"Egotism" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as master. He claimed work as children claim toys, not from a feeling of duty, but by instinct, by a necessity of nature. The tenderness, the devotedness of his mother had instilled into him an egotism that was ferocious. He fancied he loved those who pitied and caressed him; but, in reality, he lived apart, within himself, loving naught but his comfort, seeking by all possible means to increase his enjoyment. When the tender affection of Madame Raquin disgusted him, he plunged with delight ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... dictated the lines he has left us is not to be judged by the conventionalities which suit the cold temperaments of ordinary men; there is a strong vein of egotism in most devotion; but here was one who felt, 'all is lost, when ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... man's egotism aroused her impatience, but she lowered her head to catch every syllable ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... the imputation of the want of firmness sometimes impel us to perform rash and inconsiderate acts. It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputation of the want of courage. But pride, vanity, egotism, so unaimiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... of right or wrong— No spiritual standards for measurements; Feeding upon that same egotism That swept his country Into the depths of hate— He sneered and laughed At her pale patriotism And the country that inspired it. There was no open break between them, For a child's small hands Clung to both and kept them close. Shutting her eyes to all else Save that she was his wife, She played ...
— With the Colors - Songs of the American Service • Everard Jack Appleton
... womanly feeling, some sentiment of compassion softened Lady Audley's glance as it fell upon that noble, reposing figure. For a moment the horrible egotism of her own misery yielded to her pitying tenderness for another. It was perhaps only a semi-selfish tenderness after all, in which pity for herself was as powerful as pity for her husband; but for once in a way, her thoughts ran out of the narrow groove ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... and it cost him a bitter struggle not to box this high-souled creature's ears. And then to go and destroy good food! His mother's milk curdled in his veins with horror at such impiety. Finally, pity at Pietro's petulance and egotism, and a touch of respect for poverty-struck ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... espousal of the Anti-Slavery cause for a quarter of a century, under circumstances which have served in a special manner to identify my name and labours with it, will shield me from the charge of egotism, in assuming to be its exponent—at least for myself—on this occasion. All that I can compress within the limits of a single lecture, by way of its elucidation, it shall be my aim to accomplish. I will make a clean breast of it. You shall know ...
— No Compromise with Slavery - An Address Delivered to the Broadway Tabernacle, New York • William Lloyd Garrison
... remained a general favorite. It was recognized that she had a certain kind of loyalty which could be depended upon. Of course such a girl would eventually marry, and with natural hope and egotism each one felt that he might be the successful competitor. At any rate, as in war, they must take their chances, and it seems that there is never a lack of those willing to ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... the reader's pardon for the apparent egotism of this article, for, though I use the first person throughout, I feel that I do so as the spokesman of a large (if not ...
— The Writer, Volume VI, April 1892. - A Monthly Magazine to Interest and Help All Literary Workers • Various
... was not conventional. Very well. Neither was the Baron. And for that matter, neither was she. He was a child of nature. So was she. His rudeness, his aggressiveness, his noise, his talkativeness, his egotism, his confidences about himself—all these did not make him so very disagreeable to her as to her ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... themselves to us that we were permitted to hope that in their sure growth they would come to be superior to the pitfalls and seamy sides of this character. And now they have proved inferior, inferior to the old evil of a brutal national egotism which recognizes no rights on the part of others, which, unconcerned about morality or unmorality, pursues only its ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... and on the other to terrify the Acadians; yet not without cost to the French Government; for they had learned the value of money, and, except when their blood was up, were slow to take scalps without pay. Le Loutre was a man of boundless egotism, a violent spirit of domination, an intense hatred of the English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing. Towards the Acadians he was a despot; and this simple and superstitious people, extremely susceptible to the influence of their priests, trembled ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... expectations of Messmer, and induced him to extend his original plan further than it is likely he first intended. We find him soon after assuming a more dogmatical and mysterious air, when, for the purpose of shining exclusively, he appeared in the character of a magician:—his pride and egotism would brook neither equal ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... I love is a Princess. Had she been the lowliest maid in all that great land of ours, still would she have been my queen, I her king. When first I loved the mistress of Graustark she was, you must not forget, Miss Guggenslocker. I have said all this to you, sir, not in egotism nor in bitterness, but to show my right to hope in the face of all obstacles. We recognize little as impossible. Until death destroys this power to love and to hope I must say to you that I shall not consider the Princess Yetive beyond my ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was his only son. Moreover, I was the only living child of the beloved wife of his youth—all that remained to him of my fair mother. Then I was the heir to his property, the hope of his family, and, without undue egotism, I may say, from what I have been told, that I was a quaint, original, and (thanks to Mrs. Bundle) not ill-behaved child, and that, for a while at least, I should have been much missed in the daily life ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... invariably that after the rare occasions when the pitiful curtain of his egotism had been blown aside by some chance breeze of destiny, and Francis Madigan had stood for a moment face to face with himself and his shirked responsibilities, he made the spasmodic effort to fulfil ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... I swept by, the crowd would set up a shout ... but now they were encouraging "The hick" more than me. This made me furious, hurt my egotism. My lungs were burning with effort ... I threw out into a longer stride. I glanced back again. Still the chap was lumbering along ... but easily, so easily ... almost ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... to know the truth," Helen went on swiftly. "Perhaps it is just egotism on my part, and I have really no right to tell you all about myself in this way; and perhaps you will scorn me when you come to know the whole truth. But I cannot help telling you about it, so that you may advise me what to do; I was all helpless and lost, and what you said came last night like ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... emperor, do you imagine? And shall I ever have done talking politics? I would far rather talk of you, after all. Henrietta tells me of your looking well, but of your not being strong yet. Now do, for once, have a fit of egotism and tell me a little about yourself.... Surely I ought especially to thank you, dearest kind friend, for your goodness in writing to—, of which Henrietta very properly told me. I never shall forget this and other proofs of your ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... the title of the book his text, "grass is the gift of God for the healthy sustenance of his creatures, and its name ought not to be desecrated by being so improperly bestowed upon these foul and rank leaves of the poison-plants of egotism, irreverance, and of lust, run rampant and holding high ...
— Walt Whitman Yesterday and Today • Henry Eduard Legler
... although superior in some respects to man—more gentle, more sensitive, less subject to those vices which proceed from egotism and hardness of heart—yet do not really possess the sentiment of justice; that they obey rather their feelings than their conscience. This observation is more correct, but it proves nothing; it is not nature, ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet
... the final initiation into the inmost chamber. The second death corresponds to the perfection of the grand mastery. It signifies the complete sacrifice of his personality, the renunciation of every personal desire. It is the effacement of that radical egotism that caused the fall of Adam, in that he dragged down spirituality into corporeality. The narrow pusillanimous ego melts into nothing before the high impersonal self, symbolized by Hiram. The mythical sins of the eternal universal human Adam are thus expatiated. The architect of the ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... of hope (and husbands) for the sex. Mrs. TODD has not as yet been irresistibly seized by the movement; but if TIMOTHY knows himself, he longs for the day when the seizer may come. Although TODD—who is the writer of this epistle—says it, who perhaps shouldn't, lest the shaft of egotism be hurled mercilessly at him, he does unhesitatingly say that to aid this movement he would make the greatest of sacrifices. He is willing to sacrifice his wife and other female relations upon the sacred altar of the movement, and contribute ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... if he were himself narrating: the most modest man in the world would that way be put at a disadvantage. The constant recurrence of the capital I, is apt to rouse in the mind of the reader, especially if he be himself egotistic, more or less of irritation at the egotism of the narrator—while in reality the freedom of a man's personal utterance may be owing to his lack of the egotistic. Partly for my friend's sake, therefore, I shall tell the story as—what indeed it is—a narrative of my ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... Do you, in your supreme egotism, suppose that you, Champney Googe, are the only man in this world who has sinned, suffered, gone under for a time? Are you going to lie down in the ditch like a craven, simply because you have failed ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... they are attempting revolution, and are looked upon as the enemies of good order. Joseph Hume may be a patriot, so may O'Connell, so may —; but never mind; I consider that if in most cases, in all countries the word egotism were substituted it would be more correct, and particularly so ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... down once more in his arm-chair; and, tapping his shining hessians with the stem of his long clay in smiling abstraction, began, with all a lover's egotism, to expatiate on the theme that ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... meant to stand by them. It had been the dream of her life to get out and away, but in that moment she knew that wherever she went, she would always come back. Others might help from the top, but she could help understandingly from the bottom. With the magnificent egotism of youth, she outlined gigantic schemes on the curtain of the night. Some day, somehow, she would make people like the Clarkes see the life of the poor as it really was, she would speak for the girls in the factories, in the sweatshops, on the stage. She would be an interpreter between ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... due to the fact that amateurs usually begin by writing strictly true stories, and they always consider it of prime importance that they had the tale from grandmother, or that it actually occurred to John's wife's second cousin's great aunt; forgetting, in their unconscious egotism, that the reader cares only for the narrative, and nothing for the narrator. Stories told to interested listeners by "grandma," an "old hunter," or some loquacious "stranger," usually need to be so revised that the intrusive relater ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... Egypt, the oldest in the world. And yet, it has contributed but little to the advancement of mankind. Their system of education has failed to stimulate national and individual progress, has fostered narrow egotism, and has excluded external suggestion. It is studied rather for its negative lessons, and therefore suggests practices which the student of education will do well to avoid. The result in China furnishes the best argument against a method of instruction that appeals solely to ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... event long foreseen without much importance. And yet he owed him a great deal. Patricius was hard pressed, and he took immense trouble to provide the means for his son's education. But with the fine egotism of youth, Augustin perhaps thought it enough to have profited by his father's sacrifices, and dispensed himself from gratitude. In any case, his affection for his father must have been rather lukewarm; the natural differences between them ran too deep. In ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... ridiculous. There must have been something more in him than in a mere idol of the dandies, like Brummell, or a mere irresistible buck and lady-killer, like Lauzun. In these latter men the force is wholly destructive; they are animated by a feline vanity, a tiger-spirit of egotism. Against the story of Nash and the Duchess of Queensberry, so wholesome and humane, we put that frightful anecdote that Saint-Simon tells of Lauzun's getting the hand of another duchess under his high heel, and pirouetting on it to make the heel ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies; a diseased appetite, like a passion for drink or perverted tastes; one can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates; and Thurlow Weed was one of the exceptions; a rare immune. He thought apparently not of himself, but of the person he was talking with. He held himself naturally in the background. He was not jealous. He grasped power, but ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... intellectual capacity of woman, she did not look upon herself as a representative of the class: her admiration of her sex did not degenerate into self-laudation, and her enthusiasm was not tainted by egotism. Hers was not a strong-mindedness that showed itself in ungainly coiffures and tasteless attire. It was content with desiring and claiming for woman whatever is best, noblest and most lovely in mind and body. She would have given her life to further this end, but thought it ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... vague idea of women's ignorance; how naturally they are inclined to respond to a man; how the dominating egotism of a man and his confident professions and his demands confuse them; how deeply his appeals for his own happiness stir them to pity.... They have heard of love—and they do not know. If they ever dream of it it is not what they ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... trite remarks on commonplace subjects; also all egotism and anecdotes of personal adventure and exploit, unless they should be called out by persons you ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... the darkness at the little fellow's egotism, and lifting him as I might a child, poised him lightly upon my shoulder. He struggled a moment to steady himself against the wall, and then I could feel him tugging eagerly at something which appeared to yield slowly to his efforts. As he worked, a dense shower of dust ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... good. You may keep "a full diary," as Mr. Arthur Christopher Benson says he does. This is one of the least good ways. Diaries, save in experienced hands like those of Mr. Benson, are apt to get themselves done with the very minimum of mental effort. They also tend to an exaggeration of egotism, and if they are left lying about they tend to strife. Further, one never knows when one may not be compelled to produce them in a court of law. A journal is better. Do not ask me to define the difference ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... omnipotence of the state, its intervention and regimentation, and proclaimed the sovereignty of the moral law of the individual—remarking already that, while the necessary instinct of self-preservation leads man to egotism, nature has supplied a corrective to it by providing man with another instinct—that of sociability. When men are reasonable enough to follow their natural instincts, they will unite across the frontiers and constitute the Cosmos. They will have no need of law-courts or police, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for all places and times. But this sentiment, like gravitation, diminishes in the ratio of the square of the distance, and at any considerable remove can no longer be reckoned upon as a counter-balance to the lawlessness of egotism. Athenians could be passably just, or at least not disastrously unjust, to Athenians; Spartans to Spartans; but Sparta must needs oppress the other cities of Laconia, while Athens was at best a fickle ally; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... Don Mario's egotism soared to the sky. The great Bishop was actually being advised by him! Hombre! Where would it not end! He would yet remove to a larger town, perhaps Mompox, and, with the support of the great ecclesiastic, stand for election to Congress! He would show the Bishop what ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... pleasant one, for it served to dispel a preconceived and not an entirely favorable impression of his character. For years I had heard stories about Richard Harding Davis—stories which emphasized an egotism and self-assertiveness which, if they ever existed, had happily ceased to be obtrusive by the time I ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... she thought "There's a difference somewhere." Being a supreme egotist Ardita frequently thought about herself; never having had her egotism disputed she did it entirely naturally and with no detraction from her unquestioned charm. Though she was nineteen she gave the effect of a high-spirited precocious child, and in the present glow of ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... And he answered with white lips: "Nothing, thank you." When we were anxious and asked him "How do you feel?" he was always quite satisfied. "I am getting on very well." He died with a discretion, a modesty, a self-forgetfulness which redeemed the egotism ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... to herself, "who could have foreseen this." And ignoring my presence with all the egotism of extreme agitation, she hurried past me to the room above, where ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... just it! The watchword of our age is self! We are all for ourselves; the twentieth century is to be a glorification of selfishness, the Era of Egotism! Forget yourself, and what would you do? The dignified thing. You would live quietly beside your husband if not with him. And your son would be worthy ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modelled after our own, a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... faith to renounce a transcendent God." "A man who believes in himself is almost capable of believing in his neighbour." Here was a sentence that to the Pope's mind was significant of that sublime egotism that is alone capable of confronting the Christian spirit: and again, "To forgive a wrong is to condone a crime," and "The strong man is accessible to no one, but all are accessible ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... childhood this man was taught the honored traditions of his people, and, thus trained in pride of ancestry, grew up to believe that the supreme things of life are what his kind call education, refinement, and culture. In his shallow egotism, he came to measure all life by ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... intelligent reader, and that they may delineate Landor in more truthful colors than those in which he has heretofore been painted. In repeating conversations, I have endeavored to stand in the background, where I very properly belong. For the inevitable egotism of the personal pronoun, I hope to be pardoned by all charitable souls. That Landor, the octogenarian, has not been photographed by a more competent person, is certainly not my fault. Having had the good fortune to enjoy opportunities ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... with the sheep, I kill to live; and where is the difference between man and mutton? pride and a tailor's bill. Murder? I know who made that name—a man crouching from the knife! Selfishness made it—the aggregated egotism called society; but I meet that with a selfishness as great. Has he money? Have I none—great powers, none? Well, then, I fatten and manure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... capacity for; and accordingly they have been the means of bringing about not a little harm both in art and literature. From their false principles in the fine arts—principles which, however much trumpeted and gospeled about, were in fact egotism united with weakness—our German artists have not yet recovered, and are filling the exhibitions, as we see, with pictures which nobody will buy. Frederick, the younger of these Dioscouri, choked himself at last with the eternal chewing of moral ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... all conservative bonds by accustoming youth to the practice of pitiless analysis, a nation will be found in process of dissolution; for it will then be held together only by the base solder of material interests, and by the formulas of a creed created by intelligent egotism. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... unity in the midst of difference. To strive at identity is to be certain of failure, and it deserves failure; for it is the outcome of selfishness. A man's friend is not his property, to be claimed as his exclusive possession. Jealousy is an ignoble vice, because it has its roots in egotism. It also destroys affection, since it is an evidence of want of trust, and trust is ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... penates, and stand up for the American eagle, right or wrong. But Emerson instantly goes beneath this interpretation and exposes its crudity. The true sense of patriotism, according to him, is almost the reverse of its popular sense. He has no sympathy with that boyish egotism, hoarse with cheering for our side, for our State, for our town; the right patriotism consists in the delight which springs from contributing our peculiar and legitimate advantages to the benefit of humanity. Every foot of soil has its proper quality; the grape on ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... brother's camp. So, too, his naive explanation that Hannibal's "more than Punic perfidy" consisted mainly of ambushes and similar military strategies goes to show, as I have said, that whatever is unjust in our author's estimate was rather the result of the prejudiced deductions of national egotism than of facts wilfully or carelessly distorted by ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... that he should thus revert to them. But as he scoffed inwardly, his eyes gleamed with vivacity, and the sensations with which he had viewed the young girl night after night were reawakened. What was one woman lost to him, his egotism whispered; he had parted from many, as a gourmand leaves one meal for another. Yes; but she had not been his, insinuated vanity; another had whipped her off before ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... painfully conscious of many imperfections the critical reader will perceive. But since stereotype plates will not reflect our growing sense of perfection, the lavish praise of friends as to the merits of these pages will have its antidote in the defects we ourselves discover. We may however without egotism express the belief that this volume will prove specially interesting in having a large number of contributors from England, France, Canada and the United States, giving personal experiences and the progress of legislation in their ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... fear are great enemies of human life. A depressed, sour, melancholy soul, a life which has ceased to believe in its own sacredness, its own power, its own mission, a life which sinks into querulous egotism or vegetating aimlessness, has become crippled and useless. We should fight against every influence which tends to depress the mind, as we would against a temptation to crime. It is undoubtedly true that, as a rule, the mind has power to lengthen the period of youthful and mature strength ...
— Cheerfulness as a Life Power • Orison Swett Marden
... man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more,—let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeable prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... tale of a peroration, set as if on joints, that clattered husky and dry like the rattles of a snake; there an argument sprouting into green declamation, like a damaged ear of corn in a wet harvest; yonder a piece of delightful egotism, set full in sentiment like a miniature of Mr. Clark in a tinsel frame. What seemed most remarkable, however, in at least his earlier productions, was their ceaseless glitter of surface, if we may so speak. We found them literally sprinkled over with little bits of ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... audacious in design, immovable in resolution, inexorable in execution, merciless in vengeance, by turns insolent, humble, violent, or supple according to circumstances, always and entirely logical in his egotism, he is Cesar Borgia reborn as a Mussulman; he is the incarnate ideal of Florentine policy, the Italian ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Coming, as he announces, "from a State"—ay, sir, from South Carolina—he turns with lordly disgust from this newly-formed community, which he will not recognize even as a "body politic." Pray, sir, by what title does he indulge in this egotism? Has he read the history of "the State" which he represents? He cannot surely have forgotten its shameful imbecility from Slavery, confessed throughout the Revolution, followed by its more shameful ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... reduce poetry to a mere effusion of natural sensibility; or what is worse, to divest it both of imaginary splendour and human passion, to surround the meanest objects with the morbid feelings and devouring egotism of the writers' own minds. Milton and Shakspeare did not so understand poetry. They gave a more liberal interpretation both to nature and art. They did not do all they could to get rid of the one and the other, to fill up the dreary void with the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... such a substitute for Christianity, that imitation so unvitalizing in its effects, the studiously industrious and sincere man will recoil; but the vain and superficial man will find much in it for the display of his egotism, and superficial knowledge. Often did he remark when conversing on these subjects, there was ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... excellent academy of fence in which a man distinguishes by effacing himself. He has the dexterous art of letting us feel the point of his individuality without making us obtrusively aware of his presence. We arrive at an intimate knowledge of his character by confidences that escape egotism by seeming to be made always in the interest of the reader. That we know all his tastes and prejudices appears rather a compliment to our penetration than a proof of indiscreetness on his part. If we were disposed to find any fault with Mr. James's style, which is generally of conspicuous ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... executed? Why were these promises, sworn before the French flag, made in vain? But it is necessary to draw a veil over the past. I will only add, that if these promises had been fulfilled, every one would have been saved, and that, in spite of the detestable egotism of certain personages, humanity would not now have had to deplore the scenes of horror consequent on ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... company, would have had any very vehement desire, in the event of a war, to cut me down, or to knock me on the head. I am afraid this chapter would require a long apology, and for a long apology space is wanting. But there will be no egotism, and much geology, in ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... and direct trains are the result of an understanding which has been arrived at between twenty different companies. Of course there has been considerable friction at the outset, and at times some companies, influenced by an unenlightened egotism have been unwilling to come to terms with the others; but, I ask, was it better to put up with this occasional friction, or to wait until some Bismarck, Napoleon, or Zengis Khan should have conquered Europe, traced the lines with a pair of compasses, and ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... childish sensibilities expanded, and the ideas which at that time brooded continually over my mind, or else will expose the traits of character that slumbered in those around me. This plan will have the advantage of not being liable to the suspicion of vanity or egotism; for I beg the reader to understand distinctly, that I do not offer this sketch as deriving any part of what interest it may have from myself, as the person concerned in it. If the particular experience selected ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... in the mid-twenties—that age when the egotism and rather narrow enthusiasms and prejudices of the girl shade off into the graciousness and savoir-vivre of womanhood. She could look back on more than one foolishness, from whose results she had providentially escaped, with an uneasy ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... Gillard in an article on "Jealousy" (Free Review, Sept., 1896), in opposition to those who believe that jealousy "makes the home," declares that, on the contrary, it is the chief force that unmakes the home. "So long as egotism waters it with the tears of sentiment and shields it from the cold blasts of scientific inquiry, so long will it thrive. But the time will come when it will be burned in the Garden of Love as a noxious weed. Its mephitic influence in society is too palpable to be overlooked. It turns homes ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... don't want to—" He was wounded in his wretched valetudinarian egotism, which was constantly on the ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... profound diplomatists. But I was terribly undeceived. Those selfish shop-keepers amused me with fair but false promises; they care neither for my welfare nor for that of Europe, but only for their commerce. The egotism of Great Britain is equalled only by her narrow-minded avarice. I asked the British cabinet to guarantee a Russian loan, and they were impudent enough to refuse me, although they knew very well that I wished to negotiate it for the sole purpose ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... In our egotism, in our shame of what we ignorantly regard as the lowliness of our origin we are always seeking alleged lofty spiritual explanations of our doings, and overlook the actual, quite simple real reason. One of the strongest factors in Susan's holding herself together in face of overwhelming odds, ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... her fierce quarrel with her brother, as the period when all her keenest emotions had been most actively called into play. And indeed what memories are so precious to us, which, in our profound egotism, do we cherish so closely, as those of the times which stirred our strongest passions to their depth, and which, gathering up, as it were, all lesser experiences into one supreme moment, revealed to us the intensest life ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... who were the all of whom she spoke, but he could not do it without an egotism which would be distasteful to him. "I can hardly tell;—but I don't think I shall ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... associated with Jeffrey in the foundation of the Edinburgh Review: he is said to have written eighty articles in the first twenty numbers, though like all his work, the criticism was spoilt by egotism and vanity. The fact is that an over-brilliant versatility injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, and a great many more," ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... we cannot pardon her M. de Lauzun. We are all well acquainted with that individual, with his cunning and supercilious cast of countenance, servile or arrogant, according to circumstances and interests, adroit in concealing a merciless egotism, a revolting brutality, under the guise of a theatrical liberality; brave so far as was necessary to be insolent with impunity, intelligent no further than to the extent at which selfishness blinds the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... perhaps unjust to my associates. I see now, more clearly, the causes of those vagaries, which originated in a genuine aspiration, and failed from an ignorance of the true nature of Man, quite as much as from the egotism of the individuals. Other attempts at reorganizing Society were made about the same time by men of culture and experience, but in the A.C. we had neither. Our leaders had caught a few half-truths, which, in their minds, were speedily warped into ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... had expected, it was the current diary—that on which Thornton Lyne had been engaged at the time of his murder. Tarling opened the book in a spirit of disappointment. The earlier books had yielded nothing save a revelation of the writer's egotism. He had read Lyne's account of the happenings in Shanghai, but after all that was nothing fresh, and added little to the sum ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... wiseacres, when you have read it, you will appreciate how egotism may also lead men into fatal errors. Haply, too, you will be able to afford Colonel Pride some satisfactory reason for tampering with ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... author himself make plain, is no accident, of which Montaigne was unconscious. It is the express idea on which the "Essays" were written. Montaigne, in his "Essays," is a pure and perfect egotist, naked, and not ashamed. Egotism is Montaigne's note, his differentia, in the world of literature. Other literary men have been egotists—since. But Montaigne may be called the first, ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... know it," he thought, "and I will wait till she knows me better." Instead he began telling her about himself and his own early life, his home, his loss of parents, his struggle to earn a living, and how much success he had so far met. It may be considered egotism, but it was the wisest thing he could have done, for it awakened her interest in him far more than he realized. When his recital and cigar were both at an end and it was time to go in, he said: "I may not have another chance ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... which originated from common life, which is entirely destitute of accurate analogies, and is therefore, as it were, without a model; for the other nouns of this class are formed from the 3d pers. of the Fut.—As regards, now, the substance:—Egotism, and selfishness arising out of it, are the ground of all desire for the love of that which is not God, especially in the case of those who have already known the true God; for where this is not the case, there ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... joyously. Her brutal egotism was a good joke. They expected nothing else from her. She was like an animal whose cruelty and cunning one could observe ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... position, and Helen. Helen would surely drop him. The incredible had happened—he had not merely defeated himself, he had brought battle and pain and a stinging reproof to a splendid, triumphant woman. The enormous egotism involved in this he did not at the moment apprehend. He was like a wounded animal, ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... calm, statuesque face, whereon no trace of envy appeared, caught Hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the passionate egotism of the ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... direction, not to be pub. until 6 years after his death. It appeared in 1723. It gives a sketch of the history of the Civil Wars and Commonwealth, and a detailed account of the immediately succeeding period down to 1713. While not free from egotism and some party feeling, it is written with a sincere desire for accuracy and fairness, and it has largely the authority of an eye-witness. The style, if somewhat lacking in dignity, is lively and picturesque. Among his other writings are a ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... to resort to bribery, but there was something so officious and aggressively professional in the manner of this "straw-boss"—as The Spider mentally labeled him—that The Spider hesitated to flatter his egotism by admitting that ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... ingratitude of Berger toward those who have followed and supported him; the gross, incredible savagery of his egotism in turning to rend those he had discipled into revolutionaries the moment their allegiance to the principles he taught them stood in the way of his cowardice and ambition; his butcher insensibilities in making his party's Constitution a "scrap ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... crime—filth—immorality—typified them, framed them well as they had sat there, the four of them, while that bruised-nosed bouncer had brought them drink on his rattling tin tray. And then his own self-satisfied, smug, complacent egotism at his own cleverness, his unbounded confidence in his own ability to pull ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... in the praise which the French have given to our army. There is no people that can praise as they can: for they enjoy praising others as much as some nations enjoy praising themselves, and they lose all the reserve of egotism in the pleasure of praising well. But in this case they have praised so generously because there was a great kindliness behind their praise, because they, like us, feel that this war means a new brotherhood stronger than all the hatreds it may provoke, a brotherhood ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... in this way," Lady Engleton continued, "she is troubled with doubts. She sometimes wonders whether she ought not, after all, to respect the popular standards (notwithstanding the compact), instead of disturbing everybody by clinging to her own. Now was it strength of character or obstinate egotism that induced her to stick to her original colours, come what might? That is the question which the book ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... merely selfish aims, and therefore to use it only for such aims is indeed a desecration. And even if—as some maintain and I think rightly (1)—sex is not MERELY for child-birth and physical procreation, but for mutual vitalizing and invigoration, it still subserves union and not egotism; and to use it egotistically is to commit the sin of Separation indeed. It is to cast away and corrupt the very bond of life and fellowship. The ancient peoples at any rate threw an illumination of ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... poor, and infirm, and lonely. It is really a duty to cheer them up, if we can." I felt that it warmed my heart to have shared that duty with her, and I said so. I thought she looked doubtful and surprised. It was a good opening for egotism, and I improved it. I saw that she was no uninterested listener, but all along rather suspicious and incredulous, as if what I was claiming for myself was inconsistent with her previous notions of my disposition. I believe I had made some little impression Saturday night, but ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... son," said he. "You and I have done very little. We have discovered nothing at all, except one Indian arrowhead a hundred miles north of here. To leave our names here now would only be egotism, and that's not what we want to show. Reverence is what we want to show, for this place that was here before Thomas Jefferson was born, and will be here unchanged after the last President of the United States shall have ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... virtues, wherewith they successfully rival man, and the dogs boast only of one quality which amongst men is considered a despicable vice, namely, the canine humbleness which these animals practise, without egotism, without calculation, whilst man practises it only when his interest and his selfishness make it ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... that it was best for those having histories worth the writing—or supposed to be so—to commit such work to hands other than their own. To write of one's self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of but few; and I have little reason to believe that I belong to ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... and very unpleasant phrase, full of egotism and self-esteem, "I told you so," is even more common in the naive East than in the West. In this case the son's answer is far superior to the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... deposed, the defeated, the disenchanted, the wounded, or even only the bored, have seemed to find there something that no other place could give. But such people came for themselves, as we seem to see them—only with the egotism of their grievances and the vanity of their hopes. Mrs. Bronson's case was beautifully different—she had ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... had firmly believed that, did the flame of intercession only burn bright enough, this life might be profoundly sacrificial. Now her best-beloved recluses did not stand the test in the hour of trial, and their naif egotism disappointed her unspeakably. Her grief, her amaze, her all but scathing contempt for a religion that declined to forego its inward comforts even at the dramatic summons of a crisis in the Church, find expression in these ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... a point at which frankness is necessary. In these pages there will be an endeavour to refrain from egotism, and yet how may one who lives a lonesome life on an island and who presumes to write its history evade that duty? My chief desire is to set down in plain language the sobrieties of everyday occurrences—the unpretentious homilies ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... are epidemic. Of these, first prize belongs to a cult of egotism fathered by the Napoleonic Idea, consciously assertive and self-conscious in Max Stirner's "The Ego and His Own," which engendered a swarm of imitators and plagiarists. Human beings are all incorrigible egoists more or less, furtive or frank. But social and religious codes ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... directions where her superiority was less specific. The faults which are most exasperating in another are, of course, one's own faults; and I confess that I was very critical of Eva Denison's criticisms. Then she had a little weakness for exaggeration, for unconscious egotism in conversation, and I itched to tell her so. I felt so certain that the girl had a fine character underneath, which would rise to noble heights in stress or storm: all the more would I long now to take her in hand and mould ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... interrupted, "And what if there is no such thing as German culture, as a celebrated Teuton says?" It had become necessary to contradict this pedant who had become insufferable with his egotism. Hartrott almost jumped from his chair on hearing such ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... though fitted to seem a hero in the eyes of the ignorant and dissipated classes. Betwixt the fumes of the brandy which he so freely drank and the folly of the melodramatic parts which he was wont to act, his brain became saturated with a passion for notoriety, which grew into the very mania of egotism. His crime was as stupid as it was barbarous; and even from his own point of view his achievement was actually worse than a failure. As an act of revenge against a man whom he hated, he accomplished nothing, for he did not inflict upon Mr. Lincoln so much as one minute of mental distress or physical ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... Why should I not care for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?—turn away my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without asking whether, below me,—in street, garret, or cottage, there is a rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... world about him, but as cut off sharply and definitely from the past before he lived and the future after he is dead; it puts what is, in relation to the view we have taken, a disproportionate amount of stress upon his egotism, upon the pursuit of his self-interest and his personal virtue and his personal fancies, and it ignores the fact, the familiar rediscovery which the nineteenth century has achieved, that he is after all only the transitory custodian of an undying gift of life, an inheritor under conditions, ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... Machiavelli's standard of political morality—self-reliant, using craft and force with cold indifference to moral ends, bent only upon wringing for himself the largest share of this world's power for men who, like himself, identified virtue with unflinching and immitigable egotism. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... that night at the Tin Road-house, a comfortless shack sheathed with flattened kerosene cans, and Folsom's irritation at his new partner increased, for Harkness was loud, boastful, and blatantly egotistical, with the egotism that accompanies dense ignorance. ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... do you get of Whitman in this account? What qualities of Whitman's do you think most endeared him to the soldiers? Was Whitman's carefulness about his personal appearance an evidence of egotism or altruism? Compare this estimate of Whitman with the "Appreciation of Lincoln." Are there any ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... our overweening pride and egotism we have ELECTED to be such," replied Heliobas. "As angels have fallen, so have we. But we are not altogether castaways now, since this signal," and he touched the cross on his breast, "shone ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... What egotism! You call upon them! You make a freer use of the personal pronoun I, than even old Parson Longstreet, the Know Nothing slayer of Mississippi. To parse your different sentences syntactically, nothing else is necessary but to understand ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... anecdotes are the vehicle of all moral teaching, and the anti-narcotic of every work of literature. In literature, analysis and investigation prevail, and the wearying of the reader increases in proportion with the egotism of the writer. This is one of the greatest misfortunes that can befall a book, and the present author has been quite aware of it. He has therefore so arranged the topics of this long essay as to afford resting places for the reader. ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... Sir Thomas Browne, "we admire the lustre of anything seen; that which is truly glorious is invisible." Character, not condition, is the trust of life. A man's own self is God's most valuable deposit with him. This is not egotism, but the broadest benevolence. A man can do no good to the world beyond himself. A stream can rise no higher than its fountain. A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit. If a man's soul is stunted and gnarled and dwarfed, his actions will be. If his soul is corrupt and base and ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... because there seems to be some solvent in New York life that reduces all men to a common level, that touches everybody with its potent magic and brings to the surface the deeply underlying nobody. The effect for some temperaments, for consciousness, for egotism, is admirable; for curiosity, for hero worship, it is rather baffling. It is the spirit of the street transferred to the drawing-room; indiscriminating, levelling, but doubtless finally wholesome, and witnessing the immensity ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... follow it up. A man burdened with a secret should especially avoid the intimacy of his physician. If the latter possess native sagacity, and a nameless something more,—let us call it intuition; if he show no intrusive egotism, nor disagreeably prominent characteristics of his own; if he have the power, which must be born with him, to bring his mind into such affinity with his patient's, that this last shall unawares have spoken what he imagines himself only to have thought; if such revelations be received without ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the charge of egotism, but I must run the risk of that, endeavouring to avoid the scathing criticism ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... least for Judge Kenton's repellent bearing, except as it possibly, or impossibly, reflected some mood of hers. He could not make out her not coming to dinner; the headache was clearly an excuse; for some reason she did not wish to see him, he argued, with the egotism of his condition. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Minty Sharpe's the same ez she allus wos, unless more so," returned Minty, with an honest egotism that carried so much conviction to the hearer as to condone its vanity. "But I kem yer to do a day's work, gals, and I allow to pitch in and do it, and not sit yer swoppin' compliments and keeping HIM from packin' his duds. Onless," she ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... and English more selfish than we are. But they have different ways of showing it. The Englishman is exclusive, and reserved; the Frenchman egotistical. Reserve may seem dignified; but it often covers a great deal of cold self-love; while French egotism—not EGOISME—is often mingled with much naivete and bonhommie {sic}. Both nations, however, are more selfish than the Italians, or ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... eloquent eyes fixed upon his, her haunting voice wrapping itself about his senses, would be a genuine cruelty toward a harmless, well-intentioned youth whose heroism in abjuring the world, the flesh, and the devil had not yet been great enough to combat his superb and dignified egotism. At best, he would be won by Rachael's revelation of her soul to a long and frankly indiscreet talk of his own; at worst, he would construe her confidences in an entirely personal sense, and feel that she came not at all to the priest ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... one of the most handsome, most amiable, and most witty of men; but if there is one vice more than another at which his soul revolts, it is the sin of egotism. Else the world would here have become the possessor of one of the most eloquent pages in literature. It is said that artists, who paint their own portraits, make a mere copy of their image in the looking ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... particularly cares to be associated with Us. We shall therefore be independent of Party, because, having a very clear, intelligible belief in Ourselves, We are able to survey the struggles of contending parties from the standpoint of sublime egotism. We are the man who can interpret the best thought of his day in such a manner as to render it accessible to the general intelligence of Our age. We are the true Prophet of Our time, and We hope to make a modest profit out of Our new venture. Hence, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... and an egotist," said M. Leminof, looking fixedly at him. "I hope, sir, that you have the virtues of the class. I mean to say, that while wholly occupied with yourself, you are free from all indiscreet curiosity. Egotism is worth its price only when it is accompanied by a scornful indifference to others. I will explain: I do not live here absolutely alone, but I am the only one with whom I desire you to have any intimate acquaintance. The two persons who live in ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... that I first had the happiness of seeing and becoming acquainted with Lord Byron. The correspondence in which our acquaintance originated is, in a high degree, illustrative of the frank manliness of his character; and as it was begun on my side, some egotism must be tolerated in the detail which I have to give of the circumstances that led to it. So far back as the year 1806, on the occasion of a meeting which took place at Chalk Farm between Mr. Jeffrey and myself, a good deal of ridicule and raillery, founded on a false representation ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... on the altar of natural piety. That he shall know his friends hereafter is not impossible, not improbable; neither is it certain. He may desire it, expect it, but not with speculative pride dogmatically affirm it, nor with insisting egotism presumptuously demand it. ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... surprise, for, apart from the fact that he really loved his friend, he was somehow aware that there were not many other young men who cared much for himself—in regard to which he was not a little surprised, for it never occurred to him that egotism and selfishness had anything to do with the coolness of his friends, or that none but men like our hero, with sweet tempers and self-forgetting dispositions, could by any possibility ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... apologies for being egotistical. In this particular I attempt an improvement on other autobiographies. Other autobiographies weary one with excuses for their egotism. What matters it to you if I am egotistical? What matters it to you though it should matter ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... a personal assault on his antagonist. As Falkland "had perceived the nullity of all expostulation with Mr. Tyrrel," and as duelling according to the Godwinian principles was "the vilest of all egotism," he was deprived of the natural satisfaction of meeting his assailant in physical or even mental combat. Yet "he was too deeply pervaded with the idle and groundless romances of chivalry ever to forget the situation"—as Godwin seems to think a "man of reason" ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... a corner, listening with unctuous deference or sympathy to any who chanced to come against her, as was her wont, proffering her fan, or her essence-bottle, or in some quiet way ministering to their egotism, she now stepped freely forth upon the field of action, nodding and smiling at the young men to whom she might have been at some time introduced; whispering and jesting with some marked young lady, while ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... may accuse me of egotism in confining my remarks so much to the achievements of my own vessel, I have merely to say, that in doing so, I was best able to be truthful; but that I am fully aware that to the other screw steamer, the "Intrepid," and my gallant ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... traced, in every line, the evidences of a raging vanity, which she was convinced must prompt its owner to sacrifice, on all occasions, every feeling of duty to its gratification. Amid all the fervour of rebellious passions, and the violence of a wayward mind, a sentiment of profound egotism appeared to her impressed on every page she perused. Great as might have been the original errors of Herbert, awful as in her estimation were the crimes to which they had led him, they might in the first instance be traced rather to a perverted ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... interpretations of the "code" of honor, could have found matter for a personal quarrel; and yet these two proud and strong personalities knew that they were engaged in a mortal contest, in which neither gave quarter nor expected quarter. Mr. Calhoun's intellectual egotism was as great as his intellectual ability. He always supposed that he was the victor in every close logical wrestle with any mind to which his own was opposed. He never wrestled with a mind, until he met Webster's, which in tenacity, grasp, and power was a match ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... even well-disposed hearers. From the fragments of Gracchus' speeches that remain (unhappily very few) we should gather that in asserting himself he was without a rival. The mixture of simplicity and art removes him at once from Cato's bald literalism and Cicero's egotism. It was, however, in impassioned attack that Gracchus rose to his highest tones. The terms Gracchi impetum, [29] tumultuator Gracchus, [30] among the Latin critics, and similar ones from Plutarch and Dio among the Greeks, attest the main character of his eloquence. His very outward form ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... mariner of God seizes them with loving mighty arms, and bears them in his bark beyond sight of their wonted shores, what wonder that they perceive not the identity of this sky-circled sea with their accustomed handful? Yet, despite egotism and narrowness of brain and every other limitation, the spirit of man will claim its privilege and assert its affinity with all truth; and in such measure as one utters the pure heart of mankind, and states the real relationships ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various |
