and attainment to the highest possible mark. To be sure, we are working in the dark. We do not know, not even if we are Huxley do we know, ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Mademoiselle de ——-, daughter of the ——- Minister. We found it no easy matter to make our way through the crowd; but at last, by dint of patience and perseverance, and changing our place very often, we contrived to arrive very near the great altar; and there we had just taken up our position, when a disinterested man gave us a friendly hint, that as the whole procession, with their branches, must inevitably squeeze past the spot where we were, we should probably be crushed or suffocated; consequently we followed him to a more convenient station, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... seducing man.' Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale [Piozzi Letters, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of which the excellence ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... she began to entertain doubts and fears. The reasonableness of the arguments of these disinterested French officers commenced to ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... majority of sensible, well-to-do people; we know of no safer criterion than this, but what does the decision thus arrived at involve? Simply this, that a conspiracy of silence about things whose truth would be immediately apparent to disinterested enquirers is not only tolerable but righteous on the part of those who profess to be and take money for being par excellence guardians ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... young again, and I was half ashamed of myself until I saw other people of my own age who had also become boys and girls for the day. And the seriousness of it! Why, it was painful! Not one of those countless thousands was a disinterested spectator; they were all intensely partisan, and you'd have thought life or ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... February 1879 the Germans devoted an entire number of one of their scientific periodicals {3} to the celebration of Mr. Darwin's seventieth birthday. There is no other Englishman now living who has been able to win such a compliment as this from foreigners, who should be disinterested judges. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... a review of the Police force. The venerable monarch was received with deafening cheers by this admirable and disinterested body of men. Those cheers were echoed in all French hearts. Long, long may our beloved Prince be among us ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Aemilianus says in Cicero, that it was unbecoming for the Roman burgess-body to be at the same time the ruler and the tax-gatherer of the nations. The appropriation of the customs-dues was not compatible with the principle of disinterested hegemony, and the high rates of the customs as well as the vexatious mode of levying them were not fitted to allay the sense of the injustice thereby inflicted. Even as early probably as this period the name of publican became synonymous among the eastern peoples with that of rogue and robber: ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... only one, in which such a deed can be said to have been by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, and that is that God did not interfere to save Jesus from the last dread ordeal. He allowed wickedness to do its worst, and thereby made the disinterested nobleness of the character of Jesus all the clearer. In such a time as that in which Jesus lived such a life as His was sure to end on a Calvary of some kind, unless He ran away from it, or God supernaturally intervened to save Him. ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... pleasant secret behind this, a secret that none is wise enough to fathom. The infinite fund of disinterested humane kindliness that is adrift in the world is part of the riddle, the insoluble riddle of life that is born in our blood and tissue. It is agreeable to think that no man, save by his own gross fault, ever went through life unfriended, without companions to whom he could stammer ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... hand, it is impossible for me to forget the disinterested charity, and tender solicitude, with which many of these poor heathens, from the sovereign of Sego, to the poor women, who at different times received me into their cottages, sympathized with my sufferings, relieved my distress, and contributed to my safety. Perhaps this ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... divine, born at Waterbury, Connecticut; was pastor at Newport; was a Calvinist in theology, but of a special type, as he denied imputation and insisted on disinterested benevolence as the mark of a Christian; gave name to a party, Hopkinsians, as they were called, who held the same ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... me. He is not so disinterested, so loving, but he reasons more than any other animal. He is also capable of very strong attachment, but he will not bear ill treatment. The elephant seems revengeful. The dog still loves the master who ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... where he is one of the most respected members, the Marquess of Sligo bore an eminent and an honourable part. His praise has been justly sounded by all who have supported the cause of negro freedom, and his conduct was by all admitted to be as much marked by the disinterested virtue of a good citizen and amiable man, as it was by the sagacity and ability of an enlightened statesman. Both as governor of Jamaica, as the owner of slaves whom he voluntarily liberated, and as a peer of Parliament, his patriotism, his humanity, and his talents, shone conspicuously ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but love (the sentiment of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an actual virtue, provided it is disinterested, and not a caprice, and is confined to one object. They have awful notions of constancy; for I have seen some ancient figures of eighty pointed out as amorosi of forty, fifty, and sixty years' ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... that the fate of the Texian expedition to Santa Fe was decided; and as the real facts have been studiously concealed, and my intelligence, gained from the Indians, who were disinterested parties, was afterwards fully corroborated by an Irish gentleman who had been persuaded to join it, I may as well relate them here. Assuming the character of friendly traders, with some hundred dollars' worth ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... Error for a moment wrested from slumbering virtue the dominion of your heart; but she awoke, and, with a look, banished her enemy for ever. I know my friend. He has the firmness of a man; but, with it, the gentlest feelings of your sex. I hasten to him. With the fire of pure disinterested friendship will I enter on this work; that, when I look back upon my past life, I may derive from this good action consolation in disappointment, and even resignation ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue
... (from B.C. 450 to A.D. 550). The clearest and most faithful account of the Dualist doctrine is found in the treatise De Iside et Osiride, ascribed to Plutarch. But Zoroastrianism was never more eagerly studied than in the first centuries of the Christian era, though without anything of the disinterested and almost scientific curiosity of the earlier times. Religious and philosophic sects, in search of new dogmas, eagerly received whatever came to them bearing the name of Zoroaster. As Xanthos the ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... look like an overture to a permanent and disinterested friendship," said Kent, brightening up; and Abe, who was gathering himself up for a spring to catch Fortner's rifle, let ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... look in vain for the helmet on the tower, the ancient signal of hospitality to the traveller, or for the grey-headed porter to conduct him to the hall of entertainment. Instead of the disinterested usher of the old times, he is attended by a valet to receive the fees of ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold, unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the possibility of its having been planned and executed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... respect; while it is still rewarded out of all proportion to any other, its possession is by no means assumed to imply the possession of the highest moral qualities. We have learned to judge men by their social virtues as well as by their business capacity, by their devotion to intellectual and disinterested aims, and by their public spirit, and we naturally resent being obliged to judge poor people so solely upon the industrial side. Our democratic instinct instantly takes alarm. It is largely in this modern tendency ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... was the act of a Pomeranian grenadier! How rare are such examples! Be thy name and mine ever united! Live thou while the memory of me shall live! Never did my acquaintance with the great bring to my knowledge a soul so noble, so disinterested! ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... Grom's prestige. His shrewd perceptions told him that Grom would far rather see him rule the tribe, so long as he ruled it effectually, than be troubled with the task himself. But there were others in the tribe whom he suspected of being less disinterested—who were capable of becoming troublesome if ever he should find his strength failing. One of these, in particular, a gigantic, black-browed fellow by the name of Ne-boo, remotely akin to the deserter Mawg, was now watching him with eyes more keen and ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... crowd of pretended men of science who surrounded him, there was but one as enthusiastic and as disinterested as himself. With this man, who was a monk of the order of St. Francis, he contracted an intimate friendship, and spent nearly all his time. Some obscure treatises of Rupecissa and Sacrobosco having ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... upon this occasion in the papers, and many a cigar was thrown aside, ere half consumed, that the disinterested politician might give breath to his cogitations on this extraordinary event; but not all the eloquence of all the smokers, nor even the ultradiplomatic expositions which appeared from the seceding secretaries themselves, ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... minister's embarkation. He experienced, on the one hand, all the petty vexations which the earl's sycophants could devise for his annoyance—and, on the other, much of that comfort which springs from spontaneous tokens of disinterested goodwill and of gratitude, even from the poor and humble; but the mens conscia sibi recti enabled him to bear the former with composure, and the latter without ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... announced grandly, "will come only from the disinterested efforts of those who bring to the task ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... need not err therein,—baking-powder and coffee and a dozen eggs, and last and least, and under no circumstances to be forgotten, a cake of condensed yeast. These things weigh upon my spirits. The thought of that little yeastcake shuts out any disinterested view of the store. It is nothing to me but a prosaic collection of the necessaries of life. I am uncheered by any sense of ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... accomplished education. His wife had frequently remonstrated against the innumerable little privations he voluntarily endured for this favorite purpose, for she attached more value to physical than mental gratifications, and could scarcely sympathize with his disinterested solicitude for his daughter's intellectual culture. It had been a great happiness to him to trace the gradual development of her intelligence, and to direct her simple studies; and it had been one of his last requests that I would in this respect occupy his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... undisturbed judgment, the dignity of self-control, the efficiency of dispassionate action; a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others, nor is disturbed in her own counsels, and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... the providence of the parvenu colony, which, without her intervention, would have made the whole quarter laugh at it. And—now this is a very noticeable thing—instead of being a parasite like la Peyrade, this Hungarian lady, who seems to have a fortune of her own, proves to be not only disinterested, but generous. The two gowns that you saw Brigitte and Madame Thuillier wear last night were a present from her, and it was because she came herself to superintend the toilet of our two 'amphitryonesses' ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... suiting her. It was this lady's view that Mr. Farange wouldn't care for it at all, and she ended by confessing—since her pupil pushed her—that she didn't care for it herself. She was furiously jealous, she said; and that weakness was but a new proof of her disinterested affection. She pronounced Mrs. Wix's effusions moreover illiterate and unprofitable; she made no scruple of declaring it monstrous that a woman in her senses should have placed the formation of her daughter's mind in such ridiculous ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... of a third person—of you in especial, Tressilian—will be ruin—utter ruin to me. Wait but four-and-twenty hours, and it may be that the poor Amy may have the means to show that she values, and can reward, your disinterested friendship—that she is happy herself, and has the means to make you so. It is surely worth your patience, for ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... similar swank, and there aren't any stops in it. It takes the legal mind, like mine, to tackle wills. What it says, when you've peeled off a few of the long words which they put in to make it more interesting, is that old Nutcombe leaves you the money because you are the only man who ever did him a disinterested kindness—and what I want to get out of you is, what was the disinterested kindness? Because I'm going straight out to do it to every elderly, rich-looking man I can find till I pick ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... indeed disinterested. In Perm Foma purchased for her different new things and what-not. She was delighted, but later, having ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... explanation on his part. Many a time he took out the little bottle with a reckless hand, but conquered himself. He got most help, perhaps, from the honest, cheerful eye of Medallion and the stumbling timorous affection of the Little Chemist. They were perfectly disinterested friends—his wife at times made him aware that he had done her a wrong, for he had married her with thus appetite on him. He did not defend himself, but he wished she would—even if she had to act it—make him believe in himself more. One morning against his will he was irritable ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... managing the concerns of the town came to a period. For now that he is dead and gone, and also all those whom I found conjunct with him, when I came into power and office, I may venture to say, that things in yon former times were not guided so thoroughly by the hand of a disinterested integrity as in these latter years. On the contrary, it seemed to be the use and wont of men in public trusts, to think they were free to indemnify themselves in a left-handed way for the time and trouble they bestowed ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... uplifted by good Redford wine, felt the effect of the lovely night in dim poetic stirrings of his sordid little soul. He mused of God and heaven, and the other things that he made sermons out of, in a disinterested, unprofessional way, these being the lines along which his imagination worked. "Surely the Lord is in this place," was the unspoken thought, elevating and inspiring, with which he surveyed the placid lake and ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... delightful kind of servant," said Elspie, with an arch look, which was quite thrown away on Elise, "and so disinterested to do it without ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... ship came as governor of these islands Don Gabriel de Curuzalegui y Arriola, a knight of excellent abilities, very disinterested, and intent on the service of his Majesty—whose royal revenues from the department of customs, which were so impaired, have been enormously increased, of which he will, I doubt not, send statements to the Council. The trouble is, that this place is so corrupt that, even though a very good man comes ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... seen more terrible cases than this. Now, I alone in the present day know how to bring this disease to a crisis, and force it outward so as to obtain a chance to cure it—for it cannot always be cured. You see, monsieur, that I am disinterested. If this lady were of great importance, a Baronne de Nucingen, or any other wife or daughter of a modern Croesus, this cure would bring me one hundred—two hundred thousand francs; in short, anything I chose to ask for ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... and, in his harassed and stormy domain, removed far from the public opinion of the free states of Greece, it was natural that his political code should have become tempered by a sinister ambition, and that the citizen of Athens should be actuated by motives scarcely more disinterested than those which animated the tyrant of the Chersonese. The ruler of one district may be the hero, but can scarcely be the patriot, of another. The long influence of years and custom—the unconscious deference to the opinion of those whom our youth has been taught ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perfectly adapted to the people, and place, and the time. His religious profession disarmed many of his political enemies, his political orthodoxy quieted many of his religious opponents. Generous, charitable, disinterested, his full heart and open hand captivated the California people, while his sparkling wit, melodious cadences, and rhetorical abundance perfectly satisfied their taste for intensity and novelty and a touch of extravagance. ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... learned from my London experience: better a small city where one knows all it has to offer, than a great city where one has no disinterested friend to direct him to the right places to find what he wants. But of course there are some grand magazines which are known all the world over, and which no one should leave London without entering as a looker-on, if ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... their harvest. Coarse viragos went even farther still, and dared to ask her "whether it was the curate or the doctor she was setting her cap at: for she never had anything in her mouth now but what they had said?" And those words went through her heart like a sword. Was she disinterested? Was not love for Thurnall, the wish to please him, mingling with all her earnestness? And again, was not self-love mingling with it? and mingling, too, with the disappointment, even indignation, which she felt at having ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... kind of disinterested curiosity. Mr. Barlow, having regarded her fixedly for a moment, bent his head till his forehead rested upon the umbrella, and ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... magnificent pessimism of that illustrious juggler of words and theories to a "moteless sunbeam" it might seriously interfere with the sale of the work; and I may say, too, that this request that my confidence be respected is entirely disinterested, inasmuch as I declined to do the work on the royalty plan, insisting upon the payment of a lump ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... be said, I think, without disparagement to the many distinguished and disinterested men who have labored for the advancement of agriculture, that the operations of the government and of the state and county societies have no plan or system by which, as a whole, they are guided. The county societies have been ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... not say much about the exceptions, for they are few; (but I have met some of those few, and very incompetent and airish they were.) I never ceas'd to find the best men, and the hardest and most disinterested workers, among the surgeons in the hospitals. They are full of genius, too. I have seen many hundreds of them and this is my testimony. There are, however, serious deficiencies, wastes, sad want of system, in ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... hands I have trained that prize, Hiroshimi, to cook and to serve; but only Providence could give Hiroshimi his super-humanly disinterested calm. He fitted perfectly into the picture of our dream. 'Twas no ordinary log house in which we sat, indeed no house at all. Beneath us rose and fell a stanch vessel, responsive to the long lift of the southern seas. It was not a rustle of the leaves we heard through the open windows, but ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... been under the sweet illusion that disinterested affection must eventually win for itself a way to union; but old Mr. Raincliffe had spoken seriously to them, and altogether forbade their further meeting until Robert had spoken to his father. He went home that very night, and, nerved to a sort of desperation, did speak to his father, ending ...
— Miss Grantley's Girls - And the Stories She Told Them • Thomas Archer
... strains of another disinterested Mentor in the same field, who once had an office on West Twenty-second street ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... "Brandywine," named in honor of the first battle in which Lafayette fought and was wounded half a century before. Congress presented him with a gift of $200,000 in money, and with a township of land in recognition of the disinterested services of his youth. ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... we must not omit. Purification removes the obstacles to our union with God, but our guide on the upward path, the true hierophant of the mysteries of God, is love[10]. Love has been defined as "interest in its highest power";[11] while others have said that "it is of the essence of love to be disinterested." The contradiction is merely a verbal one. The two definitions mark different starting-points, but the two "ways of love" should bring us to the same goal. The possibility of disinterested love, in the ordinary sense, ought ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... had been employed to strike the sting ray, with another, on the flats, having gone on shore, engaged in some quarrel with the natives, who took all his clothes from him, severely wounded, and would inevitably have killed him, but for the humane, friendly, and disinterested interference of one of their own women, who happened to be present. This accident, and many others of the same nature, could not have happened, had the orders which he had received, not to land upon ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... but persistent efforts to maintain the disinterested claim on American friendship which we Germans have always (when in need of it) advanced, continue to be misrepresented in that stronghold of atheistical materialism and Byzantine voluptuousness, New York. To the gifted Professor von Schwank's challenge, ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... quickly passed up the rum. I observed that the doctor kept it by his side, and having finished his own quantum, began to sip the portions he had forbidden the youngsters to drink. It was difficult to suppose that he was perfectly disinterested ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... "you have not yet been sufficiently prepared for this disinterested operation. As ye have proved this night that ye are not yet purged of the feelings and prejudices of a vicious education, I will perform this office for you all, and set you an example, by which ye may hereafter profit. To begin, then, with you—(addressing himself to a corpulent man, of ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... men and women so disinterested and noble, and devoted to the best works, that it appeared to me if any good and faithful servant was entitled to enter into the joys of his Lord, such as these might be. But I do not know that I ever met with a human being who seemed to me to have a stronger claim on the pitying consideration and ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... see how we might trouble ourselves, and wear our patience out over Miss MacDowlas, if we troubled ourselves about anything. This being utterly free from the care of worldly possessions makes one touchingly disinterested. Since we have nothing to expect, we are perfectly willing to wait ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... of whatever cares and labors, turn to the time when thought shall people their solitude as with the presence of angels. They hear heavenly voices asking, Why stay ye on the earth, unless to grow? Vanity, frivolity, and fickleness die within them; and they grow to be humble and courageous, disinterested and laborious, strong and persevering. The cultivation of their higher nature becomes the law of their life; and the sense of duty, "stern daughter of the voice of God," which of all motives that sway the heart, best stands the test of reason, becomes their guide and support. ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... is the question of detachment. The process by which principles are discovered and appropriated is other than that by which, in practice, they are applied; and our most sacred and disinterested convictions ought to take shape in the tranquil regions of the air, above the tumult and the tempest of active life 4. For a man is justly despised who has one opinion in history and another in politics, one for abroad and another at home, one for ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... in his armchair and considered her a very long time—having a respectable excuse to do so. Twenty times he forgot he was looking at her for any purpose except that of disinterested delight, and twenty times he remembered with a guilty wince that it was a matter ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... accidental circumstance. It cannot, therefore, apply, either as a rule or an objection. Besides, even if supported by fact, we might well dismiss it on the ground of irrelevancy, since a sense of personal safety cannot be placed in opposition to and as inconsistent with a disinterested or unselfish state; which is that claimed for the emotion as its true condition. If there be not, then, a sounder objection, we may safely admit the characteristic in question; for the reception of which we have, on the other hand, ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... through it all. He could not contain his indignation: after letting it explode in true sailor fashion, he concluded with this piece of practical philosophy: "Never mind, Hawser; 'tis the way of the world. I have always found it so. As for gratitude, affection, disinterested kindness, and friendship, 'tis all a humbug! RELY ON YOURSELF. Fight the battle of life alone. If you conquer, you will find friends, kind friends, disinterested friends. Ha, ha, ha! ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... faculty and the surprising extent of the information with which he had furnished himself. Long before there existed a 'Financial Reform Almanack,' Eagles practically represented that work in his own person. Disinterested, ardent, with thoughts for but one subject in the scope of human inquiry, he lived contentedly on his two pounds a week, and was for ever engaged in the theoretic manipulation of millions. Utopian budgets multiplied themselves in his brain and his note-books. He devised imposts ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... villains are always more interesting than heroes, and not infrequently are much better mannered. A cynic is a person who doesn't take the trouble to find the motives for things, or he takes it for granted that the motives are never disinterested ones. To say that Thackeray was a cynic because he drew a large number of villains is as untrue as to say Swift was a cynic because he wrote satire. Thackeray wrote about villains because he wished to also write ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... sir. I've no doubt that Mr. Peter Margerison will be equally happy to give you his valuable advice in the business. He is your counsellor in these matters, isn't he. An excellent adviser, of sound judgment and most disinterested honesty!" ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... Titan interests of the earth have overthrown the celestial hierarchy,—that the realm of genius has been stormed by worldly workers,—that literature, like the angels, has fallen from its first estate,—and that authors, no longer the disinterested and suffering apostles, of art, have chosen rather to bear the wand of power and luxury than to be inspired. We can imagine his horror at the sacrilegious vulgarization of print, that people without taste rush into angelic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... "Disinterested Association for Securing the Rights of Foundlings," again with Monte Cristo in the chair. David, you have saved a few pounds; in the confidence of unofficial moments you have confessed as much (though not exactly HOW much) to me. Will you neglect one ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... their strong and stalwart support. . . . It [the incident] has given us a better place in the respect and consideration of the people of all nations, and especially of Great Britain; it has again confirmed our confidence in the overwhelming prevalence among our citizens of disinterested devotion to our nation's honour; and last, but by no means least, it has taught us where to look in the ranks of our countrymen for ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... not merely that mankind are liable to error, and therefore that the world's commendations may be sometimes mistaken; but that their judgment being darkened and their hearts depraved, its applauses and contempt will for the most part be systematically misplaced; that though the beneficent and disinterested spirit of Christianity, and her obvious tendency to promote domestic comfort and general happiness, cannot but extort applause; yet that her aspiring after more than ordinary excellence, by exciting secret misgivings in others, ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... holy fathers the high priests Basil the Great, Gregory the Divine, Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, for Peter and Alexis and Jonas, and all holy high priests," groaned the man, "for the holy wonder workers, the disinterested Cosmas and Damiauns, Cyrus and John, Pantaleon and Hermolaus, and all ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... Spirit works, and will work for us, I should give up in despair. Remember us in your prayers, that we grow not weary in well-doing. It is hard to work for years with pure motives, and all the time be looked on by most of those to whom our lives are devoted, as having some sinister object in view. Disinterested labor—benevolence—is so out of their line of thought, that many look upon us as having some ulterior object in view. But He who died for us, and whom we ought to copy, did more for us than we can do for any one else. He endured the contradiction ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... frigate, the Laconia; and from the Laconia he had, under the influence of his captain, written the only two letters which his father and mother had ever received from him during the whole of his absence; that is to say, the only two disinterested letters; all the rest had been mere applications ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... there. Baron Stockmar was thus an old and early friend of the Princess's. In addition he had a large acquaintance with the English political world, and was therefore well qualified to advise her with the force of a disinterested adviser in her difficult position. In the view of her becoming Queen, although her three predecessors, including George III after he became blind, had appointed and retained private secretaries, the ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... wild forest thing, at the first warning sound, she considered: Was it time for flight?—or was the warning but the crackling of a twig? Major Atkins was a cattle-man: her brother hated all cattle-men. How disinterested had been the major's warning! He had always been her friend. Mrs. Atkins had been one of the ladies at the post who had helped to send her to school to the nuns at Santa Fe. She despised herself for doubting; yet these were troublous times, and all was fair between sheep and cattle-men. ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... toleration, for the preservation and enjoyment of which they had themselves abandoned home and kindred, and the church of their forefathers; and they tend to lessen the feelings of respect and admiration with which their piety, and their disinterested spirit, must necessarily inspire us. We cannot but regret to find how early, in many of the Puritan communities, that piety became tinged with fanaticism, and that free spirit degenerated into bigotry ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... Charles felt sure that, however she might flirt with Vane or others, she would not forego a position for any disinterested penchant. Still, as he was a close player, he determined to throw a little cold water on that flame. His plan, like everything truly scientific, ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... for a moment during which her eyes became somewhat blurred. The doctor's offer seemed like the first really disinterested and friendly one that had been proffered to her for some years. In that vast New York she had become unused to that sort of thing. The other people in this place had been ever so kind, of course, but it was on account of their friend Hugo. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... believe the execution would take place. In the first place, no victim had been struck with death, and it had long been the custom not to punish an abortive crime with the last degree of severity. Then, this crime, however terrible in intention, was disinterested, born of an abstract idea. The man's past, his abandoned childhood, his life of hardship, pleaded also in his favor. In the independent press generous voices were raised in his behalf, very loud and eloquent. 'A purely literary current ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... on the mere face of his offer, to give an ill turn to it. The act, as it stands on the Minute, is not only disinterested, but generous and public-spirited. If Mr. Hastings apprehended misrepresentation from Mr. Francis, or from any other person, your Committee conceive that he did not employ proper means for defeating the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... they are posing to be disinterested. When they take away such big returns we set them down ...
— Best Short Stories • Various
... Sir.—I have the honor to transmit herewith a Brevet Commission, conferred by the President in recognition of your faithful and disinterested services in the ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... He had come at Jasmine's request to bring Al'mah, and he had overheard her last words. He saw that there had been a scene, and conceived that it was the kind of quarrel which could be better arranged by a third disinterested person. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the "Libido," in so far as it is regarded as an instinct, does not stand on the same footing with the reason and disinterested love of a person of high cultivation and large views, neither does it stand on the same footing with the physical energy that manifests itself in light ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... winding in his line meditatively. "There is no such casuist as poverty. And only this morning I was promising myself much disinterested sport in the quarrelling of you Christian brethren. . . . But isn't that Warboise coming along the path? . . . Yes, the very man! Well, we must try ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... much shocked, of course. I hope George has not been foolish enough to let every thing slip through his fingers. Who could have believed that Horace Eastman would turn out such a swindler! Papa trusted him altogether too far. It does not answer to be too noble and disinterested in ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... attired. After allowing a short time for conversation, she went out and fetched her mother, and all parties seemed delighted with each other. After sitting some time, Mr. Barclay, looking at his mother, rose, and taking Ethelind's hand, said, "now, my disinterested girl, allow me to introduce myself as ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... room at times beggared description. Harrington, badgered by the attorneys for the defense, raved like a madman, and generally ended by sending one or more of the attorneys for Brown to jail. He refused to permit any evidence to be introduced for the purpose of impeachment. Disinterested men were brought from Tule Lake to prove that the boy Hutton was on his way to Lookout from that place when the lynching took place. Another witness was placed on the stand and testified that he stood on the ground, back of Leventon's shop and saw certain of the accused, among them Brown, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... irritation, though he could speak comparatively lightly of other misfortunes and grievances. According to all accounts, he had even in the past, whenever the subject of the three thousand roubles was touched on, flown into a perfect frenzy, and yet he was reported to be a disinterested and not grasping man. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... herself into her lover's arms. "Indeed, indeed, it was not of that I thought. Though we should never marry, yet were you to fall, your memory should be the same to me as that of a husband. I could never forget your love—your disinterested love—there is no treasure on this side the grave which I so value. It is the pride of my solitary hours, and the happiness of the few happy thoughts I have. The world would be nothing to me without you. When you are away, I pray to ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... protestations I made him of fidelity and redoubled zeal. I disowned any intention of asking for any remuneration, except the favour of being permitted to stand before him; and I looked so humble, and talked in so disinterested a manner, that if he ever could have believed a Persian, I flattered ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... can recall only one fact of the debates," says Mrs. William Crotty, of Seneca, Illinois, "that I felt so sorry for Lincoln when Douglas was speaking, and then to my surprise I felt so sorry for Douglas when Lincoln replied." The disinterested to whom it was an intellectual game, felt the power and charm of both men. Partisans had each reason enough to cheer. It was afterwards, as the debates were talked over by auditors as they lingered at the ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... degree of political detachment in respect of Lithuania which came as a pleasant surprise to many. The Russian Ambassador in Paris, M. Maklakoff, in a remarkable address before a learned assembly[188] in the French capital, announced that Russia was henceforward disinterested in the status ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... influence of practically all the rest of Europe, but this will scarcely be of any value to Prince Ferdinand unless he can enlist the active support of Great Britain, which, it may be, Lord Vernon, though reluctant to withhold, will find impossible to give. It is not to be denied that, from a disinterested view-point, Prince Ferdinand seems by far the more ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... really, in his heart, formed the most generous intentions towards his sister, but in the enthusiasm with which he first contemplated her beauty, and from the sincere affection he then felt for her, he conceived that she deserved the most disinterested attachment, and refused to make any promise of bestowing a portion ...
— The Flower Basket - A Fairy Tale • Unknown
... was sincerely grateful for Ryder's apparently disinterested advice and wrote two letters to him, one in which he thanked him for the trouble he had taken, and another in which he asked him if he was sure the company was financially sound, as the investment he contemplated making represented all his savings. He added ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... knows the argument of each of the orations of Demosthenes and Tully, but not one case in the reports of our own courts. No one ever took him for a fool, but none, except his intimate friends, know he has a great deal of wit. This turn makes him at once both disinterested and agreeable: As few of his thoughts are drawn from business, they are most of them fit for conversation. His taste of books is a little too just for the age he lives in; he has read all, but approves of very few. His familiarity with the customs, manners, actions, and writings ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... excellent friend, and true radical, Sir Charles Wolseley, baronet, is, as well as myself, the political disciple of the honest Counsellor Clifford. If Clifford, poor fellow! were now alive, how he would laugh to see two of his staunchest and most disinterested political disciples caught in the toils of the boroughmongers! But he would also laugh to see the melancholy state to which the said boroughmongers are reduced! Now they have caught us they do not know what ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... the reins of government into his own hands, with an Arab from the south, El Menebhi, for his chief adviser. Urged by his Circassian mother, the sultan sought advice and counsel from Europe and endeavoured to act up to it. But disinterested advice was difficult to obtain, and in spite of the unquestionable desire of the young ruler to do the best for the country, wild extravagance both in action and expenditure resulted, leaving the sultan with depleted exchequer and the confidence of his people impaired. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the community soon acquires wealth and slaves, both of which, by relieving some classes from the perpetual struggle for a bare subsistence, afford them an opportunity of devoting themselves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which is the noblest and most powerful instrument to ameliorate the lot ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... enemy, whereby his horses, cattle, and granaries, might be cut off and consumed, to his great prejudice; wherefore he again strongly conjured him to construct a sconce upon the round hill called Drumsnab, and offered his own friendly services in lining out the same. To this disinterested advice Sir Duncan only replied by ushering his guest to his apartment, and informing him that the tolling of the castle bell would make him ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... eyes of the world focussed upon her. If Richard Stanton had not been a magnificent man, celebrated for his successes with women, and having the added attraction of fame as an explorer, people might have suggested that the widow's remaining in Cairo to nurse St. George was not entirely disinterested. But as it was, nobody said disagreeable things about the beautiful, pale young creature, and the haggard skeleton of a man who had pioneered her safely through the Sahara ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... fain, if I might, live everybody's life at once, or, since that may not be, each in succession. I would try the life of power, ruling men; but that might come later, after I had had long experience of men, and had lived through much history, and had seen, as a disinterested observer, how men might best be influenced for their own good. I would be a great traveller at first; and as a man newly coming into possession of an estate goes over it, and views each separate field and wood-lot, and whatever features it contains, ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... which made him restless in his mind, until he had scored and marked him for the day. I was chubby myself, and ought to know. I am sure when I think of the fellow now, my blood rises against him with the disinterested indignation I should feel if I could have known all about him without having ever been in his power; but it rises hotly, because I know him to have been an incapable brute, who had no more right to be possessed of the great trust he held, than ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... own rights, and the advancement of our own people, we can afford to be liberal toward others. Our example has become of great importance in the world. It is recognized that we are independent, detached, and can and do take a disinterested position in relation to international affairs. Our charity embraces the earth. Our trade is far flung. Our financial favors are widespread. Those who are peaceful and law-abiding realize that not only have they nothing to fear from us, but that they can rely on our moral support. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge
... returned; "but you deceive yourself, and wrong us, cruelly, if you suppose that there is any feeling at stake in this contract but pure, disinterested, ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... statesmen and orators deal are usually temporary; the spirit and style which give a spoken address the strongest appeal to an audience often have in them something of superficiality; and it is hard for the orator even to maintain his own mind on the higher level of rational thought and disinterested purpose. Occasionally, however, a man appears in public life who to the power of compelling speech and the personality on which it is based adds intellect, a philosophic temperament, and the real literary, poetic, quality. Such men were Demosthenes, Cicero, Webster, ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... life in consistent obedience to any high principle,—not even the willing and deliberate martyrs. We must bow to circumstances. Herminia had made up her mind beforehand for the crown of martyrdom, the one possible guerdon this planet can bestow upon really noble and disinterested action. And she never shrank from any necessary pang, incidental to the prophet's and martyr's existence. Yet even so, in a society almost wholly composed of mean and petty souls, incapable of comprehending or appreciating any exalted moral ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... murmuring of a hive near our honeysuckle of a calm, summer evening! Then they are tranquilly and peacefully amassing for us their stores of sweetness, while they lull us with their murmurs. What a beautiful image of disinterested benevolence!" ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... had 'phoned to ask me if I could induce Harley to run down, but my friend had expressed himself as disinterested in a common case of elopement. Now, as Wessex spoke, I glanced aside at Harley, wondering if the fact that so celebrated a member of the C.I.D. as Detective-Inspector Wessex had been put in charge would induce him ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... do it simply because it is 'business.' It is our trade. The purpose of it is to improve the man, but we are merely disinterested agents. We are appointed by authority, and haven't anything to say in the matter. We obey orders and leave the consequences where they belong. But I am willing to admit this much: we do crowd the orders a trifle ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attention that marks your manner to your mother the indescribable tenderness and rendering back of care and watchfulness that betokens remembrance of early days. No other woman should ever induce you to forget this truest, most disinterested friend, nor should your manner ever indicate even momentary indifference to her wishes or ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... went on the preacher. "It is my purpose this morning to speak upon the dynamics of altruism. Now altruism is the theory that inculcates benevolence to others in subordination to self-interest; interested benevolence as opposed to disinterested; also, the practice ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... had shown the disinterested patriotism, courage, and foresight demanded by this stupendous crisis, I would have supported him with hearty enthusiasm. But his action, or rather inaction, has been such that it has become a matter of high patriotic duty to oppose him.... No ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... politician in a Christian land is he who can invite the scrutiny of Omniscience upon his motives, while his outward life is shaped by his inward purposes. See you a man who in the heat of a political conflict, or the toil of public service, keeps himself humble, pure and disinterested; who never violates his conscience, and never forgets his God; who never lets the prospect of loss or the hope of advantage lure him from the straight course of duty; who illustrates in his own example the fine motto of the knight of chivalry—"without fear ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... used to be attentive to her though (as it's always useful to be); and Mary would sometimes laugh and sometimes cry at my flirting with Magdalen. This I thought proper very quickly to check. "Mary," said I, "you know that my love for you is disinterested,—for I am faithful to you, though Miss Crutty is richer than you. Don't fly into a rage, then, because I pay her attentions, when you know that my heart and my promise are engaged ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... much of herself to this case from the day Pete had been brought in—through the operation which was necessarily savage, and up to the moment when he had fallen asleep, after having passed so close to the border of the dark Unknown. And now that she knew he would recover, she felt strangely disinterested in her work at the hospital. But being a rather practical young person, never in the least morbid, she attributed this unusual indifference to her own condition. She would not allow herself to believe ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... more his five points of Radicalism than his five points of Calvinistic divinity—who has no trust in democracy, who swears by no theory of representative government—who will never believe that a multitude of men, foolish and selfish, will elect the disinterested and the wise. Your constitution, your laws, your "horse-haired justice" that sits in Westminster Hall, he likes them not; but he propounds himself no scheme of polity. Reform yourselves, one and all, ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise justice, charity, self-denial, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... warmly disinterested, so plainly proud and eager to do a service that Siward, surprised and touched, found no word ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... unaided impulses. We remembered our danger, our toil—and conveniently forgot our horrible scare. We decried our officers—who had done nothing—and listened to the fascinating Donkin. His care for our rights, his disinterested concern for our dignity, were not discouraged by the invariable contumely of our words, by the disdain of our looks. Our contempt for him was unbounded—and we could not but listen with interest to that consummate artist. ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad
... with an air of half-angry sincerity altogether convincing, "I really don't know that I am particularly proud of the episode. I know I was careless, that I laid myself open to the invidious comment, which is usually the reward of all disinterested action. One learns to accept it as a matter of course. And you see ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for one's neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly called to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesthetics of "disinterested contemplation," under which the emasculation of art nowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a good conscience. There is far too much witchery and sugar in the sentiments "for others" and "NOT for myself," for one not needing to be doubly distrustful here, and for ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... consideration. "Great Britain, loaded with an unprecedented debt, and with a grinding taxation, contracted a new debt of a hundred millions of dollars, to give freedom, not to Englishmen, but to the degraded African. I know not that history records an act so disinterested, so sublime. In the progress of ages, England's naval triumphs will shrink into a more and more narrow space in the records of our race—this moral triumph will fill a broader—brighter page." "Take care!" emphatically added Sir Robert Peel, "that this brighter page be not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... armed bands, so many heterogeneous elements; that is to say, thousands of individuals of all social positions and of so many nationalities, that I began to think it would perhaps be useful to my compatriots to hear by and by a sincere recital, written by a disinterested pen, of the events ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... Philip the English ideal of noble culture seemed to have realised itself; he combined a very remarkable literary power peculiar to himself, and talents suited for the society of men of the world (which well fitted him for the duties of an ambassador), with disinterested kindness to others, and a chivalrous courage in war, which gained him universal admiration both at home and in presence of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... and mother. That was one of the differences in his life which prevented him from seeing things in the same way as other people. The love of parents for their children is the only emotion which is quite disinterested. Among strangers he had grown up as best he could, but he had seldom been used with patience or forbearance. He prided himself on his self-control. It had been whipped into him by the mockery of his fellows. Then they called him cynical ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... delivered as it was, it shewed the King's and his minister's zeal for Protestantism, and yet supplied the Venetians with an answer not disrespectful to the king. Besides, what is there in Wotton's whole life (a man so disinterested, and who retired from all his embassies so poor) to justify the remotest suspicion of his insincerity? What can this word mean less or other than that Sir H. W. was either a crypt-Papist, or had received a bribe from the Romish party? Horrid accusations!—Burnet was notoriously ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... view, it becomes, that your newspaper reading should be well selected. Let me again repeat the request, that in selecting those papers which sustain an appropriate character, you will seek the advice of those whom you deem most able and judicious; and so far as you think them disinterested, and worthy of your ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... ostentation which in others has often disgusted me. Ill, indeed, can we any of us bear the test of experiment, when tried upon those subjects which call forth our particular propensities. We may strive to be disinterested, we may struggle to be impartial, but self will still predominate, still shew us the imperfection of our natures, and the narrowness of our souls. Yet acquit me, I beg, of any intentional insolence, and imagine not that in speaking highly of my own family, I, mean to depreciate yours: ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... seldom have presents totally disinterested; my book is received, let me now make ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... the generous feelings of Mr. Sharp," Paul Blunt now hurriedly answered, "and should be sorry to admit that my own first impulses were less disinterested; but I confess I have already thought of this, and have reflected on all the chances of success or failure. It might be practicable for one who can swim easily to reach the reef; thence to cross the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... friend Belloni has also proved himself most faithful this time in Paris, and saved me many expenses. It is wonderful how honest and disinterested he remains, with all his constant contact ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... about to embark for England, the Committee cannot allow him to quit these shores without expressing their regret that his stay has been so short, and the sense they entertain of the great interest he has evinced in the welfare of the colony, and the disinterested support he has given an enterprise which is likely to lead to such generally beneficial results as ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... he had been inspired by a vague yet splendid dream of large masterful liberations achieved. He had intended to be very disinterested, very noble, very firm, and so far as Sir Isaac was concerned, a trifle overbearing. You know now what he said and did. "Of course if we could have talked for a little longer," he said. From the stormy dissatisfaction of his retreat this ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... famous in the commonplace world through having refused, not long before, an offer from the Emperor of the French of the keepership of the Jardin des Plantes and a senatorship, if he would come to Paris and live. Such an incredible and disinterested love for America and science in our hemisphere had lifted Agassiz into an elevation of popularity which was beyond all scientific or political dignity, and the selectmen of the town appointed a deputation to ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... desire to appropriate something from the ancient riches, will at times come over us. But this feeling, if it be more than slight and transient, if it seriously influence our conduct, is somewhat factitious or somewhat morbid. Let us be a little disinterested in our admiration, and not, like children, cry for all we see. We have our share: let us leave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... freedom of the city for intercessional or any other purpose, she did not come again. They may have heard in Crooked Lane that Duff was better. We may freely imagine that Mrs. Sand was informed; it looked as if the respite to disinterested anxiety afforded by his recovery had been taken advantage of. Lindsay was to be given time for more dignified repentance; they might now very well hand him over, Alicia thought, smiling, to ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... her. It is true this man Fortunat had declared that his visit was entirely disinterested. He had pretended that his regard for the Chalusse family, and the compassion aroused in his heart by the unfortunate plight of Mademoiselle Marguerite, were the only motives that has influenced him in taking this step. However, Madame d'Argeles's experience in life had left her but limited ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... course of the negotiations which were then hastily improvised, Germany, who strove hard to gain credit for the role of disinterested peacemaker, gradually revealed herself as the chief protagonist, whereas Austria was little more than a pawn in the game. Disguising her eagerness to provoke one of the two desired solutions, Russia's abandonment of Serbia or her declaration of war, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon |
