"Public-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... involuntarily wishing that fate had reserved it for some less dirty purpose. As the city grows, it must of necessity climb the steep bluffs by which it is encompassed; and on these it is not too much to imagine, at no far period, the squares, terraces, and crescents of a wealthy and public-spirited community; whilst, within the crowded triangle beneath, the clang of the noisy steam-engine and the black smoke will lie drowned, and along the narrow strips of level soil skirting its rivers will rise the warehouses and wharves of ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... my own class, and life is not long enough to change it, and to learn the habits of another. I have no quarrel with the aristocracy, and do not in the least wish to level them to the ground. I am quite prepared to acknowledge them as the upper class. They are, as a rule, public-spirited, courteous barbarians, with a sense of honour and responsibility. But they take a great many things as matters of course which are to me simply alien. I no more wish to live with them than Wright, my self-respecting gardener, wishes to live with ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... a very popular man; he was universally beloved; he was generous and public-spirited. He was unselfish in his ordinary dealings, and always ready to lend a helping hand to those about him. His success was not owing to a close, hard, grasping nature, but was the result of fine business abilities, coupled with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... arsenal that fled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, and telegraph, and special train, clung to ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... Explosives, of the American Railway Association, and the Bureau of Mines, of the United States Geological Survey, were independent products of a general agitation due to the appreciation by a limited number of public-spirited citizens of the gravity of the "explosive" problem. It is the plain duty of the average citizen to become familiar with work of this kind prosecuted in his behalf. He may be able to help the work by assisting to overcome misguided opposition ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson
... gone back to interviewing. Poor old Adeline lived in the pious hope of making Northwick's old age comfortable in their beautiful home on the money he had stolen; and now that she's dead it goes to his creditors. Why, even Billy Gerrish, a high-minded, public-spirited man like William B. Gerrish,—couldn't have his way about Northwick. No, sir; Northwick himself couldn't! Look how he fooled away his time there in Canada, after he got off with money enough to start him on the high road to fortune again. He couldn't budge of his own ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... worse than ever this year," sighed Dr. Helen, "and, really, I think they are harder to bear when we all know that a little public-spirited co-operation would rid us of them. Can't you get the people who draw books at the new library to agree to sprinkle ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... to the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock he was ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... advertise yourself to all the world," he snarled, "as an unworthy Pontiff and a contemptible caitiff. You attempt to entrap me into the meanest unfairness! You pose as a public-spirited citizen solicitous about the sanctity of the worship of Vesta and I find you a pettifogging wretch actuated by spite and malice. You desire not a fair test, but the ruin of a woman you are low-minded enough to hate. Eugh!" With ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... 1788, no certain information was obtained concerning Central Africa. While British enterprise and courage had made most important discoveries in every other quarter of the world, the ignorance which prevailed concerning Africa was felt to be most discreditable. A few public-spirited individuals, desirous of wiping away this stigma, formed themselves into an Association, and subscribed the requisite funds for the purpose of sending out intelligent and courageous travellers upon this hazardous ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... of the Bureau of American Republics express to Mr. Andrew Carnegie its acceptance and grateful appreciation of his generous and public-spirited engagement to supply the funds for the proposed new building for the Union of American Republics. The Board shares with Mr. Carnegie the hope that the institution whose work will thus be promoted may further the cause of peace and justice among nations and the sincere and ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... Arundel,(89) his great friend and relation, came to him soon after: he repeated the conversation, and said, he did not know but he might die by night. "God bless you! If I see you no more, take this as my last farewell!" He died in his chair at seven o'clock. He certainly is a public loss; for he was public-spirited and inflexibly honest, though prejudice and passion were so predominant in him that honesty had not fair play, whenever he had been set upon any point that had been given him for right. In his lawsuit with my Lady Portland he was scurrilously ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... take up largely and at small cost large areas of Surrey heaths, etc., to provide air and recreation ground for an evergrowing metropolis. In this manner, too, public commons and quasi-public commons might be secured to the public all over England: a public-spirited town-council or a local Kyrle Society would have a wide field and an ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... missionary enterprises should go on; in fact, I do not believe he ever opposed anything in his life. No one was more willing to vote town taxes and road-repairs and schoolhouses than he. If you could call him spirited at all, he was public-spirited. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... be necessary to bring home to the railway companies, and for the execution of this part of my Scheme I must wait till I get some manager sufficiently public-spirited to try the experiment. When such a man is found, I purpose to set at once about my Sea-Side Establishment. This will present the following special advantages, which I am quite certain will be duly appreciated by the very poorest of the London ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... was an intelligent man, and he had seen a great deal of the world. As a citizen of London, he had called a public meeting, at the Paul's Head Tavern, to petition for peace; and this public-spirited and truly constitutional act was at that period quite sufficient to draw down the vengeance of Pitt and his myrmidons. His ruin was decided upon by them, and he was handed over to the care of the minister's pliant, powerful and dangerous tools, the Judges of the then Court of King's Bench, the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... states and cities where they had the majority. In New York City, for instance, the local Democratic organization, known as Tammany Hall, passed under the sway of a group of politicians headed by "Boss" Tweed. He plundered the city treasury until public-spirited citizens, supported by Samuel J. Tilden, the Democratic leader of the state, rose in revolt, drove the ringleader from power, and sent him to jail. In Philadelphia, the local Republican bosses were guilty of offenses as odious as those ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... these places "grouped," and I was displeased with Juliet for not being buried nearer home—it was an oversight—but perhaps it had been arranged for the benefit of the carriage-drivers. Juliet was public-spirited, and thought of all classes, and their interests. I did not think of all these extenuating circumstances then, however, and so I said unbelieving ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... extraordinary mineral resources, our almost undisputed control of one of the great staples of the world, the year 1876 found us a prostrate people almost beyond precedent. To this breach came several thoughtful, public-spirited, eloquent men of the newspaper guild. It was our good fortune that in Dawson of the "Charleston News and Courier," in Major Burke, Page M. Baker, and Colonel Nicholson of New Orleans; in Major Belo of Galveston; in ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... acquirements he was possessed with endowments. His personality was inspiring and triumphant. Undisputed sway had moulded him to the likeness of a fatted Roman emperor. The tones of his voice were not otherwise than clarion. To say that the General was public-spirited would fall short of doing him justice. He had spirit enough for a dozen publics. And as a sure foundation for it all, he had a heart that was big and stanch. Yes; ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... they should at last become so numerous that they would be driven out of the towns into the country and would be scuttling over the moors, downs and woods like black beetles in kitchens in the night. They were better than she had been, these children; more public-spirited and more in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... and, in spite of a thousand tragic disappointments, so hopeful. Every man is a bad man, every man is a feeble man and every man is a good man. My motives come and go. Yours do the same. We vary in response to the circumstances about us. Given a proper atmosphere, most men will be public-spirited, right-living, generous. Given perplexities and darkness, most of us can be cowardly and vile. People say you cannot change human nature and perhaps that is true, but you can change its responses endlessly. The other day I was in Bohemia, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... special reserve units will be maintained at their full establishments as feeders to the expeditionary force. In addition to the four new armies a considerable number of what may be designated local battalions have been specially raised by the public-spirited initiative of cities, towns, or individuals. Several more are in course of formation, and I have received many offers of this character. The territorial force is making great strides in efficiency and will before many months be ready to ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... is one of the most prominent and public-spirited citizens of Iredell county, and implicit reliance may be ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... public-spirited master of the Three Tuns Inn, and the chief contractor for conveying the mails, had in the morning of this day placed in the front of his house His Majesty's Arms, neatly carved in gilt. In the evening his house was illuminated in a very elegant manner with variegated lamps, the principal ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... country, and there are towns of no great size or wealth in the manufacturing districts (Keighley, for example) in which almost the whole of it has, for some time, been carried out, so far as the means at the disposal of the energetic and public-spirited men who have taken the matter in hand permitted. The thing can be done; I have endeavoured to show good grounds for the belief that it must be done, and that speedily, if we wish to hold our own in the war of industry. I doubt not that it will be done, whenever its absolute necessity ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Baba and Aladdin and Sindbad will tell the company, there in the firelight before your very eyes, how they felt that they owed something to' others because of the wealth they had, gained. Aladdin became a serious and public-spirited man, though as a boy he had been of little worth. Ali Baba and Sindbad helped others and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... aristocratic in Virginia; in the former colony the mass of voters took part most actively in local government, while in the latter a few men constituted the ruling class. This does not mean that local affairs in Virginia were badly managed, for the leading men were on the whole intelligent and public-spirited; and in the years of the Revolution they were among the foremost in the defense of American liberties. In New England, however, it was noticeable that the mass of voters were intelligent and understood the practical management of political affairs—a ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... or not; and besides, he had received no regular application in his behalf—he did not, therefore, feel himself at all inclined to go to the field as his second. This refusal drove the poor Captain to despair. He conjured his friend to be more public-spirited, and entreated him to consider the reputation of the Well, which was to them as a common country, and the honour of the company to which they both belonged, and of which Mr. Winterblossom was in a manner the proper representative, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... overpower purely self-regarding motives. So far, it follows, the action of such motives may be legitimately assumed by utilitarians. He is, therefore, not an 'egoistic' utilitarian. He thinks, as he says in a letter referring to his book, that he is 'as humane and public-spirited as his neighbours.' A man must be a wretched being who does not care more for many things outside his household than for his own immediate pains and pleasures. Had he been called upon to risk health or life ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to avoid the calamity? Quite the reverse; the aversion to a police assessment was so strong, that nothing whatever had been done. Glamorganshire had only established one on a small scale, after repeated and earnest efforts on the part of its able and public-spirited lord-lieutenant, the Marquis of Bute; and the Rebecca riots surprised the adjoining counties without any preparation whatever. And even after those disgraceful disorders had continued several weeks, and rendered South Wales the scandal of the empire, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... should forget his station and turn his efforts to vulgar effectiveness, the common sense of the community-the sense of pecuniary decency—would presently reject his work and set him right. An example of this is seen in the administration of bequests made by public-spirited men for the single purpose (at least ostensibly) of furthering the facility of human life in some particular respect. The objects for which bequests of this class are most frequently made at present are most frequently ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... Some of our public-spirited men of wealth cannot do better than to look in this direction as a field in which to make their mark upon the uplift of their race and their time. There is a far greater demand for this class of benevolent investments than there is for added colleges or universities. ...
— White Slaves • Louis A Banks
... great taste for Miss Burgess' conversation, admiring greatly her whole-hearted devotion to Endbury's social welfare. She had once said of her to Dr. Melton, "There is what I call a public-spirited woman." He had answered, "I envy Flora Burgess with the fierce embittered envy I feel for a cow"—an ambiguous compliment which Mrs. Emery had resented on ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... bless the woman with the black mittens, for making me laugh so this morning! I take her to be a kind of public-spirited Mrs. Sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. God bless you both, my dear friends, in this Christmas and New Year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to Gad's Hill with ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... interesting because it is one of the most inconsistent of books. Never were the forms of Socialism and Communism animated by so entirely an Individualist soul. The hands are the hands of Plato, the wide-thinking Greek, but the voice is the voice of a humane, public-spirited, but limited and very practical English gentleman who takes the inferiority of his inferiors for granted, dislikes friars and tramps and loafers and all undisciplined and unproductive people, and is ruler in his own ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... of these United States," I cried in a loud, public-spirited voice, at which the C.P.O. choked and turned dangerously red. It seems that not only was I not quite right, but that I ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... carried us over five miles of road, and brought us to Mangonah, the beautifully situated dwelling of R. W. Nash, Esq., barrister at law, the most active-minded and public-spirited man in the colony. After a short delay, to laugh at one of our friend's last coined and most facetious anecdotes, and also to visit his botanical garden, we rattled off again to Guildford; a scattered hamlet that was made acquainted with our approach by loud strains ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... not to be wondered at that the greater part of the necessary funds should have been drawn from a very limited circle of public-spirited men capable of grasping the significance of a movement the practical effect of which would appear to be permanent only to those who had a deep insight into Irish problems.[41] The difficulty of a successful appeal to a wider public has been the impossibility ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... beautiful tributes were paid to him by his colleagues and friends. A committee of the citizens of Baltimore was appointed to raise a fund for the sustenance and education of the poet's family. They were aided in this by admirers of Lanier and public-spirited citizens throughout the country. Meantime his fame was growing, the publication of his poems in 1884 giving ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... Westminster. He was known as the friend of Dr. Johnson, Jonas Hanway, Edmund Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others. Among his acquaintance, indeed, were most of the literary, and eminent professional, and public-spirited men of the times. At court, also, he was well known, and had the esteem of his majesty (George III.), with whom he frequently conversed. His friends were numerous also, in both houses of the legislature. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... there. Some 1,700 Jews live in the towns, and seem more numerous and prominent in the north than in the south. They belong to the middle class; many are wealthy. These are often charitable and public-spirited, and active in municipal rather than in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... borough, unlike a country town, has very little corporate life of its own. You cannot get up as much enthusiasm for Kilburn, say, as a social or historical entity, as you can for Winchester or Canterbury. You may perform civic duties, if you are public-spirited enough, with business-like zeal, and if you are borough councillor you may be proud of the nice new public baths which you have been instrumental in presenting to the community. But the ordinary man ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... very last years of his life a public-spirited citizen, entering heartily into any and every scheme which promised advantage to his fellow man. His native State was especially dear to him. He was very fond of his home and of his family. He was a devout Christian, and scrupulous in every business transaction not to mislead ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... town. The place had been fortified in former days, but after the home defence of Holland was re-organized and a System of defence on a coherent and logically conceived basis accepted, all fortified towns disappeared and became open cities, of which this was one. The public-spirited lawyer grasped the situation at once, and, spurred by his influence and enthusiasm, the Town Council adopted a large scheme of streets, roads, parks, and squares, so that when all was completed the ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... talk, fancies and projects of another, nor guess at what he is about, or why he is doing it. Think upon nothing but what you could willingly tell about, so that if your soul were laid open there would appear nothing but what was sincere, good-natured, and public-spirited. A man thus qualified is a sort of priest and minister of the gods, and makes a right use of the divinity within him. Be cheerful; depend not at all on foreign supports, nor beg your happiness of another; don't throw away your legs to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... most interesting building in this section of old Boston is Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty" whose dignified, old-fashioned proportions were not lost—thanks to Bulfinch—when it was enlarged. A gift of a public-spirited citizen, this building has served in a double capacity for a hundred and seventy-seven years, having public market-stalls below and a large hall above—a hall which is never rented, but used freely by the people whenever they wish to discuss ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... the war with the utmost vigour; proofs which must convince mankind that the ancient spirit of the British nation still subsisted in its full force. They were given to understand that the king had taken all such measures as appeared the most conducive to the accomplishment of their public-spirited views and wishes; that with their assistance, crowned by the blessing of God upon the conduct and bravery of the combined army, his majesty had been enabled, not only to deliver his dominions in Germany from the oppressions and devastations of the French, but also to push his advantages on this ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... of the two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... letter written by Mr. Adams to Her Majesty's Secretary, there had come into the county with the settlers from the West Indies a learned, public-spirited layman named Charles Griffin, who, seeing the crying need of the people, had established by 1705 a school on Symons Creek, for the children of the ...
— In Ancient Albemarle • Catherine Albertson
... began to practice it in the town and county of Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man. Everything that ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... the cheer of dawn in New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty and righteousness above ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... here displayed? No lady can be more chary of the order of her drawing-room than are the authorities at Brussels of these beautiful promenades. Then, too, here are avenues of trees that make you in love with the city as you enter it. I do wish all our towns would raise committees of public-spirited men, who should undertake, by voluntary contributions, or town action, to plant the roadsides that form the entrances to these places. I was delighted, some months ago, to hear that a few gentlemen at Haverhill, in Massachusetts, had banded together for this purpose. Charley, if you live ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... flagrantly practised in the State. This allegation was supported by a voluminous brief, giving names and dates and particular instances of barbarity. The colonel was not without some quiet support in this movement; there were several public-spirited men in the county, including his able lieutenant Caxton, Dr. Price and old General Thornton, none of whom were under any obligation to Fetters, and who all acknowledged that something ought to be done to purge the ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... into the House to regulate these abuses?" Defoe little knew the prejudice any reasonable measure would arouse when he added, "I am sure no honest member in either honourable House will be against so reasonable a Bill; the business is for some public-spirited patriot to break the ice by bringing it into the House, and I dare lay my life it passes." He would ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... ever been found effectual to preserve any man against the corruption of nature and example, is a habit of life and communication of counsels with the most virtuous and public-spirited men of the age you live in. Such a society cannot be kept without advantage or deserted without shame. For this rule of conduct I may be called in reproach a PARTY MAN; but I am little affected with such aspersions. In the way which they call party, I worship the constitution ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... was to hurt the doctor in his most tender vanity. It was one of his most fervid beliefs that he had selected a growing town, conspicuous for its enterprise. In his young manhood he had meant to do fine things. He was public-spirited, charitable, a death-fighter of courage and persistence. Though not a religious man, he had one holy passion, that of the physician. He respected himself and loved his wife, but he had from boyhood confused the ideas ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... is, then, very closely related to this commendable quality in men of a right intellectual and moral development that we call public spirit. The chief difference lies in this: that whereas all professional men may be public-spirited in a general sense, each professional man should, in addition, manifest a special and technical sort of public spirit that pertains to the nature of his calling. The lawyer should have a particularly ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw
... celebrated of the earlier Armenians in Madras was Peter Uscan, Armenian by race but Roman Catholic in religion, who lived in Madras for more than forty years, till his death there in 1751, at the age of seventy. He was a rich and public-spirited merchant. He built the Marmalong Bridge over the Adyar river, on one of the pillars of which a quaint inscription is still to be read, and he left a fund for its maintenance; he also renewed the multitude of stone steps that lead up to the top of St. Thomas's Mount. His inscribed ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... the elements of moral enthusiasm among the people. His counterpart was Henry Wilson, his colleague in the Senate. Wilson had risen from the shoe-maker's bench, and knew the common people as a cobbler knows his tools. He was genial in temperament; public-spirited and generous in his aims; a most skilful tactician, and not over-scrupulous. He joined the Know-nothings, with no sympathy for their proscriptive creed, but in the break-up of parties using them for the anti-slavery cause,—and to secure ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... The London Bridge Committee recommended the parishioners of St. Saviour to cause the Chapel to be pulled down, and their selfish suggestion would have been complied with, had not some enlightened and public-spirited individuals stepped forth to frustrate the levellers. The parishioners now became two parties. One contended for the restoration of the Chapel, as "one of the most chaste and elegant specimens of early pointed architecture of the thirteenth ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... that when the first meeting of that Council was held, on March 8 in that year, Mr. Christie travelled 2,000 miles by dog-train from Fort Simpson to Winnipeg to attend it. It was a good opportunity for collecting mileage and perquisites, but the probability is that this public-spirited man and the great Company he served made the contribution to the country. His usefulness was so apparent at the meeting that he was asked to help the Government in the great task of treaty-making which had baffled so many ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... its plans which cannot fail to largely interfere with the fullest realization of its possibilities for good. This danger may be wholly obviated, the Institute placed on a secure foundation, and its future usefulness be assured, if some public-spirited men of wealth, desirous of conferring the incalculable benefits upon future generations, which will follow upon the realization of the Institute's plans, will provide for it an endowment, the income of which ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... of L——, a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased the museum, which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural history had induced him to form; and the sum thus obtained, together with that raised by subscription, sufficed not only to discharge all debts due by the deceased, but to insure to the orphans the benefits of an education ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... wish to extend my thanks in particular to the American Geographical Society of New York, and still more especially to the American Museum of Natural History of New York, with whom I have had the honour of being connected more or less closely for ten years. To its public-spirited and whole-souled President, Mr. Morris K. Jesup, I am under profound obligations. I also take pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who initiated my Mexican ventures with a subscription of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... triumph of mechanism that the baskets seem positively to go through complex processes of thought and selection. Talking of thought and selection, by the way, every one connected with the library speaks with enthusiasm of President McKinley's wise and public-spirited choice of the new chief librarian. Mr. Herbert Putnam, late of the Boston Public Library, is the ideal man for the post, and his appointment was made, not only without suspicion of jobbery, but in the teeth of strong political influence. Mr. McKinley's ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... first, that he and the society of Ravenna should enjoy some fine singing during the coming Carnival; and, secondly that the Lalli should produce such an enthusiasm as should lead all the theatrical world to think and say that a great stroke had been achieved, and a very public-spirited thing done in bringing about the engagement. He was anxious that the step, which he had had a large share in taking, should result in a great and ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There really has been a florid ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... though neither possessed votes in that memorable year 1832, they shared the same liberal sympathies. Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking; and the advent of the public-spirited, contradictory, yet affectionate Felix, into Treby life had made a welcome epoch to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... "a town that has a few public-spirited citizens of his type is to be congratulated. But here's where I leave you, and hike across lots to my shack, where a nice bath awaits me. See you later, Toby; and sorry you can't ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... bought uniforms and new horns for the band often enough for it to do something public-spirited once in a while without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack—the new glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... to a certain type of individual who has no scruples about graft. Among your political henchmen there is just such an individual and he wants the appointment. There is another man whom you might appoint, if you chose to, a high-minded, public-spirited man, fitter and better for it in every way; but the political henchman was an important factor in obtaining for you the office which you now occupy; his good will and influence may be very helpful in your future campaigns, whereas the other ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... be public-spirited!" mourned Raymonde to her chums afterwards. "I'm sure I gave everybody a treat, and especially Gibbie. I'm a martyr to the cause of emergencies. For goodness' sake don't any of you drink poison ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... carefully, and then read the long account of the new archdeacon's life, and of the work he had accomplished at St. Margaret's! The article was most laudatory, and spoke of his ability as a preacher, an organiser, and a public-spirited citizen. It referred to Dr. Rannage as a hard worker, who visited his people, rich and poor, in season and out of season, doing all he could for their temporal and ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... low portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers. To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side, compact mud huts, and placed there in huge earthenware vessels, holding perhaps fifty gallons each; these are kept supplied with pure spring-water and provided with a wooden drinking-scoop. Fourteen ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... use of his revenues; but it is no disrespect to him to say, what authentic information well warrants me in saying, that the use made of a property equally valid, by his brother,[101] the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen, was far more laudable and far more public-spirited. Can one hear of the proscription of such persons, and the confiscation of their effects, without indignation, and horror? He is not a man who does not feel such emotions on such occasions. He does not deserve the name of a free man ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Senn was a magnate in the frontier newspaper field. His career is particularly interesting because it is, in more ways than one, typical of the qualities which made many western men successful. Basically, he was a reformer, a public-spirited man who backed, with every means at his command, and great personal courage, the issues he believed for the good of the country, and fought with equal intensity ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... satisfactory forms of entertainment that we can offer to him is a morning reception. At an informal matin,e we may bring to meet him such authors, artists, clergymen, lawyers, editors, statesmen, rich and public-spirited citizens, and beautiful and cultivated women of society, as we may be ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... the thermometer had recorded a hundred and twenty in the shade, spirits ran high. The subalterns—for whose exuberant fooling Honor had a very tender tolerance—had 'chorussed' themselves hoarse and thirsty; and were receiving the reward of the public-spirited out of long misty tumblers, that fizzed and bubbled. Peters had forgotten his shyness in a discussion with Norton on the vexed question of cholera infection, and the probable futility of quarantine; while Mrs Peters, listening anxiously, made inconsequent ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... successful means of securing a library foundation that shall be permanent is found in uniting private benefactions with public money to found or to maintain a library. Many public-spirited citizens, fortunately endowed with large means, have offered to erect library buildings in certain places, on condition that the local authorities would provide the books, and the means of maintaining ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... metropolis proves to be his instalment as scrivener in an attorney's office. No wonder he chafes at this; no wonder, that, in his wanderings about town, he is charmed by an advertisement which invited all loyal and public-spirited young men to repair to a certain "rendezvous"; he goes to the rendezvous, and presently finds himself a recruit in one of His Majesty's regiments which is filling up for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... seem very attractive until you consider those houses," Bobby confessed. "You must remember that the city hasn't room to grow, and must take note that it is trying to spread in this direction. Wouldn't a fellow be doing a rather public-spirited thing, and one in which he might take quite a bit of satisfaction, if he drained that swamp, filled it, laid out streets and turned the whole stretch into a cluster of homes in place ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... up the contest; but I let him have a final tweak after seeing the announcement of his splendid and public-spirited action to help on ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... behind him even Lord Camelford's generous design of bestowing Old Sarum on the Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county representation. Not content with this, in order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for the relief of India, did not forget the poor, rotten Constitution of his native country. For her, he did not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House,—to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... assistance afforded him by the Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection of eagles and owls presented by them to the Zoological Society, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... along the Whitlow road, with oak boughs ornamenting the horses' heads; and, to quote the account of this interesting scene which was sent to the Rotherby Guardian, 'loud cheers immediately testified to the sympathy of the honest fellows collected there, with the public-spirited exertions of their fellow-townsmen.' Bill Powers, whose bloodshot eyes, bent hat, and protuberant altitude, marked him out as the natural leader of the assemblage, undertook to interpret the common sentiment by stopping the chaise, ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdes y Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man than the king. Don Bartolome, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... perfect structure of society will fall by its own weight, or rather be undermined by the principle of population, because in the highest possible state of the subjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawless and unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sighted and public-spirited, they will shew themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. This we conceive to be the boldest paralogism that ever was offered to the world, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... It won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home is to be founded ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... people's life. They cleanse and discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the Harrison Avenue district,—in my day there were none,—and such as there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more thorough: he learns ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... greatest possible difficulty in fixing young men long enough at college. Innumerable devices have been tried with considerable ingenuity to remedy this evil, and the best possible intentions by the professors and other public-spirited persons who are sincerely grieved to see so many incompetent, half-qualified men in almost every ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... done, or be expected to be done, by the government of the Union or the States; but in this, as in every other department of liberal art and science, the great dependence,—and may I not add, the safe dependence?—as it ever has been, must continue to be upon the bounty of enlightened, liberal, and public-spirited individuals. ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... grow up to take on by easy stages the characteristics of adulthood. At the end of the process it is expected that they will be able to do the things that adults do; to think as they think; to bear adult responsibilities; to be efficient in work; to be thoughtful public-spirited citizens; and the like. The individual who reaches this level of attainment is educated, even though he may never have attended school. The one who falls below this level is not truly educated, even though he may have had a ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... and other States had abolition societies composed entirely of persons of Color. "The Massachusetts General Colored Association" organized in the early days of the agitation movement. It had among its leading men the most intelligent and public-spirited Colored citizens of Boston. James G. Barbadoes, Coffin Pitts, John E. Scarlett, the Eastons, Hosea and Joshua; Wm. C. Nell, Thomas Cole, Thomas Dalton, Frederick Brimley, Walker Lewis, and John ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... "Hall of Song," used for musical contests and declamations. The original building was raised by Pericles, in imitation, it is said, of the tent of Xerxes. The present ruins are those of the structure erected in the second century A.D. by a public-spirited ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Augustine Washington lived when his son George was born. The land had been in the family ever since Augustine's grandfather, John Washington, had bought it, when he came over from England in 1657. John Washington was a soldier and a public-spirited man, and so the parish in which he lived—for Virginia was divided into parishes as some other colonies into townships—was named Washington. It is a quiet neighborhood; not a sign remains of the old house, and the only mark of the place is a stone ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Mr. Stover," they urged. "You're a public-spirited man, as you've shown. Do it for your neighbors' sake if not for your own. You want the ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... which is a flattering disease. Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar had found the sweets of arbitrary power, and each being a check to the other's growth, struck up a false friendship amongst themselves and divided the government betwixt them, which none of them was able to assume alone. These were the public-spirited men of their age—that is, patriots for their own interest. The commonwealth looked with a florid countenance in their management; spread in bulk, and all the while was wasting in the vitals. Not to trouble your lordship with the repetition of what you ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... death of a member of Parliament, a prominent county magistrate, the owner of large estates, and an active, public-spirited man in all local and national matters, was it known by those who had not seen him, that it was but the misshapen block of a man that had ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... trainings" of half a day each in May and October, and one "general training" or "regimental muster" of one day in October. While no uniforms were required at the trainings, except to distinguish the officers, yet there were usually enough public-spirited people in every town to furnish uniforms to the crack company. The other company, the tatterdemalions of the town, was called "the flood-wood." The regiment consisted of one company each of artillery, grenadiers, light infantry, and riflemen from adjoining towns,—the cavalry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... abolitionist,—Henry Clay began in 1798, being then twenty-one years of age, to write a series of articles for a newspaper, advocating the gradual abolition of slavery in Kentucky. He afterwards spoke on that side at public meetings. Young as he was, he took the lead of the public-spirited young men who strove to purge the State from this iniquity; but in the Convention the proposition was voted down by a majority so decisive as to banish the subject from politics for fifty years. Still more honorable was it in Mr. Clay, that, in 1829, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... surcharged with patriotism to make his presentation speech. Hearty applause greeted the colonel, for, notwithstanding his well-known idiosyncrasies, he was extremely popular in Chestnut Hill. He had been a brave soldier, an exemplary neighbor, a prominent and public-spirited citizen. Why should he not receive a generous welcome? He graciously bowed his acknowledgment, and when the hand-clapping ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... (1787). Though not without a degree of dignity, they want energy and interest, and are now forgotten. He also produced a few dramas, which had little success. He is best remembered by his beautiful ballad, Hosier's Ghost, beginning "As near Portobello lying." G. had the reputation of a useful and public-spirited citizen. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... he approached nearer, he distinctly heard the voice of Tom Random, who was haranguing the mob. The device and motto which the confectioner displayed in his window displeased this gentleman, who, beside his public-spirited abhorrence of all men of a party opposite to his own, had likewise private cause of dislike to this confectioner, who had refused ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... that about a month ago there were special rates offered to the public for a round trip to the City of Washington. The price of the ticket being exceedingly low, we secured a loan of twenty dollars from a public-spirited citizen of Austin, by mortgaging our press and cow, with the additional security of our brother's name and a slight draught on Major Hutchinson ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... disregard to his private interest, that in his old age he was himself supported by a pension of somewhat more than a hundred pounds a year, raised for him at the solicitation of Sir Sampson Gideon and Dr. Brocklesby, by the voluntary subscriptions of public-spirited persons, at the head of whom was the Prince of Wales. On application being made to this venerable and good old man, to know whether a subscription being opened for his benefit would not offend him, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... evidence of many excellent intentions, but could not be called a brilliant success as a whole—although one astute Parliamentary candidate did secure an overwhelming majority of votes in Waddy after declaring the schoolhouse to be an ornament to the township. The public-spirited persons who contributed windows, it was tacitly agreed, were quite justified in putting in those windows according to the dictates of their own fancy, even if the result was somewhat bizarre. Jock Summers gave a bell hung in a ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... public-spirited man, and keenly interested in political affairs, he talked to us freely about the events of the time, and made us feel that the little affairs of our own home and immediate environment could never be ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... the home which had so long been blest with his presence and affection. For in all family relations he was most truly kind and affectionate, in social life, genial and friendly, especially, even to the last, delighting in little children, and in the society of the young, generous and public-spirited, of spotless integrity in business affairs, faithful, earnest and skillful as a teacher, in all his ways a sincere and humble follower of ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... public-spirited citizen who unselfishly devotes himself or herself to the public good. That citizen of Peekskill in those early days was Doctor James Brewer. He had accumulated a modest competence sufficient for his simple needs as bachelor. He was either the promoter or among the ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... men who had allowed all this to be possible. "What is the Health Board about, that poison for children can be sold in the public streets?" "Where is the District Attorney, that prosecutions for the public good have to be brought by public-spirited citizens?" they demanded. Lynx-eyed reporters tracked the milk-supplies of the city, and though the alarm had been given, and many cows had been hastily sent to the country, they were able to show up certain companies, and ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... appointed a special body to deal with Jewish affairs. It was called "Committee of Old Testament Believers," though composed in the main of Polish officials. It was supplemented by an advisory council consisting of five public-spirited Jews and their alternates. Among the members of the Committee, which included several prominent Jewish merchants of Warsaw, such as Jacob Bergson, M. Kavski, Solomon Posner, T. Teplitz, was also the well-known mathematician Abraham Stern, one of the few cultured Jews ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... extricating from its results were, I think it most likely, the family of Buccleugh. The crash was especially disastrous in Scotland; only three private banks in Edinburgh out of thirty survived it, and a large joint-stock bank, Douglas Heron and Company, started only three years before, for the public-spirited purpose of promoting improvements, particularly improvements of land, now seemed to shake all commercial Scotland with its fall. In this company the Duke of Buccleugh was one of the largest shareholders, and, liability being unlimited, it was impossible to foresee how much of its L800,000 of ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... National Guard loaned tents, and public-spirited merchants willingly loaned draperies, flags, banners, and in fact, almost ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... can manage to do one really public-spirited job after another, 'things that count,' and then elude all the credit for them is more than I can understand, Dave," said Andrew as he smiled through a blue ring of smoke. "Some day, if you don't look out, you'll be a leading citizen. In ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... personal supervision of its distinguished originator, it is no matter of wonder that all Europe was aroused to attention; and that Swiss and German, Scotch and English, alike pressed forward to this promised land. Appeals were made by the trustees to the liberal, the philanthropic, the public-spirited, the humane, the patriotic, the Christian, to aid in this design of mercy, closing their arguments with the noble thought: "To consult the welfare of mankind, regardless of any private views, is the perfection of virtue, as the accomplishing ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... board the steamboat "John Potter" and stack arms. There is running to and fro of friends in pursuit of oranges and lemons—so cool and refreshing on the hot march—and a dozen little trifles with which haversacks are soon stuffed. One public-spirited individual in the crowd seizes the basket of an ancient orange-woman, making good his title in a very satisfactory way, and tosses the glowing fruit indiscriminately among the troops, who give him back their best "Bully ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... disposal and sufficient power to grant or revoke legislative favors to make control of its organization a matter of supreme importance to office seekers and various corporate interests. Thus while the system discourages an unselfish and public-spirited interest in party politics, it does appeal directly to those interests which wish to use the party for purely selfish ends. Hence the ascendency of the professional politician who, claiming to represent ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... Bridge. I should like to follow the old footpath still farther. I found part of it by accident a long time ago. Once, as you came close to the river, you were sure to find fishermen scattered along,—sometimes I myself have been discovered; but it is not much use to go fishing any more. If some public-spirited person would kindly be the Frank Buckland of New England, and try to have the laws enforced that protect the inland fisheries, he would do his country great service. Years ago, there were so many salmon ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... leaders whom they served, there was none who stands out now as a very interesting personality, and their chosen chief is an unattractive figure; but we are not to think of these authors of the war as a gang of hardened, unscrupulous, corrupted men. As a class they were reputable, public-spirited, and religious men; they served their cause with devotion and were not wholly to blame that they chose it so ill. The responsibility for the actual secession does not rest in an especial degree on any individual leader. ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... femme," one comic paper had the audacity to remark, propos l'affaire Svensen and Burnley. Even Svensen and Burnley, so pure-hearted, so public-spirited, so League-minded, were not immune from ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... public-spirited M. Charles who had contributed largely to the cost of this experiment came in a day or two to seek his balloon he found nothing but some shreds of cloth, and some lively legends of the prowess of the peasants in demolishing the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... forwarded, it came into the hands of Richard Chiswell, a bookseller living in S. Paul's Ch.-yard, London: who printing a catalogue of, with others added to, them, which came out after Mr. Smith's death, they were exposed to sale by way of auction, to the great reluctancy of public-spirited men, in May and June 1682.' The sale, which commenced on the 15th of May, and was continued day by day the first five days of every week until all the books were sold, took place at 'the Auction House known by the name of the Swan in Great ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my uncles were) by an Esquire, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him, and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, January 6, old style, just four years to a day before ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... contrived a title in them by the simple device of enclosing the people's commons. It was a wrong, but there was no one of the wronged who was brave enough or rich enough to dispute it through the broken law, and no witness public-spirited enough to come to their aid. Such things make us think patiently, almost proudly, of our national foible of graft, which may really be of feudal origin. Doubtless the aggression was attacked in the press, but we all know what ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... originality. Then he had projects for the cultivation of cobwebs, to which end, in the good Doctor's opinion, it seemed desirable to devote a certain part of the national income; and not content with this, all public-spirited citizens would probably be induced to devote as much of their time and means as they could to the same end. According to him, there was no such beautiful festoon and drapery for the halls of princes as the spinning of this heretofore despised and hated insect; and by due encouragement ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Jacobite nobility in England, who secretly favored the exiled monarch. So he rewarded and elevated a man whom he both admired and despised. William had many sterling virtues; he was sincere and patriotic and public-spirited; he was a stanch Protestant of the Calvinistic school, and very attentive to his religious duties. But with all his virtues and services to the English nation, he was not a favorite. His reserve, coldness, and cynicism were in striking contrast with the affability of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII • John Lord
... John Fiske and other historians have celebrated it in some of the most brilliant pages of our political writing; and that citizen literature, so deeply characteristic of us, found in the plain, forthright, and public-spirited tone of town-meeting discussions its keynote. The spectacular debates of our national history, the dramatic contests in the great arena of the Senate Chamber, the discussions before huge popular audiences in ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... improper to observe, that several eminent men had appeared in England, who, pitying the miserable state of the western world with respect to religion, had proposed some public-spirited design for the propagation of the gospel among the heathens on that vast continent. Robert Boyle, no less distinguished for his eminent piety than universal learning, had been appointed by Charles II. governor of a corporation established ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... as cheaply as you can and sell for as much as you can," Stubby reminded him, "is a fundamental of business. You can't get away from it. My father abandoned that maxim the last two years of his life, and it nearly broke us. He was a public-spirited man. He took war and war-time conditions to heart. In a period of jumping food costs he tried to give people cheaper food. As I said, he nearly went broke trying to do a public service, because no one else in the same business departed from ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... entirely balanced and calm in judicial faculty; passions which determine conduct, but have no influence on opinion. For instance, I have bought for my own exclusive gratification, the cottage in which I am writing, near the lake-beach on which I used to play when I was seven years old. Were I a public-spirited scientific person, or a benevolently pious one, I should doubtless, instead, be surveying the geographical relations of the Mountains of the Moon, or translating the Athanasian Creed into Tartar-Chinese. But I hate the very name of the public, and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin |
