"Self-sacrificing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... transformed into a very tender but perfectly peaceful friendship. No one but him had ever touched her heart, and she had no interest in life besides him. Since she was not to be his wife, she was glad to be his lifelong, tender, self-sacrificing friend. So she raked the ashes over the fire in her heart, and left him to suppose that it had gone out as in his. Nor was she without compensation in their friendship. It was with a delightful thrill that she ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... us in doubt as to the witness of the Spirit to our conscious cleansing. "If we love one another" (i.e. with a true and pure and unselfish and self-sacrificing Christian love) "God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us." "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit." Now to have God's love perfected in us, and to have Him to dwell in us, can mean nothing less ...
— The Theology of Holiness • Dougan Clark
... hard-heartedness of men fifty years ago, who could allow this consecrated place, beautiful and fair as it still is, to fall gradually to the ground, nor attempt to put forth a helping hand to save it ere it crumbles into dust. How ungrateful it seems to those whose labour and hard, self-sacrificing toil erected it two hundred and fifty years ago! Those men of whom Ruskin wrote: "All else for which the builders sacrificed has passed away; all their living interests and aims and achievements. We know not for what they laboured, and we see no evidence of their reward. Victory, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... secretary bears testimony to his unfailing interest in the good work, to his thorough sympathy and hearty cooeperation in all efforts to mitigate the evils of intemperance. No member of the League devoted more earnest zeal and self-sacrificing labor to promote the reforms initiated by the League. He was a member of the Public School Association, and a postal-card invitation to a meeting of that Association, on Saturday last, bore his name in connection with that of the Rev. Edward ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... house to welcome the rentree of Madame ALBANI, who was simply perfection and the perfection of simplicity as the self-sacrificing heroine Elizabeth. From a certain Wagnerian-moral point of view, no better impersonator,—dramatically at least, if not operatically,—of the sensual Falstaffian Knight could be found than Signer PEROTTI; and, from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... Renaissance in the bosom of the ancient Church herself. In presence of that peril she woke from sloth and corruption, and girded herself to beat back the invading heresies, by force or by craft, by inquisitorial fires, by the arms of princely and imperial allies, and by the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of her saints and martyrs. That time of danger produced the exalted zeal of Xavier and the intense, thoughtful, organizing zeal of Loyola. After a century had passed, the flame still burned, and it never shone with a purer or brighter radiance than in the early missions ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... could so easily read the heart, was not mistaken there; the painter had in his wife's brother a friend of self-sacrificing devotion. He could exact anything of the Mameluke, or, rather, of that slave, for it was the blood of the slaves, of his ancestors, which manifested itself in Chapron by so total an absorption of his personality. The atavism of servitude ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... assurances of their fullest support recall to me the generous, self-sacrificing help given by them in the past to the ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... lovely we often differ. What is lovely to one is not always lovely to another. But there are qualities of mind and heart that are intrinsically lovely, and about which there can be no difference of opinion. What is virtuous, good, amiable, high-minded, generous, self-sacrificing and pure, we all admire. What goes to make a perfect character, a moralist, a Christian, a wise man or woman, is agreeable to us all. Now this is what we should love. This is what we should seek in our friends. It ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... attention was that the children were changed each Sunday—a fresh three succeeding the first bunch, and on the third Sunday, one of the first three being added to a fresh two, to make up the proper complement. Both parents had a self-respecting, self-sacrificing look, as of people who had learned to help themselves cautiously from the family dish, and to "put their knives to their throats" before time; but kept all this to themselves, asking nothing from anyone, and making their little answer without murmur or complaint. I had, ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... was witnessed by the good people of Glasgow. At eight o'clock the night before, Lord Glenarvan and his friends, and the entire crew, from the stokers to the captain, all who were to take part in this self-sacrificing voyage, left the yacht and repaired to St. Mungo's, the ancient cathedral of the city. This venerable edifice, so marvelously described by Walter Scott, remains intact amid the ruins made by the Reformation; and it was there, beneath ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... intolerant of all forms of human excellence which do not square with its own conceptions of right; and its philanthropy in the abstract is apt to secrete a subtile misanthropy in the concrete. Brave, unselfish, self-sacrificing, and flinching from no consequences which its principles may bring upon itself, it flinches from no consequences which they may bring upon others; and its attitude towards the laws and customs of instituted imperfection is almost ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... humanity is above mechanism; we cannot think of Milton elaborating his sublime epic, without, in fancy, taking in the studious years, the Italian nights of music, starlight, and high converse, the beautiful youth, the self-sacrificing prime, the blind old age, the religious patriotism, the pious loyalty, the learning and love, and the isolated meditation, cheered by grand symphonies and hoarded wisdom, through and by which, concentrated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... respected by her husband and her children, and she was noted for her chastity and nobility of character. She entered fully into the Spartan idea, and cheerfully gave her sons to her country, while she often inspired them to deeds of bravery and patriotism. The lofty and self-sacrificing patriotism of the Spartan mother is illustrated by her words upon sending her son to battle,—"Return either with ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... into artistic beauty, where glows the never smouldering fire of Christian love; and I have searched the world in vain for many a year, among riches and luxuries and comforts, but I have never had the smallest glimpse of that same abiding, enduring and self-sacrificing love which presided over me, waking or sleeping, smiling or weeping, during my happy, yet transient sojourn, in that distant ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... "So this," he thought, "was the reason why these two held such self-sacrificing affection; this was the reason why one would persist in risking everything for the other. The priest would not leave the spy when freedom was offered; the priest had stood before the spy, interposing between him and the bullets; the spy had flung ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward struggle with suffering and calamity,—a character sensitive, tender, magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... was purely patriotic. He foresaw clearly, and deliberately chose, the trials which he endured. He was an individual who could not become the indefinite portion of a mass, but fought for himself, on his own account. He was a self-sacrificing hero, but did not claim that distinction or any merit, feeling only that he was in the line of duty to self, country, and God. He fought for a principle, and needed neither driving nor urging, but was eager and determined to fight. He was not a politic man, but ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy
... themselves, were not adopted to produce affection. And the Greeks, while they sought after wisdom, did not perceive that all the wisdom of the Gentiles, would never work love in the heart. But the apostle preached—Christ crucified—an exhibition of self-denial, of suffering, and of self-sacrificing; love and mercy, endured in behalf of men, which, when received by faith, became "The power of God, and the wisdom of God," to produce love and obedience in the human soul. Paul understood the efficacy of the Cross. He looked to Calvary and beheld Christ ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... positively require more literary men of great note to join you. Next to the money question the formation of the nucleus of management is the most important matter in this undertaking. However zealous and self-sacrificing you and Schlonbach [Arnold Schlonbach, journalist, died long ago.] may be in devoting your talents and powers to the paper, yet I doubt whether you will be able to keep it going unless you get some further capable men of talent as co-operators. ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... all!" she said, wiping away her joyful tears and looking up. "I will tell you everything for it is your right! You have made me so happy to-day! I loved you from the beginning. First, I loved the magnanimous, self-sacrificing man who, at the age of twenty-one years, with a brilliant future before him, could renounce all his prospects to give peace to his father's latter years. I loved you then, Lord Arondelle, before I knew what ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... himself. She has appealed to me as delicately, yet as openly, as she can, and has given me to understand by everything except plain words that she is mine. Probably that is all she can do without bringing black ruin upon them all. Well, I suppose I should imitate her self-sacrificing spirit; but I hate this jumbling of Wall Street with affairs of the heart. It angers me that she must play with that fellow for financial reasons, and that he, conscious of power, may use language which she would not dare to resent. I can't imagine Madge in such a position. Yet, who ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... endowment. Strong as he was, that other was to be stronger. Probably he did not dream that that other was to wield the divine might, nor that His perfect strength was to be manifested in weakness, and to work its wonders by the might of gentle, self-sacrificing love. But, though he dimly saw, he perfectly adored. He felt himself unworthy (literally, insufficient) to be the slave who untied (or, according to Matthew, 'bore') his lord's sandals. How beautiful is the lowliness of that strong nature! He stood erect in the face of priests and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... keep us from seeing the prisoners; it just sets us wild about them. Put a creature you don't care for in the least, in a situation that commands sympathy, and nine out of ten girls will fall desperately in love. Here are brave, self-sacrificing, noble men who have fought heroically for us, and have been forced to surrender by unpropitious fate, confined in a city peopled by their friends and kindred, and as totally isolated from them as though they inhabited the Dry Tortugas! Ladies are naturally hero-worshipers. ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... full of self-forgetful, self-sacrificing love. "So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the Gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... the language of the Kingdom of God. Remember, the Kingdom of Heaven is where God is. God is where Love is, where trustful, self-sacrificing, glad ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... ourselves that the great body of wealth in the country has been built up slowly and honestly by the most laborious means, and accumulated and transmitted by self-sacrificing thrift. A rich person in nine cases out of ten is merely a capable, careful, saving person, often, too, a person who conducts a difficult calling with a fine sense of personal honor and a high standard of social obligation. We are too much dazzled by the occasional apparition of the lawyer who ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... and the Empire; without the ceaseless vigil in the North Sea; without the heroes of Jutland and Coronel, of the Falkland Isles and Zeebrugge, of the Fleets behind the Fleet; without the services of Smith-Dorrien at Mons, French at Ypres; without the dogged endurance, the inflexible will and the self-sacrificing loyalty of Haig; the dash of Maude and Allenby; the steadfast leadership in defence and offence of Plumer and Byng, Home and ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... exhausted all forms of suffering; touching life at every point, at every point He bled; and in Him we learn how to sustain our burden and to triumph throughout all the tragedy. In His absolute rectitude, in His confidence in His Father, in His hours of prayer, in His self-sacrificing regard for His fellow-sufferers, in His charity, and patience, we see how the heaviest cross may be borne in the spirit of victory. We learn from Him how divine grace can mysteriously make the sufferer equal to the bitterest martyrdom; not ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... Majorities never have ruled. It is the brave minority of thinking, self-sacrificing people that decides the tomorrow of communities that go upward. Majorities are not willing to make the effort to rule themselves. They are content to drift and be amused and follow false gods that promise something for nothing. They ...
— The University of Hard Knocks • Ralph Parlette
... a woman,' she murmured. 'I want none of the privileges of the sex which I'm delighted to call stronger. I want men to be noble and heroic and self-sacrificing; then they can protect me from a troublesome world, and look after me, and wait upon me. I'm an irresponsible creature with whom they can never be annoyed however exacting I am—it's only pretty thoughtlessness ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... self-interest ends the real patriotism begins; and its measure is not the loud chest-note of conviction, but self-sacrificing, untiring work in the service of the community, in order gradually to win for the German nature (Wesen) the first place in the world.—PROF. ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... intercourse. Sometimes it was he, sometimes she, who, for some cause or other, often a most trivial one, elected not to reply, not to ask a question, not to see. When they were good friends he appreciated the best side of her character, the self-sacrificing life which she led for him. When they were not friends it was exactly the opposite. When they were friends, he, as a rule, did whatever she wished. He tried to atone for the past. He was in the land of courtesy and influenced by its teaching. When he was not friends ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... year 1820 appeared the "Lamia," "Isabella," "Eve of St. Agnes," and "Hyperion," etc. But, alas! the insidious disease which carried him off had made its approach, and he was going to, or had already departed for, Italy, attended by his constant and self-sacrificing friend, Severn. Keats's mother died of consumption; and he nursed his younger brother in the same disease, to the last,—and, by so doing, in all probability, hastened his own summons. Upon the publication of the last volume of poems, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... self-sacrificing ardour of Joseph there was no trace in Leopold's character; yet his political aims were not low. During twenty-four years' government of Tuscany he had proved himself almost an ideal ruler in the pursuit of peace, of religious enlightenment, and of the material improvement of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... our nature seemed utterly incapable. It is far easier to feel kindly, to act kindly, toward those with whom we are seldom brought into contact, whose tempers and prejudices do not rub against ours, whose interests do not clash with ours, than to keep up an habitual, steady, self-sacrificing love towards those whose weaknesses and faults are always forcing themselves upon us, and are stirring up our own. A man may pass good muster as a philanthropist who makes but a poor master to his servants, or father to ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... in the church, and bore a fair reputation; but she was a worldly-minded Christian, and as such had not sufficiently encouraged in her children any peculiar love for holiness. She was, however, a devoted, self-sacrificing mother, as far as their worldly interests were concerned: and never was a lost ...
— Effie Maurice - Or What do I Love Best • Fanny Forester
... this problem, men who are not mere theorists, but have been reared in the hard school of practical experience, where refinements of theory count for little, but common sense in design counts for much—not to mention those self-sacrificing devotees to the advancement of the art, the collegiate and ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... to Paris, the headquarters of the League. With thirteen thousand soldiers he besieged this town of 220,000 inhabitants, garrisoned by fifty thousand troops. With their usual self-sacrificing devotion, the people of Paris held out against the horrors of famine. The clergy aroused the fanaticism of the populace, promising heaven to those who died; women protested that they would eat {226} their children before they would surrender. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... them all," he thought; "the De Beauseants, and Rastignacs, the German Jews, and the patrician beauties, and the Israelitish Circes of the Rue Taitbout, and the sickly self-sacrificing provincial angels, and the ghastly vieilles filles. Had that man ever seen such a woman as Charlotte, I wonder—a bright creature, all smiles and sunshine, and sweet impulsive tenderness; an angel who can be angelic without being ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... nothing more, nothing less—justice to the tenant, justice to the landlord. It is not to be inferred that our real estate owners have lacked anything as a class in patriotism. They are our most loyal, most self-sacrificing, most commendable citizens. Massachusetts by its Homestead Commission is encouraging its citizens to own real estate because such ownership is a sheet anchor to self-government. But it is a proclamation of warning to profiteers, of approbation and approval to patriots, and of assurance and ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... to return to his self-sacrificing labors among the Indians, at no distant period to end in that crown of martyrdom after which his soul panted, and the Knight to his post of observation near ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... only phrases used by interested people who want to hold others in slavery. In our England it is plainer every day that the character of the people is changing. Individual men are obedient, brave to the death, self-sacrificing, just as they always were even in our darkest times; but, none the less, it is too plain that authority ordained by law is dying, and that authority which rests on vague and fluctuating sentiment gains ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... rebellious Philadelphians banded together with promises not to eat or suffer to be eaten in their families any lamb or "meat of the mutton kind"; in this the Philadelphia butchers, patriotic and self-sacrificing, all joined. A wool-factory was built and fitted up and an appeal made to the women to save the state. In a month four hundred wool-spinners were at work. But the war cut off the supply of raw material, and the manufacture languished. ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... driven to bow himself against the pillars of our national and social temple, and pull it down to the common ruin of us all, is the question of the hour. A race so situated, were there no other factors in the problem, would be a peril to any people, and would call for the most helpful effort and self-sacrificing ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... holy but hard, holy but distant, holy but sharp in their judgments of others; holy, but men around said, unloving and selfish; the half-heathen Samaritan more kind and self-sacrificing than the holy Levite and priest. If this be true, it is not the teaching of Holy Scripture that is to blame. In linking holy and without blemish (or without blame) so closely, the Holy Spirit would have led us to ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... side, though he may find it a very welcome addition to his income, regards Club practice as semi-charitable, and, moreover, a form of charity in which he is often imposed on; he seldom views his club patients with much satisfaction, and unless he is a self-sacrificing enthusiast, it is not to them that his best attention, his best time, his most expensive drugs, are devoted. To perpetuate and enlarge the club system of practice and to glorify it by affixing to it a national seal of approval, was, therefore, ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Christ. A man in order, then, to love his fellow man aright must be thoroughly imbued with the principles of the Master. A man must look upon other men as having souls of eternal value. A man who would do as Jesus would have him do must first have His spirit of self-sacrificing love (Matthew 23:8-12; John 17:19; Philippians 2:5-7; Isaiah 53:3; ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... such criticism has not found open expression, although, too, the spiritual sons of the Abolitionists have not been prepared to acknowledge that the schools founded before Tuskegee, by men of broad ideals and self-sacrificing spirit, were wholly failures or worthy of ridicule. While, then, criticism has not failed to follow Mr. Washington, yet the prevailing public opinion of the land has been but too willing to deliver the solution of a wearisome ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... tenderest-hearted lady in the whole world—she who has been known to take the fur cloak off her own back, and lay it over the form of a sick beggar, while she went home in the cold to send her warm blankets. Yes, and known to have done scores of deeds as good and self-sacrificing as that. She do the thing they accuse her of! Why, sir, she no more did it than I, or you, or your own sweet wife did it! And Satan burn me! when I hear of any man accusing her of it, if I don't feel just like knocking his ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... from whom came all my joy and all my sorrow." Strange coincidence! Both he and his ancestor who had died three hundred years ago had listened to the same teacher. In the hearts of both he had kindled the heroic, self-sacrificing love, the greatest upon earth—the love of the ideal. But the descendant who read these words which one by one dispersed all his doubts, felt no sorrow; nothing but ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... know, dear. You married a man with a future, didn't you? But then Robert was a genius, and you have a noble, self-sacrificing character. You can stand geniuses. I have no character at all, and Robert is the only genius I could ever bear. As a rule, I think they are quite impossible. Geniuses talk so much, don't they? Such a bad habit! ...
— An Ideal Husband - A Play • Oscar Wilde
... almost divine. As the Hebrew to the ark of the covenant,—as the Greek to his country's palladium,—as the children of Freedom to the star-spangled banner,—so she clung in adversity to her whom in prosperity she almost worshipped. I learned in after years, all that we owed this humble, self-sacrificing, devoted friend. I did not know it then—at least not all—not half. I knew that she labored most abundantly for us,—that she ministered to my mother with as much deference as if she were an empress, anticipating her slightest wants and wishes, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... most self-sacrificing—" continued Dr. May. "And to see what it all turned on! I happened to have this place open to me—the very cause, perhaps, of my having taken things easy— and so the old Professor threw opportunities in my way; while Aubrey Spencer, with every recommendation that man could ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... unable to anticipate. To accept in her presence a second bride, by the same ceremonial act which had so lately asserted my claim to herself, was intensely repugnant to my feelings, and only her own self-sacrificing influence could have overcome my reluctance. My hesitation was, I fear, perceptible to Eunane; for, as I removed her veil and head-dress, her expression and a colour somewhat brighter than that of mere maiden shyness indicated disappointment or mortified pride. She was ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... forgive me. I should think you'd hate me and want me to leave your house. But, believe me, I do love you—I love you as dearly as I love Grandmamma and Papa. Excepting in books I never knew that any one woman could be so good and self-sacrificing as you are. Oh, will you believe that I don't want your money, and that I only care for your respect and forgiveness, and your love, ...
— How Ethel Hollister Became a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson
... colossal imbecility it was absurd to hope for any immediate improvement. The little already accomplished was the work of a few self-sacrificing enthusiasts, battling against the opposition of those they sought to benefit, and the results of their labours were, in many instances, as pearls cast before the swine who stood watching for opportunities to fall upon and rend ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... that he had but made a semblance of befriending her so disinterestedly only that he might enlist her kindness and regard, and turn them presently to his own purposes. She would infer that he had posed as unselfish—as self-sacrificing, almost—only that he might win her esteem, and that by telling her now that Robespierre was inflexible in his resolve to send Ombreval to the guillotine, he sought to retain that esteem whilst doing nothing for it. That he had ever intended ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... for me to speak too highly of the skill evinced by the two general officers commanding army corps; the self-sacrificing and devoted exertions of their staffs; the direction of the troops by divisional, brigade, and regimental leaders; the command of the smaller units by their officers; and the magnificent fighting spirit displayed by non-commissioned ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... great a sacrifice. It was not Miss Lucinda that I meant, but another, to whom I have reason to think I am not altogether disagreeable. Surely you cannot be ignorant of my profound affection for your self-sacrificing sister, the widow of my ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... heroism of a mighty time, whose dawn we see, is to give new inspiration to patriotic poetry for centuries to come, and beget a new generation of bards worthy to sing of arms and men? The spirit of self-sacrificing devotion which waged the Seven Years' War and the Wars of Liberation has returned to animate the Germany of today. Who knows, however, but that many a precious life will be sacrificed from which we hoped for great ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the health-giving breeze; worshipped anew in the log-cabin sanctuary. Yes, East and West are both dear to me. One fittingly supplements the other. Each holds the ashes of kindred. By a singular providence, since this tale was completed, a much-loved relative, one of the gentlest and most self-sacrificing whose presence ever glorified the earth, has found a resting-place in the bosom of the very prairie I had in mind while penning these pages. Sent west by physicians to save her life, she reached that spot in time to die, ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... replied Goethe, "not only with the Berliners, but it may be with all the rest of humanity. I feel, my duke, that the bloom of confidence, candor, and self-sacrificing love fades daily; only for you, and the friend whom I love, is there still attraction and flagrancy. Oh! you dear ones, be charitable, and do not consent that they fade for you. Let the goodness which I read in your eyes, my dear Carl, and the sunny rays of friendship strengthen ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... asset the colony possesses is not its all but unexplored mineral wealth or the potential value of its splendid forests and rich soil, but it is the Papuans themselves, and let us add that under the leadership of the high-minded, self-sacrificing and well-trained civil servants of Great Britain the dawn of Papuan civilization is fast breaking into the sunlight of a happiness such as has come to but few of the erstwhile savage races of ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... this; it has sown in the hearts of young gentlemen and young ladies seed which will not perish; which, though it may develop into forms little expected by those who sowed it, will develop at least into a virtue more stately and reverent, more chivalrous and self-sacrificing, more genial and human, than can be learnt from that religion of the Stock Exchange, which reigned triumphant—for a year and a day—in ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... millions of disinterested and pious theologians. That the leaders of European Christianity were sincere, my Father did not attempt to question. But they were all of them wrong, incorrect; and no matter how holy their lives, how self-sacrificing their actions, they would have to suffer for their inexactitude through aeons of undefined torment. He would speak with a solemn complacency of the aged nun, who, after a long life of renunciation and devotion, died at last, 'only ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... above all the certainty that youth and its delicious opportunities were slipping fast, she would doubtless have gone the way of most women under similar circumstances, had not Harold, for once in his life, been strong. Perhaps, if he had really loved her, he would not have been so self-sacrificing. ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... her from the throne. Of all seasons that of blossoms is the briefest, and the maturer Helen, of whom the sex is composed, is not wayward and selfish, is no longer "uncertain, coy, and hard to please," but patient, self-sacrificing, ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... their way, are no whit less earnest and self-sacrificing than sanctity, equally look upon sleep as a wasteful concession to bodily wants, and equally incline to limit such concession to its mere minimum. Commonplaces accordingly are perpetually circulating in the newspapers, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... physiologically complete, but it is complete in no other sense. All the moral and intellectual factors which combine with physical desire to form the perfect sexual attraction are absent. All the higher elements of love—admiration, respect, honor, and self-sacrificing devotion—are as foreign to prostitution as to the egoistic act of masturbation. The principal drawbacks to the morality of the act lie in its associations more than in the act itself. Any affectional quality which ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... education of the poor. Thousands were thus instructed long before the present system of public schools was introduced. It was to the instructions of his noble mother that James Marquette was indebted for his elevated Christian character, and for his self-sacrificing devotion to the interests of humanity, which have given his name celebrity through a large portion ...
— The Adventures of the Chevalier De La Salle and His Companions, in Their Explorations of the Prairies, Forests, Lakes, and Rivers, of the New World, and Their Interviews with the Savage Tribes, Two Hu • John S. C. Abbott
... and attachment remain the same as before, for what has happened to her is the coming of a totally new kind of love and not any change in her old love. The situation which arises is one of torturing anxiety for all concerned, and it is not less so when all concerned are animated by noble and self-sacrificing impulses. The husband in his devotion to his wife may even be willing that her new impulses should be gratified. She, on her side, will not think of yielding to desires which seem both unfair to her husband and opposed to all her moral traditions. ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... Johannesburg are doing noble work. Dr. Murray says it is astonishing how intelligently alert and self-sacrificing they are proving themselves to be. A story has been told me of a Boer woman who was fearfully mangled; she bore the necessary surgical operation with fortitude, but wept copiously when a green baize petticoat, which she had recently made out of a tablecloth, was taken off. Only a solemn promise ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... antidotes," remarked Arthur Elwood, as the conversation on these subjects began to flag and give room for other thoughts growing out of the association; "evil has its antidotes, and sorrow its alleviating joys. And especially shall we realize this, if the suggestions of that self-sacrificing girl, who has just addressed you so feelingly, be now followed. What ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... charming, idyllic love story is laid in Central Indiana. The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and its pathos and tender sentiment will endear ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... upon her a benign and almost paternal glance. "You're tremendously sweet to put that flea in my ear, Kay. It's a wonderful prescription, but it lacks one small ingredient—the wealthy, courageous and self-sacrificing friend who will consent to run the sandy on your astute parent, as ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... and a queer feeling came over me which seemed to warn me that something irreparable was about to take place between us. I felt deep sympathy for this noble nature struggling for the ideal in a world all out of gear; so thoroughly unselfish and self-sacrificing as hardly to grasp clearly the personal side of its sufferings, and slowly and unconsciously, in its very effort to free itself from material trammels, falling a victim to monomania—striving too high only to fall in ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... from sanctioning the most unjust and cruel laws, and it allowed him to sell Dunkirk and basely to accept a pension from France. The corruption of the age pervaded politics as well as society, and the self-sacrificing spirit which is the salt of a nation's life seemed for the ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... life. But from their infancy onward they had been subjected to influences as different as it is possible to imagine. To one duty had been the ideal and the guide of existence; the other had been taught to aim at pleasure as the supreme good. One had ripened into a self-sacrificing woman, to whom a spontaneous feeling of duty was more imperative than the rules and laws in which she had been trained; the other had degenerated into a wretched slave of her instincts, for whom the pursuit of pleasure had become a hateful yet inevitable servitude. Perhaps, as they stood side by ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... beast spoke in a sort of hushed, soft-music voice as if he were the self-sacrificing hero in a melodrama. The stained-glass expression on his face ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... woman's wit and self-sacrificing love save her husband from the toils of an adventuress, and change an apparently tragic situation into one of ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... classics within my youthful technical grasp. For those years I could not have had a better teacher. Lucky is the child, who like Gounod, Reisenauer and others, has had the invaluable instruction that a patient, self-sacrificing mother can give. The mother is the most unselfish of all teachers, and is painstaking to ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... that a sensitive conscience kept you tongue-tied. This is probably one of the most self-sacrificing acts which will be performed the present summer. But you will remember that Mephistopheles on a certain ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... that she had met it only with reproach. The thought of the mad, wild, godless career upon which he may have entered, and of which the village gossips are full, is hardly more afflictive to her than her recollection of that frank, self-sacrificing generosity, so ignobly requited. She longs in her heart to clear the debt,—to tell him what grateful sense she has of his intended kindness. But how? Should she,—being what she is,—even by a word, seem to invite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... represent Him as invariably trusting, loving, obeying the Most High as the Father, Lord of heaven and earth. His sayings lay special stress on God's tender personal interest in every child of His, on His stern judgment of hypocrites, on His Self-sacrificing love, and on His kindness to the unthankful and the evil. While it is not easy for us with the limited materials at hand to discriminate clearly between the elements in Jesus' thought of God which He shared with His contemporaries, and those which were His own contribution, so discerning ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... would condescend to assume the direction of the servants and household affairs, and Augustus could thus live wholly at his ease, without a worldly care to distract his breast. What an affectionate, self-sacrificing sister would she be, thus kindly to relieve her brother at her own expense! But, just as this plan began to ripen for execution, she was counter-plotted, or fancied herself to be, which led to the same denouement. Winnie Morris came to pass a vacation with her brother, Wayland, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... take care that foolish, extravagant curate should not come near him. There was no knowing to what he might persuade him! Poor Poldie was so easily led by any show of nobility—anything that looked grand or self-sacrificing! ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... did she make any effort to release herself till they were outside. Here were the vicar and his sister waiting to say good-night—the vicar much chagrined that he had seen so little of his chief hostess, and inclined to feel that his self-sacrificing attention to Miss Leighton at supper had been but poorly rewarded. Rachel, however, saw that he was out of humour, and at once set herself to appease him. And in the few minutes which elapsed before she parted with him at the gate she had ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Shismakoff, and he had proven himself not only kindly and generous, but self-sacrificing and noble. Along with these good and somewhat unusual qualities, he possessed more than average good looks and abundant patience. He it was who now in the hospital faithfully attended Michaelovitz, as was ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... supplied the human warmth and helping hand which rallied other men, where Greeley's strictures only made them want to fight back. Brainard was not physically the strongest man in the Expedition, nor necessarily the most self-sacrificing and courageous. But he had what counted most—mental ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... the idea of the plans proposed by the great Athenian. They were half persuaded to recall Leonidas, but hesitated to act until it was too late. The Spartan chief and his few hundred warriors died at their post in self-sacrificing obedience to the letter of their orders. The Persians poured over the Pass and inundated the plains of Attica. The few Athenians who had persisted in defending the Acropolis of Athens made only a brief ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... great deal. When he became a great writer of plays his wife took charge of all the accounts of his Drury Lane Theatre, and when he was in the House of Commons she acted as his secretary. Sheridan died in great poverty and wretchedness, and it is believed had his self-sacrificing wife not died before him she would have looked after his affairs so well that he would not have lost his fortune. Gainsborough painted the portraits of Sheridan's father-in-law, and of Samuel Linley; and it was said that this last portrait was ...
— Pictures Every Child Should Know • Dolores Bacon
... touching in literary history than this noble, self-sacrificing, generous affection of the sister towards her eminent brother. Such instances of absolute self-denial and all-absorbing love elevate our opinion of human nature generally, and prove that something of the Divine ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... man, he knew, felt the element of freedom beneath the despair of breaking even the tenderest of ties. Some women, he supposed, might feel the same way about their love-affairs. But could they feel the same about their maternal relations? Could it be that his mother, that pure, heroic, self-sacrificing soul, was now thinking more about her liberty than her loss? Had not their relation always been peculiarly free? he found himself thinking reproachfully. Once, he remembered, when he had been working unusually hard he had welcomed ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... principal events of which are so strongly impressed upon my memory. But the more I have thought over the story, the more I have been struck with the phases and impulses of Sarah Bond's unobtrusive, but deep feeling mind; her self-sacrificing spirit, her devotion to her father's will, her dread, when first in possession of the property, that any one act of liberality on her part might be considered a reproach to his memory; her habits struggling with her feelings, leading me to the conclusion that she would never ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... dignified purpose of soul, that the most fastidious could have found nothing to censure, while lovers of the cause she had espoused, found everything to commend. "I rejoice," writes a friend in this country to her, on hearing of her self-sacrificing labors, "that your husband's mantle has fallen upon you ... and that more than ever before, it is in your heart ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... chapter in praise of the way in which he endured his poverty. But it was all wrong! What that man really enjoyed was preaching and ceremonial and company—he had a real love of human beings. Well, that man's life was crammed with joy—he got exactly what he wanted all day long. It wasn't a self-sacrificing life—it would have been to you and me—but he no doubt woke day after day, with a prospect of having his whole time taken up with things he ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... almost horizontal bridge above the water. The rest of the agile tribe, now summoned from their sports, begin to cross; the younger ones, in the exuberance of their spirits, taking the opportunity of playing all sorts of pranks during their passage over the bodies of their self-sacrificing elders— giving many a sly pinch of the ear, or pull of the hair, for which they well know they cannot at the moment receive punishment. Thus the whole party—the mothers with their infants on their backs, and the other juvenile members—cross in safety, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... obligations towards those who have most claims upon him, he is more culpable than when he fails of his duty towards those who have less claims upon him. If a son comes short of his duty towards an affectionate and self-sacrificing mother, we say it is a greater fault, than if he comes short of his duty to a fellow-citizen. The parent is nearer to him than the citizen, and he owes unto her a warmer affection of his heart, and a more active service of his life, than he owes to his fellow-citizen. What ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... fame of Longstreet himself. That there was a laudable ambition and rivalry among all officers and men in the Confederate Army, there can be no question—an ambition to outstrip all others in heroic actions, noble deeds, and self-sacrificing, but jealously never. As for treachery, as General Longstreet clearly intimates in the case of General Law, why the poorest, ragged, starved, or maimed soldier in the South would not have sold his country or companions for the wealth of the Indies, nor would he have unnecessarily ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... step. His energy acknowledged no obstacle, his life knew no leisure; every day was filled with labor and with thought. He was one of the apostles of science, and he served his divine master with a self-sacrificing zeal that knew no abatement—with an ardor that constantly increased, and with a devotion unwavering and constant as the ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... done, but I implored her to let me take shelter here, and to promise not to give me up. She ought at once to have given me up. She yielded to the dictates of humanity and suffered me to hide in this room. Duchess, I thank you for your noble, your self-sacrificing but unavailing desire to ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... slay themselves for each other, but to strengthen themselves for each other. And among the many apparently beautiful things which turn, through mistaken use, to utter evil, I am not sure but that the thoughtlessly meek and self-sacrificing spirit of good men must be named as one of the fatalest. They have so often been taught that there is a virtue in mere suffering, as such; and foolishly to hope that good may be brought by Heaven out of all on which Heaven itself has set the ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... a much better woman, too, if it were not for the heroine. The adventuress makes the most complete arrangements for being noble and self-sacrificing—that is, for going away and never coming back, and is just about to carry them out, when the heroine, who has a perfect genius for being in the wrong place at the right time, comes in and spoils it all. ...
— Stage-Land • Jerome K. Jerome
... or of ethical ideas. Chaucer's notion of a "parfit gentil knight," and his "poure parsoun of a toun" could not be bettered for anything discovered in all the five centuries since. It is not easy to see how science can stimulate us to warm-hearted charity, to self-sacrificing love and loyalty, to patriotism, and other manifestations of qualities which we universally recognize as virtues, and as things without which human life would be a dreary and intolerable waste. Without them suicide were almost best. And the cultivation of the emotions ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... home then, but, if we would have breakfast, he would pay for it. How different the treatment received from this man—himself an exile for the sake of liberty, and in its full enjoyment on free soil—and the self-sacrificing spirit of our Rochester colored brother, who made haste to welcome us to his ample home,—the well-earned ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... Grace, bitterly, "she is better employed than to come near me. She is not a self-sacrificing fool like me. When I had the advantage, I gave it up; now she has got it, she uses it without mercy, decency, or gratitude. And that is the way to love. Oh! if my turn could but come again. But it ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... inside you, you've got the capacity for being as sweet and kind and tender and self-sacrificing as any woman living—if only something would happen to make it worth while. I wish—I wish to heaven ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... cast,—you recover strength; and perhaps it will seem to you that the pain of lying a while in the Shadow of Death is more than compensated by this rare and touching experience of human goodness. How tirelessly watchful,—how navely sympathetic,—how utterly self-sacrificing these women-natures are! Patiently, through weeks of stifling days and sleepless nights,—cruelly unnatural to them, for their life is in the open air,—they struggle to save without one murmur of fatigue, without heed of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... years of united life something out of the common. She believed in him; in the darkest season of disappointment she bade him remember that a man should pursue those things for which he is most fitted, let them be what they will. Her "noble and self-sacrificing" words brought him comfort, and banished "the spectre of a wasted life that had passed before him—a vision of that servant who hid his talent in a napkin and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... educated, high minded man, of large private means, willing to devote himself to the public service instead of drinking himself to death or doing nothing at all. You would have felt, as you looked at Davy and listened to him, that it was little short of marvelous that a man could be so self-sacrificing as to consent to run the gauntlet of low mudslingers for no reward but an office with a salary of three thousand a year. And you would have been afraid that, if something was not done to stop these mudslingers, such men as David Hull ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... curiosity—accident, carelessness, policy, perhaps, rather shame itself (pardon me) for the doubt of your mother's discretion, that his secrecy seemed to imply, kept him from ever alluding to the circumstance, even when the intimacy of after years made him more assured of your mother's self-sacrificing devotion to his interests. At his uncle's death he thought ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... daughter, Eliza J. Eddy, returning in the afternoon. In the evening, we attended a reception at Garrison's, where we met several of the literati, and were most heartily welcomed by Mrs. Garrison, a noble, self-sacrificing woman, loving and loved, surrounded with healthy, happy children in that model home. Mr. Garrison was omnipresent, now talking with and introducing guests, now soothing some child to sleep, and now, with his wife, looking after the refreshments. There we met Caroline H. Dall, Elizabeth ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... adventure," said Mr. Prohack. "You were pandering to the evil in you. If you could have stopped the clock from striking by walking down Bond Street in Mrs. Slipstone's clothes and especially her boots, would you have done it? Certainly not. Of course you wouldn't. Don't try to come the self-sacrificing saint over me, because you can't ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... shows Drusilla how to hold her pencil," said Flavilla, becoming warmly earnest in her appreciation of this self-sacrificing young man. "He often lays aside his own sketching and guides Drusilla's hand while ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... and impulses into egotism in one sex, and vanity in the other. Such may be the way of the world, as it is called—the result of a very artificial and corrupt state of society, but such is not general nature, nor female nature. Would you see the kindly, self-sacrificing affections developed under their most honest but least poetical guise—displayed without any mixture of vanity, and unchecked in the display by any fear of being thought vain?—you will see it, not among the prosperous, the high-born, the educated, "far, far removed from want, and grief, and ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... Bentley, the new parson, came—young, sincere, self-sacrificing, devoted, a poor preacher and a hard worker, who refused to batten on Redford bounty—all the old furniture of the parsonage was made over to him (on time payment), and the Goldsworthys began life in Melbourne on the basis of a rich wife. It was surprising how the legend grew amongst his set that ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... husband, and devoted herself to her child, so long as he was an infant, with the most self-sacrificing love. Adam often spoke of a little daughter, who must look exactly like its mother; but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... claims to be acting from principle or from a sense of duty, he really acts as he does because there "is something in it" for himself. The premise is sound; the conclusion false. In reply the other school argues that since man is capable of generous self-forgetting and even self-sacrificing action, he is capable of acting without interest. Again the premise is sound, and the conclusion false. The error on both sides lies in a false notion of the relation of ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... through the Holy Spirit given unto us."[21] The all-inclusive result is love. That marvelous tender passion—the love of God—heightless, depthless, shoreless, shall flood our hearts, making us as gentle and tender-hearted and self-sacrificing and gracious as He. Every phase of life will become a phase of love. Peace is love resting. Bible study is love reading its lover's letters. Prayer is love keeping tryst. Conflict with sin is love jealously fighting ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... birth-control has been made available to adults in England for the last half-century by Dr. Drysdale, Sen., and his family and supporters, through the Malthusian League, whose present address is 124, Victoria Street, London, S.W.1., and these pioneers have made a most self-sacrificing effort for the benefit of poor women by establishing a welfare centre at 153a, East Street, Walworth, London, S.E.17, where free advice is given in birth-control and sexual hygiene, and where medical supplies are available at nominal prices. This centre is supported entirely by voluntary subscriptions ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... in Electoral Saxony. Henceforth such men as Andreae, Chemnitz, and Selneccer were the trusted advisers of August, who now became the enthusiastic, devoted, and self-sacrificing leader of the larger movement for settling all of the controversies distracting the Lutheran Church, which finally resulted in the adoption of ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente |
