"Self-reliant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Never in his life had he known such a sudden utter confidence in anyone, such a glow of eager friendliness as this half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives courage to the most self-reliant of us"; and somewhere in the words he was aware of a false note, but he did not stop to ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... voice and in the gentle acceptance of help from one so strong and self-reliant which touched Erica more than any praise or demonstrative thanks could have done. They were going to work together, he had promised that she should fight side by side ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... of man we like to think of as a pioneer in the making of our history. Sturdy and self-reliant, strong and fearless, he cheerfully faced the unending struggle with the hard conditions of those early days. Though his life was narrow, it cut deep in its loyalty to friends ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy
... since she had talked with any one, and she was so nervous after all her morbid imagining, that she was feeling utterly unlike the old self-reliant, active-minded girl he remembered when the rector entered the room. She also, on her part, was unprepared for the feelings aroused by the sight of him; and when he came in, his grave face and gentle manner so entirely unchanged, in ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... the past months which had blinded her to the quieter light of home faded away into darkness. Septimus in urgent need, Emmy and Clem Sypher filled her thoughts. She felt thankful that Sypher, strong and self-reliant, was there to be her ally, should her course with Septimus be difficult. Between them they could surely rescue the ineffectual being from whatever dangers assailed him. But what could they be? The question ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... self-knowing. Knowing his handicap and that it was quite unlike any other man's and that he needed a means of locomotion, he found it; he had, therefore, initiative. He leaned not upon the strength of others, but used his own resources; he was therefore self-reliant. He did not wait for business to come to him, he put himself in the path of business; he was a hustler. He saw life through a cheerful lens and kept a stout heart; he was optimistic. He recognized ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... and the American girl is listening eagerly. It is awakening in her longings for free, wholesome, and adventurous outdoor life, for the innocent delights of nature-loving Thoreau and bird-loving Burroughs. Sturdy, independent, self-reliant, she is now demanding outdoor books that are genuine and filled with practical information; books that tell how to do worth-while things, that teach real woodcraft and are not adapted to the girl supposed to be afraid of a caterpillar ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... small and not-over-particularly-taken-care-of boy" and the strong, self-reliant man whose fame had filled two continents, Gadshill Place was an immediate link. Everyone knows the story which Dickens tells of a vision of his former self meeting him on ...
— Dickens-Land • J. A. Nicklin
... above their valour, over and above their loyalty, over and above their exquisite aesthetic faculty, these Athenians had a resilience of self-reliant energy, like that of the French—like that of the American people after the fire of Chicago; and Athens rose from her ashes to be awhile, not only, as she had nobly earned by suffering and endurance, the leading state in Greece, but a mighty fortress, a rich commercial port, a living centre of art, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... waiter, the bushmen showed no embarrassment, simply because they felt none, and retained their self-possession with unconscious dignity. They sat among the buzzing swarms of flies, light-hearted and self-reliant, chatting of their daily lives of lonely vigils, of cattle-camps and stampedes, of dangers and privations, and I listened with a dawning consciousness that life "out-bush" is something more ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... is a bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close the book until ...
— Ralph Gurney's Oil Speculation • James Otis
... notes the dire scarcity of men, while at the same time there were people enough. The population steadily grew; Rome was filling up like an overflowing marsh. Men of a certain type were plenty, but self-reliant farmers, "the hardy dwellers on the flanks of the Apennines," men of the early Roman days, these were fast going, and with the change in type of population came ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... correct and the boys noticed afterwards that the servants regarded them with odd expressions of amusement and it was evident to the sensitive Jo that they were being "guyed" by them, to use a modern expression. The boys being American lads, were self-reliant, and were accustomed to do everything for themselves, and, unknowingly they had gone counter to a custom of constant service of the Spaniards. It was to demean oneself, according to their code, to ...
— Frontier Boys on the Coast - or in the Pirate's Power • Capt. Wyn Roosevelt
... line," he said, gravely, "lies the future! Those who have already dared the western trails and struck their roots into the soil must not be deserted, sir. They are fiercely self-reliant and liberty-loving, but if they be not sustained we risk their loyalty and our back doors will be thrown open ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... Mary's life here in the woods with her little children. A lonely, comfortless life many women would have deemed it, so entirely shut in as she was from the outer world; and to any one less self-reliant and self-sustained than Aunt Mary it would have been so. For that there were discomforts in her country life I do not doubt, although they were much lessened by uncle's easy circumstances; and the house itself was finished off with all the city improvements ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... minute, studying her. She seemed, in spite of her youth and beauty, wonderfully self-reliant. Again, as in the room at the hospital, her quiet poise of manner struck him. And though she was once more dressed in the plainest and least costly of attire—as well as he could judge—he knew that he should be entirely willing to take her anywhere where he was known, with no mental ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... devices and gentle handicrafts were set aside, and their places filled with a grim array of medicaments. The servants, who loved their mistress, went about with melancholy faces and muffled voices; and the master of the house, hitherto so confident and self-reliant, presented to the world a stony front of silent desolation, for which nobody would have given Sydney ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... right to live, but not The blessed right to look for happiness. O lift thy liberating hand once more, To loose thy little ones from dark duress; The vital gladness to their hearts restore In healthful lessons and in happy play; And set them free to climb the upward way That leads to self-reliant nobleness. Speak out, my country, speak at last, As thou hast spoken in the past, And clearly, bravely say: "I will defend The coming race on whom my hopes depend: Beneath my flag and on my sacred soil No child shall bear the crushing yoke ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... figure in this truthful picture of Irish home life is Mrs. Martin—an exceedingly interesting character—-a, steadfast, self-reliant woman who through the exercise of common sense averts a domestic tragedy and brings harmony into a troubled household. No less an unusual creation, however, is James—"Mrs. Martin's Man." Intolerant, overbearing but yet possessed of a certain romantic attractiveness, ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... interesting detail the experience of a party of boys among the mountain pines. They teach the young reader how to protect themselves against the elements, what to do and what to avoid, and above all to become self-reliant and manly. There ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... her rounded young form, her colour and fire—the choked, smouldering fire of opals. He saw the curve of her wrist, the confident swing of her walk, the easy poise of her head, her bearing, at once girlish and womanly, the little air, half of wistful appeal, and half of self-reliant assertion. Yet he failed not to regard these indulgences as utter folly. It had been folly enough while he believed that she stood ready to accept him and his wealth. It was more flagrant, now that her quest for a husband with millions had ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... daunted. He had gone to Geauga Seminary with but seventeen dollars in his pocket; he had remained there three years, maintaining himself by work at his old trade of carpenter and teaching, and had graduated owing nothing. He had become self-reliant, and felt that what he had done at Chester he could do ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Stowe, who was about to make a visit to England at the instance of friends in that country, was authorized to receive funds in the name of the colored people of the country for that purpose. The successful establishment and conduct of such an institution of learning, would train youth to be self-reliant and skilled workmen, fitted to hold their own in the struggle of life ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell
... my judgment turned to Wauna. She was endeared to me by long and gentle association. She was self-reliant and courageous, and possessed a strong will. Who, of all my Mizora acquaintances, was so well adapted to ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... of Horrocks the police had withdrawn to report and to receive augmentation. No one felt alarm at their absence. The inhabitants of Foss River were a self-reliant people—accustomed to look to themselves for the remedy of a grievance. Besides, Horrocks, they said, had shown himself to be a duffer—merely a tracker, a prairie-man and not the man to bring Retief to justice. Already the younger members of the settlement and ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... call it stupid, my lad; but with so many real difficulties we must not make imaginary ones. Why, Mark, this voyage is making a man of you—self-reliant, business-like, and strong. When ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... and self-reliant, as a rule, but she does not object to be courted. When they plan a Saturday outing she will not propose what she knows to be beyond his means, but she will pardon him for a little extravagance in ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... runner should be independent. It is easy when going on tour, to divide up the gear so that every member of the party carries his share; it is not necessary for each member to carry the whole of what I have shown. Let each carry enough to feel self-reliant, and let the party carry enough not only for their own needs, but also for any other runner in distress whom they may come across. Ski-ing should ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... a tall, queenly looking woman, was courageous, self-reliant, and at her ease under all circumstances and in all places. She was the daughter of Colonel James Livingston, who took an active part in ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... think we shall find him, Will?" asked Amy, with a helpless little look into Will's self-reliant young face. "I do want ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... for one so young! Jack had marveled that Jeanne should show such remarkable qualities and appear so self-reliant; and apparently Helene was like her. But, alas, war had aged even the ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... of gray, it would have been impossible to believe that he had reached three-score years and ten, for his form was still erect, his step elastic, and his voice clear and strong. His features were regular and strong, giving proof of the man's self-reliant and indomitable character. Years, perhaps a lifetime of activity in the woods and on the lakes, had bronzed the man. From beneath heavy eyebrows looked eyes gray in color and baffling in depth. The man's whole ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... continent north, south and centre; our people would have been vitalized by education instead of so ignorant that no commoner but one ever wrote a book; they would have built and flourished and extended; and in place of a poor and helpless people they would have been rich, powerful, and self-reliant, like the Bostonians; Bigot and his nest of horse-leeches would never have sucked our blood ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... in a bronze tripod, casting a warm glow on walls hung with shields and weapons. A centurion, munching oily seed and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, came out of an inner office. He was not the type that had made Roman arms invincible. He lacked the self-reliant dignity of an old campaigner, substituting for it self-assertiveness and flashy manners. He was annoyed because he could not get the seed out of his mouth with his finger in time ...
— Caesar Dies • Talbot Mundy
... love, the only kind she was capable of. And all summer long she spent her days riding up and down the range alone, or with her father, or with Joe, or, best of all, with The Duke, her hero and her friend. So she grew up strong, wholesome and self-reliant, fearing nothing alive and as untamed as ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... for a sudden quaking in the region of his heart—such a fate is too terrible to calmly contemplate; but this qualm is only momentary, and then Doctor Chicago is himself again, brave and self-reliant. ...
— Miss Caprice • St. George Rathborne
... forlorn, Dora followed her cousins up the graveled walk which led to her new home. One whole year, and in that time she has somewhat changed. The merry-hearted girl, who, until a few weeks before her mother's death, was happier far than many a favored child of wealth, has become a sober, quiet, self-reliant child, performing without a, word of complaint the many duties which have gradually been imposed ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... met for the transaction of business, and very eager was the public ear for the words that should fall from the lips of the new premier. He informed the house, with brevity and clearness, of the circumstances which placed him in the situation he then held; and bespoke in energetic, self-reliant, and courteous terms, the confidence of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... American rule the Pueblo has preserved itself intact which fact stamps the Pueblo people as being eminently valiant, self-reliant and persevering. They are peaceable, industrious and hospitable and are said to be the best governed people in the world. As nearly as can be ascertained they are free from every gross vice and crime and Mr. C. F. Lummis, ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... your religion—your strange, self-reliant, invulnerable creed, whose influence seems to clothe you in, I know not what, unblessed panoply. You are good—Pere Silas calls you good, and loves you—but your terrible, proud, earnest Protestantism, there is the danger. It expresses ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... as great a thing to suffer with the Royal Martyr, with all the burning life and traditions of England in the throbbing heart, as to rise from the ruins into the cold ether where the stern soul of Milton could wing its way in self-reliant calmness. Honor is due, as in all great struggles, to both parties. Vaughan's lot was cast ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... in reality is a different thing, and Elizabeth's sprang up from causes quite unforeseen, and from people whom she had never remembered. She had a calm, proud, self-reliant nature, but such natures are specially wounded by small stings; and Elizabeth brought home with her from her necessary daily investigations many a sore heart, and many a throbbing, nervous headache. All ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... Independent, self-reliant, Violet Winslow had gone alone on an act of mercy and charity, and it had taken her into a situation full of ...
— Guy Garrick • Arthur B. Reeve
... conformity': the deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid on men. And now of Profit. And this doctrine is perhaps the more redoubtable, because it harms all sorts of men; not only the heroic and self-reliant, but the obedient, cowlike squadrons. A man, by this doctrine, looks to consequences at the second, or third, or fiftieth turn. He chooses his end, and for that, with wily turns and through a great sea of tedium, steers this mortal bark. There may be political ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... superintended by his father directly, but afterward private teachers were employed. But Mr. Buckle was by nature a close student, and much that he possessed he acquired without a tutor, as his energetic, self-reliant nature rendered him incapable of ever seeing insurmountable difficulties before him. By this means he became what the students of Oxford rarely are, both learned and liberal. As he mingled freely with the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... lads as this—strong, self-reliant, religious—who, when poverty has projected them out of her granite mountains upon granite pavements, each as hard and bleak as the other, by massive determination have ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... The self-reliant and rather disdainful demeanor of the master-mariners who occasionally visited Smatt's office had confirmed this estimate—they had once been mates. Had the boatswain mentioned a fear of being met on his ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... right moment, for there are moments in the lives of the most reserved and self-reliant when the heart must speak to ease the mind. Paul Colbert was a Protestant, and so firm and strong in his faith that he was ready at all times to defend it, to fight for it; yet this moment, which has nothing ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... and cried like a child. "Elizabeth—Elizabeth!" but there was no response; only a sleepy bird stirred in the shrubbery. In spite of his great intimacy with the Kestons and his very real friendship, Malcolm did not confide in either of them. He was undemonstrative and self-reliant by nature, and, as he said himself afterwards, "There are some things that a man ought to keep to himself." But neither Amias nor Verity expected any ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... all self-reliant and assured of their standing, had little to speculate upon, and their report was quickly disposed of. In the juniors were many whose standing held interest, but almost all got off favorably. Ted Guthrie had worked off ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... the tone was a great deal; there was a kind of quiet intelligence in it. Fleda looked up, and something in the clear steady self-reliant eye she met wrought an instant change in her feeling. She met it a moment, and then looked at her work again with ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... those arms; and Richard drew her close and closer, holding her to his heart as though she were a child. He asked no question, said no word, sure only as granite that, whatever the trouble, it should not take her from him. These rock-founded natures, self-reliant, world-defying, made all of love and iron, are a mighty comfort to weak ones; and so thought Dorothy as she lay crying ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... unknown to them before, realizing, in fact, the dreams, the hopes, the prophesies of the inspired women of by-gone centuries. In many departments of learning woman stands the peer of man, and when by higher education and profitable labor she becomes self-reliant and independent, then she must and will be free. The moment an individual or a class is strong enough to stand alone, bondage is impossible. Jefferson Davis, in a recent speech, says: "A Caesar could not subject a people fit to be free, nor could ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... were qualities sought for in every child, and all of the training in the home, as well as in the later education, had for its aim the acquirement of these powers. Thus children were early taught to be self-reliant and fearless. ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... were merely something which might create sorrow I would tell it. I believe that you have a self-reliant nature, which has grown stronger through affliction. But that which I have to tell is different. It is of such a character that it would of necessity destroy any peace of mind which you have, and fill you with hopes and feelings that could ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... last stumbling-block in my son's way: a sturdy, self-reliant sort of gentleman, likely to be able to take care of himself. I should like to get him into my power: but ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... the acquaintance of our forester will fail to admire him; but he is far too self-reliant and warlike ever to be taken for ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... half-past nine when she reached the wet and miry street. A fine rain drove into her face, and she had rather more than a mile to walk without an escort, but that was a matter which caused her no concern. She was a self-reliant young woman, and accustomed to going about unattended, while she was also quite aware that the scene she had just witnessed would bring about a crisis in her and her friend's affairs. For all that, she was unpleasantly ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... faith in Heaven. Certainly it is not from Albrecht himself that the tale of his domestic wretchedness has come. He was as manfully patient and silent as one might have expected in a man upright, firm, and self-reliant as he was tender. I do not think it is good for men, and especially for women, to indulge in egotistical sentimentality, and to believe that such a woman as Agnes Duerer could utterly thwart and wreck the life of a man like Albrecht. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... those gentle, patient characters," replied Madame. "Nothing is more full of courage than a patient heart, nothing more self-reliant than ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... hands of the inhabitants; by instituting needed sanitary reforms; by spreading education; by fostering industry and trade; by inculcating public morality, and, in short, by taking every rational step to aid the Cuban people to attain to that plane of self-conscious respect and self-reliant unity which fits an enlightened community for self-government within its own sphere, while enabling it ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... he would never have set out to shape his own course as he was now doing. He was a man of considerable purpose, self-reliant and reasonable, with sufficient easy good-nature to be compatible with strength. He liked his own experiences too, though he never scorned the experiences of another. Slum had sized him up pretty shrewdly when he said "he'll bob out on top like a cork in a water bar'l," but he had not altogether ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... of time, and with the increase of literature, the real merits of Pope were for some time neglected, or misrepresented. The world is beginning to discern and recognize these again. Learned, industrious, self-reliant, controversial, and, above all, harmonious, instead of giving vent to the highest fancies in simple language, he has treated the common-place—that which is of universal interest—in melodious and splendid diction. But, above all, he stands as the representative ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... doctor's decision, for he was in that frame of mind when, however self-reliant a man may be, he has a disinclination to be left alone, and the aid of a stout ally is of the ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... home indicated a love of beauty exceptional in the wild settlement in which she lived, and judging from her early death it is probable that she was of a physique less hardy than that of those among whom she lived. Hers was a strong, self-reliant spirit, which commanded the love and respect of the rugged people among ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... of his apprenticeship, his brother John David, was removed by death and an opportunity was presented of taking the stock and tools and carrying on the business. He was ambitious and his early experiences had made him self-reliant and courageous. The opening was promising, but he had neither money nor credit. In this exigency a partnership was formed with Mr. Samuel B. Melendy, who had some knowledge of the craft. With the beginning ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... seriously of marriage she had around her a numerous brood, of which I was less the elder sister than the younger mother. She was delicate by nature, and peevish by reason of her burdens, and I think could never have been a self-reliant character; so she fretted and sighed through life, and when death came, unawares, she seemed not sorry ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... slow, with a fateful certainty independent of will; possessed of such uncommon strength as to make it dangerous if opposed while moving, and at the same time having an extraordinary inertia when not wound up to do a certain piece of work; self-reliant to a fault, as the lion is self-reliant in the superiority of physical endowment; gentle when not opposed, because almost incapable of action without a determinate object and aim; but developing an irresistible momentum ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... kitchen table, rolling dough. Everybody applauded and the girls said it was wonderful, but that anyway, the Boy Scouts was started before the Camp-Fire Girls was, and so they had had more time to learn things. I heard one lady say it was splendid how scouts got to be self-reliant, on account of learning the ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... It was mainly because he was so full of faith in the coming man that he gave, offhand, such a tremendous welcome to "Leaves of Grass"—a welcome that cooled somewhat later, when he found he had got so much more of the unconventional and the self-reliant than he had bargained for. I remember that when I spoke of Walt Whitman to him in Washington in 1871 or '72, he said he wished Whitman's friends would "quarrel" with him more about his poems, as some years earlier he himself had done, on the occasion when he and Whitman walked ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... sudden utter confidence in any one, such a glow of eager friendliness as this half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives courage to the most self-reliant of us;" and somewhere in the words he was aware of a false note, but he did not stop ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power,—ready to be focused in an ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... when Pundita rules it will be under the protecting hand of England. Now let us try to look at the cheerful side of the business. Think of what that girl has gone through with scarcely a scratch! Can't you read something in that? See how strong and self-reliant she has become under such misfortunes as would have driven mad any ordinary woman! Can't you see light in all this? I tell you, there is good and evil working for and against us, and that Ahmed's fakir ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... lane, then, Red Wull would follow him. There he would stand, his great head poked through the bars, watching his master out of sight; and then would turn and trot, self-reliant and defiant, sturdy and surly, down the very centre of the road through the village—no playing, no enticing away, and woe to that man or dog who tried to stay him in his course! And so on, past Mother Ross's shop, ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant
... as well in the plain Presbit household as she would have done in the home of the ambitious Caroline. The tasks early put upon her, instead of hardening and imbittering her, had made her self-reliant, helpful, and strong, with a grace like that acquired by girls who carry burdens on their heads. For it is thus that labors cheerfully performed, and trials borne with good-will and lightness of heart, give a power and a charm ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... tendencies of the school-bred child are to be simple, natural, and childlike. His inclination to moodiness and suspiciousness is much less. He is happier. He becomes self-reliant, independent, and respectful of the rights of others. He is less petulant and more obedient. The wisest parents do not educate their hearing children at home, nor should they attempt it with ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... Jacqueline's affairs. She had had her warning. Moreover, though she would have denied it even to herself, the younger girl had come to occupy a far larger share of her heart than had even been given to the self-reliant Jemima. She had felt, lately (and the thought frightened her) that in watching Jacqueline she was watching her own youth over again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... miles out of Rome he was met by a little band of Christian brethren, who, hearing of his approach, had come out to welcome him; and, ten miles farther on, he came upon another group, who had come out for the same purpose. Self-reliant as he was, he was exceedingly sensitive to human sympathy, and the sight of these brethren and their interest in him completely revived him. He thanked God and took courage; his old feelings came back in their wonted strength; and, when, in the company of these friends, he reached ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... she felt as if she were about to enter upon a contest with her husband, but she did not coldly tell over her armoury and select weapons. There was a heat of purpose within her that beckoned her to the unthinking, to the reckless way, that told her to be self-reliant and to trust to the ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... forward, not back, to the Golden Age, and is the prophet of science and evolution. If we compare his Titan with similar characters in Faust and Cain, we shall find this interesting difference,—that while Goethe's Titan is cultured and self-reliant, and Byron's stoic and hopeless, Shelley's hero is patient under torture, seeing help and hope beyond his suffering. And he marries Love that the earth may be peopled with superior beings who shall substitute brotherly love for the present ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... for her tender sympathetic nature; for the jewels of her life, which are absolute purity of mind and heart; for the sweet sincerity of her disposition; for her loving, charitable thought; for her strength of character? because she is pitiful to the sinful, tender to the sorrowful, capable, self-reliant, modest, true-hearted? in brief, because she is the ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... better human stuff in the world than the quiet, sunburnt, disciplined men and officers he had met.... And our little army, too, must be gathering to-night, the little army that had been chastened and reborn in South Africa, that he was convinced was individually more gallant and self-reliant and capable than any other army in the world. He would have sneered or protested if he had heard another Englishman say that, but in his heart he held ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... of the past had at his disposal a race capable of being the skirmish line of his march of civilization to wrest a continent from the wilderness. As trappers, hunters, and guides; as fishermen and slayers of whale and seal; as the light horseman, quick, brave, self-sustaining, and self-reliant, the Indian was capable of valuable services to a people who offered him but two alternatives—extinction, or a dull, plodding, vegetative, ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... like a child, of course. I believe in children praying—well, women, too, but I rather think God expects men to be more self-reliant. I don't hold with a man everlastingly bothering the Almighty with his silly troubles. It seems such cheek. Anyhow, this morning I—I have never done any harm to any God's creature knowingly—I prayed. A sudden impulse—I went flop on my knees; ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Prohack." She smiled anew; and her smile, so clever, so self-reliant, so enigmatic, a ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... court, Ulrich Varenbuler, often mentioned as a friend in the letters of Erasmus and Pirkheimer, and the subject of the largest of Duerer's portrait woodcuts, which shows him to us some ten years later, still a handsome trenchant personality, with a liking for fine clothes, and the self-reliant expression of a man who is conscious that the thought he takes for the morrow is not likely to ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... self-reliant; when once he believed himself to be in the right it was almost impossible to persuade him to the contrary. But, at the same time, he was cautious in the extreme, and would well consider his position before deciding that which was right or wrong for him to do. The idea of becoming a public man having ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... scientific discovery as "a Satanic abyss" (abyssum Satanae), and declared "The reddening of the water is NOT natural," and "when God allows such a miracle to take place Satan endeavours, and so do his ungodly, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to make it signify nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnaeus retreated; he tells his correspondent that "it is difficult to say anything in this matter," and shields himself ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... over him. Fortunately, the development of self-respect and independence in woman, and a higher idea of individual conscience and judgment in religion and in government, have supplied the needed restraint for man. Men will be wise and virtuous just in proportion as women are self-reliant and able to meet them on the highest planes of thought ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... wilderness forced self-government upon the settlers. Clearing the forests, subduing the Indians, and conquering animal foes was stern work, which weeded out the indolent and inefficient, and rewarded the capable and self-reliant. Pioneer conditions did not encourage a cringing or submissive spirit, but fostered independence and individualism. The spirit of equality tended to become a dominant feature of American life, for despite the existence of social classes, the great majority of the population had to rely ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... hardy pioneers—those brave, self-reliant men and women who sought the broad acres of the west, and builded their homes upon the "edge of civilization." From that time began the work of progress and cultivation. Towns, villages and cities sprang up as if under the wand of the magician. Fifty years ago, a small ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... advances. Where he was concerned, she feared her own weakness—she, who had endured the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go hang, that he would think for himself and take ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... weakness over on external conditions. The woman is in the same position. She must understand that greater than the need of the suffrage is the more urgent need of making her fellow-woman spirited and self-reliant, ready rather to anticipate a danger than to evade it. When she is thus trained, not all the men of all the nations can deny her recognition ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... present struggle. Swift would have been our degeneration, if the spirit of our fathers had already died out among us. But our history of less than a century since the Revolutionary war has fully maintained the self-reliant character of Americans and demonstrated their military abilities; and if the commercial and manufacturing populations of particular sections were supposed to have become somewhat enervated by long exemption from the labors and perils of war, it was certain that our large agricultural regions ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... them to move westward. Colonists fresh from the old world, no matter how thrifty, steady-going, and industrious, could not hold their own on the frontier; they had to settle where they were protected from the Indians by a living barrier of bold and self-reliant American borderers.[45] The west would never have been settled save for the fierce courage and the eager desire to brave danger so characteristic of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... rocky promontory, or looking down from a machicolated tower, keeps open the Khyber Pass from dawn to dusk and protects the caravans. The eighteen months had written their history upon his face; he stood before Ralston, for all his youthful looks, a quiet, self-reliant man. ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... village; even within the village itself feuds parted household from household, and passions of hatred and vengeance were handed on from father to son. Their mood was above all a mood of fighting men, venturesome, self-reliant, proud, with a dash of hardness and cruelty in it, but ennobled by the virtues which spring from war, by personal courage and loyalty to plighted word, by a high and stern sense of manhood and the worth of ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her figure was, and wonderfully self-reliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, she ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... whither his genius led him, indifferent to the opinion of the world. His had been a strange childhood, not without its redeeming features. Left to himself, seeing his brothers and sisters die around him, expecting soon to follow them, the boy grew up stern, hardy, and self-reliant. He was by no means a bookworm. He had learned to ride in the best mode, by falling off, and had acquired a passion for fishing which lasted as long as his life. There were few better yachtsmen in England than ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back to the security ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... employed another boy to sell papers for him likewise. His profits upon daily sales of four hundred journals were about thirty-two dollars. He had five hundred dollars in bank, and was debating with Captain Kingwalt the propriety of founding an army express and general agency. Such a self-reliant, swaggering, far-sighted, and impertinent boy I never knew. He was a favorite with the Captain's black-boy, and upon thorough terms of equality with the Commanding General. His papers cost him in Washington a cent and a half each, and he sold them in camp for ten cents ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... attended with a peculiar circumstance. Dismounting from the vehicle at the stage office, the too-confident traveler is apt to walk straight out of town under the impression that it lies in quite another direction. It is related that one of the tunnel men, two miles from town, met one of these self-reliant passengers with a carpetbag, umbrella, Harper's Magazine, and other evidences of "Civilization and Refinement," plodding along over the road he had just ridden, vainly endeavoring to find the settlement of ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... translucent grapes. Yet our grasp of his mental situation at this point would not be complete, without recognition of the graver emotions that sometimes throbbed beneath the surface. The doubt, the hesitancy that sometimes must have weighed upon his lonely, self-reliant spirit with weary movelessness, and all the pain of awakening ambition and departing boyhood, seem to find a symbol in this stanza from the ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, lovable type of the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and unpromising surroundings those ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... philanthropy of England is worth when put to the test of sacrifice, and also how the British lion can put forth the sharpest and most venomous of feline claws when an opportunity presents itself of ruining a possible rival. More than this, we have learned to be self-reliant, to take greater and more elevated views of political duty, and to be heroic without being extravagant. Since we were a republic no one year has witnessed such national and social progress among us as the ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... Roosevelt was accompanied by his foreman, a good shot and all-round ranchman named Merrifield. Merrifield had been in the West but five years, but the life fitted him exactly, and in him Roosevelt the ranchman and hunter found a companion exactly to his liking, fearless and self-reliant ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... mother's beauty, Miss Bruce had inherited but little of her mother's character; on the contrary, her nature, like that of her father's ancestors rather than his own, was bold, firm, and self-reliant to an unusual degree. She was hard, and that is the only epithet properly to describe her—manner, voice, appearance, all were lady-like, feminine, and exceedingly attractive; but the self-possession she never seemed to lose, would have warned an experienced admirer, that beneath ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... of the cars at the Grand Central Depot. He was not quite sure of his way to Clinton Place, but he was not in the least disturbed. He was naturally self-reliant. ...
— Andy Grant's Pluck • Horatio Alger
... simply the energies that tended towards this particular type that were set free during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Every sort of feminine energy was set free. And it was not merely the self-reliant, independence-seeking women who were discontented. The ladies who specialised in feminine arts and graces and mysteries were also dissatisfied. They found they were not important enough. The former type found itself insufficiently respected, and the latter type found itself insufficiently adored. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... of another O. B. alter Mr. Brotherson's position? He still will be the one person on the spot, known to have cherished a grievance against the victim of this mysterious killing. To my mind, this discovery of a more favoured rival, brings in an element of motive which may rob our self-reliant friend of some of his complacency. We may further, rather than destroy, our case against Brotherson ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... literature famous for the wealth of its imagination and the artistic beauty of its form—we pass on to the history of a peasantry, rude and ignorant at first, retaining the servile traits of centuries of subjection, but gradually becoming self-reliant, prosperous, ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... farther than La Salle might deem it expedient to consult him or any other of his subordinates. With views so different, a speedy quarrel was inevitable. Beaujeu is represented as a man full of conceit, of narrow mind, and very irritable. La Salle was reserved, self-reliant, keeping his own counsel. Scarcely had the two men met, before they found themselves in antagonism. Before the vessels sailed, Beaujeu wrote to the king's minister ...
— 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
... wind the while she ploughs to the eyes in snow and roots out a very satisfactory living for herself breeds calves that will in time do likewise and grow fat and strong in the doing. He is a sturdy, self-reliant little rascal, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... monk—fat and good-natured—one of the few now left in the great house on Montserrat. His interlocutor was a woman not more than thirty, with brown hair that gleamed in the sunlight, and a fresh, thoughtful face. Her attitude was somewhat independent, her manner indicated a self-reliant spirit. This was a woman who would probably make mistakes in life, but these would not be the errors of omission. She was a prototype of a sex and an age which err in advancing too quickly, and in holding that everything which is old- fashioned ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... the Englishman are fundamentally democratic because they are fundamentally self-reliant. Each demands to know why he should do a thing before he does it. This is, I think, the great link between two peoples in many ways very different; and they who ardently desire abiding friendship between our two countries will do well never to ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... the stairway, and she re-entered the room, all sheeny white in lustrous satin. Behind the gauzy veil that fell from the coronal of dark brown hair adown the shoulders her face shone with a look he had never seen in it. It was no longer the mirthful, self-reliant girl who stood before him, but the shrinking, trustful bride. The flashing, imperious expression that so well became her bold beauty at other times had given place to a shy and blushing softness, inexpressibly charming to her lover. In her shining eyes a host of virginal alarms were mingled ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... and self-reliant in Muriel's manner—something that caused Frank to think that the fellow, young as he was, feared nothing on the face ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... figure; and as she drew nearer he kept asking himself (as if the question were necessary) whether he would be able to take away a keen mental photograph of those fine features—the clear and placid forehead, the strongly marked eyebrows, the calm, self-reliant eyes, the proud and yet not unsympathetic lines of the mouth. She came nearer; a smile lit up her face; and there was a kind of radiance there, he thought. He had leaped down from the wagonette: he went forward to meet her; her hand ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... old leader-following habit, the product partly of the dead clan system, partly of dying national animosities, depart as a thing that has had its day, and who would endeavour to train up a race of free, self-reliant, and independent citizens in ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... lain between Sanders, Cutler, and old Westervelt—good and genial men. Asked to name the least popular officer, and, though men, and women, too, would have shrunk from saying it, the name that would have occurred to almost all was that of Blakely. And why? Simply because he stood alone, self-poised, self-reliant, said his few friends, "self-centered and selfish," said more than Mrs. Bridger, whereas a more generous man had never served at Sandy. That, however, they had yet to learn. But when a man goes his way in the world, meddling with no one else's ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... to George. To whom, then? The vision of Joan Valentine came to her—of Joan as she had seen her yesterday, strong, cheerful, self-reliant, bearing herself, in spite of adversity, with a valiant jauntiness. Yes; she would go and see Joan. She put on her hat and stole ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... quite true that, in the last autumn, he had been very anxious to get as large an allotment as he could into his own hands, and that he had been for ever up towards the Rectory, but perhaps not always on the allotment business. He was naturally a self-reliant, shrewd fellow, and felt that if he could put his hand on three or four acres of land, he could soon make himself independent of the farmers. He knew that at harvest-times, and whenever there was a pinch for good labourers, they would be ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... habit of reflection, of choice, and most of all the habit of either acting or holding back, as a result of all this. If in the earliest years his will is in the hands of others, and he has the habit of obedience to the exclusion of all other habits, then his development as a self-reliant individual is arrested, and may be permanently weakened. There is no other way to learn life, and build up an ideal from the raw material he has gained in other ways. In the rehearsal of life at school he can do this without ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... three young gentlemen who had ever been a source of pleasure and inspiration to them. Kindly were the words of counsel given them for their guidance in the harder battles of life before them—to be manly, self-reliant, and ever honest and true. "Remember this," added Mr Ross, "upright, honest boys will make the true men the ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... of Groom of the Chamber, a sinecure of handsome endowment, so handsome, indeed, as to warrant an occasional draft upon his talents for the entertainment of her Majesty's immediate circle, which held itself as far as possible aloof from the court, and was disposed to be self-reliant for its amusements. Daniel had entered upon the vocation of courtier with flattering auspices. His precocity while at Oxford has found him a place in the "Bibliotheca Eruditorum Praecocium." Anthony Wood bears witness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... But for the present this self-reliant confidence is one of the blessings of your ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... Even the manifest presence of Doctor Winchester and Miss Trelawny could not altogether comfort or satisfy me at such moments. It was with a distinct sense of relief that I saw a new personality in the room in the shape of Nurse Kennedy. There was no doubt that that business-like, self-reliant, capable young woman added an element of security to such wild imaginings as my own. She had a quality of common sense that seemed to pervade everything around her, as though it were some kind of emanation. Up to that moment I had been building fancies around the sick man; so that finally ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... duties and the care of a numerous family, gave him only such attention as was necessary to keep him in good health. Young Ulysses was, therefore, left to his own devices almost as soon as he could toddle, and he quickly became self-reliant to a degree that alarmed the neighbors. Indeed, some of them rushed into the house one morning shouting that the boy was out in the barn swinging himself on the farm horses' tails and in momentary danger of being kicked ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... sharp grey eyes, a face clean shorn with the exception of a small whisker, with wiry, strong dark hair, which was already beginning to show a tinge of grey;—the very opposite in appearance to his late friend Sir Florian Eustace. He was quick, ready-witted, self-reliant, and not over scrupulous in the outward things of the world. He was desirous of doing his duty to others, but he was specially desirous that others should do their duty to him. He intended to get on in the world, and believed that ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... shadow of such narrow incompetence upon me. "Seeing this machine on the point of setting forth on a journey, even as your overwhelming sagacity had enabled you to predict would be the case, I embarked with self-reliant confidence." ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... home, and I was sure that if I told my father and mother of my promise to take care of her, they would make the way easy for me. So when the Professor had kissed the child and lowered her to the floor, I put out my hand and took hers in a self-reliant grasp. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the germ of the present British penal system, was premature. The government in this dilemma steered a middle course and resolved to adhere to transportation, but under a greatly modified and it was hoped much improved form. The colony of Van Diemen's Land, younger and less self-reliant than its neighbour, had also endured convict immigration but had made no protest. It was resolved to direct the whole stream of deportation upon Van Diemen's Land, which was thus constituted one vast colonial ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... sometimes that she is a little wasted. Life must now and then be dreary for her." Tallente seemed for a moment to be looking through the walls of the room. "We are all made differently. Lady Jane is very self-reliant and Devonshire is one of those counties which have a curiously strong ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and in others like them, the Rough Riders were the equals of the regulars. They were hardy, self-reliant, accustomed to shift for themselves in the open under very adverse circumstances. The two all-important qualifications for a cavalryman, are riding and shooting—the modern cavalryman being so often used dismounted, as an infantryman. ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-assertion, the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering love for others. To some extent this is taking away with the left hand what has been so generously given with the right. Morality has been ceremoniously ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of philanthropists, sociological investigators, labor agitators, and yellow journals—and a goodly share of journalism that prides itself upon not being yellow—that the real work-girl has been quite lost sight of. Her name suggests, according to their imaginations, a proud, independent, self-reliant, efficient young woman—a young woman who works for her living and is glad of it. One hardly dares criticize her, unless, indeed, it be to lecture her for an ever-increasing independence of her natural male protectors and an alleged ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... up in the midst of these influences, developed a strong and self-reliant character which early in her career gave proof of its existence. In accord with that policy which has so often obtained in the monarchies of Europe, it was decided that a foreign alliance with some strong ruling house would redound to advantage; and so great was the prestige of Castile at ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... good dogs brought in the rest of the family—the babes to the warm welcome and plenty at the Children's Home, while one of the pluckiest little women I have ever known, even in a country of brave and self-reliant women, was carried into the hospital partially paralyzed with beri-beri. She was so close to the gate from which there is no returning that it took our nurses six months to wean her back ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell |
