"Egotism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had in the course of generations become antagonistic, and found favour with those who did not endorse that loyalty to the emperor demanded by Mencius; so had other thinkers, some of whom had preached morals which were bound to break up all social relations, like the philosopher of egotism, Yang Chu, according to Mencius disloyalty personified and the very reverse of his ideal, the duke of Chou. The egotism recommended by Yang Chu to the individual had begun to be practised on a large scale by the contending states, their governments and sovereigns, some of whom had ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known: to wit, patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth; and, in counteraction to that egotism which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge indeed becomes the magnificent crown of humanity—not the imperious despot, but the checked ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... I have been led at such length will, I trust, not be set down by the reader to an unworthy egotism, but to their true source, a desire to correct a misapprehension to which I may have unintentionally given rise myself, and which has gained me the credit with some—far from grateful to my feelings, since undeserved—of having surmounted the incalculable obstacles which lie in the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... and untidy and a bristling, sunburnt beard smothering his features. And suddenly, in the intensity of his concentration, he felt a swooning sense of nonexistence, as if his inner consciousness had detached itself someway from the egotism of the flesh and stood apart, watching... He was recalled by Storch's voice. He shuddered slightly and turned his face toward ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... passionately religious man that ran out to the forces in nature. The disappointment that had come to him when a daughter and not a son had been born to Katherine had fallen upon him like a blow struck by some unseen hand and the blow had somewhat softened his egotism. He still believed that God might at any moment make himself manifest out of the winds or the clouds, but he no longer demanded such recognition. Instead he prayed for it. Sometimes he was altogether doubtful ...
— Winesburg, Ohio • Sherwood Anderson
... his unforgivable inertia, and the egotism that enveloped him like an atmosphere, there was a charm to the man that put my impatience to sleep. I tried to think that this indifference and sunny idleness were perhaps the natural reaction of that larger ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Nehemiah Higginbottom I contributed three sonnets, the first of which had for its object to excite a good-natured laugh at the spirit of doleful egotism and at the recurrence of favourite phrases, with the double defect of being at once trite and licentious. The second was on low creeping language and thoughts under the pretence of simplicity. The third, the phrases of which were borrowed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the White Boy, may really be patriots in their hearts, although they are attempting revolution, and are looked upon as the enemies of good order. Joseph Hume may be a patriot, so may O'Connell, so may —; but never mind; I consider that if in most cases, in all countries the word egotism were substituted it would be more correct, and particularly so ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... cheering his weary spirits, and animating him to persevere in his labors. And I have freely given utterance to these rhapsodies whenever they have occurred; not, I trust, from an unusual spirit of egotism, but merely that the reader may for once have an idea how an author thinks and feels while he is writing—a kind of knowledge very rare and curious, and much to ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... the howlings and ravings of the philosophers and the patriots. What happened in the last century will happen again whenever and wherever human society ceases to be held together by the idea of Duty. It is not the discontent of Labour which makes me most anxious as to the future. It is the egotism of Capital, educated and encouraged into egotism by the false doctrines of what is called Liberalism in this country, and provoked into egotism by the equally egotistic discontent of Labour. What I most value in the work of M. Harmel ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... paralysed or obscured his intellectual powers, though it might lower their aims. With regard to the plan and style of his works, he showed strong good sense and clear judgment. The man who indulged such narrowing egotism, such irrational scorn, would prime and polish without mercy the stanzas in which he uttered them." (Wonderful! that an egotist and a misanthrope should have been kept from defacing his own verses. Then follows our terrible bye-blow.) "And this bewildered idealist was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... incident at Gallup, did not scorn Wampus so openly as before; but he still reserved a suspicion that the fellow was at heart a coward and a blusterer. The chauffeur's sole demerit in the eyes of the others was his tremendous egotism. The proud remark: "I am Wampus!" was constantly on his lips and he had wonderful tales to tell to all who would listen of his past experiences, in every one of which he unblushingly figured as the hero. But he really handled the big touring car in an admirable manner, and ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... right!" they assented indifferently, which injured my egotism. But I was too adroit to show it. I still demurred with mock modesty. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... as sunshine, as free as air, easy, playful, forcible, full of picture, but, above all, egotistical, proud with the pride of intellectuality, and vain with the certainty of success. It was this egotism that fascinated Philip. He sniffed it up as a colt sniffs the sharp wind. There was no need to make allowances for it. The castles which his father had been building in the air were only as hovels to the golden palaces which his son's eager ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... these old humanized soils. He cannot help marching in step with his kind in the rear of such a procession. They say a dead man's hand cures swellings, if laid on them. There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race. Rousseau came out of one of his sad self-torturing fits, as he cast his eye on the arches of the old Roman aqueduct, the Pont ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... less worthy class of feminine novelists seldom escape from the fatal influence of egotism. Women's heroines, except in the case of the best artists, are conceptions borrowed, not from without, but from within. The consequence is that there is a sameness about them which becomes at last distasteful. The conception of the injured wife or the glorified governess is one ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... are diseased Egregious egotism of young love there are only two identities Follow me; if I retreat, kill me; if I fall, avenge me It's the people who try to be clever who never are Knew the lie of silence to be as evil as the lie of speech People who are clever never ...
— Quotations From Gilbert Parker • David Widger
... their accustomed and orthodox places) of capitals, small capitals, and italics. And I cannot think that any irreverence could be charged against an editor who had the courage to put a moist pen through those expressions of egotism and naive self-satisfaction and vanity which do occasionally disfigure ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... on Raggles's soul and clogged his poet's fancy was the spirit of absolute egotism that seemed to saturate the people as toys are saturated with paint. Each one that he considered appeared a monster of abominable and insolent conceit. Humanity was gone from them; they were toddling idols of stone and varnish, worshipping themselves and greedy for though oblivious of worship from ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... that which will never come—the power of reproducing in toto a past age. If, in reading what purports to be no more than a Novel, the struggle between Christianity and Paganism (for example), or the unbounded egotism of Napoleon, be brought more vividly before our minds—and this may be done by suggestion as well as by exact relation, then, I would maintain, we are to some extent educated historically, using the word in a large though ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... lost a single one of the tortures she had endured for the last four days. Now he thought that he had discovered enough to allow him to risk a step that, until then, he would have deemed dangerous; and with the egotism common to all men, even the best of lovers, he trusted in the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... for a moment, in the hope that I may be permitted to make mention of my own works, without incurring the charge of undue egotism. Let me, however, by way of apology for calling public attention to the series of forty small Water-Color Drawings, (painted con amore, and with no idea of gain,) which are now before the public, mention the fact, that the commencement of their publication was owing to a suggestion of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... favorite. It was recognized that she had a certain kind of loyalty which could be depended upon. Of course such a girl would eventually marry, and with natural hope and egotism each one felt that he might be the successful competitor. At any rate, as in war, they must take their chances, and it seems that there is never a lack of those willing ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... possibilities of their real selves, their ego. Without it human beings would not stand up on their hind legs, they would crawl. It is at the same time a necessity and a danger. It has never been settled which is cause and which effect, whether insanity creates the awful manifestations of egotism or the unbalanced egotism induces insanity. "Keep us sane" is the wisest of all prayers, the greatest demand one can make upon ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... actress had been carried away from Kendal [her critical lover, who worships herself, but despises her art] altogether, carried away by the current of her artistic life, the sudden growth of her power, and the excitement, the ferocity and egotism (those of the artist realizing success, I mean; I allude merely to the normal dose of those elements) which the effort to create, to "arrive" (once she had had a glimpse of her possible successes) would have brought with it. (Excuse that abominable sentence.) ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I never saw anyone so anxious to do a thing perfectly. The great Bertini in Florence said of her—'She will certainly be greater than Angelica Kauffman.' ... 'Alexandra,' he said, 'will rank with men.' The egotism of the creature! You see there are others who admire her ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... lighten insistence—almost to provoke a reaction; as if their topic had dropped by its own weight and as if moreover, for that matter, Marcher had been visited by one of his occasional warnings against egotism. He had kept up, he felt, and very decently on the whole, his consciousness of the importance of not being selfish, and it was true that he had never sinned in that direction without promptly enough trying to ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... had myself sported the envied 'wife-catchers' at the pattron of Moycullen. I was then as wild a blade as any in Connaught, and the 'tops' were in the prime of their beauty. In fact, I am not guilty of flattery or egotism in saying, that the girl who could then turn up her nose at the boots, or their master, must have been devilish hard to please. But though the hey-day of our youth had passed, I consoled myself with the reflection that with the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... be misunderstood. This same sentiment can be at times something very different from a mere egotism—not that I mean to say it was such in the present case. Cecil Walpole fully represented the order he belonged to, and was a most well-looking, well-dressed, and well-bred young gentleman, only suggesting the reflection ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... think that he cared for her. His self-assurance led him to believe that the reason that Eva was not consenting to his proposal was indeed because of her father's condition, for he little dreamed, nor would his egotism permit him to believe, that anything else could ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... the only real spiritual warmth, not tinged by Pharisaism, egotism, or cowardice, come from the feeling of doing your work well and helping others; is not all the rest embroidery, luxury, pastime, pleasant sound and incense? Modern man, take him in the large, does not believe in salvation to beat of drum; or that, by leaning up against another person, however ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... now frankly told my motives for concealment, so far as I am conscious of having any, and the public will forgive the egotism of the detail, as what is necessarily connected with it. The author, so long and loudly called for, has appeared on the stage, and made his obeisance to the audience. Thus far his conduct is a mark of respect. To linger in ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... WE! that is, OURSELVES;—the Church— WE think, when we hear of heresies and blasphemies that it is we who are 'suffering for righteousness' sake,' but in our egotism we forget that WE are not suffering at all if we are able to retain our faith! It is the very heretics and blasphemers whom we condemn that are suffering—suffering absolute tortures—perchance 'for ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... the discovery that she had deliberately sought out and found this stricken private was the most bitter in his life. His pride suffered a shock that appalled him; his unconscious egotism, born of hereditary conquests, revolted against the thought that his progress toward her heart was to be turned aside by the intervention of a common soldier in the ranks. Gentleman though he was, he could not subdue the feeling of exultation that came over him when she approached with her plea. ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... co-adjutors; not one who rewarded adherents with flattery and hurled invectives at dissentients; not one to whom personal flattery was acceptable or personal prominence desirable; not one whose writings betrayed egotism, self-inflation or bombast. Such was their honest aversion to personal publicity, it is now almost impossible to trace the work each did. Some of their noblest arguments for Freedom were published anonymously. They made no vainglorious ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... that she had, as we have seen, sought a confidante in Isabel; but with her, even at the first, she found but the half-contemptuous pity of a strong and hard mind; and lately, since Edward's visit to Middleham, the Duchess of Clarence had been so rapt in her own imperious egotism and discontented ambition, that the timid Anne had not even dared to touch, with her, upon those secrets which it flushed her own bashful cheek to recall. And this visit to the court, this new, unfamiliar scene, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the life forces are conveyed from the innermost source of life to different parts and organs of the physical body. The flow of the life currents is impeded and diminished. Such are the actual physiological effects of fear, anxiety and egotism on the physical organism. ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... loved her from infancy, who had loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism of a bluestocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own novel or her own volume ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... himself (Sir George) about the time when he had reached the meridian of his fame as an orator, and should therefore have become blas to the extremity of being absolutely seared and case-hardened against all impressions whatever appealing to his vanity or egotism, did absolutely (credite posteri!) blush like any roseate girl of fifteen. And that this was no accident growing out of a momentary agitation, no sudden spasmodic pang, anomalous and transitory, appeared from other concurrent anecdotes of Canning, reported by gentlemen ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... They think to dispose of thee, as if thou wert worthless merchandise, to their own advantage. But thou wilt defeat their design. I read the generous resolution in thine eye, Violetta; thou wilt manifest a will superior to their arts and egotism." ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... lies all the power that we have mastered," boasted Garboreggg with supreme egotism. "It connects with the individual controls ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... feelings that steadily grew in volume during the otherwise dull reign of Louis Philippe. In the main, Thiers was an upholder of the Orleans dynasty, yet his devotion to constitutional principles, the ardour of his Southern temperament,—he was a Marseillais by birth,—and the vivacious egotism that never brooked contradiction, often caused sharp friction with the King and the King's friends. He seemed born for opposition and criticism. Thereafter, his conduct of affairs helped to undermine the fabric of the Second ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Mr. Cleveland's speech the text of some examination into the ex-President's peculiarities of style. It was Clevelandesque to the core. All his protuberant characteristics are there: the leviathanic egotism, the profound and tenebrous ponderosity, the labored intricacy of the commonplace, the pedagogic moralizing, the oracular inconsequence. How absurdly obvious it all is now, and how inexplicable that the glamour of high place should ever have clothed such matter as his with the seeming ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... that contest is here presented in connection with the concise narrative of the entire war by the standard German historian, Menzel. Frederick was a vigorous writer as well as a great fighter, and it is only fair to caution the reader against accepting too fully the perhaps unconscious egotism of the monarch's personal view. Some critics consider General Zieten the real ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... few hits were personal and unscrupulous, and they were probably far more deadly in their effects than any of the ironical attacks which his adversaries, on their part, directed against his poetical ineptitude or halting "parts of speech." Despite his superlative coxcombry and egotism, he was, moreover, a man of no mean abilities. His Careless Husband is a far better acting play than any of Fielding's, and his Apology, which even Johnson allowed to be "well-done," is valuable in many respects, especially ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... fashion, taste, and many other fooleries, in imitation of their betters, and had a very decided and becoming horror of anything which could, by possibility, be considered low. He was hospitable from ostentation, illiberal from ignorance, and prejudiced from conceit. Egotism and the love of display induced him to keep an excellent table: convenience, and a love of good things of this life, ensured him plenty of guests. He liked to have clever men, or what he considered such, at his table, because ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... deeply moved. The curiosity of the lover became, so to speak, a psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to know the height that woman had attained, and what were the injuries she thus forgave; he longed to know how these women of the world, taxed with frivolity, cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels. Remembering how the princess had already repulsed him when he first tried to read that celestial heart, his voice, and he himself, trembled as he took the transparent, slender hand of the beautiful Diane with its curving ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... Dunroe in Paris—no matter, I took him out of some difficulties, and prevented him from getting into more. He had been set by a clique of—but I will not dwell on this, it looks like egotism—I said before, I took a fancy to him—for it frequently happens, my good lord, that you take a fancy to the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Greeley was at his best, animated, witty and charmingly affable. He realized, only too well, that his best was wasted in the strife which was his daily portion and which ended in the disastrous defeat that cost him his life. The flashes of aroused egotism that sometimes blazed out in red-hot words, were only signs of impatience and regret that he had been deprived of opportunity to cultivate the amenities and graces of life and to gain control of the higher powers he consciously possessed. Any one who will take the ...
— My Friends at Brook Farm • John Van Der Zee Sears
... or rather in my egotism, I have dreaded to tell you before. I shut my eyes to this hour, and yet I knew that it must come; this morning they were opened. I must leave ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... doubtless, to both of us, to come into habits of unreserved intercourse. It was easy to talk with him; there were no barriers; only he said so little that I talked too much, and stopped only because, as he gave no indication, I feared to exceed. He showed no egotism or self-assertion; rather a humility, and at one time a fear that he had written himself out. I do not think any of his books worthy his genius. I admired the man, who was simple, amiable, truth-loving, and frank in conversation, ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... politics, and look upon history itself as an unattractive form of fiction, cannot fail to be fascinated by the Margravine's wit, vivacity and humour, by her keen powers of observation, and by her brilliant and assertive egotism. Not that her life was by any means a happy one. Her father, to quote the Princess Christian, 'ruled his family with the same harsh despotism with which he ruled his country, taking pleasure in making his power felt by all in the most galling manner,' and the Margravine ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... Egotism, scepticism, and selfishness are always miserable companions in life, and they are especially unnatural in youth. The egotist is next-door to a fanatic. Constantly occupied with self, he has no thought to spare for ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... amused by this prologue, which seemed to spring partly from the egotism of a self-made man, partly from an instinctive unwillingness to embark upon the confession to which he was committed. However, he was far from being bored. "I'm about thirty myself," he remarked, "and I'm worth about thirty cents. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Chesterfield's diamond pencil, produced one miracle of dulness; it might well be feared that Kinglake's volatile pen, when linked with forceful feeling and bound to rigid task-work, might lose the charm of casual epigram, easy luxuriance, playful egotism, vagrant allusion, which established "Eothen" as a classic. On the other hand, he had been for twenty years conversant with Eastern history, geography, politics; was, more than most professional soldiers, an adept ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... the eyes tenderness and courage. The lower part of the face, on the other hand, suggests a good deal of animalism: the finely cut nostrils show egotism—another word for selfishness; the nose itself, vanity; the lips, sensuousness and love of luxury. I wonder what sort of woman she really is." He laid the photograph back ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Morley, "Cobden passed at a single step from the natural egotism of youth to the broad and generous public spirit of a great citizen." Very early in his manhood Cobden discovered that he who would do an extraordinary work must throw details on others, and scheme for leisure. Cobden never did anything he could hire any one else to do. He saved ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... character, and not put on from time to time for effect, it reaches a long way down to what is deepest and most significant in a man's moral nature. It is connected with the sense of truth, with honest self-judgment, with habits of self-discipline, with the repression of vanity, pride, egotism. It has no doubt to do with good taste and good manners, but it has as much to do with good morals—with the resolute habit of veracity with oneself—with the obstinate preference for reality over show, ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... their daughter's home and their own. That this seemed out of the question was owing to the fact that at the outset of his married life Sir Nigel had allowed himself to commit errors in tactics. A perverse egotism, not wholly normal in its rancour, had led him into deeds which he had begun to suspect of having cost him too much, even before Betty herself had pointed out to him their unbusinesslike indiscretion. He had done things he could not undo, and now, to his mind, his only resource was to treat ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... to inquire who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I can hardly tell;—but I don't think I shall be asked to ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... curious mixture of class egotism, paternal tenderness and twisted morality, Bachelder listened to the end, then said, "Of course, Mrs. Steiner ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... was not conventional. Very well. Neither was the Baron. And for that matter, neither was she. He was a child of nature. So was she. His rudeness, his aggressiveness, his noise, his talkativeness, his egotism, his confidences about himself—all these did not make him so very disagreeable to her as to her sister ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... moral life stunted or disordered by this stoppage of the natural play of the faculties. There are kinds of illness, especially those of the nervous system, which seem to invade the seat of the will and soul itself, to irritate the temper and sap the resolve and foster a self-centring egotism, by a power that is literally irresistible. Before such experiences as this one thought rises: it is part of mankind's business to lessen, and so far as possible to extirpate, these maladies. The individual ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... interim his friend would have time to reflect, and Torres hoped that he might be induced entirely to give up the plan. He, himself a light-hearted devil-may-care fellow, taking life as it came, and with a gentle spice of egotism in his character, was unsusceptible of such an attachment as that of Herrera for Rita, and, being unsusceptible, he could not understand it. The soldier's maxim of letting a new love drive out the old one, whenever a change of garrison or other cause renders it advisable, was what he practised, ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to recognize in Lena the same curious mingling of deep-down barbaric egotism and love of display, with the longing to be civilizedly correct. The ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... of such persons, I firmly maintain, however, that I was never an enthusiastic votary. It would be more to my credit, I suppose, if I had been. More would be forgiven me if I had loved a little more, if into all my folly and egotism I had put a little more naivete and sincerity. Well, I did the best I could, I was at once too bad and too good for it all. At present, it's far enough off; I have put the sea between us; I am stranded. I sit high and dry, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... in the praise which the French have given to our army. There is no people that can praise as they can: for they enjoy praising others as much as some nations enjoy praising themselves, and they lose all the reserve of egotism in the pleasure of praising well. But in this case they have praised so generously because there was a great kindliness behind their praise, because they, like us, feel that this war means a new brotherhood stronger than ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... himself in this passion of egotism and defiance he hardly knew. He was roused from it by the servant bringing a lamp; and as she set it down, the light fell upon a memorandum scrawled on the edge of a sketch which was lying on ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was there for him to abandon his native land? A literary reputation? Was he to run after a little celebrity, a little glory, without ever reaching the real goal of his ambition? What influence could he exercise in favour of his unhappy brothers in a country where egotism monopolised the high places? What was the mass of foreigners doing which had been thrown into Paris by choice or misfortune? Who among them was useful to his fellow-men? The political troubles which desolated Italy had ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... be and do something more than nature had given them capacity for; and accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine arts—principles which, however much trumpeted and gospeled about, were in fact egotism united with weakness—our German artists have not yet recovered, and are filling the exhibitions, as we see, with pictures which nobody will buy. Frederick, the younger of these Dioscouri, choked himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral and religious absurdities, which, in his uncomfortable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... warrior of the town. Cy was no longer the weedy boy who had sat in the loft speculating about Carol's egotism and the mysteries of generation. He was nineteen now, tall, broad, busy, the "town sport," famous for his ability to drink beer, to shake dice, to tell undesirable stories, and, from his post in front of Dyer's drug store, to embarrass the girls by "jollying" them as ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... character makes his writings piquant. Hence, too, he is often quaint,—a word which describes what no other word does,—always conveying a sense of originality, and of what, when we wish to be condemnatory, we call egotism, but which, when it belongs to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... by the way; and for the egotism which is, I fear me, displayed in this foreword, I can but plead, not only the difficulty of writing a preface at all, when one has no personal inclination that way, but the nervousness which must beset a writer who is directly addressing not a tried and friendly public, but an unknown, ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... to reading girls, knew that it was not vanity or egotism which prompted these confessions, only a girlish eagerness to be measured by her highest ideals and not by appearances. She saw at a glance the possibilities of the material that lay here at her hand. Out of it might be wrought a strong, helpful character such as the world always needs, ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... the opinions of his predecessors.[433] Aristotle is evidently wanting in that impartiality which ought to characterize the historian of philosophy, and, sometimes, we are compelled to question his integrity. Indeed, throughout his "Metaphysics" he exhibits the egotism and vanity of one who imagines that he alone, of all men, has the full vision of the truth. In Books I. and XII. he uniformly associates the "numbers" of Pythagoras with the "forms" and "ideas" of Plato. He asserts that Plato identifies "forms" and "numbers," and regards them as real entities—substances, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Myrtle rejected his suit, should he take her life on the spot, that she might never be another's,—that neither man nor woman should ever triumph over him,—the proud ambitious man, defeated, humbled, scorned? No! that was a meanness of egotism which only the most vulgar souls could be capable of. Should he challenge her lover? It was not the way of the people and time, and ended in absurd complications, if anybody was foolish enough to try it. Shoot him? The ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism and self-esteem, "I told you so," is even more common in the naive East than in the West. In this case the son's answer is far superior ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... singular behavior from doing irreparable injury to the colonial cause. The English newspapers tauntingly ridiculed his insignificance and incapacity; de Vergennes could not endure him, and scarcely treated him with civility. But his intense egotism prevented him from gathering wisdom from such harsh instruction, which only added gall to his native bitterness. He wreaked his revenge upon his colleagues, and towards Franklin he cherished an envious hatred which developed into a monomania. Perhaps Franklin ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... reading one, if it might summon up a subject-fiend, appearing with thunder and devilish demonstrations. And by what other strange chance had the document come into the hand of him who alone was fit to receive it? It seemed to Septimius, in his enthusiastic egotism, as if the whole chain of events had been arranged purposely for this end; a difference had come between two kindred peoples; a war had broken out; a young officer, with the traditions of an old family ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in Paris. The news of her approaching marriage with a man whom he had never seen had given him a rude shock, had awakened in him a strange feeling of jealousy. He had grown accustomed to the thought that Hermione was in a certain sense his property. He realized thoroughly the egotism, the dog-in-the-manger spirit which was alive in him, and hated but could not banish it. As a friend he certainly loved Hermione. She knew that. But he did not love her as a man loves the woman he wishes to make his wife. She must know that, too. He loved her ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens
... it may, let them give everything whatever name is most popular, the government is now a military dictatorship. Senor ——- calls this revolution "the apotheosis of egotism transformed into virtue;" and it must be confessed, that in most of the actors, it has been a mere calculation of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... was born abruptly. There is a force in human relations drawing too imperatively for denial; defying self-interest, and dragging at all anchors of duty and religion. Is it in man only the satisfaction of self? Egotism standing like a mountain, and demanding, "Give me yourself or I will kill myself." And women! is their love the degradation of self, the surrender and very abasement of lowliness? or is it also egotism set on a pinnacle, so careless and self-assured as to be fearful ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... simply egotism furnished with a telescope; man has no other reason for doing good but the fear of doing himself harm, while ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... countrymen desired him to be. This feeling on O'Connell's part will account for many acts towards Shiel which were set down to personal jealousy. Dr. Michelsen is very unjust to O'Connell in the following critique upon his character:—"His greatest fault was no doubt his egotism; he could not endure a rival at his side, and would not have hesitated to annihilate any one who did not follow him with implicit obedience." O'Connell would have hailed with delight any accession of eloquence or personal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... my personal narrative that could possibly interest the most indulgent public is told now; if the few words I have left to say should bore you—O patient reader!—they will at least be free of egotism. ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... a long letter to Stanistreet, begun in the form of an irregular diary—a rough account of the march, of the fighting, of the struggle with dysentery, given in the fewest and plainest words possible, with hardly a trace of the writer's natural egotism. The two last sheets were a postscript. They had evidently been written at one short sitting, in sentences that ran into each other, as if the writer had been in passionate haste to deliver himself of all he had ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... money, downright hypocrisy, would-be gentility, self-sufficient vanity, fashionable swindling, misanthropy, heartlessness, plain common-sense, knowledge of the world, coarse jealousy, irresolution, impudence, pride of birth, egotism, self-conceit, pusillanimity, ingenuity, roguery, affectations, homeliness, thoughtlessness, pedantry, arrogance, and many more faults and vices, find their representatives. The language which they employ is always natural to them, and is neither too gross nor over-refined. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... that he, Gervase, meant to possess that loveliest of women, whatever happened in the near or distant future. Of her, and of the influence of his passion on her personally, he did not stop to think, except with the curiously blind egotism which is the heritage of most men, and which led him to judge that her happiness would in some way or other be enhanced by his brief and fickle love. For, as a rule, men do not understand love. They understand desire, amounting sometimes ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... was to inform you of what I had done and ask your advice. But my egotism got the better of me. I felt that I ought to make sure that I was not the victim of a coincidence. Such a respectable house! Such a respectable maidservant! Should she recognize the parasol as belonging to her mistress, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... acquaintance with him for the first time, one would select: The King's Tragedy—that poem so moving, so popularly dramatic, and lifelike. Notwithstanding this, his work, it must be conceded, certainly through no narrowness or egotism, but in the faithfulness of a true workman to a vocation so emphatic, was mainly of the esoteric order. But poetry, at all times, exercises two distinct functions: it may reveal, it may unveil to every eye, the ideal aspects of common things, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... the midst of this cruel egotism and this gross unreason of the tenth and eleventh centuries, the necessity, from a moral and social point of view, of struggling against such disgusting irregularities, made itself felt, and found zealous advocates. From this epoch are to be dated the first efforts to establish, in ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... be this domination as selfish in its nature and as brutal in its form as it may. Whether its aim be to uplift or to degrade its subjects, whether it be clean or filthy, of heaven or of hell, a stress of generous purpose or a mere emphasis of egotism,—what pause do you make to inquire concerning this? The appearance is, that any sovereignty, in these democratic days, is over-welcome to your hunger to admit of pause; and a rule, whose undisguised aim is, not to supplement ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... friends, in whose judgment I have confidence, have suggested that, as the reader likes to know something about the author, a short account of his origin and early life would lend additional interest to this book. Such is my excuse for the following egotism; and, if an apology be necessary for giving a genealogy, I find it in the fact that it is not very long, and contains only one incident of which I have reason to ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... an egotist so intensely egotistical as to be quite unconscious of his egotism; forever thinking of himself—forever oblivious of others except as they ministered to his self-interest; filled up to the lips with the feeling of his rights and privileges; but entirely empty of any notion of his duties and responsibilities. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... and a veritable tower of greed and egotism. The Marnys were rich and the little Vicomte very young, and just now the brightly-plumaged hawk was busy plucking the latest pigeon, newly arrived from its ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... odd look," she admitted, after a moment of troubled hesitation. "The most considerate person cannot but regard it as a display of egotism or of a most mercenary spirit. The cheque you sent me for what I was enabled to do for you in Massachusetts (the only one I have ever received which I have been tempted to refuse) shows to what extent you rated my help and my—my expectations. Had I been a poor girl struggling ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... writings seem intoxicated with Nature. The hero of his novel William Lovell, scamp though he is, a man of criminal egotism whose only law is licence, is deeply in ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... himself to. There is no courtesy in him; he does not care whether it is king or clown whom he teases; and in every step of his swift mechanical march, and in every pause of his resolute observation, there is one and the same expression of perfect egotism, perfect independence and self-confidence, and conviction of the world's having ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... even, lest the strange acumen of this wonderful man had pierced her mask, and that her very motive and mission were already suspected, was not lacking to add dismay to discouragement. Such thoughts were but wretched company, and they brought with them a vague conception of her own vain egotism in imagining the possibility of other outcome. She tried to sleep again, but could not. What mattered it though, by some shifting of hours, her day had become night and her night day! She must arise and talk with some one, if it were only the host ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... rare to hear his name received with any mark of respect such as would be freely granted to the ambiguous memory of some father of the Church. The odium which attached to him when alive has not been removed by his death. For he shocked his contemporaries by egotism and want of taste; and this generation which has reaped the benefit of his labours has inherited the feeling of the last. He was before his own age, and is ...
— Philebus • Plato
... friend, and finding him sufficiently intelligent, she might desire to offer some indirect explanation of the course she had followed. Harvey could not question her sincerity, but she seemed to him a trifle morbid. It might be natural reaction, in a temper such as hers, against the monstrous egotism by which her life had been subdued and shadowed. She inclined to mystical views; mentioned Christina Rossetti as one of her favourites; cared little or nothing for the louder interests of the time. Impossible to detect the colour of her thoughts with regard to Cecil; ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... interested in many of the letters he received, and gave his best in his prompt replies; but he evidently also received an immense number of letters from people who did not desire guidance so much as sympathy and communication. The inconsiderate egotism of unimaginative and yet sensitive people is what creates the burden of such a correspondence; and though he answered his letters faithfully and duly, and contrived to say much in short space, yet he felt, as I have heard him say, that people were merciless; and much of ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... from within set Billy's senses in a mad whirl, but the "little boy" was like a dash of cold water to his pride and egotism. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... or, "Suppose you were to lose your way in a wood"; or, "Suppose one were to lose one's way in a wood." All these forms are used, but, as a rule, the last is to be preferred. The first verges on egotism, and the second makes free with another's person, whereas the third is indifferent. "If one's honesty were impeached, what should one do?" is more courtly than to take either one's self or the person addressed ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... how much their happiness costs me! Adieu, a tender adieu, my beloved Clemence. It is a consolation to me to see you as afflicted as myself at the fate of my child, for thus I can say our sorrow, and there is no egotism in my suffering. Sometimes I ask myself, with fear, what would become of me without you, in the midst of such grievous circumstances? Often these thoughts make me still more sad at Fleur-de-Marie's fate; for you remain to me, you. But for her who is there? Adieu, a sad adieu, my dear, good angel ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... K—— a peer, on the proviso of his investing an estate with the title; he gave up the peerage, rather than injure his daughter to the advantage of his son. Out of twenty affluent families, there is scarcely one inclined to place the eldest son so much above the rest. Egotism prevails everywhere. People prefer to live on good terms with all their children, and, when establishing them in the world, to show no preference. The bonds of subordination are so universally relaxed, that ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... regards as his own private affairs from the public, or in defending himself from attacks, is a mooted point. If one talks about one's experiences, there is a natural temptation to charge one with traveling the easy road to egotism; if one keeps silence, the inference of wrong-doing is sometimes even more difficult to meet, as it would then be said that there is no valid defence ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly conceive fraternity legally enforced, without liberty being legally destroyed, and justice legally trampled under foot. Legal plunder has two roots: one of them, as we have already seen, is in human egotism; the other is in ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... of an innocent man who is still young enough to rely absolutely upon the justice of the law. In spite of the array of damaging evidence presented by the prosecuting attorney, and the opinionated egotism of Mr. Gooch which rendered him unpopular with judge and jury, Donald's victory was almost assured, when the rumor of the People's Bank failure swept the court room. In the instant wave of suspicion that rose against Basil Sequin, ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... find "Leaders," or "Official Heads," whose colossal ignorance of either moral or spiritual Law, is only equaled by their monumental egotism, and this does not prevent them from gaining proselytes, and amassing fortunes in ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... he changed his ground entirely. His position in this work was as mediator between reason and revelation. He brought into the conflict concerning Strauss' Life of Jesus an element of heated argument, and egotism, which ripened into his subsequent antagonism to the supernatural school. His entrance upon this field of strife may be comprehended by Schwartz's comparison of him with Carlstadt and Thomas Munzer, who had lived in the exciting period ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... musket may be put into his hands with which to trust him against the foe. These are very simple variations; they turn upon the proportion of selfish feeling which the men possess. A self-seeking man will turn villain under the encroachment of other people's egotism. The sight of too many trophies will convert a friend into a covert enemy, who, without being treacherous, will nevertheless betray a great cause by his jealousy of its great supporter. But the latter will not always become a traitor to suit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... nobility, and famine reigned in many districts. The foundations of truth and social order seemed to be overthrown. There were teachers of immorality abroad, who published the old Epicurean doctrine, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." This teaching was accompanied by a spirit of cold-blooded egotism which extinguished every spark of Confucian altruism. Even the pretended disciples of Confucius confused the precepts of the Master, and by stripping them of their narrow significance rendered them nugatory. ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... closes his long survey, the Editor trusts he may add without egotism, that he has found the vague general verdict of popular Fame more just than those have thought, who, with too severe a criticism, would confine judgments on Poetry to "the selected few of many generations." ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... explored, and its exploration could not fail to cost the sacrifice of much that was impassioned and imaginative in the earlier and less scientific age of art.[161] The spirit of Cosimo de' Medici, almost cynical in its positivism, the spirit of Sixtus IV., almost godless in its egotism, were abroad in Italy at this period;[162] indeed, the fifteenth century presents at large a spectacle of prosaic worldliness and unideal aims. Yet the work done by the artists was the best work of the epoch, far more fruitful ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... her sake he would have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realized that it was a crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own life was a poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of the egotism of ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... politicians had already thrown off the mask in Poland; the lust of aggrandizement had prevailed . . . . The indissoluble bond connecting morals and politics being broken, the result was to make egotism the prevailing principle of public as well ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... on from the first, obedience will come easily to the child; but woe be to both mother and child if egotism, self-will and selfishness secure a fast hold upon ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... of the most handsome, most amiable, and most witty of men; but if there is one vice more than another at which his soul revolts, it is the sin of egotism. Else the world would here have become the possessor of one of the most eloquent pages in literature. It is said that artists, who paint their own portraits, make a mere copy of their image in the looking glass. For my part, if I had to draw my own likeness, I would scorn such paltry devices. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... spectator must needs admit there was something else in Lady Dunstable's talk than mere intelligence or mere mannishness. There was undoubtedly something of "the good fellow," and, through all her hard hitting, a curious absence—in conversation—of the personal egotism she was quite ready to show in all the trifles of life. On the present occasion her main object clearly was to bring out Arthur Meadows—the new captive of her bow and spear; to find out what was in him; to see if he was worthy of her ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... write again. Writing," he generalised, and possibly not without some reason, "when it is n't the sordidest of trades, is a mere fatuous assertion of one's egotism. Breaking stones in the street were a nobler occupation; weaving ropes of sand were better sport. The only things that are worth writing are inexpressible, and can't be written. The only things that can be written ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... concluded that it was better that I state my recollection of what I saw or heard or did in those stirring times rather than what I said. Whether this conclusion was a wise one the reader must judge. Egotism is a natural trait of mankind. If it is exhibited in a moderate degree we pardon it with a smile; if it is excessive we condemn it as a weakness. The life of one man is but an atom, but if it is connected ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of the neurotic, not the primitive. It is megalomania and egotism and the pride of the man in the Bible that waxed fat and kicked. But the results are the same. She wants to destroy and simplify; but it isn't the simplicity of the ascetic, which is of the spirit, but the simplicity of the madman that grinds down all the contrivances of civilization ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan |
