"Self-will" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... social nature. The form, size, and peculiarities of the nose claim attention. It is a nose denoting Constructiveness, Originality, and logical power. The signs for Hope, Analysis, Mental Imitation, Human Nature, Ideality, Sublimity, Construction, and Acquisition are strongly delineated. Self-will is normally developed, while Size, Form, Observation, Weight, Locality, Calculation, and Memory of various sorts are manifest. The signs of Language in the eye and mouth denote fluency, while the practical faculties, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... and refining it, but in bracing it. He was the preacher and example of manly hardness, simplicity, purpose in the religious character. It may be that his hatred of evil—of hollowness, impurity, self-will, conceit, ostentation—was greater than was always his perception of various and mingled good, or his comprehension of those middle things and states which are so much before us now. But the service cannot be overrated, to all parties, of the protest which his life and all his ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... therefore commit an insolent and conceited action, and, moreover, a cruel and shameless one; for he would certainly make miserable, if he were believed, the hearts of many virtuous persons who had never harmed him, for no immediate or demonstrable purpose except that of pleasing his own self-will; and that much more, were ...
— Phaethon • Charles Kingsley
... over others, no one, perhaps, was more human, in his fitful moods,—his weakness and his strength, his passion and his purpose,—than that strange man, who had dared, in his dark studies and arrogant self-will, to aspire beyond humanity. ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... minister's wife,—I am afraid I cannot give you a just impression of it. For Diana's face had come curiously near the expression on the face of her own little child. Innocent, tender, pure,—something like that. Grave, but with no clouds at all; strong and purposeful, yet with an utter absence of self-will or self-consciousness. It had always been, to a certain degree, innocent and pure, but that was negative; and this was positive,—the refined gold that had been through the fire. And no baby's face is sweeter than Diana's was now, all blossoming as it were with love ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... be caused by the levity and self-will of a beautiful woman! From the time of Helen of Troy up to the present moment, the world has known this well; but, alas! this was but the beginning of that tragedy which Sidonia played in Pomerania, as that ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... she felt she was not ready. One corner for self-will and doing her own pleasure she wanted somewhere; and wanted so obstinately, that she felt, as it were, a mountain of strong unwillingness rise up between God's requirements and her; an iron lock upon the door of her heart, the key of ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... issues. It is possible, perhaps probable, that as the House of Commons becomes more democratic in its composition, and consequently more arrogant in its bearing, it may cast off the shackles which the other powers of the State impose on its self-will, and even utterly abolish them; but I venture to believe that those who last till that day comes, will find that they are living under a very different constitution from that which we now enjoy; that they have traversed the interval which separates a temperate and cautious ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... presentation of the stimulating cordial, and my remorse and my hopeless desires would be drowned for the time being. Once, in utter disgust, I made a resolution to abstain from such amusements; but it was made in self-will, and did not stand long, though I was so earnest that I gave away much of my finery. I cannot look back to those years without a blush of shame, a feeling of anguish at the utter perversion of the ends of my being. But for my tutelary god, my idolized brother, my young, passionate ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... good, grace, and peace, [1] comes through affliction rightly understood, as sanctified by the purification it brings to the flesh,—to pride, self- ignorance, self-will, self-love, self-justification. Sweet, indeed, are these uses of His rod! Well is it that the [5] Shepherd of Israel passes all His flock under His rod into His fold; thereby numbering them, and giving them refuge at last from the ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... attempts to turn him out; reinstated him there, in spite of maid, and boy, and mistress, and master; wore out every body's opposition, by the activity of her protection, and the pertinacity of her self-will; made him sharer of her bed and her mess; and, finally, established him as one of the family as firmly ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... — N. obstinateness &c. adj.; obstinacy, tenacity; cussedness [U. S.]; perseverance &c. 604a; immovability; old school; inflexibility &c. (hardness) 323; obduracy, obduration[obs3]; dogged resolution; resolution &c. 604; ruling passion; blind side. self-will, contumacy, perversity; pervicacy|, pervicacity[obs3]; indocility[obs3]. bigotry, intolerance, dogmatism; opiniatry|, opiniativeness; fixed idea &c. (prejudgment) 481; fanaticism, zealotry, infatuation, monomania; opinionatedness ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... like a two-edged sword—his son, his only child given to him to train, not only for earth but for heaven—the boy he had loved and idolized, then cast off, and allowed to become a wanderer on the face of the earth. It may be that his stern, sullen pride, his imperious self-will, his resolute trampling upon the voice of nature and duty, confronted him in the new light shining upon him. Perhaps his own words returned to him, that until he lay dead Ronald should never see Earlescourt again; for suddenly the voice they ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... phase of teaching and influence through which we must needs pass if we are properly to discover and appreciate the grace of Christ. With us, too, a preparatory work has to be done. There are mountains and hills of pride and self-will that have to be levelled; crooked and devious ways that have to be straightened; ruggednesses that have to be smoothed—before we can fully behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. In proportion ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... was the absence of self-discipline, self-denial and self-conquest. They could overcome difficulties, brave danger, set the world at defiance, if need be, for each other, and not a coward nerve give way; but when pride and passion came between them, each was a child in weakness and blind self-will. Unfortunately, persistence of character was strong in both. They were of such stuff as martyrs were made of in the fiery times ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... which were being flung at me from every side, and moved by a sudden impulse I stopped, and in the bitterness of my heart spoke to her. 'Mademoiselle,' I said, bowing low—for, as I have stated, she was small, and more like a fairy than a woman, though her face expressed both pride and self-will—'Mademoiselle,' I said sternly, 'such as I am, I have fought for France! Some day you may learn that there are viler things in the world—and have to bear them—than a ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... rendered him in MORAL conduct irresolute and unsteady; he was PHYSICALLY brave to rashness. Nor is this uncommon: scepticism and presumption are often twins. When a man of this character determines upon any action, personal fear never deters him; and for the moral fear, any sophistry suffices to self-will. Almost without analysing himself the mental process by which his nerves hardened themselves and his limbs moved, he traversed the corridor, gained Mejnour's apartment, and opened the forbidden door. All was as he had been accustomed to see it, save ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the works of self? I might mention many, but let us take the simplest words that we are continually using,—self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation. Self-will, pleasing self, is the great sin of man, and it is at the root of all that compromising with the world which is the ruin of so many. Men can not understand why they should not please themselves and do their own will. Numbers of Christians have never ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... he said to Babie, "I don't think it is self-will to feel bound to try to exert myself for the one great purpose of my life. I am too old to live upon mother ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a feast at his house; and the grave archons actually granted his request. But the strangest thing he did was to cut off the tail of his beautiful dog, that, as he said, the Athenians might have something to talk about. In truth he made everything give way to his freaks and self-will; and he was a harsh and unkind husband, and insolent to his father-in-law; and, as time went on, he offended a great many persons by his pride and rudeness and selfishness, so that his brilliancy did ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Defensio Secunda. Even then he had made his reserves, and had ventured to express them in advices and cautions to Cromwell himself. He can hardly have professed that in those virtues of the avoidance of arbitrariness and self-will, the avoidance of over-legislation and over-restriction, which he had especially recommended to Cromwell, the rule of the Protector through the last three years had quite satisfied his ideal. Many of the so-called "arbitrary" ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... self-will, Henry was never blind to the distinction between what he could and what he could not do. Strictly speaking, he was a constitutional king; he neither attempted to break up Parliament, nor to evade the law. He combined in his royal person the parts of despot and demagogue, and both he clothed in Tudor ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... David, pray the Lord "to put into his bottle," and ask, "are they not in thy book," for I was not yet fully acquainted with the ways of God with His people, and had not yet a heart wholly resigned to all His dealings. Oftentimes self-will, unbelief, and repining at our hard lot, was mixed with our complaints and cries unto Him. Do not therefore think them so very pure, and deserving of pity as they may seem. Thus much, however, I can truly say, that amidst it all, our Saviour ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... designs, Awhile didst thou defend them, when the storm Lour'd at safe distance. When the clouds frown'd darker, Fear'd for yourself, and left them to their fate. Oh, I have mark'd thee long, and through the veil Seen thy foul projects. Yes, ambitious man, Self-will'd dictator o'er the realm of France, The vengeance thou hast plann'd for patriots, Falls on thy head. Look how thy brother's deeds Dishonour thine! He, the firm patriot; Thou, the foul parricide ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... his heart made strong by the better brightness she radiated. For Molly was the very type of a creature born of the sun and ripened by his light and heat—a glowing fruit of the tree of life amid its healing foliage, all splendor, and color, and overflowing strength. Self-will is weakness; the will to do right is strength; Molly willed the right thing and held to it. Hence it was that she was so gentle. She walked lightly over the carpet, because she could run up a hill like a hare. When she caught selfishness ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... darkness which does not come form and accord with His light: all that to be disorder which does not implicitly accept and delight in His rule? "O LORD of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth to Thee!" Self-will is unmingled folly, and can only end in ...
— A Ribband of Blue - And Other Bible Studies • J. Hudson Taylor
... upon him. That fear of proselytism, that humble dread of his own influence, which had once determined his whole attitude towards those about him, began now to seem to him mere wretched cowardice and self-will—the caprice of the servant who tries ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... it,—conscience will speak out, and for the first time at least it will be listened to. But if this warning be neglected, and the sin be committed, the conscience will be proportionally weakened, and the self-will of the individual will acquire additional strength. When the temptation again presents itself, it is with redoubled power, and it meets with less resistance. It will invariably be found in such cases, that the person felt much more difficulty ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... Arthur's safety, for a violent fever had ensued, and, to judge from the physician's evasive answers, the event was doubtful. The family were unremitting in their attentions, and Oriana, quietly, but with her characteristic self-will, insisted upon fulfilling her share of the duties of a nurse. And no hand more gently smoothed the sick man's pillow or administered more tenderly the cooling draught. It seemed that Arthur's sleep was calmer when her form was bending over him, ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... cheek grew paler as she listened; and she said, 'Alas, my Lucy! into what a snare have I brought you! and all through pride and self-will.' ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... mother looking none the worse for her journey, her clear brown skin neither sallow nor lined, and the soft brown eyes as bright and sweet as ever; but the father must be learnt over again, and there was awe enough as well as enthusiastic love to make her quail at the thought of her record of self-will. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... recognizes no aim valuable enough to rouse it, and no obligation strong enough to command it. In the character of his countrymen round him, in its highest and in its worst features, in its noble ambition, its daring enterprise, its self-devotion, as well as in its pride, its intolerance, its fierce self-will, its arrogant claims of superiority, moral, political, religious, Spenser saw the example of that strong and resolute manliness, which, once set on great things, feared nothing—neither toil nor disaster nor danger, in ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... it. He foresaw too many local jealousies, his deafness would be sadly against him, he was nearly sixty-five, and he felt himself too old to face the turmoil. He looked upon the Wellington government as the only government possible, though as a friend of Canning he freely recognised its defects, the self-will of the duke, and the parcel of mediocrities and drones with whom, excepting Peel, he had filled his cabinet. His view of the state of parties in the autumn of 1830 is clear and succinct enough to deserve reproduction. 'Huskisson's death,' he writes to his son at Christ Church (October 29, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... tames All anguish; Saint that evil thoughts and aims Takest away, and into souls dost creep, Like to a breeze from heaven. Shall I alone; I surely not a man ungently made, Call thee worst Tyrant by which Flesh is crost? Perverse, self-will'd to own and to disown, Mere Slave of them who never for thee pray'd, Still last to come ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... father—though not nearly so well as her own self-will—and his parting words brought a gush of tears from her eyes. She was half inclined to call to him to come back, and say she ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... faithful servant, and I envy you," said Baron von Stein, "for your services are gratefully accepted; you are not treated with contumely, and your zeal is not regarded as malice and self-will. You may assist your country with your head, your arm, and your heart. You are not doomed to step aside, and idly dream away your days instead of seeking relief in useful activity. Oh, I repeat again, I envy you!" While he was speaking, his ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... was pierced to the core by the great mercy shown by his parents, and the brilliancy of his own original good heart was enticed back to him. The sunlight came forth, and what became of all the clouds of self-will and selfishness? The clouds were all dispelled, and from the bottom of his soul there sprang the desire to thank his parents for their goodness. We all know the story of the rush-cutter who saw the moon rising between the trees on a moorland hill so brightly, that he ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... of a young and untamed girl, possessed of none of the attractions of her sex, and neither supported by bodily nor mental strength, must soon yield to the still rougher and more capricious but assumed self-will of a man: such a lesson can only be taught on the stage with all the perspicuity ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... of followers of the movement was fastened. Conclusions which they had a perfect right to come to, practices innocent and edifying to themselves, but of secondary account, began to be thrust forward into prominence, whether or not these instances of self-will really helped the common cause, whether or not they gave a handle to ill-nature and ill-will. Suspicion must always have attached to such a movement as this; but a great deal of it was provoked by indiscreet defiance, which was rather glad to ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... phenomenon resides not in St Paul but in Jesus Christ. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me" (Gal. i. 15, 16). The man had seen his Saviour with his whole soul. And because of—not the man who saw but—the Saviour who was seen, behold, the life is lifted off the pivot of self-will and transferred to that of "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The same "revealing" grace can lift us also. We are not St Pauls; but the Jesus Christ of St Paul is absolutely the same, in Himself, for us. We will, in His name, place ourselves in the way of His working, that He may so ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... abilities, and might do much for himself, but is too like the father, but with this difference, Edward was good-natured and careless to a fault; this boy is haughty and petulant, with the unmanageable obstinacy and self-will of old Geoffrey. He is not grateful for the many obligations he owes to me, and gives me frequent cause to regret that I ever adopted him into ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... to the Bible for the gloomy tone of his mind, as well as for the prophetic fury which exalts and kindles his poetry; but he is utterly unlike Homer. His genius is not a sparkling flame, but the sullen heat of a furnace. He is power, passion, self-will personified. In all that relates to the descriptive or fanciful part of poetry, he bears no comparison to many who had gone before, or who have come after him; but there is a gloomy abstraction in his conceptions, which lies like a dead weight upon the mind—a ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... self-restraint, virtues so necessary for political life. He had never learned how essential it is for one who undertakes to deal with men, and engage in public business, to avoid above all things that self-will which, as Plato says, is of the family of solitude, and to become longsuffering and patient, qualities which some foolish people hold very cheap. Marcius, plain and straightforward, thinking it to be the duty of a brave man to bear down all opposition, and not reflecting ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... do right. I've been reading some in Zeke's book, 'Science and Health,' and there was one sentence just got hold of me:[1] 'Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error—self-will, self-justification, and self-love!' Jewel's helped me to dissolve enough so I could face handing over the keys of this house to her mother. I'm not saying I could have offered them ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... temptations to our peculiar tempers and circumstances. In youth, he allures us by pleasure, and bright hopes of worldly prosperity. In manhood, he seeks to bury up our hearts in the cares of life. In old age, he persuades to the indulgence of self-will and obstinacy. In prosperity, he puffs up the heart with pride, and persuades to self-confidence and forgetfulness of God. In poverty and affliction, he excites feelings of discontent, distrust, and repining. If we are of a melancholy temperament, he seeks to ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... Charles VIII, about twenty-two years of age, a prince (if we are to believe La Tremouille) little of body but great of heart; a child (if we are to believe Commines) only now making his first flight from the nest, destitute of both sense and money, feeble in person, full of self-will, and consorting rather with fools than with the wise; lastly, if we are to believe Guicciardini, who was an Italian, might well have brought a somewhat partial judgment to bear upon the subject, a young man of little wit concerning the actions of men, but ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... work, spending all his leisure time, day and night, over these studies, to which he afterwards added geography and fortification. It was in this desultory way that his education was gained, no regular course of training being prescribed, and his strong self-will breaking ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... in steering her partner through the maze, on account of his self-will, and when at last they reached the bottom of the long line, she was breathless with her hard labour.. Resting here, she watched Nic and his lady; and, though she had decidedly cooled off in these later months, began to admire him anew. Nobody ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... grows up among these images, built on a measuring and comparing, on the massing of images together into general ideas; on the abstraction of new notions and images from these; till a new world is built up within, full of desires and hates, ambition, envy, longing, speculation, curiosity, self-will, self-interest. ...
— The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali • Charles Johnston
... brother; only the latter drifted from excellence into ambition and then to baseness whereas this man was naturally intractable and played the rogue voluntarily and far surpassed the other in his gift of language. For these reasons his designs were more mischievous, his daring more spontaneous, and his self-will greater in all junctures alike. He was the first to walk up and down in the assemblies while he harangued and the first to bare his arm; hence neither of these practices has been thought improper, since he did it. And because ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio
... guide as well as love him—a woman with sound heart and brain, such as this Agnes Aird was represented to be, what a happy future might be before this youth! Without such a wise counselor, how easy it would be, and how likely, for him to drift on the tide of self-will and self-indulgence to the devil! The decision rested in Richard's own hands, he knew. Should he blast this young life in the bud, in revenge for acts for which he was in no way accountable, and which were already being so bitterly expiated? The apprehension that Solomon ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... left the room. Then, I put down my needle and laid my head on the table, and shook from head to foot with the trembling she had given me. And a longing to see Christian took possession of me; a sick, crying thirst for the sight, if it were only for a minute; the impatient agony of self-will. Necessity's bands and manacles put it down after ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... and figure. Through his growing indignation Rand was still impressed and even startled with the change the few last months had wrought upon her. In place of the silly, fanciful, half-hysterical hoyden whom he had known, a matured woman, strong in passionate self-will, fascinating in a kind of wild, savage beauty, looked up at him as if to read ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... this time about eighteen years of age—a beautiful, black-haired, bright-eyed little brunette, full of fire, spirit, strength, and self-will. She was a law to herself. No one, not even her aged father, had the slightest control over her except through her affections, when they could be gained, or her passions, when they could be aroused; but this last means ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... vanquished, and who had tasted the triumph of defeat. But in all her exaltation she knew—though for the moment the knowledge could not hurt her—that her heart would be broken by Christopher's death. Through the long night of her ignorance and self-will and unsatisfied idealism she had wrestled with the angel that she might behold the Best, and had prayed that it might be granted unto her to see the Vision Beautiful. At last she had prevailed; and the day for which she had so longed was breaking, and transfiguring the common ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... would be regarded as folly on her part, and something worse on that of her brother; and she therefore wrote with every effort to make the whole appear her own voluntary act—though the very effort made her doubly conscious that the sole cause for her passive acquiescence was, that her past self-will in trifles had left her no power to contend for her own opinion in greater matters—the common retribution on an opinionative woman ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... heterodox than the notion that the poor were to educate themselves. In his scheme, of course the clergy and the gentry were to educate the poor, who were to take down thankfully as much as it was thought proper to give them: and all beyond was 'self-will' and 'private judgment,' the fathers of Dissent and Chartism, Trades'-union strikes, and French Revolutions, et si ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... You have no vocation such as your brother had. You are a wife. You seek to break your ties in self-will and anger, not because the higher life calls upon you to renounce them. The higher life begins for us, my daughter, when we renounce our own will to bow before a Divine law. That seems hard to you. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... into disfavour with his superiors in the service. And yet his whole conduct was regulated by the strictest sense of duty, and his letters—even those in which he shows most independence—never give the slightest occasion to suspect that his actions arose from self-will and disobedience. On this point ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... ever by the interference of Ferdinand Lopez. But Mrs. Lopez never for a moment forgot that she had done the mischief,—and that the black enduring cloud had been created solely by her own perversity and self-will. Though she would still defend her late husband if any attack were made upon his memory, not the less did she feel that hers had been the fault, though the punishment had come upon ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... me: to whose commands, Alas! I've nothing to reply withal; Nor is there man more wretched than myself. For Clinia here (though he, I must confess, Has cares enough) has got a mistress, modest, Well-bred, and stranger to all harlot arts: Mine is a self-will'd, wanton, haughty madam, Gay, and extravagant; and let her ask Whate'er she will, she must not be denied; Since poverty I durst not make my plea. This is a plague I have but newly found, Nor is my father yet ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... to love; but hated him For making her to love, and so her whim From passion taught misprision to begin; And all this sin Was because love to cast out had no skill Self, which was regent still. Her own self-will made void her ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... I to suggest a pilgrimage, a fast, or scourgings even, the fair sex would undertake the remedy at once, for they like some eclat about their smallest doings. All I want them to do is to correct their little spirit of self-will and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... We see but too often the early beauty of the character sadly marred, its simplicity gone, its confidence chilled, its tenderness hardened; where there was gentleness, we see roughness and coarseness; where there was obedience, we find murmuring, and self-will, and pride; where there was a true and blameless conversation, we find now something of falsehood, something of profaneness, something of impurity. I can well conceive what it must be to a parent to see his child return from school, ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... among you, and to whose service the stronger members have to devote themselves. This is the reason why all who purpose to enter the Order have to resolve to make war to the death against their private judgment, and still more against their self-will and self-love. This is why all ought to mortify all their passions and affections, and absolutely to bend their understanding under the yoke of obedience, to live, in short, no longer according ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... will make us more capable of receiving, and more blessedly conscious of possessing, the love of Jesus Christ. The lightest cloud before the sun will prevent it from focussing its rays to a burning point on the convex glass. And the small, thin, fleeting, scarcely visible acts of self-will that sometimes pass across our skies will prevent our feeling the warmth of that love upon our shrouded hearts. Every known piece of rebellion against Christ will shatter all true enjoyment of His favour, unless we are hopeless hypocrites or self-deceived. The condition of knowing and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... deep and true philosophy in that. As long as he was what he was meant to be—the servant of God—he was an archangel and more; the fairest of all the sons of the morning. When he rebelled; when in pride and self-will he tore himself—his person—away from that God in whom he lived and moved and had his being: the personality remained; he could still, like Medea, fall back, even when he knew that he had rebelled against his Creator, on his indomitable self, and reign a self-sufficing king, even ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... of the book. The paradox, probably nowhere else discussed, of man's thinking and willing to all appearance all by himself, and of the fact that volition and thought come to him from beyond him, receives a similar, cumulative answer. The tension between the divine will and human self-will is a subject that pervades the book; to that subject the profoundest insights into the hidden activity of providence and into human nature are brought. On the question, "Is providence only general or also detailed?" ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... rebounded, and the joy of deliverance seemed as if it would counterbalance the dreadful anxieties of the past night. What a pure pleasure I now tasted a few moments! In a freak, I sat down and sketched The Demons' Palace, laughing defiance upon it all the while, with the wayward self-will and harmless spite of a child, I took this vengeance ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... to have attended to her. It was a fit of self-will in managing myself,' said Guy, murmuring low, as if trying to find the real indictment; 'yet I thought it a positive ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not reaped until The Christ within has grown To perfect manhood, and self-will By love ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... reflection which followed it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the mind with which Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison, or the perfect unrivalled hold it possessed over his own. There, he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind. There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment, which had ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... good, visiting at that bleak hill, When limber liquid youth, that to all I teach Yields tender as a pushed peach, Hies headstrong to its wellbeing of a self-wise self-will! ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... laying down the law to these people: fancying myself infallible, as if God were not as near to them as He is to me—certainly nearer than to any book on my shelves—offending their little prejudices, little superstitions, in my own cruel self-conceit and self-will! And now, the first time that I forget my own rules; the first time that I forget almost that I am a priest, even a Christian at all! that moment they acknowledge me as a priest, as a Christian. The moment I meet them upon the commonest human ground, helping them as one heathen ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... confessing his folly, prayed for pardon, which Oberon granted him for very pity, knowing, he said, that Huon would have much to suffer, some things through the wicked ways of others, but more from his own pride and self-will. Then, bidding the young man farewell afresh, the fairy king rode back to ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... dawning manhood of Europe—rich with all the tenderness, the simplicity, the enthusiasm of youth—but also darkened, alas! with its full share of youth's precipitance and extravagance, fierce passions and blind self-will—its virtues and its vices colossal, and, for that very reason, always haunted by the twin-imp of the ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley
... model of perfect obedience. From twelve to thirty years of age all that we are told of Him in the Sacred Scriptures is that "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them." Obedience is a most effectual means of subduing self-will and self-love, which are our most fatal enemies. "An obedient man shall speak of victory," because obedience draws down a most special and abundant grace; for so pleasing is it to God that He says of it: "Obedience ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous
... I said hastily. 'It is enough that your infernal egotism and self-will have ruined my happiness. I have allowed you to usurp the rule, to reverse our natural positions. I shall do so no more. I intend to teach you a lesson you ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... little amusement, there was, on the other hand, great devotion; the Princess, as a child, had that peculiar combination of self-will and warm-heartedness which is apt to win for a child a special love from its elders. The Princess Feodore wrote to the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... transaction of pressing business of state; the greatest unanimity existed between the three councils, the best understanding between the court and the states. From the obliging temper of the Flemish nobility everything was to be had, as soon as their pride and self-will was flattered by confidence and obliging treatment. The regent took advantage of the first joy of the nation to beguile them into a vote of certain taxes, which, under the preceding administration, she could not have hoped to extort. In this, the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... and summer and hope were dead. Tears trembled in the mother's eyes. Poor little Virginia, so young, so inexperienced, and, in spite of her self-will and recklessness, so sweet ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... resolved that his niece's first visit to her father's grave should not be spent in fruitless dreams of him or of his presence, alluring because involving neither self-reproach nor resolution; but in thoughts which might lead to action, to humility, and to the yielding up of self-will. ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... smile was haughty, though so sweet; Her very nod was not an inclination; There was a self-will even in her small feet, As though they were quite conscious of her station— They trod as upon necks; and to complete Her state (it is the custom of her nation), A poniard deck'd her girdle, as the sign She was a sultan's bride (thank Heaven, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... and magnified their chieftain, the Lord Scales, beyond the greatest of their grandees. With all this, it must be said of them that they were marvelous good men in the field, dexterous archers, and powerful with the battle-axe. In their great pride and self-will, they always sought to press in the advance and take the post of danger, trying to outvie our Spanish chivalry. They did not rush on fiercely to the fight, nor make a brilliant onset like the Moorish and Spanish ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... with an infatuation, believing that he should one day, and that day not distant, re-enter England; he was surrounded by favourites, who all encouraged his predilections, and fostered the hereditary self-will of his ill-starred race. The blood of Townley, and of his brave fellow-sufferers, rests not as a stain on the memory of Lord George Murray; and the Prince alone must bear the odium of that needless sacrifice to a visionary future. "We must draw a ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... self to breed another thee, Or ten times happier, be it ten for one; Ten times thy self were happier than thou art, If ten of thine ten times refigur'd thee: Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart, Leaving thee living in posterity? Be not self-will'd, for thou art much too fair To be death's conquest and make worms ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... very happy; but the foundation is from a real accident which happened among my acquaintance.[82] A young gentleman of a great estate fell desperately in love with a great beauty of very high quality, but as ill-natured as long flattery and an habitual self-will could make her. However, my young spark ventures upon her, like a man of quality, without being acquainted with her, or having ever saluted her, till it was a crime to kiss any woman else. Beauty is a thing which palls with possession; and the charms of this lady ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... wish that during the first year of your mellifluous union, scenes more or less delightful, pleasantries uttered in good taste, pretty purses and caresses might accompany and might decorate the handing over of this monthly gift; but the time will come when the self-will of your wife or some unforeseen expenditure will compel her to ask a loan of the Chamber; I presume that you will always grant her the bill of indemnity, as our unfaithful deputies never fail to do. They pay, but they grumble; you must pay and at the same time ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music goes on certain rules and laws. Man did not make these laws of music; he has only found them out; and, if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music instantly: all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds: The ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... guiding her hand, that she was made to trace a few characters, requesting her father to send three hundred dollars as her ransom. The letter was despatched by the shepherd. When he was gone, the chief turned sternly to me: "You have set an example," said he, "of mutiny and self-will, which if indulged would be ruinous to the troop. Had I treated you as our laws require, this bullet would have been driven through your brain. But you are an old friend; I have borne patiently with your fury and your folly; I have even protected you from a foolish passion ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... one wanting to dominate the other, neither is it that one prefers to be dominated. But this was precisely, however, what these young revolutionaries thought, and insisted upon, with a curious sort of self-will. They snubbed Clerambault, on the principle that intelligence should be at the service of the proletariat ... "Dienen, dienen ..." which was the last word even of the proud Wagner. More than one lofty spirit brought low has ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... by the condemned foreigner. His intellect refused to acknowledge the possibility of discomfiture; his soul raged mightily against the hint of bafflement. Humour would not come to his aid; the lighter elements of race were ousted; he was solid insolence, wooden-headed self-will. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... You that can see a mote within my eye, And with a cassock blind your own defects, I'll teach you this: 'tis better to do ill, That's never known to us, than of self-will. Stand these[439], all these, in thy seducing eye, As scorning life, make ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... upon the liking of the individuals for one another's company. The tendency of individuals to over self-assertion is kept down by fighting. Even in these rudimentary forms of society, love and fear come into play, and enforce a greater or less renunciation of self-will. To this extent the general cosmic process begins to be checked by a rudimentary ethical process, which is, strictly speaking, part of the former, just as the "governor" in a steam-engine is part of ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... opera "Radamisto" was ready early in 1720, and produced at the Royal Academy of Music, as the theater was now called. The success of the production was tremendous. But Handel, by his self-will had stirred up envy and jealousy, and an opposition party was formed, headed by his old enemy from Hamburg, Buononcini, who had come to London to try his fortunes. A test opera was planned, of which Handel wrote the third act, Buononcini the second ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... experience, and listened to it with great interest. I told her how I had sat in darkness for two long years, waiting for the light, and in full faith that it would come; how I had kept my soul patient and quiet,—had surrendered self-will to God's will,—had watched and waited till at last His great mercy came in an infinite peace to my soul. Margaret was never weary of asking me concerning this state, and said, 'I would gladly give all my talents and knowledge for ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... you, Mr. Henry, and has never said aught against you. Nay, more, I recall her speaking well of your goodness, but whether she will consent unto your plea I cannot prophesy. Where she got her proud temper and her stubborn self-will passes my mind, for her father was an exercised Christian and a douce man, and there never was a word of contradiction from him all the days of our married life. It may be the judgment of the Lord for the sins of the land, that the ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... grandmother was not a good companion for him. In her continual glorification of the self-will of the Trelyons, and her stories of the wild deeds they had done, she was unconsciously driving him to some desperate thing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... feelings; he caused me years of conflict and anguish, such as he little knows; I was almost shipwrecked; yet I will still say to the last that what I loved in him was a better self,—something really noble and good, however concealed and perverted by pride, ambition, and self-will. Though all the world reject him, I still have faith in this better nature, and prayers that he may be led right at last. There is at least one heart that will always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... protest—be it for us, or be it against us—I cannot find this very religion of theirs in ancient times, whether in friend or foe, Jew or Pagan, Montanist or Novatian; though I find surely enough, and in plenty, the general characteristics, which are conspicuous in their philosophy, of self-will, eccentricity, and love ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... girl whose energy keeps things whirling in the Berry Patch. Judge Berry was the great authority on what's what among them, and John Tabor, the school teacher, was the romantic character in the community. All the human excitements of pride and self-will enter into the various ambitions. Even generous impulses were taught restraint in the experiences of various kinds, showing that there is an appropriate time and place ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... youthfulness, he, as already hence anticipating his descendants, gladly told it to my mother; rejoicing in that tumult of the senses wherein the world forgetteth Thee its Creator, and becometh enamoured of Thy creature, instead of Thyself, through the fumes of that invisible wine of its self-will, turning aside and bowing down to the very basest things. But in my mother's breast Thou hadst already begun Thy temple, and the foundation of Thy holy habitation, whereas my father was as yet but a Catechumen, and that but recently. ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... by a strange fatality, cooperation is impossible; intent on uniting all men, yet himself not agreeing with any; with individuality so intense and exclusive, that it produces all the effect of intolerant self-will; and thus the very plans which by his hypothesis are inevitable, are by his temper made impracticable. He appeals, however, and successfully, to the uneasiness felt by the feeble in the strife and pressure of the world; he fills the imagination with visions of repose ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... all carnal choices are immature and premature, and all carnal courses are mistaken and unspiritual. God is often moved to delay that we may be led to pray, and even the answers to prayer are deferred that the natural and carnal spirit may be kept in check and self-will may bow before the will ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... soften thy resolve; But, as a colt new-harnessed champs the bit, Thou strivest and art restive to the rein. But all too feeble is the stratagem In which thou art so confident: for know That strong self-will is weak and less than nought In one more proud than wise. Bethink thee now— If these my words thou shouldest disregard— What storm, what might as of a great third wave Shall dash thy doom upon thee, past escape! First shall the Sire, with thunder and the flame Of ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... weaned from us; and secondly, because the next year will be the most important of his life with reference to managing his will; and in this I cannot but distrust you. I know, my darling mother, you could not wage war with his self-will so resolutely as to subdue it. And then my child would be ruined, for he must be ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... under such circumstances the lonely widower should think of a successor to his lost wife, for Mittie needed a mother's restraining influence and guardian care. Nor is it strange, with her indomitable self-will, she should resist the authority of a stranger. When her father announced his intention of bringing home a lady to preside over his establishment, claiming for her all filial respect and obedience, she flew into a violent passion, and declared she would never own her as a mother, ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... result of these extremes of subjection and independence, is exhibited in the character of Juliet, as it gradually opens upon us. We behold it in the mixture of self-will and timidity, of strength and weakness, of confidence and reserve, which are developed as the action of the play proceeds. We see it in the fond eagerness of the indulged girl, for whose impatience the "nimblest of the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... his spirits rose, and his appetite reasserted itself. He declared in loud tones how well he felt, and quite resented my efforts to take care of him. I reminded him of his gracious vows and promises in the days of his low spirits, but to no effect. The fact is, his self-will has not left him yet, and I have now no fear of his immediate translation. He is going to preach for us ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... victorious. They are not fond of keeping up a remembrance of their defeats. There was a good picture of the late Emperor, with his haughty brow, fierce eyes, and determined lips, the very impersonification of self-will and human pride, now brought down to the very dust; but, haughty as was that brow, the expression of the countenance gave no sign of talent or true genius. It was indeed wanting. He had the sense to take advantage of the ideas of others, ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... in and around him, had wakened to the vigor of a previous century; but it was so different from Vesta's nature that, while it but made nobler her soul of tranquil piety and ease of ladyhood, Vesta was interested in Rhoda's self-will and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... and patience—The Comforter—to as many as ask Him. Ask Him now, this day—come to His holy table this day, and ask Him to make you patient; ask Him to take all the hastiness, and pride, and ill-temper, and self-will, and greediness out of you, and to change your wills into the likeness of His will. Then your eyes will be opened to understand His law. Then you will see in the Scriptures a sure promise of hope and glory and redemption for yourself and all the world. Then you will ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... marriage, after the initial act, had in it nothing whatever of lawlessness. She believed there exists a higher rule than that of Parliament, and to this higher law she submitted. To her this was not a law of self-will and personal inclination, but the law of nature and social obligation. That she was not overcome by the German individualistic and social tendencies may be seen in the article on "Weimar and its Celebrities," in the Westminster Review, where, in writing of Wieland as an educator, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... everywhere,—treat of sin as a fact. It is more than dominion of body over spirit; more than an incident of growth; more than a result of undeveloped judgment, tinged with emotion, and applied to questions of motive and conduct. Sin is the abnormal; sin is a variant from standard; sin is self-will and selfishness throttling duty. Where men accept a God, it is opposition to His law and government.[7] If no personal God be believed in, then sin is willful opposition to the course of nature and to law, ...
— The Things Which Remain - An Address To Young Ministers • Daniel A. Goodsell
... much who loveth much. He doth much who doth well. He doth well who ministereth to the public good rather than to his own. Oftentimes that seemeth to be charity which is rather carnality, because it springeth from natural inclination, self-will, hope ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... proportion as a man finds out his exact work, and walks in or strays from his peculiar path, will be the success of his life. He may miss his aim altogether, and his life turn out a failure, because of his self-will, or, perhaps, his mistaken notions; and there are few sights more depressing than that of a round young man rushing into a square hole, except that of a square young man trying to wriggle himself into a round hole. What the world wants is "the right man in the right place." What each man wants ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... carried them, as they did their abstinence, to an extravagant pitch. But it must be remembered, in fairness, that if they obeyed their supposed superiors, they had first chosen their superiors themselves; that as the becoming a monk at all was an assertion of self-will and independence, whether for good or evil, so their reverence for their abbots was a voluntary loyalty to one who they fancied had a right to rule them, because he was wiser and better than they; a feeling which some have found not degrading, but ennobling; ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... softness in their natures. Their narrow minds, which found real pleasure in worrying the poor child, passed insensibly from outward kindness to extreme severity. This severity was necessitated, they believed, by what they called the self-will of the child, which had not been broken when young and was very obstinate. Her masters were ignorant how to give to their instructions a form suited to the intelligence of the pupil,—a thing, by the bye, which marks the difference between ...
— Pierrette • Honore de Balzac
... with all her mad self-will, Was no coquette—oh no! She really loved her faithful BILL, And thus she ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... begged him to sit still while we tried to get him a trap from the village; and his self-will nearly cost him his life, if it doesn't yet. He was hardly out of sight when we see him come staggering back with his handkerchief up to his mouth, and the blood dripping through his fingers into ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... currents, and just when to alter the course. The youngster who steers the University boat has been up and down the river many a time, till he has learned everything he needs to know. Let me ask you, "Who steers?" If SELF-WILL does, ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... thought to have spoken well, when he said that "Greece could not have borne two Lysanders." We are told by Theophrastus that Archestratus made the same remark about Alkibiades: although in his case it was insolence, luxury and self-will which gave so much offence, whereas Lysander's harsh, merciless disposition was what made his power so ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... of considerable self-will on the part of your children. It is the correlative of that diminished coerciveness so conspicuous in modern education. The greater tendency to assert freedom of action on the one side, corresponds ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... determined he grew. There he stood, his proud, dark eye fixed on a picture on the wall, his lip curled with a sort of disdain, and an expression in his whole motionless figure that, had his cause but been good, would have been resolution, whereas it now was only indomitable self-will and pride. ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... and the foolish wince. Let us be grateful for the social and humanizing influences of Mirth. Amid the sorrow, disappointment, agony, and anguish of the world,—over dark thoughts and tempestuous passions, the gloomy exaggerations of self-will, the enfeebling illusions of melancholy,—Wit and Humor, light and lightning, shed their soft radiance, or dart their electric flash. See how life is warmed and illumined by Mirth! See how the beings of the mind, with which it has peopled our imaginations, wrestle with the ills of existence,—feeling ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... ill-judged in Dorrance not to acquaint you with this. I have always feared lest his indulgence might not be the most salutary method of repressing your self-will and pride of opinion. You, more than any other woman I know, require the tight rein of vigilant discipline. I intimated as much to Dorrance when he asked my consent to your engagement. But this is his lookout, not mine. What I ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... declared at the outset that lie did not intend to cast any censure upon the conduct of the house of assembly in Lower Canada. He considered their course to be so much the same with that which other popular assemblies had followed in similar circumstances, that instead of an act of self-will, or caprice, or presumption, it seemed to be rather the obligation of a general law which affects all these disputes between a popular assembly on the one hand, and the executive government on the other. The course of these ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he said. "Stay one moment, and you shall know what your pride and self-will have ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... apparent than real, as depending upon the relative position of the observer,—were those contrarieties and changes not less startling, which his character so often exhibited, as compared with itself. He who, at one moment, was seen intrenched in the most absolute self-will, would, at the very next, be found all that was docile and amenable. To-day, storming the world in its strong-holds, as a misanthrope and satirist—to-morrow, learning, with implicit obedience, to fold a shawl, as a Cavaliere—the same man who had so ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... shall Zeus, for all his proud self-will, Be humbled. On a wedlock he is bent Whereof the fateful offspring shall one day Hurl him from sovereignty to nothingness, And so fulfil the curse old Chronos spake, When from his immemorial throne he fell. And this his doom how to escape not ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith |
