"Self-respect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any one's self-respect. Never trample on any soul, though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is as its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life; the voice of God which still ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... you grasp at it, flees, and, when you avoid it, will follow, gilding all life with its glory, and keeping always one woman young and most fair and most wise, and unwon; and keeping you always never contented, but armed with a self-respect that no husband manages quite to retain in the face of being contented. No, for love is an instant's fusing of shadow and substance, fused for that instant only, whereafter the lover may harvest pleasure from either alone, but hardly ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... shook hands with the New Hampshire exemplar of freedom and equality; he was no longer so young as to wish to mark a social difference between himself and the inside-man who had served Mr. Halleck with unimpaired self-respect for ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... lost. And that delight and reverence which we feel in, and by means of, the mere imagination of these accessaries, the middle ages had in the vision of them; the nobleness of dress exercising, as I have said, a perpetual influence upon character, tending in a thousand ways to increase dignity and self-respect, and together with grace of gesture, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... certain extent been taken up by the public; besides, how could a high-spirited girl like Eleanor Harding really learn to love a man for neglecting a duty which he assumed! Could she allow her affection to be purchased at the cost of his own self-respect? ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... Some people adapt themselves to circumstances instantly; the aversion of one hour becomes the delight of the next; but those who are guided by reasoning, especially where there is a shade of resentment,—who are fortified by pride of opinion, and by the idea of consistent self-respect,—such persons are slow to change a settled conviction; the course of feeling is too powerful and too constant to be arrested and turned backward. Easelmann thought—and perhaps rightly—that Alice needed only time to become accustomed to the new view of the case; and he believed that any precipitation ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... mother's perplexities, between delicacy and hardihood, between courage and conscientiousness. It assisted the cheerfulness I inherited from my father; showed me that circumstances were not to check a healthy gaiety, or the most masculine self-respect; and helped to supply me with the resolution of standing by a principle, not merely as a point of lowly or lofty sacrifice, but as a matter of common sense and duty, and a simple cooeperation with the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... me. It was obvious I could not keep in his good books, even with Patricia as the incentive, without losing my self-respect. I ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... ought to be raises them above the unquietness of those who have a suspicion that they are not quite what might be expected of them. It is on this uncertain ground that all the blunders of manners occur; when simplicity is lost disaster follows, with loss of dignity and self-respect, and pretentiousness forces its way through to claim the respect which it ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... ductile woman, which had ended all in bitterness. The spirit of self-denial, verging on asceticism, which had ever animated Knight in old times, announced itself as having departed with the birth of love, with it having gone the self-respect which had compensated for the lack of self-gratification. Poor little Elfride, instead of holding, as formerly, a place in his religion, began to assume the hue of a temptation. Perhaps it was human and correctly natural ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... her best to comfort the poor sister, who was in an agony of shame and grief. "Oh," she sobbed, "he is such a dear fellow if only he could let drink alone! but it's been his ruin, his ruin! He must feel so disgraced that all his self-respect is gone and he'll never hold up his head again or have the heart to try to ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... myself—but they're no less stupid, no less failures, than the other ninety-nine in our every hundred, because they never stop to think. It never occurs to them that the same intelligence, applied to any one of the trades they must be masters of, would not only pay them better, but leave them their self-respect and rid them forever of the dread of arrest that haunts us all like the memory of some shameful act.... All of which is much more of a lecture than I meant to inflict upon you, Miss Shannon, and sums up to just this: I've stopped ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... not been a drinking man, although he had ever taken his share of the good things of life, nor an idle one. His family looked on now at his altered habits with fear and a growing disgust. It was surprising how, in the loss of his own self-respect and the knowledge that he had lost the respect of those who had loved him, the man altered. With astonishment they, who had known him all their lives, saw him in a few short weeks become selfish, greedy, unmannerly, even unclean. The ash from his pipe fell on his coat, he would not brush ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... provision for the surrender of fugitives. The act abolishing the slave trade in the District of Columbia, was of little practical importance to southern interests, while it was demanded by every consideration of humanity and of national self-respect. In looking at the result of the whole, Mr. Clay thought that neither party, so far as California is concerned, could be said to have lost or gained any thing, while in regard to the territorial bills and the fugitive slave law the South had gained all ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... death might come, so long as I am prepared to welcome it? I hate and loathe myself when I stop to consider all the contemptible acts I am compelled to perform, when I pause to realize the utter prostitution of self-respect I am forced to undergo, in order to carry on the plots of our 'good friends,' as you call them. Good friends, indeed! To whom, let me ask you, do they demonstrate the friendly spirit? Where can you point to a friendly act done by any one of them, ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... of his appearance, Joseph was in no danger of losing his self-respect—the love of cleanliness and order had been too deeply implanted to be easily uprooted; moreover, his childish reason whispered to him that the present state of things could not last for ever, and in the meantime he bravely resolved to make the best of it. He was receiving ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... circumstances which have caused them to lead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and the increased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowed them to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, they live happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all around them. This was not so, however, with Elizabeth. She was jealous, petulant, irritable. She envied others the love and the domestic enjoyments which ambition forbade her to share, and she seemed to take great ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... reply, and Florence met her father's gaze with sorrowful eyes, "I am mourning for the love that has been cast away—I pine for some action which may restore my own self-respect. The very thought of this man as I know him makes me shudder—but the remembrance of what I believed him to be makes me weep. Then ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... all the converts, or perverts, held offices under the Government. The Hon. John Henry Dunn, Provincial Receiver-General, took a different course. He had been among the most determined opponents of the Bill, and had declared that it would never pass.[137] He had too much self-respect, after taking such a stand, to give the lie to all his protestations by voting for the measure, so he quietly staid at home on a pretence of sickness.[138] Referring to those who took a more determined stand, by voting contrary to their pledges, ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... game was a disgusting one, called "Spits." It consisted in the two combatants facing each other with open umbrellas, and endeavouring to register points by the method suggested in the title of the game; the umbrella was a shield, with which to intercept any good shooting. Luckily for their self-respect in later years, this difficult game soon yielded place to an original competition, known as "Fire and Water." You placed a foot-bath under that portable gas-stove which was in the Day-nursery; you lit all the trivets in the stove to represent a house on fire; and you had a ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... irony? Yet, there it stood on the front page of a most respectable journal, indorsed by an editor of the highest reputation. To my way of thinking, the wife was accessory to the crime; had no womanly self-respect, no delicacy, no Christian feeling for her husband's victim; was, in short, morally, as guilty as he was; and yet a newspaper of high standing made her out to be a model for wives. For what? Plainly for consenting ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... and the rapidly increasing tendency to drill and organise the electorate, and to exact definite pledges from candidates, they are rapidly becoming, if not delegates, at least attorneys for committees of electors. The same causes are constantly tending to exclude men, who combine a keen sense of self-respect with large intellectual capacity, from a position in which the one is as constantly offended, as the other is neutralised. Notwithstanding the attempt of George the Third to resuscitate the royal authority, Hume's foresight has been so completely ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... to find myself near another woman, a young Frenchwoman, with the firm, disciplined, tender face, the sweetly-modulated voice, the air of fine training, the dignified self-respect which also involves respect for others. I realised in a flash the profound contrast to that fellow-countrywoman of mine who had fascinated my ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... Lord for one thing," said the Harvester. "You didn't appear half so terrified at the sight of me as you did at the mere mention of a cow. I have risen inestimably in my own self-respect. Belshazzar, you may pursue the elusive chipmunk. I am going to guard this woman myself, and please, kind fates, send a ferocious cow this way, in order that I ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... I can forget my own daughter, and out of cowardly misery speak of a thing she should never have known. You have your revenge, Mary, for I shall go a broken man from this hour. Nothing can ever be the same again. My self-respect is gone. I could have endured everything else—the things that I dreaded. All I could have suffered and survived; but to ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... enjoyment of his own dexterity and fond as he was of displaying it to admiring and applauding onlookers, infatuated as he was with the intoxication of butchery, proficiency and adulation, he retained sufficient vestiges of decency and self-respect to restrain him from exhibiting himself as a beast-fighter in public spectacles before all Rome. Of late years I have heard not a few persons declare and maintain that they had seen and recognized ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... disposal was "either kissed out of it or kicked out of it, six weeks after her marriage." The one difficulty before me was not to give up my legacy, but to express my reply with sufficient severity, and at the same time with due regard to my own self-respect. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... France would simply have been the humble slave of Germany to this hour. What a condition for a country! And now France is fighting not so much to recover her lost provinces, she is fighting to recover her self-respect and her national independence; she is fighting to shake off this nightmare that has been on her soul for over a generation, [cheers,] a France with Germany constantly meddling, bullying, and interfering. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... a proud man, who held fast his self-respect. He would not speak to the envoy, but he took the paper that the envoy had brought, and drew on it an insulting picture, with the words, "Is this what you want?" and sent it back ...
— Folk-Tales of Napoleon - The Napoleon of the People; Napoleonder • Honore de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
... thinking which maintains that military training only makes soldiers and only incites to martial ambitions; when, on the contrary, she sees every day that it makes youths better and stronger citizens, and produces that self-respect, self-control, and cosmopolitan sympathy which more than aught else lessen the chances ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... and as he now sat to protect her, the idea that she was or could be more to him, or different from what she had been, never approached him. It had been an inspiration to seek her, and a great possession to find her. It had brought back to him his self-respect, and had perhaps redeemed him, in her eyes, from the scorn and contempt with which she had regarded him, and in his heart he gratefully thanked God for it. Now his path was open and serene, although unwarmed and unlighted with ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... of a deed which cost him his royal honor, and perhaps, also, his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with despotism in obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of glory, and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals for the coming ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... lenient toward Johnny, but everybody was disgusted with Mrs. Tellamantez for putting up with him. She ought to discipline him, people said; she ought to leave him; she had no self-respect. In short, Mrs. Tellamantez got all the blame. Even Thea thought she was much too humble. To-night, as she sat with her back to the moon, looking at the moon flowers and Mrs. Tellamantez's somber face, she was thinking that there ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... was accordingly established in 1619; restrictions on conduct and religious opinion were relaxed; and land grants, both to individuals and to corporations, in small and large tracts, were made on easy terms. It was hoped that an appeal to self-respect and to self-interest would encourage immigration and foster thrift and industry. When Sandys became treasurer in 1618 the time seemed propitious; for it had already been discovered that Virginia tobacco could be sold at a profit in London; and it was the expectation of Sandys, by obtaining ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... society. Yet where a case is attended with such circumstances as that of Jones's, some disposition to accommodate might have been evinced without endangering the State's sovereignty. And I must also differ with you, George, so far as the girls maintained their self-respect. It was commendable in them to get husbands whom they could live with in the bonds of matrimony. My word for it, George, though I am a Southerner, and may give rein to improprieties at times, nothing can be more pernicious to ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... within him a very active and reproaching conscience; there may be intellectual orthodoxy and correctness in religious convictions; he may cherish elevated moral sentiments, and many attractive qualities springing out of a cultivated taste and a jealous self-respect may appear in his character; but unless he loves God and man out of a pure heart fervently, and unless his will is entirely and sweetly submissive to the Divine will, so that he can say: "Father not my will, but thine be done," he is still a natural man. ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... self-respect and immense self-esteem led him to imperiousness of manner which touches the border of discourtesy. He loves a good joke, but his jests are serious. He writes verses that are touchingly beautiful, but it is difficult to believe, in his presence, that he ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... ordinary men into leaders of forlorn hopes, into holders of last ditches, into bearers of heroic blazons, into sleepers under memorial shafts erected by the citizens of a proud, a grateful and a sorrowing country. A sense of self-respect is ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... another expert mentioned in print that no man who had any self-respect wore collars with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... accepting food and drink from his captors, the black sheik might have satisfied the demands of mere animal nature, but only at the sacrifice of all that was noble in his nature. His self-respect, along with the proud, unyielding spirit by which everything good and great is accomplished, would have been gone from him ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... times, "I was too silly thus to torment myself and make myself ill; I was wanting in self-respect to mistrust myself to such an extent, and to see danger where there was none. He can not expect to make himself so very formidable while scrawling this genealogical tree. If he came one hundred leagues from Paris for that, he really does not ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... presence, and a coldly courteous demeanour. By preference he speaks French, and his favourite subject is Paris. One observes in him something like disdain for his own country, which in his mind is associated only with falling fortunes and loss of self-respect. The cordial Italian note never sounds in his talk. The signora (also a little ashamed of her own language) excites herself about taxation—as well she may—and dwells with doleful vivacity on family troubles. Both are astonished at my ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... however, I can not forget what is due to the character of our government and nation; or to a full and entire confidence in the good sense, patriotism, self-respect, and fortitude ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... thought of Mayer. The laws that had ruled her conduct, the pride that had upheld her, melted like cobwebs before the sun. She lived to please a man she thought loved her and that she loved to the point where honor had become an empty word and self-respect transformed to self-surrender. Whatever he would ask of her she was ready to give. The Indian's blood prompted her to the squaw's impassioned submission, the outlaw's to a repudiation of the law and the ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... he said. 'To my mind, as an honourable man, there was no choice. I should have forfeited for ever my own self-respect had I agreed to ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... harp continually upon that, but dwelt often upon other themes, trying so to treat the lad that his self-respect might be restored. ...
— Elsie's New Relations • Martha Finley
... proceeds to show that, though Chatham's victorious administration had for a moment restored the self-respect of the country, the evils denounced by Brown were symptoms of a profound and lasting disease. The poems called the 'Progress of Error,' 'Expostulation,' 'Truth,' 'Hope,' 'Charity,' and 'Conversation,' all turn upon the same theme. Though Cowper is for brief spaces playful or ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... second Monsieur Louis hesitated. Some lingering vestige of a courage, purely hereditary, showed him in one lightning-like flash how at least he might carry with him to a swift grave some vestige of his ruined self-respect. A traitor to his old friends, he might keep faith with the new. He had time to destroy. Even the agonies of death might last long enough to complete the task. But the impulse was only momentary. He shuddered afresh at the thought that ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it does destroy self-respect; it does leave men psychically disturbed, and for that reason it affects consciousness of the presence of God disproportionately quickly as compared with other sins, and produces the feeling of loss of spiritual power. There ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... him as one turns to one's natural protector; and above all, he had begun to find himself—to understand that there really was a strong, reliable man behind all the tricks of custom which had built up an artificial nature, which had imposed even upon himself. A little glow of self-respect began to warm his blood. He had missed his youth when he was young, and now in his middle age it was coming up like ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... steady moral influence will do all that is necessary. The great thing is to awaken the conscience. Patients who once feel sincerely that such courses are depraved may cure themselves—if they are not robbed of their self-respect. The most hopeless causes I have, come from that class of people who give each other bits of their mind—very objectionable bits, consisting of vulgar abuse for the most part, and the calling of names that rankle. The operators seem to derive ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... despair and the recklessness and demoralization which inevitably follow. The public regarded him as a depraved, commonplace vagabond, eminent only in his capacity for evil and meanness, and he now inclined strongly to the same view of himself. True self-respect he had never possessed, and his best substitute, pride, at last gave way. He felt that he was defeated for life, and the best that life could now offer was a brief career of sensual pleasure. Mrs. Arnot and Laura Romeyn were so far removed from him as the stars; it was torment to think of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... all that a woman prizes. And what did you give me in exchange? Your cruel fickleness exposed me to the low mockery of the lick-spittles of your Court. Do you wonder that I went mad, and that in my madness I sacrificed what shreds of self-respect you had left me? And now it seems I have lost all but life. Take that, too, if it be your pleasure. Heaven knows it has little value left for me! But remember that in striking me you strike the mother ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... restrained her from taking any steps towards finding Paul and trying to see him. She could imagine her son's mistress confronting her at the door and asking, "What is your business here, madame?" and her self-respect would not permit her to run the risk of such an encounter. In the haughty pride of a chaste and spotless woman, who had never stooped to listen to temptation, she became still more bitter against the base and cowardly actions to which sensual love will drive a man who is not strong enough to ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... and declared that it was a trick; that, if he was a poor man, Farringford would not trouble him. After this revelation my father refused to write again. He was sorely grieved and troubled, but he still had a sense of self-respect which would not permit him to grovel in ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... the Bravo was more vivid in feeling than in expression. He kissed the hand of Don Camillo, but it was with a reservation of self-respect that belonged to the character ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Grand Avenue as straight and clean and fine as they make 'em on Riverside Drive. Girls of my own kind, they are, and I'm going back there to find the one that God intended for me. You've taught me what a good girl can do toward making a man of a beast. You've taught me pride and self-respect. You've taught me so much that I'd rather that I'd died back there beneath the spears of Oda Iseka's warriors than live here beneath the sneers and contempt of servants, and the pity and ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... guilty connection, and though her portion was doubtless hell-fire, there is nothing to show that one cannot keep respectable even under such disquieting circumstances. The elder Loveday had clung obstinately to her self-respect under circumstances which her neighbours had tried to render nearly as trying on earth. She had died, as she had lived, impenitent and only crying for the foreigner who had seduced her, while he was then lying, had she but known it, in the lap of his first mistress, ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... and cried over us, and our two uncles, who gave us good advice by the yard! Alas! I fear we were equally ungrateful to them, both cold and impatient. No, we did not bear it really well, though they said we did. We had plenty of pride and self-respect, and that carried us on; but there was no submission, no notion of taking it religiously. I don't mean that we did not go to church, and in the main try to do right. Any one more upright than my brother it would have ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... certainly rather young for such an experiment, but it would do her no harm. On the contrary, a little stimulus of gratified vanity might be extremely beneficial in its after-effects. She was somewhat backward and childish for her age. She would have more self-respect at finding herself the ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... without government interference. This Administration, therefore, follows two simple rules: first, the Federal Government should perform an essential task only when it cannot otherwise be adequately performed; and second, in performing that task, our government must not impair the self-respect, freedom and incentive of the individual. So long as these two rules are observed, the government can fully meet its obligation without creating a dependent population or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all who succeed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect. I hastened to ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Gryphus will commit some atrocity. I am losing my patience, since I have lost the joy and company of Rosa, and especially since I have lost my tulip. Undoubtedly, some day or other Gryphus will attack me in a manner painful to my self-respect, or to my love, or even threaten my personal safety. I don't know how it is, but since my imprisonment I feel a strange and almost irresistible pugnacity. Well, I shall get at the throat of that old villain, ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... in the main, as Donald, despite his bewilderment, knew well. Nevertheless, in this instance the product of miscegenation seemed to offer in his own person a subtle contradiction. The man stood in a serenity that proclaimed an assured self-respect. The dark eyes above the high cheekbones were glowing clearly, as they stared in level interrogation on the prisoner. The features, coarse, yet of a pleasing harmoniousness, were set in lines of a strength ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... eyes of the world, crushed as he was by the burden of his disgrace, and glad as he was at the prospect of deliverance from all his misery through the kindly agency of death, it was characteristic of him that, even now, at the supreme moment of his impending deliverance, his self-respect imperiously demanded of him that at all costs must he eschew even the faintest taint of so cowardly an act as that of suicide; if death were really close at hand—as it certainly appeared to be—well ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... low desires, Absence of noble self-respect. Death, in the breast's consuming fires, To that high nature which ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... disheartening. What is the trouble? Has there never been any true spiritual discipline, but only a certain superficial conformity to a spiritual rule? When old age comes the will is weakened and the sense of self-respect undermined, with the result that what the person has all along been in reality, now comes to the surface and is, perhaps for the first time, visible ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... dull red at that. He could not explain to her that he lost no dignity in his own eyes in fussing about an inadequate little furnace, but that self-respect would not allow him to stoop to gardening—he who had reigned over six ...
— One Basket • Edna Ferber
... sort of claim upon one. Claims made by their pride and their self-respect, and their weaknesses and dependences. You've no right to hurt them, to kick about and demand freedom when it means snapping and tearing the silly suffering tendrils they have wrapped about you. ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... the pleasant, ladylike work you've found! I should think it'll improve your self-respect to wait on the gentlemen ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... what Stella has confided to me," said Mrs. Repton. "Stella's loyal even when there's no cause for loyalty; and if loyalty didn't keep her mouth closed, self-respect would. I tell you what I saw. We were at Agra at the time. My husband was Collector there. There was a Durbar held there and the Rajah of Chitipur came to it with his elephants and his soldiers, and naturally Captain Ballantyne and his ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... "I don't see it. I don't see the stumbling or the lowering. I should not feel myself lowered by marrying a fine woman, and I hope she would not feel her own self-respect ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... would have said so had she dared, made no answer to this. She sat silent, turning her face away from his gaze, longing that the meeting might be over, and feeling that she had lost her own self-respect. ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... of temper," continued her sister-in-law, "and you choose to hit the first person within reach; if you can do that you care nothing for my dignity or your own self-respect. You parade your—your interest ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... merely handsome. She was grand, queenly; and I told Miss Dix that I differed with her about the kind of women who should go into such places. We wanted young, vigorous women—women whose self-respect and social position would command the respect of those to whom they ministered. She grew ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... also the manufactured criminal; the product of the slum, the victim of ignorance, the prey of the walking-delegate, the sufferer from over-work and undernourishment, the inhabitant of the filthy and overcrowded tenement, the man robbed of his self-respect, who has no share in the sweetness and light of civilization. A society that first manufactures criminals and then expends great sums in punishing them is, in so ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... pride and self-respect. On he rambled, looking at the scenery, and particularly at the higher portions of it, this so as to avoid the eyes of passing people. Luckily for his peace of mind, he did not know that cut flowers need water, or that they would wilt, and be less fresh and beautiful than they were now. ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... succeeding and making good, precisely because there must always be a sort of ethical echo in the word good. America does vaguely feel a man making good as something analogous to a man being good or a man doing good. It is connected with his serious self-respect and his sense of being worthy of those he loves. Nor is this curious crude idealism wholly insincere even when it drives him to what some of us would call stealing; any more than the duellist's honour was insincere when it drove him to what some would call murder. ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... stands on tiptoe, every eager and tameless bit of her hoping, hoping. If mother weren't there that Nancy would have been at the telephone an hour ago in spite of young people's pride and old people's self-respect and all the thousand and one knife-faced fetishes that all the correct and common-sensible people hug close and ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... on his hat with relief, and instantly recovers his self-respect sufficiently to cast a defiant glare upon his rival, and walk out with dignity. The Grizzled Customer after prolonged self-inspection, follows. The ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... awake all Saturday night and all Sunday night, until four o'clock on Monday morning; always reviewing the situation, always going over the same patch of ground in the desperate hope of finding some place where her self-respect could rest, and discovering nothing but the traces of her guilty feet. A subtler woman would have flourished lightly over the territory, till she had whisked away every vestige of her trail; another would have seen the humour of the situation and blown the whole thing into ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... set. But he could not help himself. Daisy was master, and he submitted, with a feeling of humiliation which showed itself upon his face and made him very quiet and ill at ease, except when Bessie was with him. There was something about Bessie which restored his self-respect and made a man of him, Bessie was his all, and to himself he had made a vow that she should not follow in ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn but serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis: such was ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... wonderful how, with the self-respect and sense of propriety of the British housekeeper, the lady had within a few minutes adorned the central table with a snow-white cloth, laid the napkins upon it, and set forth the simple meal with all the elegance of civilization, including an electric torch lamp in the centre. Wonderful ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... became absolutely indifferent to the opinion of my former companions and avoided them entirely; I now lost myself in the smaller gambling dens of Leipzig, where only the very scum of the students congregated. Insensible to any feeling of self-respect, I bore even the contempt of my sister Rosalie; both she and my mother hardly ever deigning to cast a glance at the young libertine whom they only saw at rare intervals, looking deadly pale and worn out: my ever-growing ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... disorder, the utmost help and consideration. We owe them above all a free and generous welcome to a share in whatever means of culture we have at our disposal, and ought to offer it, as far as is consistent with our self-respect, in a shape that will not ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... spoke invariably of the ranch as "Our Outfit" and he could not have been more faithful if their interests had been identical, though he missed no occasion to declare that it robbed a man of his self-respect ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... fine quality which proves attractive. Hero worship, this, which enlarges one's self through the admiration given to another. Then there is the friendship based on a purely personal attraction, with mutual respect and self-respect as its dedicated corner-stone. This does not mean that one cannot see any faults in the friend, or know that one's own are seen, without losing affection. There is always something flimsy and insecure about a friendship that simply idealizes. ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... of training and apprenticeship in the different trades—or, as I would prefer to call them the different professions—such as to counteract the deadening influence of premature specialization, and which ensures good conditions and a sense of self-respect and community-service to all in their self-chosen line of life, whether their bent be manual or mechanical or commercial or administrative, or for working on the land or for going to sea, or towards the more special vocations of teaching or scholarship or the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... go to the Milan Conservatory, and as soon as she came of age she would go upon the stage, under a feigned name, of course, and in a foreign country. She would prove to the world, she said to herself, that the career of an actress is compatible with self-respect. This resolve that she would never be found wanting in self-respect held a prominent place in all her plans, as she began to understand better those dangers in life which are for the most part unknown to young girls born in her ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... world made to dance and skip like drunk puppets. The literary temperament is so fatally inclined to fall into a sort of aesthetic gravity, taking its "philosophy" and its "art" with such portentous self-respect, that it is extremely pleasant when a reckless young Alcibiades of a Byron breaks into the enchanted circle and clears the air with a few resounding blasts from ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... himself and made others do the same, or seem to do so, at least. He had no vanity—which is but an inordinate desire for those qualities that bring self-respect, and often the result of conscious demerit—but he knew himself, and knew that he was entitled to his own good opinion. He was every inch a man, strong, intelligent and brave to temerity, with a reckless disregard of consequences, which ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... by praise; he was glad of tributes which proved that he was respected, but he received all honors with a simplicity of self-respect which spoke the sincere nobility ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... rule doing nothing, was what Shun did. For what is there to do? Self-respect and to set the face ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... and ears ye hear not; neither can you understand." To weave one thread of [5] Science through the looms of time, is a miracle in itself. The risk is stupendous. It cost Galileo, what? This awful price: the temporary loss of his self-respect. His fear overcame his loyalty; the courage of his convictions fell before it. Fear is the weapon in ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... the curate or the mothers' meeting. It is to complain of facts and probabilities. There may be good gipsies; there may be good qualities which specially belong to them as gipsies; many students of the strange race have, for instance, praised a certain dignity and self-respect among the women of the Romany. But no student ever praised them for an exaggerated respect for private property, and the whole argument about gipsy theft can be roughly repeated about Hebrew usury. Above all, there ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... and employed; and he speaks of the workshops and factories of those days as "charnel-houses of industry." If there has been great improvement, it is due to these causes: The resistance of the operative class; their growth in self-respect, intelligence, and sobriety; and the humanity and wisdom of some ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... him confidence. He had always had physical courage and muscular strength, and it was something to feel he could hold his own with his comrades at a strenuous task. Moreover, his saving Festing from the river had restored his self-respect. But he had stronger allies, and his face got hot as he thought of the two women who had fought for him when he had scarcely tried ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss
... polls. Their condition would not even then be ideal—far from it. But their hard lot as men would improve, their worth as citizens, their social and industrial value to their community, state and country would rise correspondingly in the scale of being and character, with the increased freedom, self-respect and security which in consequence would come to them as a race. Legislatures and administrative officers would begin to make some response to their claim for social justice and political rights, and the courts would begin also to ...
— The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16 • Archibald H. Grimke
... remarkable tact and fidelity, completed his delicate task, according to the materials provided and the wishes expressed by his illustrious kinsman. A London publisher reprinted the work, with eighty pages interpolated, wherein, with an utter disregard to common delicacy toward the dead or self-respect in the living, unauthentic gossip is made to desecrate the reticent and consistent tone of the work, pervert its spirit, and detract from its harmonious attraction and truth. A greater or more indecent and unjustifiable liberty was never taken ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the third man really loved his Lady. We do not know whether the other two loved or not. When a man talks a great deal about his honor, his self-respect, it is just possible that he loves himself more than he loves any one else. But the man who would go through hell to win a woman really loves that woman. Browning abhors selfishness. He detests a man who is kept from a certain ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... equal, it is better in proportion as it remains self-possessed,—proud of its own traditions, not unwilling indeed to learn, but also quite ready to teach the stranger its own wisdom. And in similar fashion provincial pride helps the individual man to keep his self-respect even when the vast forces that work toward industrial consolidation, and toward the effacement of individual initiative, are besetting the life at every turn. For a man is in large measure what his social consciousness makes him. Give him the local community that he loves and cherishes, ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... Greenways', who held their heads so high, and did not "mix", as Bella called it, with the "poor people." This was partly because of his learning, which in itself gave him a position apart, and also because he had a certain dignity of character which comes of self-respect and simplicity wherever they are found. Mrs Greenways was indeed a little afraid of him, and as anxious to make the best of herself in his presence as she was in that of her rector and ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... truthfully and triumphantly. "They kidnapped you and Moya because they thought they could square themselves with you. But they didn't want me!" The issue had been fairly stated, and no longer with self-respect could I remain silent. ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... free from syphilis by giving the father the benefit of our knowledge. The child who reaped his sowing gained nothing morally, and lost its physical heritage. Its mother lost her health and perhaps her self-respect. Neither one contributes anything through syphilis to the uplifting of the race. They are so much dead loss. To teach us to avoid such losses is the legitimate field of ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes
... won't have it! The thing is infamous. I can't hide behind the skirts of a girl, least of all you. I can die, but, by God, I'll keep my self-respect." ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... trusted me "till next time." His house, for order and neatness, and a sort of sprightliness of cleanliness—the comfort of cleanliness without its severity—is a pattern to all women, while the clear eyes and manly self-respect which the habit of total abstinence gives in this country are a pattern to all men. He cooked me a splendid dinner, with good tea. After dinner I opened the mail-bag, and was delighted to find an accumulation of letters from you; but I sat much too long ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... a dejected mood. "So do you. I'm a heavy handicap to you, Bertie, sure I am. As I see ye settin' there bloomin' as a rose and feel me own age a-creepin' on me, I know I should be takin' me conge out of self-respect—just to ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her hearty approval of ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... expects to be respected in return. It can preside with dignity, and obey with docility. Far from being a vice, it is a virtue and is only too rare in this world. It is nobility of soul which betrays itself in self-respect. ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, he has lectured in very many of the towns of this Commonwealth, and won for himself general respect and approbation. He combines true self-respect with true humility, and rare judiciousness with great moral courage. Himself a fugitive slave, he can experimentally describe the situation of those in bonds as bound with them; and he powerfully illustrates the diabolism of that system ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... how dare you insult my self-respect by even naming such a thing? Never dare again, to couple my name with yours! never, sir! It is the basest sacrilege ...
— Ellen Walton - The Villain and His Victims • Alvin Addison
... rare. The latter asked him the reason for his prolonged absence. Camillo answered that the cause was a youthful flirtation. Simplicity evolved into cunning. Camillo's absences became longer and longer, and then his visits ceased entirely. Into this course there may have entered a little self-respect,—the idea of diminishing his obligations to the husband in order to make his own ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... confidence of children is indeed a thing of which a poor wanderer may be proud, a credential confirming his self-respect, and worthy one day to be presented at the gate of heaven. Once during one of my worst hours of desolation, when I was tramping across the fields, I found a little maid of seven picking primroses on the edge of an old orchard. For some time I stood watching, so charmed with the grace of ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... and better affections of our natures, nor happiness, nor our just dues of love and honor from men; not to vilify ourselves, nor to renounce our self-respect, nor a just and reasonable sense of our merits and deserts, nor our own righteousness of virtue, does Masonry require, nor would our imitation of Him require; but to renounce our vices, our faults, our passions, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... unfortunate young sailor, a native of England, guilty of some misdemeanour, and by name Aikin. He understood not a word of French, but protested with a shake of his head against his being English; patriotism had in him outlived honesty and self-respect. I spoke to him in English: he wept, but would not reply, puckering up his poor lips in all the agony of his desolate condition. I was glad to remark the humanity with which he had been chained to a prisoner, pensive ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... without extending the circle of their ideas, and without quitting the ordinary routine of their mental acquirements; the humblest individual who is called upon to cooperate in the government of society acquires a certain degree of self-respect; and, as he possesses authority, he can command the services of minds much more enlightened than his own. He is canvassed by a multitude of applicants, who seek to deceive him in a thousand different ways, but who instruct him by their deceit.... Democracy does not confer the most skilful kind ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the poor man's fireside, through the medium of Tales that will teach his heart and purify his affections, those simple lessons which may enable him to understand his own value—that will generate self-respect, independence, industry, love of truth, hatred of deceit and falsehood, habits of cleanliness, order, and punctuality—together with all those lesser virtues which help to create a proper sense of personal and domestic comfort—to ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... other. A pun is prima facie an insult to the person you are talking with. It implies utter indifference to or sublime contempt for his remarks, no matter how serious. I speak of total depravity, and one says all that is written on the subject is deep raving. I have committed my self-respect by talking with such a person. I should like to commit him, but cannot, because he is a nuisance. Or I speak of geological convulsions, and he asks me what was the cosine of Noah's ark; also, whether the Deluge was not a deal huger than any ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... surroundings here too, as she had often done before. The old lady, ungainly as her figure and uncomely as her face were, had yet a dignity in both; the dignity of a strong and true character, which with abundant self-respect, had not, and never had, any anxious concern about the opinion of any human being. Whoever feels himself responsible to the one Great Ruler alone, and does feel that responsibility, will be both worthy of respect and sure to have it in his relations with his fellows. Such tribute Mrs. Barclay ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... my life. Bare and empty, comfortless, with never a bright spot nor a ray of hope. There is nothing here to dazzle you, is there? All that you can remark in its favour is that it is tolerably clean—all in my life that I can lay claim to is that I have managed to preserve a moderate amount of self-respect. This is my life, my present and my future. I wanted you to ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... Piers laughed aloud; so evidently it was a report at second or third hand, utterly valueless to one who had any real acquaintance with the Slavs. This moment of spontaneous mirth did him good, helped to restore his self-respect. And as he pondered old ambitions stirred again in him. Could he not make some use of the knowledge he had gained so laboriously—some use other than that whereby he earned his living? Not so long ago, he had harboured great designs, vague but not irrational. And to-day, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... say to hon. Gentlemen, 'Sir, we have measured your head, and we have gauged your soul, and we know or believe'—for I believe they do not know—'we believe that your principles which you came into Parliament to support—your character in the House—your self-respect will go for nothing if you have a miserable temptation like this held up before you.' Sir, if we could see them taking a course which is said to be taken by the celebrated horse-tamer, who appeals, as I am told, to the nobler and more intelligent instincts ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... a woman's heart; yet the woman who marries, and who has with her a husband, sets herself for the time outside the circle of all other husbandless women who may be about her. Thus it was that—without any loss of self-respect upon the one side, or any forgetfulness upon the other of that immovable line between black and white which had been part of the immemorial creed of both—Mary Ellen and Aunt Lucy, being companionless, sometimes drifted together ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... she seizes gladly the opportunity, soon as offered, to reach the hand to the man who redeems her from the social ostracism and neglect, that is the lot of that poor waif, the "old maid." Often she looks down with contempt upon those of her sisters who have yet preserved their self-respect, and have not sold themselves into mental prostitution to the first comer, preferring to tread single the ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... a blemish, it was too much pride; but its quality was inoffensive; it was not of that sort which hardens the heart, and serves to keep inferiors at a distance; it only sought to ward off derogation from itself. It was the principle of self-respect carried as far as it could go, without infringing upon that respect, which he would have every one else equally maintain for himself. He would have you to think alike with him on this topic. Many a quarrel have I had with him, when we were rather older ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... The revolt of his self-respect was on the eve of bringing this phase of his existence to an end when the low farce turned into tragedy. Old Chris Ford was found dead in his bed—shot in his sleep. On the premises there had been but three persons, one of whom must have committed the crime—Norrie Ford, and Jacob and ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King |
