"Egotist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a blunt candour about the reply that even from an egotist like Stead meant infinitely more than the soothing-syrup idealism dispensed by some of the visiting prophets to this country. Stead did not mean that in establishing independence of the United States, Canada should cut the painter from the Great British Commonwealth. But he was ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... (After a slight pause—with a good-natured grin.) Here I am talking about myself again! Why don't you call me down when I start that drivel? But you don't know how good it is to have your dreams coming true. It'd make an egotist out ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... seems to have been a venture of Vaudreuil's, and its failure, an extremely expensive one, cost that lively egotist and his friends a severe pang. The next day Wolfe published his first manifesto to the Canadian people. "We are sent by the English King," it ran, "to conquer this province, but not to make war upon women and children, the ministers of religion, or industrious peasants. We lament the sufferings ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... "Hideous egotist," said O-Tar, "prepare to die and assume not to dictate to O-Tar the jeddak. He has passed sentence and all three of you shall feel the jeddak's naked steel. ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... pleasures and higher ones. To save the life of anyone is a superior pleasure infinitely more intense and more durable than others; therefore I will save the child." Admitting that any man ever reasoned thus, would he not be a terrible egotist? and, moreover, could we ever be sure that his sophistical brain would not at some given moment cause his will to incline toward an inferior pleasure, that is to say, towards refraining from troubling himself? There remains the fourth individual. This man has been brought ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... few words. Two developed and energetic individualities have met in this case and come into collision, like two planets. Two egotisms also—do not show such frightened eyes. Stupid nurses frighten children with a beggar, a gypsy, or an egotist, but mature people know that egotism is a universal right; and, moreover, good business. Be an egotist. Take no trouble about what does not concern your own self and strive to develop your own individuality. Keep this in view, play joyously with Puffie, and go to sleep early, ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... I am not egotist enough to suppose all this significance should be given because I was the object of it. But the war between the States was a very bloody and a very costly war. One side or the other had to yield principles they deemed dearer than life before it could be brought to an end. I commanded the whole ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... good character (reputation) is a precious possession. 3. The man seemed to be without conscience (consciousness). 4. The counsel (council) was not wise. 5. It is John's custom (habit) to speak slowly. 6. Her deceit (deception) amazed me. 7. This man is an egoist (egotist). 8. The government does not encourage immigration (emigration). 9. In Mr. E.'s estimate (estimation) the cost of lumber and paint is low. 10. It was only yesterday that I heard of the identification (identity) of the men who robbed Mr. Jones and Mr. Smith. 11. Mr. Gladstone's remark at the banquet ...
— Practical Exercises in English • Huber Gray Buehler
... was simply a thorough egotist. In his youth he had been charged with usury; no one knew by what means he had become rich, for the little drapery trade which he called his profession did not appear to be ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Harrow to study, not books nor games, but boys, who will be men when you are a man. And, above all, study their weaknesses. Look for the flaws. Teach yourself to recognize at a glance the liar, the humbug, the fool, the egotist, and the mule. Make friends with as many as are likely to help you in after life, and don't forget that one enemy may inflict a greater injury than twenty friends can repair. Spend money freely; dress well; swim with the tide, not ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... that, my daughter; but I do know, if I had set myself down a grieving egotist, to brood over my own individual troubles, in a world full of troubles, needing ministrations, I should have lost my reason, ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... The father, colossal egotist that he was, heard Phil's protests with mild amusement and quiet pride in his independence, for he loved this ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... things the altruists talk of, and you arrive one day at the condition of Louis XIV. after the battle of Ramillies: "Dieu a donc oublie tout ce que j'ai fait pour lui?" Read your Renan; remind yourself at every turn that it is quite possible after all the egotist may turn out to be in the right of it, and you will find at any rate that the world gets on excellently well without your blundering efforts to set it straight. And so we get back to the Archbishop's maxim—adapted, no doubt, to English requirements,' and he shrugged his great ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... He has made others suffer, and it is just—as we understand justice—that he should suffer in his turn. Though, when all is said, he is but a poor egotist, too dull-witted to understand the full vileness of his sin. He is suffering, as it is—cursed in his son; for 'the father of a fool hath no joy.' He hates this son of his, and his son despises him. His wife is a shrew, a termagant, who embitters every hour of his existence. ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... John, "and eat a plain dinner. I hate your kickshaws, though I keep a French cook for those who are not of my way of thinking. I'm no egotist, look you; I've no prejudices; and Miss there has her bechamels and fallals according to her taste. Captain, ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... that she came to like either of them better. She still suspected Mrs. Pasmer of design, though she developed none beyond manoeuvring Alice out of the way of people whom she wished to avoid; and she still found the girl, as she always thought her, as egotist, whose best impulses toward others had a final aim in herself. She thought her very crude in her ideas—cruder than she had seemed at Campobello, where she had perhaps been softened by her affinition with the gentler and kindlier nature of Dan Mavering. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and in utter sickness of spirit she could advance no excuse. It was not that she had failed Blondin, or that she had failed Richard, but the extent of her failure toward herself appalled her. She was not the good, brave, cultivated woman she had liked to think herself; she was one more egotist, with Nina, and Isabelle, and Ida, unscrupulously playing her own ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... been so wicked, Faith, I had done so much harm, I said I would never seek my own happiness, I would work only for my fellow creatures, striving if I might undo some of my evil work, but I see to-day that I have been an egotist. God would not be offended at my happiness if I could win the dear woman I have loved all these years. You have forgiven me, Faith, I see it in ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley
... silly as human beings can be, because they hope to attain to artistic salvation by rushing to extremes. They are religious egotists, in fact, and nothing can be more disagreeable than a religious egotist. But there were no doubt many of them among the early Christians. Yet Christianity was a great creative religious effort which came because life and truth had died out of the religions of the past, and men ...
— Progress and History • Various
... serve the State In the halls of legislative debate, One day with all his credentials came To the capitol's door and announced his name. The doorkeeper looked, with a comical twist Of the face, at the eminent egotist, And said: "Go away, for we settle here All manner of questions, knotty and queer, And we cannot have, when the speaker demands To be told how every member stands, A man who to all things under the sky Assents ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... could not have been an egotist in the bosom of his family. A friend in London went to call upon his young wife, his "white lily." She was showing the house to her visitor, when, pausing suddenly before a large portrait of her famous ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... that which had ridden and hunted and passed so buoyantly through life should become but a few dry bones, a handful of dust. He was of his time, and its laxness of principle and conduct; if he held within himself the potential scholar, statesman, and philosopher, there were also the skeptic, the egotist, and the libertine. He followed the fashion and disbelieved much, but he knew that if he died to-night his soul would not stay with his body upon the hilltop. He wondered, somewhat grimly, what it would ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... said Felton, no anger showing in his tone. "I will not force myself upon anybody, but I'm no egotist, even if I do say you're the losers. My knowledge of the region and my friendship with the Sioux would be of great advantage to you, would be of so much advantage, in fact, that it would make me worth more than a fourth share in all the gold we might find. But, as ...
— The Great Sioux Trail - A Story of Mountain and Plain • Joseph Altsheler
... freethinker, Horace more of a simple pococurante. Rabelais may have had a little inclination to science itself (he would soon have found it out if he had lived a little later), Montaigne may have been more of a pure egotist, Saint-Evremond more of a man of society, and of the verse and prose of society. But they all had the same ethos, the same love of letters as letters, the same contempt of mere progress as progress, the same relish ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... scandal, the smug way he spoke of his word of honor, and the self-conscious blush that came into his handsome face when he mentioned the name of Estabrook. Why, even the menace to his beautiful Julianna was not quite sufficient to cause this egotist to forget his duties toward himself! So if he had not acted with such nobility of spirit during the remainder of our adventures begun that night, I could not sit here now and write that I learned to be ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the county prosecutor's legitimacy. "God-damn headline-hunting little egotist! He's running for re-election this ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... up! You crush me down! I try to escape—I cry out: "I am not an egotist—I am a worshiper! I want nothing in the world so much as to forget myself—my rights, my claims, my powers, my talents! I want to think of God! Only give me a chance—only give me a chance to do that, and I care not what you ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... a gong sounded from beneath and the two men descended to their meal. It was Giuseppe Doria who did the talking while they ate a substantial dinner. He proved a great egotist and delighted to relate his own picturesque ambitions, though he had already confessed ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... while I dressed in hot haste: a fine young fellow; not at all the natural egotist, but cast for death by the doctors, and keenly incredulous in his bag of skin. It revived one's confidence to hear him talk. But he forgot himself in an instant, and gave me a lead through the saloon with ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... dual me Found pleasure in this danger play of yours. (An egotist, man always thinks to be The victor, if his patience but endures, And holds in leash the hounds of fierce desire, Until the silly woman's ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... us one hero, a better man than Hector or Achilles. For Hector ran away from a single man; this hero was never known to run away at all. Achilles was a better egotist than soldier; wounded in his personal vanity, he revenged himself, not on the man who had wronged him—Prudence forbade—but on the army, and on his country. This antique hero sulked; my hero, deprived of the highest command, ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... vigorously defending the Holy Estate. His moral attitude is certainly somewhat boring, but nevertheless the Good Stockbroker is one of those people to whom one really is polite. Although obvious irritation was visible on the face of the Family Egotist we listened respectfully, with the exception of the Wicked Stockbroker, whose dinner was far too important in his scheme of life to be ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... man doesn't please you." The saint's whisper to me was unheard by the egotist, spellbound by his own monologue. "I have spoken to Divine Mother about it; She realizes our sad predicament. As soon as we get to yonder red house, She has promised to remind him of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... ORDER: being some Account of the Journeyings of an Irresponsible Egotist, and of ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... served by the office, no real prime minister notices the transformation. The ego and the country soon become interblended in his mind. A prime minister under the party system as we have had it in Canada is of necessity an egotist and autocrat. If he comes to office without these characteristics his environment equips him with them as surely as a diet of royal jelly transforms a worker into ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... 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 others. He refers to himself in all things, thinks of himself, and studies himself, until his own little self becomes ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... judge only by this bill (in which Karl Ivanitch demanded repayment of all the money he had spent on presents, as well as the value of a present promised to himself), they would take him to have been a callous, avaricious egotist ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... man not a colossal egotist could hear such a prophesy with indifference. He did not at once answer, and then he ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... seems to me I am growing to be a dreadful egotist. I put nothing down now in this little book but just what concerns myself—nothing of the great subjects of universal interest which have always absorbed most of my thoughts, but just my own doings and sayings. At this very moment I desire only to write about ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... interpretative imagination. Delobelle, Gardinois, "all the personages of 'Fromont' have lived," Daudet declares; and he adds a regret that in depicting old Gardinois he gave pain to one he loved, but he "could not suppress this type of egotist, ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... moment of acquaintance, about Eighteen Hundred Seventy-seven, and it never lessened or became modified. Stevenson's rapidity in the sympathetic interchange of ideas was, doubtless, the source of it. He has been described as an "egotist," but I challenge the description. If ever there was an altruist it was Louis Stevenson; he seemed to feign an interest in himself merely to stimulate you to be liberal in your confidences. Those who have written about him from later impressions than those of which I speak ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... this also is true; but, dear Sir, is not the real experience of each individual very limited? And, if a writer dwells upon that solely or principally, is he not in danger of repeating himself, and also of becoming an egotist? Then, too, imagination is a strong, restless faculty, which claims to be heard and exercised: are we to be quite deaf to her cry, and insensate to her struggles? When she shows us bright pictures, are we never to look at them, and try to reproduce ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... as pale as chalk, and Sarka smiled a little as he watched him. Then, wondering what new resolve stirred the depths of this master egotist of the earth, he watched emotions flash to and fro across the face of Dalis, watched the color return to his cheeks. The cold of death gripped at ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... I suppose, be accounted for righteousness to Major-General Sir ARCHIBALD ANSON that in About Others and Myself (MURRAY) he is so little of an egotist as to convey scarcely any impression of what manner of man he is or what he thinks of this or that. Much more clear from her quoted letters is the character of his grandmother, who vainly tried to keep ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... got into a dispute as to whether the Reverend Warren Holbrook was a wise and good man, or simply a mischief-making egotist. The women took the side of Holbrook, and stuck to it, like true women. He preached the right sort of religion, they said, and was a wise and good man, or he could not preach as he did. The men did not believe a word of it, but seeing that their wives were inclined to ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... of a fire which no one made an effort to stay. Left alone, it brightened the night, fired the surrounding hills and shot its jets and rockets of sparks far into the sky. You, a poet, would have thought it fine. Sublime egotist that you are, everything is effect, color, mirages, decorations. Endeavoring to make myself useful in this disaster, I thought I heard it whispered around me that some travellers remained in the inn, who, if not ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... different. I alone am the author of this plot. I stood in need of my inseparable companion; I called upon you, and you came to me in remembrance of our ancient device, 'All for one, one for all.' My crime is that I was an egotist." ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... added, "The defaulter seems to be taking the place of the self-made man among us. Northwick's a type, a little differentiated from thousands of others by the rumor of his death in the first place, and now by this unconsciously hypocritical and nauseous letter. He's what the commonplace American egotist must come to more and more in finance, now that he is abandoning the career of politics, and wants to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... scandal and infinitesimal politics; to the county cricket match and archery meeting; to the past ball and the ball to come. In the drawing-room, when a cold fit fell on the coterie, she would glide to one egotist after another, find out the monotope, and set the critter Peter's, the Place de Concorde, the Square of St. Mark, Versailles, the Alhambra, the Apollo Belvidere, the Madonna of the Chair, and all the glories ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Maxwell was no egotist, and was always prone to see only an impersonal significance in parish compliments. A more self-conscious subject for confidences would have replied ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... speak only of myself and my own happiness. Ah, the egotist—the cursed egotist! Can I make you happy also, Eva? Is it not audacity in me to desire—ah, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... went on talking about himself, without noticing that this did not interest the others as much as it did him. A man is never such an egotist as at moments of spiritual ecstasy. At such times it seems to him that there is nothing on earth more splendid and ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... poignancy of existence is bittersweet to his mouth; he craves to incarnate, to interpret its entire human process, always striving to pierce to its center, to capture and express its inexpressible ultimate. He is an egotist but a valuable one, acutely aware of the depths and immensities of his own spirit and of its significant relations to this seething world without. Thus it is both himself and a new vision of life, in terms of himself, that he desires ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... me birth, I'm a stranger to care. I scorn the dull earth, and float in the air. No lover claims me, though I revel in bliss. I taste of each lip, and melt in each kiss. I'm an egotist's pride, though in silence I reign; And, through free from sorrow, I'm always in pain. Though in laughter ne'er seen, in mirth I delight; In blindness I grope, though perfect in sight. In foolishness, Wisdom, and wit I've a place; Though dwelling in virtue I live in disgrace. ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... to be, the most successful egotist, the most deluded hypocrite must inevitably meet up with himself some day and begin to know the truth ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... Priestess of Nagaya, whose relentless Will hath caused empires to totter and thrones to fall! HIS life a glory to the world? ..." and she pointed to Sah-luma's recumbent figure with a gesture of loathing and contempt, . . "HIS? ... the life of a drunken voluptuary? ... a sensual egotist? ... a poet who sees no genius save his own, and who condemns all vice, save that which he himself indulges in! A laurelled swine! ... a false god of art! ... and for him thou dost reject Me! ... ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... instinct of an egotist, M. Favoral understood so well what passed in the mind of his wife, that he dared not complain too much of what the little fellow cost. He made up his mind bravely; and when four years later, his daughter Gilberte was ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... all. I judged from my own experience, at the time when I was Medical Officer at the prison here. An educated criminal is almost invariably an inveterate egotist. We are all interesting to ourselves—but the more vile we are, the more intensely we are absorbed in ourselves. The very people who have, logically speaking, the most indisputable interest in concealing their crimes, are also the very people who, almost without exception, yield to the ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... weakness and of human suffering had been revealed to him,—something of that larger knowledge without which the sense of duty can never be fully acquired, nor the understanding of unselfish goodness, nor the spirit of tenderness. The suicide is not a coward; he is an egotist. ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... trees. His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character. The small bright eyes, buried deeply in his fleshy face, twinkled with intelligence and an unabated curiosity of life, but they were the eyes of a sensualist and an egotist. Enough of the man, for he is dead now, poor devil, dead at the very time that he had made sure that he had at last discovered the elixir of life. It is not with his complex character that I have to deal, but with the very strange and inexplicable incident which ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... more an egotist than when a boy. When he did not talk about himself his other subject of discussion was the charms of his wife, yet John, and others thrown with him, discovered he was not a fool. Under the tutelage ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... Mexico's Dictator; so I painted a picture that surpassed his own imaginings. He would have been suspicious of mere flattery, so I went far beyond that and inflamed him with such extravagant visions as only a child or an unblushing egotist like him could accept. I swelled his vanity; I inflated his conceit. For a moment, at least, I lifted him out of himself and raised him ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... you are an egotist and can't project yourself. I have the power the giftie gi'e me, and see myself as others see me. How's that for ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... concentrated in Anna, but besides the parallel story of Kitty, we have many other incidents and characters which often contribute nothing to the progress of the novel. They are a part of life, however, so Tolstoi includes them. One might say there is an attempt at unity, in the person of that sleek egotist, Stepan—his relation by blood and marriage to both Anna and Kitty makes him in some sense a link between the two couples. But he is more successful as a personage than as the keystone of an arch. The novel would really lose nothing by considerable cancellation. The ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... egotist, nor blinded by female partialities, saw his own grief in poor proud Pietro; and the more he thought of it the more he resolved to share his humble means with that unlucky artist; Pietro's sympathy would repay him. He tried to ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... exorbitant egotist narrowed, impoverished, and absorbed the power and existence of those who served him; and the universal cry of France and of Europe in 1814 was, Enough of him; ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... new idea of the humility, sincerity, and saintliness of Dr. Channing's character. In him self-distrust was admirably blended with a sublime conception of the capacity of man, and a sublime confidence in human nature. He was not an egotist, as passages in his writings may seem to indicate, for he was more severe upon himself than upon others, and numberless remarks in the present volumes show how sharp was the scrutiny to which he subjected ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... thank you, Miss Maude, but this is a very old-fashioned and a very simple entertainment I'm going to give. Just the things that I play to myself when I'm weary of listening to humanity tell of its ills and aches—the egotist! Then I look down into the beautifully clean inside of my fiddle, its good old mechanism without a flaw, and listen to the things it has to tell.... Thank you, just the same, Miss Maude; this is not a theme worthy of your brilliant rendition, but, as I said, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... an old bachelor; he had never loved anything in this world but himself. He was an egotist, too lazy to do any one an ill turn, but at the same time too selfish to do any one a kindness, unless it would tend directly to his own advantage. And yet, with an air of complaisance, as if he desired nothing so ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... any living being could be less selfish or vain, or less of an egotist than Dulcie. If she saw things chiefly as they were related to herself, it was because this problem of her life was rather an intricate one. Her position was not sufficiently simple ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... editor, who disclaims qualification as a philologist, regards these Lives as very valuable historical material, publication of which may serve to light up some dark corners of our Celtic ecclesiastical past. He is egotist enough to hope that the present "blazing of the track," inadequate and feeble though it be, may induce other and ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... up and stood over her. "To some self-centered cub—some puny egotist in his twenties, who'll make you a slave to his needs and whims, and discard you for another woman when you've worn out your youth and beauty," he cried. "But you won't marry him. I won't ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... know this. I now remember that, when you bound me, a thoughtless, selfish, indolent boy, you said that you would have torn your heart out rather than marry my father had you foreseen what was coming. This miserable egotist, Jeff Davis, and his scheme of empire, cost what it may, are more to you than husband or child. A mother would have said: 'You have reached manhood and have the rights of a man. I will advise you and seek to guide you. You know my feelings ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... fixed upon her character. If she had treated me with tolerable civility at first, I never should have thought about her. High-born and high-bred, she seemed to consider more what she thought of others than what others thought of her. Frank, candid, and affable, yet opinionated, insolent, and an egotist, her candour and affability appeared the effect of a naturally good temper, her insolence and egotism only those of a spoiled child. She seemed to talk of herself purely to oblige others, as the most interesting possible topic of conversation; for such ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... is not exactly one of bluff, but he is the central figure of the stage; like the actor's profession the judge's job makes him an egotist. Take for example the essential elements of his knowledge of the law. He is the Jus Dicens, the one saying the law, the name of judge being derived from the two Latin words. He is supposed to know the law, at least he ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... particularly of myself, sir; I am no egotist in such things, and wish to leave my own imperfections to the charity of my friends and neighbours. But, do you think, Mr. Dodge, that a marriage between Paul Effingham, for so I suppose he must be-called, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... fashionable—and that not a very long time ago—to speak of political society with a certain distaste, as a necessary evil, an irritating but inevitable restriction upon the "natural" sovereignty and entire self-government of the individual. That was the dream of the egotist. It was a theory in which men were seen to strut in the proud consciousness of their several and "absolute" capacities. It would be as instructive as it would be difficult to count the errors it has bred in political thinking. As a ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... into a description of his oratory, then related how he had won over juries in several important cases. His arms, his hands were going, his eyes were glistening, his voice had that rich, sympathetic tone which characterizes the egotist when the subject is himself. Miss Severence listened without comment; indeed, he was not sure that she was listening, so conventional was her expression. But, though she was careful to keep her face ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... common egotist, but her charm and magnetism had often taken her close to others' needs, and she was eager, always, to answer ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... own grief at my irreparable bereavement, I am no egotist; I keep my sorrow to myself. You will find some pleasant guests at my house, among others our joint ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as loved at home, how ample, The tribute to that modest spirit paid! To pushing quackery a high example, A calm rebuke to egotist parade! ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 17, 1891 • Various
... have a lovely time," she said. "I furnished the men for the party and I expected to have a grand time, but the first thing we did was to run into that inflated egotist calling herself Mary Louise Whiting, and like a fool, Janie Brunson introduced her to Peter Morrison. I had paired him with Janie on purpose to keep my eye ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... and a duller life for a young man grown, but I never knew it. I was perfectly happy." He spoke of his father at some length, and with a respect which I privately declined to emulate. Mr. Pickering had been, to my sense, a frigid egotist, unable to conceive of any larger vocation for his son than to strive to reproduce so irreproachable a model. "I know I have been strangely brought up," said my friend, "and that the result is something ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... he felt guilty. How was it that he had noticed nothing in her demeanour? He had been full of the misfortune of the firm, and she had made the misfortune her own, keeping silence about the grinding harshness of bookbinders. He was an insensible egotist, and girls were wondrous. At any rate this girl was wondrous. He had an intense desire to atone for his insensibility and his egotism by protecting her, spoiling her, soothing her into forgetfulness of her trouble.... Ah! He understood now what ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... chap and fond of you, but I must speak out what I think. He's got pluck, he's strong, he's in earnest; but he's got a damned hot temper, he's an egotist, and—he's not the man for you. If you marry him, as sure as I lie here, you'll be sorry for it. You're not your father's child for nothing; nice fellow as ever lived, but soft as butter. If you ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... thrust aside as unworthy. His warm, sympathetic heart ached for her; he knew she needed him as women like her must ever need the kind of man he wanted to be, the kind he had always striven to be. Had he been egotist enough to set a value upon himself, he would have told himself she was worthy of him; yet a damnable set of damnable man-made circumstances over which he had no control hedged them about and kept them apart. It was terrible, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... the father of Arthur Schopenhauer, was a banker and shipping merchant of the city of Danzig, Germany. He was a successful man, and, like all successful men, he was an egotist. Before the world will believe in you, you must believe in yourself. And another necessary element in success is that you must exaggerate your own importance, and the importance of your work. Self-esteem will not alone make you successful, but without a goodly jigger of self-esteem, success will ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... answer my question concerning the unworthiness of mankind, when I said I could no longer love or trust them! You feel, however, that I am right, and you will know how to pardon me, when I appear to the world as a cold, hard-hearted egotist. It is true my heart has become hardened in the fire of many and deep sufferings! I loved mankind very dearly, marquis; perhaps that is the reason I now despise them so intensely; because I know they are ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... to show that Miss Dix is a woman endowed with warm feelings and great kindness of heart. It is only those who do not know her, or who have only met her in the conflict of opposing wills, who pronounce her, as some have done, a cold and heartless egotist. Opinionated she may be, because convinced of the general soundness of her ideas, and infallibility of her judgment. If the success of great designs, undertaken and carried through single-handed, furnish warrant for such conviction, ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... right," replied Claude, shaking his head; "I'm an egotist. I can't even say that I paint for the good of my country; for, in the first place, my sketches frighten everybody, and then, when I'm busy painting, I think about nothing but the pleasure I take in it. When I'm painting, it is as though I were tickling myself; ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... Caesar would at that time have been the last that any Roman would have selected as the master of the world. He was young. He was small. He seemed almost frail. He was an unspeakable egotist. He was fastidious in his dress. I have read that he even used perfumes. And how could the common eye discern, through all of these externals of frippery, the lion heart, the eagle vision, and the ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... command.... He was to be instantaneously obeyed, especially by my mother, whom he very benevolently married for love; but took care to remind her of the obligation when she dared in the slightest instance to question his absolute authority." He was, in a word, an egotist of the worst description, who found no brutality too low once his anger was aroused, and no amount of despotism too odious when the rights and comforts of others interfered with his own desires. When contradicted or thwarted his rage was ungovernable, ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... disagreement with the details of Palmerston's policy was in reality merely a symptom of the fundamental differences between the characters of the two men. In Albert's eyes Palmerston was a coarse, reckless egotist, whose combined arrogance and ignorance must inevitably have their issue in folly and disaster. Nothing could be more antipathetic to him than a mind so strangely lacking in patience, in reflection, ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... hope that Audubon might buy some of his colored drawings; but when he saw the wonderful pictures which Audubon had made, he acknowledged that his own were inferior—a sore confession for Rafinesque, who was an egotist of the first water. Audubon had but humble quarters, for it was hard work in those days for him to keep the wolf from the door; nevertheless, he entertained the distinguished traveler, whom he was himself destined to far eclipse. ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... desires. I will imagine such a person, pre-eminently gifted with this constitution and its concomitant forces. I will place him in the loftier grades of society. I will suppose his desires emphatically those of the sensualist—he has, therefore, a strong love of life. He is an absolute egotist—his will is concentrated in himself—he has fierce passions—he knows no enduring, no holy affections, but he can covet eagerly what for the moment he desires—he can hate implacably what opposes itself to his objects—he can commit fearful crimes, ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... strange and subtle differences which separate us from one another—refuse to give up the secrets of their quality save at the magical summons of what we call "style." Mr. Pepys was a quaint fellow and no Goethean egotist; but he managed to put a peculiar flavour of style—with a rhythm and a colour all its own—into ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... to this man any day," said Dennis emphatically. "He took just the opposite view. This man Olvery, like so many specialists, is evidently a dogmatic egotist." ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... the romance of your early life, touched by your courage, charmed by your affectionate nature, I said to myself, 'Here is what I seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of your life, in all the culture which I have sought to bestow on your docile childhood, I repeat, that I have been but the egotist. And now, when you have reached that age, when it becomes me to speak, and you to listen—now, when you are under the sacred roof of my own mother—now I ask you, can you accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed, have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... Catherine because his children had all died but one, and that was a manifest token of the wrath of Providence. The capacity for convincing himself of his own righteousness is the most effective weapon in the egotist's armoury, and Henry's egotism touched the sublime. His conscience was clear, whatever other people might think of the maze of apparent inconsistencies in which he was involved. In 1528 he was in some fear of death from the plague; fear of ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... the table with the air of a high priestess, hieratic and resigned. The Colonel approached it, a lighted candle in each hand. For one moment of time the egotist seemed to be rapt beyond himself; he was serving the great god Whist. Cards were the Colonel's passion; he loved them with delight that was madness, madness that was delight. Cards for cards' sake, the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... with which they listened to him, or the success which might eventually crown his labours. Such little matters of detail never troubled him much. His teaching was as the German philosophy calls it, 'subjective'; it was to benefit himself, not others. He was a learned egotist. He was a well of science, and the pulleys worked uneasily when you wanted to draw anything out of it. In a word, he was ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... say that such a scheme could only find hospitable reception in the head of a spiteful, inflated, and unprincipled egotist, for such an egotist Mr. Johnson assuredly is. It is needless to say that it would break down through the refusal of General Grant to give up his command, and through the refusal of the great body of the army to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... universality; it can be obtained only by outward as well as inward observation; not by that habit of intense brooding over individual consciousness, of making the individual mind the centre and the circumference of every thing, a habit which only makes of the writer an egotist, and limits the reach of his mind.' Mr. JAMES has certain types of character which he generally reproduces in each successive novel. His heroine is idealized into something which is neither spirit, nor flesh and blood. 'His women, like his men, are ideas and feelings embodied; they are constructed, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... all its lines sharply defined.... he made free to lecture the great ones of the earth, and was very round with them, even ridiculing them at his pleasure. He held the field for Confucius—not the Taoist, but the Mencian Confucius—against all comers; smote Yang Chu the Egotist hip and thigh; smote gentle Mo Ti, the Altruist; preached fine and practical ethics; and had no patience with those dreamers of the House of Laotse.—A man sent from the Gods, I should say, to do ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... there was none of which Isabel was more sensible than of her companion's preference for making Miss Archer herself a topic. Though she referred frequently to the incidents of her own career she never lingered upon them; she was as little of a gross egotist as she was of a ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... cross; starve, when necessary, in a garret all his life; study women and live on their work and care as Darwin studied worms and lived upon sheep; work his nerves into rags without payment, a sublime altruist in his disregard of himself, an atrocious egotist in his disregard of others. Here Woman meets a purpose as impersonal, as irresistible as her own; and the clash is sometimes tragic. When it is complicated by the genius being a woman, then the game is one ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... happens in spiritual matters, awakened to the importance of all of them at the same time." He paused, as if realizing for the first time how personal was the story for which she had asked. "You will think me an egregious egotist, Miss Holland, ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... direction to "love thyself last." It is, to say the least of it, unseemly for a man to be constantly making himself the subject of conversation. At times it lays a man open to the attacks which his style certainly invites—as was the case with the egotist who dared to talk much of himself in the presence of Dr. Johnson, whom he had greatly irritated by his conceited talk. The Doctor availed himself of an ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost |
