"Unselfish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grandchildren to the latest generations, inevitably love one another with that love wherewith Christ loveth us. A love unselfish, unambitious, impartial, universal,—that loves only because it is Love. Moreover, they love their enemies, even those that hate them. This we all must do to be Christian Scientists in spirit and in truth. I long, and live, to see this love demonstrated. ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... one away into uncontrollable violence. Anger is personal and usually selfish, aroused by real or supposed wrong to oneself, and directed specifically and intensely against the person who is viewed as blameworthy. Indignation is impersonal and unselfish displeasure at unworthy acts (L. indigna), i. e., at wrong as wrong. Pure indignation is not followed by regret, and needs no repentance; it is also more self-controlled than anger. Anger is commonly a sin; indignation is often a duty. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... The people who are prone to fall on their knees and do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our head. The one absolutely unselfish friend a man may have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... the man sees everything with comparative clearness, but the limitless spaces that lie beyond he sees not at all. We have seen that the amount of abstinence he will practice now for the sake of what he or others will gain later varies as he is rational or foolish, unselfish or selfish, and it is also true that the length of his outlook into the future varies in the same way. There are all gradations of far-sightedness among those who create capital; but even comparatively near-sighted ones usually provide for ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... of circumstances, and be forced to accept charity, but your true pauper, be he rich or poor, has the parasitic habit of mind. When we ask ourselves then, Who are the poor? we must answer that they include widely divergent types of character,—the selfish and the {12} unselfish, the noble and the mean, workers and parasites—and that, in going among them, we must be prepared to meet human beings differing often from ourselves, it may be, in trivial and external things, but like ourselves in ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... something we want while we are ease-loving, forgetful of duty, selfish, unforgiving, neither loving God or our neighbor, when we feel far from him, instead of near him, can we believe that we shall have such a heart's desire as that would be? Would your desire be according to his will, his unselfish, ...
— Miss Prudence - A Story of Two Girls' Lives. • Jennie Maria (Drinkwater) Conklin
... proportioned to the sum we spend. Well, your shallow people, because they see that however they spend money they are always employing somebody, and, therefore, doing some good, think and say to themselves, that it is all one how they spend it—that all their apparently selfish luxury is, in reality, unselfish, and is doing just as much good as if they gave all their money away, or perhaps more good; and I have heard foolish people even declare it as a principle of political economy, that whoever invented a new want[9] conferred a good on the community. I have not words strong ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... arrested, and that better days are in store for her long-suffering people. Yet Conquest, Subjugation, Oppression and Misgovernment have worn deep furrows in the National character, and ages of patient, enlightened and unselfish effort will be necessary to eradicate them. Ignorance, Indolence, Inefficiency, Superstition and Hatred are still fearfully prevalent; I only hope that causes are beginning to operate which will ultimately efface them. If I have said less than would seem just of the Political causes, of Ireland's ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... him, and reminded him how and why Raynal had married her: for Rose had told him all. Should he undermine an absent soldier, whose whole conduct in this had been so pure, so generous, so unselfish? ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... heaven; a method of salvation without a vicarious Saviour; redemption by oneself as the Redeemer, and without rites, prayers, penances, priests or intercessory saints; and a summum bonum, i.e., Nirvana, attainable in this life and in this world by leading a pure, unselfish life of wisdom and ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... all, gives way at last, and leaves him a broken reed, while the other finds in the breach which God made in his cherished plans, an opening through which heaven smiles on him, rises on the ruins of his wrecked hopes to a purer and more unselfish life, draws sweetness out of his sorrow, and wins a firmer trust in God, and a deeper and more comprehensive sympathy for his sorrowing brethren everywhere. These differences are endless. They cover every variety of experience. The world talks of the dignity of man, asserts ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... bitter disappointment, but she roused herself even then to smile, and tell him yes, cheerfully. You call it a trifle, nothing? It may be; yet I think the angels looking down had tears in their eyes, when they saw the last trial of the unselfish, solitary heart, and kept for her a different crown from his who conquers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... some of them came down into the valley again. Through suffering they had grown strong and unselfish. They gave their best trees to the people and their fairest to the ...
— Nature Myths and Stories for Little Children • Flora J. Cooke
... [pointing to a portrait against the wall], that man who was the embodiment of gallantry, of liberty, of chivalry, the immortal Lafayette. [Loud cheers.] Then the two armies moved hand-in-hand to fight the common foe. They vied nobly with each other and, by an unselfish emulation and by a generous rivalry, showed the world that the path of ambition had not become so narrow that two could not walk it abreast. [Cries of ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z • Various
... selfishness. Only then it opens by and by into the largest and noblest works of men, in which they most manifest the richness of their human nature and appropriate the strength of God. Those are great and unselfish acts. We know it at once if we turn to Him who represents the fulness of the nature of ...
— Addresses • Phillips Brooks
... themselves, and doing something for their Lombard brothers, had reached fever heat in the spring of 1821, when the affairs of Naples were creating much excitement. The principal conspirators, noble young men, full of unselfish ardour, were the chosen friends and companions of the Prince of Carignano. It was formerly the opinion that they made him the confidant of their plans from the first, that he was one of them, in short—a Carbonaro bound by all the oaths and obligations of the society. The judgment of his conduct ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... were the heroes of the strike, for it is infinitely finer to fight for others than for one's self. When a man has toiled for a quarter of a century to gain a comfortable place it is not without a struggle that he throws it all over, in an unselfish effort to help a brother on. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers had grown to be respected by the public because of almost countless deeds of individual heroism. It was deferred to—and often encouraged by railway officials, because it had improved ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... Van is a fool, I prefer simpletons to wiseacres. I know he is shy and awkward, and does absurd things now and then. But I also know that he has the kindest heart that ever was; is unselfish, faithful and loving; that he took good care of his old parents till they died, and never thought of himself while they needed him. He loves me dearly; will wait for me a dozen years, if I say so, and work all his days to make me happy. He's a help and comfort to mother, a ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... unconscious of it, smiled at them, and conversed gaily,—little knowing as she talked, in her own sweet and unaffected way, that the most profound resolutions were being formed, and the most noble and unselfish deeds, were being planned in the souls of her listeners,—all forsooth! because one fair, innocent woman had, in the clear, grave glances of her wondrous sea-blue eyes, suddenly made them aware of their own utter unworthiness. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... communications; but Turenne thought nothing of personal glory, and fought only for France. Enghien, on the other hand, throughout his career was animated by personal motives, and cared nothing for the general welfare of France. Turenne was wholly unselfish; Enghien was ready to sacrifice anything or everything for his own glory or interest. At present, surrounded as he was by young nobles as eager to fight as he was himself, and backed by Gassion, one of the most able and enterprising soldiers of the day, he declared that he had come ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... you must surely know, they who are the most unselfish are the ones who gain the greatest joy; because they give happiness ...
— Raggedy Andy Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... looked very differently from the way it had looked at the moment he left it. When he came to think of it, he did not feel quite so sure practically about that matter of the utter natural selfishness of everybody. There was Letty, now, seemed to take a very unselfish interest in that old black woman, and indeed in poor people generally; perhaps it would not be too much to say that she was always thinking of other people. He thought he had seen other young persons naturally unselfish, thoughtful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... are conclusive on this point. But the advocate of revivalism quite misses the true significance of the fact. Current religious literature is full of quite meaningless chatter concerning the change of view, the larger and more unselfish activities, that arise as a consequence of conversion. There is really no evidence that the changes indicated have any connection with conversion. All that does happen can be more simply and more adequately explained ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... of Ruth and Naomi is one of the sweetest and most touching of all the Bible stories. It shows the beauty of unselfish devotion and constant love, and the happiness which they brought, and teaches a lesson which is very helpful ...
— Wee Ones' Bible Stories • Anonymous
... wise, unselfish woman, as well as good. At a certain point she ceased to act, and said, "Mrs Frog, go to your own Hetty, and she will ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... was now in the far distant past, but it had made a deeper impression upon George than he perhaps realized, and it was now working in his mind and marring his happiness. Here was a girl who loved him with a noble and unselfish and whole-hearted love—and yet he would never be able to trust her as she deserved, but would always have suspicions lurking in the back of his mind. He would be unable to have his friends intimate in his home, because of the memory of what ...
— Damaged Goods - A novelization of the play "Les Avaries" • Upton Sinclair
... mother. Maizie won't leave her ... and she won't bring her into our home. Mrs. Carter's peculiar ... and Maizie says we're young. Young enough to be unselfish." ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... they tell such lies!" he kept repeating with boyish indignation. Pure and sweet as the face of his own mother was hers. Loving, unselfish, tender and thoughtful, she moved through her house with the gentle step of a ministering angel. The knightly deference with which the General attended her slightest wish, stirred the Boy's imagination. He could see him standing erect, pistol in hand, in the gray dawn ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... it will be accepted, and they will likely ask you to send them more. You may be as famous as Mrs. Morgan some day, Anne, and then how proud I'll be of knowing you," said Diana, who possessed, at least, the striking merit of an unselfish admiration of the gifts and graces ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... self-conscious girls, some of them were, old before their time with the marks of toil, heavy and unremitting, upon them, hard-handed, stoop-shouldered, dull-eyed and awkward. These were the daughters of rich farmers. Good girls they were, too, conscientious, careful, unselfish, thinking it a virtue to stifle every ambition, smother every ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... obvious that we need not discuss it any further, but merely hold it over to add, at last, to the result of the two other reasons, negative and positive, which tend to make aesthetic enjoyment the type of unselfish, nay, ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... unselfish, generous little thing," he said to himself. "However, I may be mistaken; I must not allow myself to judge from only one month. She seems submissive, too,"—he had overheard what passed between her and Lucy at parting—"but perhaps that was for effect; she ...
— Elsie Dinsmore • Martha Finley
... London, was not at the time an inspiring object of veneration, if you will permit me to says so, M. le Baron. But what does it matter? the cause was there, an image to keep the good hearts strong, unselfish, and expectant. Ah! the songs they sang, so full of that hopeful melancholy of the glens you speak of, mademoiselle; the stories they told of Tearlach's Year; the hopes that bound them in a brotherhood—and binds them yet, praise le bon Dieu! That was good for ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... the plunge—"I'll try, mother—if you'll tell me how to begin. I have been thinking it all over and I have decided that I must be as brave and heroic and unselfish as ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... are not only false but insulting; I have more faith in my patriotic countrymen than you, for I know them better; they are brave, unselfish, long suffering——" ...
— Up the Forked River - Or, Adventures in South America • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... fantastically chaotic, apparently capricious work of nature, always kept it beautiful. The beauty of holiness must be at the heart of it somehow, I thought. Because our God is so free from stain, so loving, so unselfish, so good, so altogether what He wants us to be, so holy, therefore all His works declare Him in beauty; His fingers can touch nothing but to mould it into loveliness; and even the play of His elements is in grace ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... is a pure, earnest, unselfish life. Our lives are the strongest part of us—or else the weakest. A man knows the least of the influence of his own life. Life is not mere length of time but the daily web of character we unconsciously weave. Our thoughts, imaginations, purposes, motives, love, will, are the under threads: ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... leveled sexual and worldly distinctions, and manual labor was, at times, performed by all who were in the least physically fitted for it. All classes early became inured to makeshifts and privations, though they managed in some unselfish manner to send, from time to time, great quantities of clothing, meats, and other supplies to the soldiers in the field and their wounded ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... piety, purity]; and to godliness brotherly kindness [which means that kind and loving disposition that exists and should exist between those who are really brothers]; and to brotherly kindness charity," or love which means an unselfish desire to do good and doing good to others even at a ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford
... Such is the exulting song of many a human heart when bewildering metaphysics or superficial science has crowded from its convictions faith in the Deity and his moral government. Few men have reached the pure, unclouded heights of religion and morality, where the unselfish love of the holy and the right, for their own inherent excellence, forms the controlling motive of their conduct, regardless of penalty or reward. Humanity is yet on the low moral plane, where penal laws, ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... some account. The hospital used him, the clergy found plenty for him to do for them, the museum had room for other pictures of his. Who among them all had ever sought him without a motive? Who among them all had ever found unselfish pleasure ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... not think of disappointing us," broke in the dear brown fellow. "Could you have imagined that our only reason is to keep you out of danger? No. We're not so unselfish. We want you. Partings will come soon enough. We must have you with us, under our roof, at our table, as long as we can. Now you understand, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... all those fiercest terrors of famine which lurk in a virgin wilderness. Bitter cold, unmerciful snow-falls, drift-clogged streams, pelting storms, were constant features of Arnold's intrepid march. When we realize the purely unselfish and disinterested motive of this march, which has justly been compared to that of Xenophon with his 10,000, and to the retreat of Napoleon from Moscow as well, we stand aghast at the possibility of its having been planned ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... children do not show more nobility of soul than was displayed by this poor, uneducated girl, who gave up all her worldly interest for a family not her own." Who can say that Pestalozzi himself was not inspired to his long life of devotion to the interests of the lowly by the unselfish consecration of this lowly ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... He knew that his superior position would throw the lesser victim in the background. He would make the sacrifice; that was his duty as a gentleman, even if SHE would not care to accept it as an earnest of his unselfish love! ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... not an unselfish love, the love that goes out towards the unloving, demand of a truly loving soul immediate action for the Salvation of ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... letting her aunt's wishes overrule mine in the matter of education. But she shall be brought back, even if I have to ask the assistance of every sovereign in Europe. This is the end. And I had planned such a pleasant evening at cards!" The duke was not wholly unselfish. ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... she was a little upset, but being a sensible woman she soon saw the force of my arguments and fell in with the situation. In truth, unselfish creature that she was, she thought more of the advantage that would accrue to me by this formal burying of the hatchet than of her ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... us, and he particularly told us about a lot of things he wanted us to buy to make things easy on the way. After he leaves us and goes back to California we're in your charge, I know; but just now you're in ours, you dear, unselfish darling; and we're going to run you. Oh, we're going to run you to beat the band!" laughed Leslie, and jumped down from her perch to hug and squeeze the ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... if kindness, sympathy, purity, justice, good-will, are increasing in their power over the lives of men; if business methods are becoming less rapacious; if employers and employed are more and more inclined to be friends rather than foes; if politicians are growing conscientious and unselfish; if the enemies of society are in retreat before the forces of decency and order; if amusements are becoming purer and more rational; if polite society is getting to be simpler in its tastes and less ostentatious in its manners ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... Magazine (Feb. 17, 1912) there is a leading article called "The Great Issue." You can read there that "the composite judgment is always safer and wiser and stronger and more unselfish than the judgment of any one individual mind. The people have been betrayed by their representatives again and again. The real danger to democracy lies not in the ignorance or want of patriotism of the people, but in the corrupting influence of powerful ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the tribe) to dispose the minds of his followers to entertain a perception of the happy results which would flow to themselves by their being inured to its practice, the expanding of the heart, and the offering of a vent to the unselfish ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... power of woman, if she be Whole-souled and noble, free from coquetry— Her motives all unselfish, worthy, good, To make herself and feelings understood By nameless acts—thus sparing what to man, However gently answered, causes pain, The offering of his hand ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... bring up the end of the procession; he could not think of any consideration that would have stayed him. He scarcely troubled himself to keep at a fit remove from the rest; and as he followed in the deepening twilight he felt a sweet, unselfish gladness of heart that the poor girl whom he had seen so wan and sad in Boston should be the gay soul of this ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... psychology that centers all its researches on the subconscious in man's nature, this new psychology of the superconscious focuses its attention upon the treasure-house, the region that alone can explain the great, unselfish, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... heart the boy sighed for the hills—he wanted to be back again in the Western country which he so foolishly had insisted upon leaving. He became tired and thin, and the men for whom he worked were unselfish enough to see that unless he got back to the open ranges and to the sunlight he would soon be too ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... Patty, only because you're so good-natured and unselfish; but, really, you don't want to ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... stand. Imagine your mother's feelings if I let you sit in the wet in your white linen." She sat down heavily where the ground looked particularly moist. "Here we are, all settled delightfully. Even if my dress is thinner it will not show so much, being brown. Sit down, dear; you are too unselfish; you don't assert yourself enough." She cleared her throat. "Now don't be alarmed; this isn't a cold. It's the tiniest cough, and I have had it three days. It's nothing to do with ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster
... of stress, a sportsman who will treat the natives with courtesy and consideration may be sure of a hearty welcome and all the assistance he deserves. Withal, no man who has once enjoyed a few days in the Argan Forest can sincerely regret Europe's neglect of it: human nature is not unselfish enough for that. ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... blood from her face and might not have been wholly unprejudiced. Aunt Rebecca was a gentle, sweet-faced woman, if her portrait told the truth, possessed of all the virtues save self-assertion and dominated by habitual, unselfish kindness to others. She could not have been discourteous even to Claudius Tiberius, who at this moment was seated in state upon the sofa ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet," she replied with a laugh. "I had no idea that such chivalry existed. I thought a golfer would sacrifice anything to ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... controversial spirit never understands it. What are the qualities of the character of Christ? Some of them lie on the surface of the story. He never doubted God, or, if so, but for a single moment; He was unselfish; He lived to love and to express love; He had some mysterious preternatural power over nature—such, perhaps, as science is approaching in later times; kindness, sympathy, helpfulness, purity, shone from His words and actions. ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... truly loves but once. And somewhere in Scotland there is a mound above the gentle, tender and heroic Helen Mar, where lies buried the first love of my soul. That mound, O lovely and loyal Helen, was watered by the first blinding and unselfish tears that ever sprang from my eyes. You were my first love; others may come and inevitably they go, but you are still here, under the pencil pocket of ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... most fearless, the most keen-sighted, the most ready-witted, the most high-gifted and high-spirited of women; gallant and generous, skilful and practical, never to be cowed by fortune, never to be cajoled by craft; neither more unselfish in her ends nor more unscrupulous in her practice than might have been expected from her ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... into the depths of fellowship with Him. And then, if we carry with us into the field of work, whether it be the commonplace, dusty, tedious, and often repulsive duties of our monotonous business; or whether it be the field of more distinctly unselfish and Christian service—if we carry with us into all places where we go to labour, the sweet thought of His presence, of His example, of His love, and of the smile that may come on His face as the reward ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... days there is scarcely a branch of science that has no bearing upon medicine; it is a difficult task to achieve distinction, but the reward is great, for in Paris fame always means fortune. The unselfish girl devoted herself to me, shared in every interest, even the slightest, of my life, and managed so carefully and wisely that we lived in comfort on my narrow income. I had more money to spare, now ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Sneferu would seem to mark, at any rate, his appreciation of the excellence of justice, and his desire to have the reputation of a just ruler. Later ages give him the title of "the beneficent king," so that he would seem to have been a really unselfish and kindly sovereign. His form, however, only just emerges from the mists of the period to be again concealed from our view, and we vainly ask ourselves what exactly were the benefits that he conferred on Egypt, so as to attain his ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... blossomed and grew bright about her from some innate influence that she exerted unconsciously. After all there was no mystery about it. She had her faults like others, but at heart she was genuinely good and unselfish. The gentle mother had taught her woman's best graces of speech and manner; nature had endowed her with beauty, and to that the world always ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... be so till long after he was gone and forgotten, but he did not mind that. His devotion to Sedleigh was purely unselfish. He did not want fame. All he worked for was that the school should grow and grow, keener and better at games and more prosperous year by year, till it should take its rank among the schools, and to be an Old Sedleighan should be a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... was not till Mr. Dana's later dispatches were received that the misapprehensions were corrected at Washington. Then the story of the occupation and defence of East Tennessee was explained, and justice was done the wisdom of the general's course as well as his patriotic and unselfish spirit. A part of the trouble had been due to the fact that after Grant reached Nashville Burnside's correspondence was with him, and, in accord with military usage, he dropped direct correspondence with Washington, except ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... far as I have gone, it does. As I told you, I am studying out my details carefully. I am absolutely convinced that Jesus in my place would be absolutely unselfish. He would love all these men in His employ. He would consider the main purpose of all the business to be a mutual helpfulness, and would conduct it all so that God's kingdom would be evidently the first object sought. On those general principles, as I say, I am working. ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... made of the intestines of the deer. From her own childhood in the woods, Bundlekin's mother had been used to this kind of dressmaking. Now, when her daughter had grown, from babyhood and through her teens, to be a lovely maiden, fair of face and strong of limb, her sweet, unselfish parent was equal to new tasks. To the soft leather coats, made from the skins of fawns, martens, and weasels, she added trimmings of snow white ermine. Caps and mittens, cloaks for the body, and coverings for the feet, were fashioned ...
— Dutch Fairy Tales for Young Folks • William Elliot Griffis
... reputation. Burton married Isabel Arundell in 1861, and owed much to her courage, sympathy and passionate devotion. Her romantic and exaggerated biography of her husband, with all its faults, is one of the most pathetic monuments which the unselfish love of a woman has ever raised to the memory of her hero. Another monument is the Arab tent of stone and marble which she built for his ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... "It's very unselfish of you to propose that, honey," replied her mother. "But, perhaps, such a sacrifice as the curtailment of your education will not ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... to all rules, there were of course some exceptions; but they were rare. My more or less intimate contact with public men high and low was not so uniformly gratifying. I enjoyed, indeed, the privilege of meeting statesmen of high purpose, of well-stored minds, of unselfish patriotism, and of the courage of their convictions. But disgustingly large was, on the other hand, the number of small, selfish politicians I ran against—men who seemed to know no higher end than the advantage of their party, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... I don't mean woman. It is a woman's privilege to talk or write incomprehensibly and insist upon being understood. So that I expect you already to understand that what I mean isn't that men are creative and unselfish and brotherly and so forth and that women are spoiling and going to spoil the game—although and notwithstanding that is exactly what I have written—but that humans are creative and unselfish et cetera and so ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... were not happier in their unselfish affection than Leo and Rosie in their love. Colors on Leo's canvas now sought each other in magic harmony. At single sittings in his studio Leo made Madonna faces, and glowing landscapes, that evoked words of warm praise from his fellow ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... personal expression of opinion—political-partisan for the most part, critical in small part. This opinion was chiefly, though even then not wholly, expressed by a single personality, sometimes dominant, able, unselfish, and in nature a social prophet, but in most instances weak, time-serving, and self-seeking, and partisan, with one eye on advertising, official preferred, and the other on profits, public office, and other contingent ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... did what she had never done before: she reached out her arms and gathered the bewildered little girl close, in an embrace of genuine affection and pity. She, too, felt that here was a common cause, and not only that, but she pitied the child with unselfish pity. "You poor child, you are as cold as ice. Come in here with me," ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... rather large eyes which were full of expression, and his frowning look, the way in which he stamped his little foot, denoted that he was of an impulsive temperament. This little fellow had some very good ideas. He had determined to be good, and unselfish; and he tried to learn as much as he possibly could. His mother had told him that later on this would help him ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... ants are absolutely unselfish within the community. They are skilful. Ingenious. Their nests and buildings are relatively larger than man's. The scientists speak of their paved streets, vaulted halls, their hundreds of different domesticated animals, their pluck and intelligence, their individual ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... of this sensibility is to develop, to educate, to chasten the highest faculties, our vast discourse of reason, our unselfish aspiration, our deep instinct of truth, our capacious love. To educate these is its cardinal duty, and lacking this they remain uneducated. But its beneficent influence is felt likewise in the less elevated of our ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... a true story of one of Nelson's captains, he of whom Nelson wrote as "the gallant and good Riou"—high meed of praise gloriously won at Copenhagen—but Riou, eleven years before that day, performed a deed, now almost forgotten, which, for unselfish heroism, ranks among the brightest in our brilliant naval annals, and in the sea story ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... Christmas-time, when the world, as if to make amends for the churlish welcome it gave to its Divine Guest, for whom no better place was found than a stable, now throws open the door and heart in kindly feeling and unselfish impulses. ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... still; until even in the daylight the red cigar-end grew redder in the haze. Without being conscious of the fact, he was probably doing the most unselfish thinking of his life. What the result of that thought would have been no man will ever know, for of a sudden, interrupting, Hans Becher's round face appeared in ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... "You will constantly hear as accounting for Mr. McKinley's great success that he was obedient and affectionate as a son, patriotic and faithful as a soldier, honest and upright as a citizen, tender and devoted as a husband, and truthful, generous, unselfish, moral, and clean in every relation of life. He never thought of those things as too weak for ...
— History of the United States, Volume 5 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... benefit upon our people, however, patient deliberation and foresight are needed. I appeal to our unselfish men and women no longer to limit their discussions to the events which this month or year brings forth. The present is always a bad time for consideration. What hunter can aim his gun at a bird which rises from beneath ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... three-and-a-half years' fighting. If in this record we have succeeded in conveying an impression to those who were not so fortunate as to be with us, or in reminding those who were, of courage, dogged perseverance, and unselfish devotion to duty in action, of pleasures, humour and happier times at rest, our efforts may not, perhaps, be without value in the days that are ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... "Do you wonder that I am glad? Kind, friendly, unselfish—these things she has always been. But there is more than friendliness evident to-night, and for the first time ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... the perfect reasonableness of this. Restraint, soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish act, they are necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now for all practical purposes—his political affairs are managed ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... few survivors of another world, in which this harmless error has kept alive the tradition of self-sacrifice. Do not improve their worldly lot, for they would be none the happier; do not add to their wealth, for they would be less unselfish; do not drive them into the primary schools, for they would perhaps lose some of their good qualities without acquiring those which culture bestows; but do not despise them. Contempt is the one thing ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... is a brave, ambitious, unselfish boy. He supports his mother and sister on meagre wages earned as a shoe-pegger in John Simpson's factory. Tom is discharged from the factory and starts overland for California. He meets with many adventures. The story is told in a way which has made Mr. Alger's name a household ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... than formerly to outward changes; unless accompanied by a better cultivation of the inward nature. He had a strong distaste for the general meanness of English life, the absence of enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on which the faculties of all classes of the English are intent. Even the kind of public interests which Englishmen care for, he held in very little esteem. He thought that there was more practical good government, and (which is true enough) infinitely more ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... always self-forgetful and only too modest. Apropos, I remember that when Lord Granville asked the sculptor of Prince Albert's statue at South Kensington "Whether the Queen, who was so well pleased, could do anything for him"—suggestive, no doubt, of a knighthood—the dear unselfish Durham replied, "Thank you, my Lord,—if her Majesty's pleased, I'm satisfied." So that chance for a title was thrown heedlessly away,—but we always called him "Sir Joe" ever after: specially among the "Noviomagians," a ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... trolled by travelers jogging in bullock carts along empty moonlit roads. Sita's devotion is a household word to many a woman-child of India. Little Lakshmi follows the adventures of the loved heroine as she shares Rama's unselfish renunciation of the throne and exile to the forest with its alarms of wild beasts and wild men. She thrills with fear at Sita's abduction by the hideous giant, Ravana, and the wild journey through the air and across the sea to the Ceylon castle. She weeps with Rama's despair, ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... warmth. Our wonderful mothers never let us out of their minds for one single moment. Not for a second do they allow us to escape from their ideal benevolence. Not one single breath does a baby draw, free from the imposition of the pure, unselfish, Botticelli-holy, detestable love-will of the mother. Always the will, the will, the love-will, the ideal will, directed from the ideal mind. Always this stone, this scorpion of maternal nourishment. Always this infernal self-conscious Madonna starving our ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... to understand the limitations of his powers and the points in which he fell short of being a great commander; but as I knew him better I estimated more and more highly his sincerity and truthfulness, his unselfish generosity, and his devoted patriotism. In everything which makes up an honorable and lovable personal character he had no superior. I shall have occasion to speak frequently of his peculiarities and his special traits, but shall never have need to say a word in derogation of the solid virtues ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... inconvenience for the sake of manufacturing "a reminiscence" for himself; but there was something singularly refined in this pleasure that the hatmaker found in making reminiscences for others; surely no more simple or unselfish luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little embarkation, and seen me safely shoved off into mid-stream, he ran away back to his hats with the air of a man who had only just recollected that ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to cheer his companion. He was thoroughly unselfish, and was always more concerned about others than himself. In this case his consoling words meant nothing. He was still dazed by the overwhelming calamity that had befallen him, and had not begun to ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... Morison Baynes thought upon the subject the more fully convinced he became that he was contemplating a most chivalrous and unselfish act. Europeans will better understand his point of view than Americans, poor, benighted provincials, who are denied a true appreciation of caste and of the fact that "the king can do no wrong." He did not even have to argue the point that she would be much happier amidst the ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... I still might want the people I was fond of to be unselfish, not for my own sake but for theirs. The more one loves a person, the more one wishes that person to be worthy of love; and though we don't love people because they are perfect, we want them to be perfect because we ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... scene of many stirring adventures during the Revolutionary conflict. "Years before, while at the residence of John Jay, his host had given him, one summer afternoon, the account of a spy that had been in his service during the war. The coolness, shrewdness, fearlessness, but above all the unselfish patriotism of the man had profoundly impressed the Revolutionary leader who had employed him. The story made an equally deep impression upon Cooper at the time. He now resolved to take it as the foundation of the tale he ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... wait and expect from their chosen representatives such patriotic action as will advance the welfare of the entire country; and this expectation can only be answered by the performance of public duty with unselfish purpose. Our mission among the nations of the earth and our success in accomplishing the work God has given the American people to do require of those intrusted with the making and execution of our laws perfect devotion, above all other things, to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... yet her hair is white. She had nervous trouble and brain fever that caused her to become gray; but in other ways she is like a girl. She is most unselfish. The girls in school love her. She understands what girls like and is always doing something nice for them. I cannot explain to you in what way she is so attractive. When you meet her, you'll understand just how ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... whip gentlewomen, at the cart's tail, and put little children into jail, and sell them as slaves, will not spare you, if they find out what you have done. Thank God, I am rich enough to pay you well for taking such a fearful risk and shall be only too glad to reward your unselfish deed." ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... know well the consequences of the fruition of their good and evil deeds, are commended by virtuous men. Those who are just and good-natured, and endowed with virtue, who wish well of all creatures, who are steadfast in the path of virtue, and have conquered heaven, who are charitable, unselfish and of unblemished character, who succour the afflicted, and are learned and respected by all, who practise austerities, and are kind to all creatures, are commended as such by the virtuous. Those who ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... not occurred to me before that, in order to go on shore respectably clad, some attire very different from a bed-gown would be essential, and I could but feel grateful for such proofs of unselfish consideration on the part of strangers, pitying both my indigence and ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... examined the ground on which the canoe lay, and found that the two Indians had already taken possession of the only level places under it. "Humph!" he ejaculated, half inclined to rouse them up, but immediately dismissed the idea as unworthy of a voyageur. Besides, Charley was an amiable, unselfish fellow, and would rather have lain on the top of a dozen stumps than have made himself comfortable at the expense of ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... some remarks of Mr Max Beerbohm concerning English acting. Apparently "Max" has asserted that "the average level of acting is admittedly lower in England than in France, Germany or Italy." Hence Mr Bourchier's wrath, which obviously is unselfish, since remarks about the average level of acting have nothing to do with him, for no country is rich enough in histrionic talent to deny that Mr Bourchier is far above ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... means the life that lives in unselfish service as against the selfishness that is death and defeat. It means not only individuals and Churches, but the race, redeemed and lifted from the dark and narrow life of self, into the life and light of the kingdom of God. Can we wonder, then, that ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd
... bright-eyed, curly-haired maiden of fifteen, wild as an antelope, and as full of fun and frolic as any one of her pet kittens. Their mother was an invalid, seldom able to leave her couch;—not a fretful invalid, you must understand, but a sweet, gentle, unselfish woman, who bore her pain and weakness without a murmur, so that those she loved might be spared pain on her account. Mr. Goldthwaite often said that Mrs. Keane's life was the best sermon he had ever come across; and I think he was right. The brother ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... are real still among a thousand shadows. Your beauty was truth, hers was unselfish love. The important thing is to know you still live, not with regret and selfish grief, but with that joy and sure conviction which makes the so-called separation a temporary test, perhaps, but never a final blow. What are the few years of separation compared to this certainty of co-operation in ...
— The Garden of Survival • Algernon Blackwood
... opened into one that was occupied by their aunt, so that she could easily communicate with them if anything was the matter. Strict in requiring obedience to her commands, and in not permitting any of her rules to be disregarded, Miss Livesay was still a most loving and unselfish relative and friend, untiring in the kind attentions to the sick, ever glad and ready to relieve the needy, or to give a word of advice or sympathy when it was likely to be well received. All the household had retired ...
— Aunt Mary • Mrs. Perring
... Ulrica, interrupting her, "that I am a less pious Christian than you are; that you, my noble young sister, are a more innocent and unselfish maiden ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... that exists between two true Irish hearts that have been pledged to each other, deliberately and solemnly on the threshold of man and womanhood, there is often something so confiding, so unreasoning and so unselfish, as to put one in good humor with humanity. There is no country on earth in which the love of gain intermixes with the affections of the heart to so small an extent as in Ireland. In this relation we, from time ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Christianity humbles pride, but it saves the soul. It shows the impossibility of obtaining salvation by merit of our own, and our absolute dependence upon the grace of God. Christianity awakens gratitude, and leads to unselfish devotion. It turns a Saul into a Paul, and makes him a missionary and ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... are too unselfish," she said. "Often have I said, 'Daisy and Mr Robert are the most unselfish people I know.' Haven't I, Georgie? But we can't permit you to be so crowded. Your only spare room, you know, and your husband's dressing room! Georgie, I know you ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... its head.... Did you ever experience the elation of a great hope, that you desire to do right because it is right and without thought of doing it for your own interest? At that period your hopes are unselfish. This in particular is a day of unselfish purpose for Democracy. The country has been universally misled and the people have begun to believe that there is something radically wrong. And now we should make this era of hope one of realization ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... attractive and cozy that the beautiful mother-spirit who has been so long prepared for her short journey to heaven may be tempted to linger here yet a little while longer. These ministrations, which began as a kind of renunciation, have now turned into an unselfish selfishness. Margaret began by feeling herself necessary to her mother; now her mother becomes more and more necessary to Margaret. Sometimes when she leaves her alone for a few moments in her chair, she laughingly bends over and says, "Promise me ...
— Different Girls • Various
... I admit. But Hammett and Chauvin cannot always be with you, and Mrs. Chumley's sweet and unselfish life affords nothing but an illustration of unworldliness. Yet, if these were your only friends, I ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... England became unwontedly cheerful because life was moving on grander levels. In America there was no outward change. The old habit of feverish industry still persisted, but was intensified and applied in unselfish directions. ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... their magistrates, and imposed upon themselves the necessary taxes for schools, highways, and officers of the law. They formed self-governed communities, who selected for rulers their ablest and fittest men, marked for their integrity and intelligence,—grave, austere, unselfish, and incorruptible. Money was of little account in comparison with character. The earliest settlers were the picked and chosen men of the yeomanry of England, and generally thrifty and prosperous. Their leaders had had high social positions in their English homes, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... on the rocks, on the eastern side, I introduced Stephen to Sybil Dyer,—the last two who had not known each other. And I got talking with a circle of young folks about what the communion of saints is,—meaning, of course, just such unselfish society as we had there. And so dear Laura said, "Why will you not write us down something of what you are saying, Mr. Hale?" And Jo Gresham said, "Pray do,—pray do; if it were only to ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... for anxiety, for they knew that the lifeboat, if loaded to its utmost capacity, could not carry more than half the souls that had to be saved. On becoming aware of this the men soon began to reveal their true characters. The unselfish and gentle made way for the women and children. The coarse and brutal, casting shame and every manly feeling aside, struggled to the front with oaths and curses, some of them even using that false familiar motto, "Every man for himself, ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... little Lilla's resolution began to flag. She felt that the contest was unequal—that she was unable to put forth her best efforts. As she was an unselfish person, she could not fight so well in her own battle as in that of someone whom she loved and to whom she was devoted. Edgar saw the relaxing of the muscles of face and brow, and the almost collapse ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... this evening made a change in her ladyship's views, or rather she had found Phoebe no longer the mere submissive handmaid of schoolroom days, but a young woman accustomed to liberty of action and independence of judgment; and though perfectly obliging and unselfish, never admitting Augusta's claims on her time to the exclusion of those of others of the family, and quietly but decidedly carrying out her intentions. Bertha's shrinking silence and meekness of demeanour ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Magendie, operating for cataract and plunging the needle to the bottom of the patient's eye, that by experiment upon a human being he might see the effect of irritating the retina? ... Surely, in these names, and such as these, there can be no uplift or inspiration to young men toward that unselfish service and earnest work which alone shall help toward the amelioration of ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... could I take her to Mardon? How could I ask him to come to me? Strange to say, my pride suffered most. I could have endured, I believe, even discord at home, if only I could have had a woman whom I could present to my friends, and whom they would admire. I was never unselfish in the way in which women are, and yet I have always been more anxious that people should respect my wife than respect me, and at any time would withdraw myself into the shade if only she might be brought into the light. This is nothing noble. It is an obscure form of ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... Virgie continued; "I want to be all white. Why can't I be so? The Lord knows my heart is white, and full of holy, unselfish love." ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... phrase—that as no one knew so well, how hopeless of being subdued or changed her father's coldness to her was, so she had given her this warning, and forbidden the subject in very compassion. Unselfish here, as in her every act and fancy, Florence preferred to bear the pain of this new wound, rather than encourage any faint foreshadowings of the truth as it concerned her father; tender of him, even in her wandering thoughts. As for his home, she hoped it would ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... have you as others are, Lulli," he said, softly. "If in all the selfishness and pleasures of our world there were not some here and there to give their lives to high thoughts and to unselfish things, as you give yours, we should soon, I fear, forget that such existed. But for such recluse's devotion to an art as yours, the classics would have perished; without the cloister-penmen, the laws of science would never have broken the bondage ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... nickel shows on Lenox Avenue. The choice Jimmie left to her. He was setting out for the annual encampment of the Boy Scouts at Hunter's Island, and in the excitement of that adventure even the movies ceased to thrill. But Sadie also could be unselfish. With a heroism of a camp-fire maiden she made a gesture which might have been interpreted to mean she ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... prava jubentium' has, however, no effect whatever on him: it neither ruffles his serenity nor shakes his purpose. The Whigs laud him to the skies, which provokes the Tories all the more, nor does their praise spring in all probability from a purer or more unselfish source than the complaints of their adversaries, for they are more rejoiced at finding so often this plank of safety than struck with admiration at his magnanimity. Wise, moderate, and impartial men of all ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... book. Her vivid imagination was alluringly at work. In many novels which she had read the real hero was the other man, whom no one noticed at first, and who seemed to be prosaic, even uncouth and stupid, when confronted with his fascinating rival, yet who turned out to be permanently true and unselfish and omnisciently kind—the possessor, in spite of his uninspiring exterior, of all the sterling qualities of love; in short, "John," the honest, patient, constant "John" of fiction. His affection for the maiden might be of so high a nature ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... known the army: the soldiers, the line, and the Staff; it is good to think of honor and chivalry, obedience to duty and the pride of arms; to have lived amongst men whose motives were unselfish and whose aims were high; amongst men who served an ideal; who stood ready, at the call of their country, to give their lives for a Government which is, to them, the best ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... with foreign courtiers,—all show a desire for personal aggrandizement inconsistent with an earnest longing to benefit his race. One must regret that the rare talents which he possessed, and the brilliant opportunities that lay before him, were not employed in more unselfish ends. It is true he gave his country a better constitution than it had before; he freed it from the atrocities of a horrid tyrant; he laid the axe at the root of many religious absurdities; and he relieved the people from a heavy load of religious burdens. But he did not lay that foundation ...
— The Swedish Revolution Under Gustavus Vasa • Paul Barron Watson |
