"Egoistic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... difference which separated them, as the image of pliancy, sweetness, altruism, and devotion; and he saw her lips and the rapt glance of her eyes as beautiful as in the past. What a soft, soothing, assuaging contrast with the difficult Lois, so imperious and egoistic! (An unforgettable phrase of Lois's had inhabited his mind for over a decade: "Fancy quarrelling over a man!") He had never met Marguerite since their separation, and for years he had heard nothing whatever about her; he did not under-estimate the ordeal of meeting her again. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... love had been as egoistic as love generally is, it would have been greater than the egoism of his vanity—or of his generosity, if you like—and all this could not have happened. He would not have hit upon that renunciation at which one does not know whether to grin or shudder. It is true too that then ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... they break down the barriers of civil communities and create out of tribes a nation and out of the nations a world. As in the present day by means of our cosmopolitan literature the distinctions of civilized nations are done away, so Greek poetic art transformed the narrow and egoistic sense of tribal relationship into the consciousness of Hellenic nationality, and this again into the consciousness of a common humanity. But in Latium nothing similar occurred. There might be poets in Alba and in Rome, but there arose no Latin epos, nor even—what were still more conceivable—a ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... in so much of the abler literature of our time is an unselfish revolt, or non-selfish revolt: it is an outcome of that larger spirit which conceives the self to be a part of the general social organism, and it is therefore neither egoistic nor altruistic. It finds a sanction in the new intelligence, and an inspiration in the finer sentiments of our generation, but the glow which chiefly illumines it is the glow of the great vision of a happier earth. It speaks of the claims of truth and justice, and assails untruth and ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... personal will as seeking its objects in the manifestation of itself for itself—sit pro ratione voluntas;— whether this be realised with adjuncts, as in the lust of the flesh, and in the lust of the eye; or without adjuncts, as in the thirst and pride of power, despotism, egoistic ambition. The fourth antagonist, then, of reason, is ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... done many things; he had influenced many people, and accomplished some good work; but what had he got out of it for himself? He was an Individualist at heart, as most men are, and he felt conscious of a claim which the world had not granted. It was almost a shock to him to feel the egoistic desire for personal happiness stirring strongly within him; the desire had been suppressed for so long, that when it once awoke it surprised him ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... face, and in their wrath continued flinging undeserved insults at each other. I believe that never in their lives, even in delirium, had they uttered so much that was unjust, cruel, and absurd. The egoism of the unhappy was conspicuous in both. The unhappy are egoistic, spiteful, unjust, cruel, and less capable of understanding each other than fools. Unhappiness does not bring people together but draws them apart, and even where one would fancy people should be united by the similarity ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... while her hair was being ministered to, and daily the shafts of her beauty rebounded from his dull bosom pointless and ineffectual. Unworthy pique brightened her eyes. Pride-hurt she glowed upon him in a way that would have sent her higher adorers into an egoistic paradise. The candy man's hard eyes looked upon her with a half-concealed derision that urged her to the use of the sharpest arrow in her ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... cold upon the hearth, and the walls were bare of all but the marks of what had been. It is in the nature of all human passion, the lowest as well as the highest, that there is a point where it ceases to be properly egoistic, and is like a fire kindled within our being to which everything else in us ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... narrower moralities when this involves a violation of the precepts of the wider morality is axiomatic. Criminal and anti-social actions are not excused by the fact that motives which impelled their commission were not purely egoistic. ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... to talk, when the humor seized him, and he did talk, brilliantly, wittily, freely, and impersonally. The egoistic "I" was conspicuous by its absence. And while he talked you could see the agile antennae of The Author's winged mind feeling after the soul-string that might lead him through the mazes of this unusual character. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... subtle boundary that may not be crossed—an individuality on which none may trespass. But in this case the barriers are thrown down; and thus the love of unrestrained activity is gratified. Finally, there is an exaltation of the sympathies. Egoistic pleasures of all kinds are doubled by another's sympathetic participation; and the pleasures of another are added to the egoistic pleasures. Thus, round the physical feeling forming the nucleus of the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... is moving smoothly. I think I told you that the Emperor of Russia drank to your health with great kindness. He and the King of Prussia dine with me every day. I want you to be contented. Good by; much love." And July 6: "I have yours of June 25. I am sorry you are so egoistic, and that my success gives you no pleasure. The beautiful Queen of Prussia is to dine with me to-day. I am well and anxious to see you again when fate permits. Still it will probably ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... Brahmans was egoistic. Buddha had compassion on men, he loved them, and preached love to his disciples. It was just this word of sympathy of which despairing souls were in need. He bade to love even those who do us ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... completely. Also, she enjoyed it. To the connoisseur of scenes, nothing is more enjoyable than a thorough, melodramatic, egoistic humility. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... view, as is the passion for music or for the higher philosophical consistencies which consumes the soul of others. The feeling of the inward dignity of certain spiritual attitudes, as peace, serenity, simplicity, veracity; and of the essential vulgarity of others, as querulousness, anxiety, egoistic fussiness, etc.,—are quite inexplicable except by an innate preference of the more ideal attitude for its own pure sake. The nobler thing tastes better, and that is all that we can say. {188} 'Experience' of consequences may truly teach us what things ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... very sad and very ugly, isn't it, Gioconda?" sighed Austin, as he lifted the large, white, fluffy animal upon his lap. "You're a great philosopher, my dear; I wish I were as wise as you. You're so scornful, so dignified, so divinely egoistic. But you don't mind being worshipped, do you, Gioconda? Because you know it's your right, of course. There—she's actually condescending to purr! Now we'll come and disport ourselves under the trees, and you ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour |
