"Unselfishness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fourth, liberal breadth of nature; and each has his own ideal, not only of nature but of person—to the exact shade of the hair, the color of the eyes, and the oval of the face. But all agree in the great fundamental requirements of truth, and modesty, and love, and unselfishness; for though it is impossible to write of one womanly ideal as an absolute, it is very possible to detail the virtues which ought ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... his manliness and his intelligence; his brave attempt at unselfishness; his boyish love ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... cheered more than he had been before, and men admired his disinterestedness more than they had admired his bravery. Even those who grudged him his extraordinary honours now thought that by his unselfishness he had shown himself worthy of them, and admired his courage in refusing such presents more than the courage by which he had won the right to them. Indeed, the right use of riches is more glorious than that of arms, but not to desire them at all is better even than using ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... she watched our little girls perpetually; and I could not persuade her that they were only average specimens of well brought up children. She was surprised and touched by any sign of thoughtfulness for others, of kindness to animals, or of unselfishness on their part: and constantly maintained that she was in the right, and I in the wrong, when we differed on the point of their unusual excellence. All this must be borne in mind while reading the following letters. And it must ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... unselfishness, the woman turned and kissed his brow, while he struggled, irritated, ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... side, and infected its unworthy servants. Francis perceived that the only hope or relief possible to that age lay in a decisive spiritual revolution, to be effected without violence, which would recall people to the primitive simplicity, unselfishness, and absolute devotion of the time of Christ and the apostolic period. This revolution could be accomplished, he saw, only by a personal example so strong, so undeviating, so entirely free from self-seeking, that all men would be compelled to pause and consider ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... to Miss Matty. It was really very pleasant to see how her unselfishness and simple sense of justice called out the same good qualities in others. She never seemed to think any one would impose upon her, because she should be so grieved to do it to them. I have heard her put a stop to the asseverations of the man who brought her coals by quietly saying, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... how good and sweet I think it was of you to give up your cake to the other Ida. That little bit of unselfishness was a good guerdon for ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... by them, and not a babbler about literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible. He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makes a man admirable, with courage, with perfect unselfishness! How handsome he was, and then his passion for her! She had read something of passion, but she never knew till now what the white intensity of its flame in a man could be. She was committed, too, happily ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... will not admit of her existence.... The Japanese woman can be known only in her own country,—the Japanese woman as prepared and perfected by the old-time education for that strange society in which the charm of her moral being,—her delicacy, her supreme unselfishness, her childlike piety and trust, her exquisite tactful perception of all ways and means to make happiness about her,—can be comprehended and valued.... Even if she cannot be called handsome according to western standards, the Japanese ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... when you offer me the salt I accept it. Why should I deprive you of one of the little complacencies of unselfishness? You see, my dear Sir, either you are to feel smug all over, or I am. Now, if I take the salt—so—I perform a true act of courtesy; but, if I postpone the salt, saying 'After you,' I at once enter into the lists, jousting with you for the prize of self-satisfaction. With my two friends ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... living entity. He rose in his time, did Vladimir de Windt, to be the Premier of Russia. But never again, throughout his magnificent career, did he find in the eyes of any man the clear truthfulness, the unselfishness, and the pathetic faith that he had known and so loved in his ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... in humanity. The apostles, who express in language as strong and unhesitating the certainty and dread nature of future punishment, were men also who, more than any who have ever lived, loved their fellow-men, wept like their Divine Master for their sins, and devoted their lives, with untiring unselfishness, to rescue them from present evil and future woe. Now, if this be so far a true, if not a full, representation of the teaching of Christ and His apostles on this momentous theme, I may be permitted to put two questions ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
... up the whole matter in one sentence: "The foundation of culture, as of character, is at last the moral sentiment." Here is the whole secret in a single sentence. The restraining grace is "at last the moral sentiment." It is a fine genuine unselfishness that, observing how all these things may pain and wound, refrains from doing any of them. The man or woman or family who can avoid transgressing in these particulars can do so habitually only as the result of a fine moral sentiment underlying ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... unselfishness of his love, Marion could not help a pressure of her hands against the face which had sought refuge within them. Roger ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... Francis remarked drily, "is scarcely to her credit. Monty may have been disreputable enough, I've no doubt he was; but his going away and staying there all these years was a piece of noble unselfishness." ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... scourge whereof we cannot easily estimate the destructive force and the extent, it is also for multitudes of souls an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness? ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... our souls; so that if they be saved, they will not at all events be saved alive. For we shall kill in our souls just those instincts of purity, justice, generosity, mercy, love, in one word, of unselfishness and unworldliness, which make the very life of the soul, because they are inspired by the Spirit of God, even the Holy Ghost. And we shall be but too likely not to sit in heavenly places with Christ Jesus—as St. Paul tells us ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... enumerate here a long list of virtues that will help, but, since long lists shatter concentration, let us narrow them to four: (1) sympathy, (2) self-control, (3) unselfishness, (4) industry. ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... purity and innocence quail before unwomanly self-assertion and voluptuousness, so manly loyalty and unselfishness give way before unmanly treachery and self-seeking. It is true that the bad men do not finally triumph, but they triumph over the good with whom they happen to come in contact. In "King Lear," what man shows any virtue who does not receive punishment for ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... was! Paris, anywhere seemed home now! I had John and my uncles; John had me and my uncle; my uncles had each other; and I suspect, if we could have looked into Martha, we should have seen that she, through her lovely unselfishness, possessed us all more than any one of us another. Oh the outbursts of gladness on the way!—the talks!—the silences! The past fell off like an ugly veil from the true face of things; the present was sunshine; the ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... and far too little upon the other, for the death, beautiful, and indeed perfect, as it was, could be matched by that of many scores of thousands who have died for an idea, while the life, with its consistent record of charity, breadth of mind, unselfishness, courage, reason, and progressiveness, is absolutely unique and superhuman. Even in these abbreviated, translated, and second-hand records we receive an impression such as no other life can give—an impression which fills us with utter reverence. Napoleon, no mean ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stand side by side. The poor man is often able to do the very best charitable work, acting, with a full knowledge of the circumstances, with quick sympathy, and entire unselfishness. On the other hand, when considerations of public welfare, or conditions outside his personal experience complicate the situation, his charity is ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... Nineteenth Century, Sir William W. Hunter, an eminent authority, reporting the influence of the missionaries in India, says that among the people to whom they have gone they have built up the most complete confidence and implicit faith in the purity and unselfishness of their motives. He declares that he regards the missionary work of the English as an expiation for wrong-doing, and he believes that the missionary instinct forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the English race. Sir William also claims ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... very much what an orthodox Rabbi might have said of Christianity. Let us wait. Iam not given to prophecy, but though I am no longer young, Istill hold to a belief that a cause upheld with such honesty of purpose, purity, and unselfishness as Brahmoism has been, must and will meet with ultimate success. Does Mr. Lyall think that Unitarian Christianity is no Christianity? Does he find logical stability in Trinitarianism? Does he consider pure rationalism incompatible ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... needed my father, even at that time, did not know, for though he was very careful in providing me with the least amount he thought necessary, I soon found by experience that he had given me a great deal too much. It was characteristic of his consideration for others and the unselfishness of his nature, that at this time, when weighed down, harassed and burdened by the cares incident to bringing the untrained forces of the Confederacy into the field, and preparing them for a struggle ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... maintenance of order and law. The success he had forged had hardened and strengthened his mouth, steeled his eyes and made him more masterful in manner, speech and point of view, and naturally had added nothing to his gentleness, his unselfishness, his refinement or the nice consideration of little things on which women lay such stress. It was an hour by sun when he clattered through the gap and pushed his tired black horse into a gallop across the valley toward the town. He saw the smoke of the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... feature of royalties has been their sense of responsibility for their subjects! In great disasters, or calamities, their first thought has been to go to the relief of the people. The King and Queen of Italy are noble examples of this courage and unselfishness. In America the only "privileged" class is the highly educated. It is they from whom noblesse oblige must be expected, who will show in all emergencies their sense of responsibility, who will share all that they have ...
— A Girl's Student Days and After • Jeannette Marks
... middle of the nineteenth century this old austerity and actuality in the Puritan vision had fallen away into two principal lower forms. The first is a sort of idealistic garrulity upon which Bernard Shaw has made fierce and on the whole fruitful war. Perpetual talk about righteousness and unselfishness, about things that should elevate and things which cannot but degrade, about social purity and true Christian manhood, all poured out with fatal fluency and with very little reference to the real facts of anybody's soul or salary—into this weak and lukewarm torrent ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... of the truest, purest and best spirits we have ever met has thus passed from earth to heaven. All who met her soon came to appreciate her gifted nature, her rare talent and spiritual insight. But only those who knew her well can bear witness to her wonderful unselfishness, her remorseless honesty of speech and deed, the loftiness of her ideal and the beauty of her womanly soul. The Milwaukee Sentinel closes a brief obituary notice of our ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the sexual impulse, as a force that, under natural conditions, may be trusted to build up a new morality, obviously belongs to an indefinitely remote future. It is a force whose blade is two-edged, for while it strikes at unselfishness it also strikes at selfishness, and at present we cannot easily conceive a time when "there is no self"; we should be more disposed to regard it as a time when there is much humbug. Yet for the individual this conception of the ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... unkindness is the cause of his sad state, they will permit her to restore him by kindness (III. i. 40). Was she to refuse to play a part just because it would be painful to her to do so? I find in her joining the 'plot' (as it is absurdly called) a sign not of weakness, but of unselfishness ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... that she loved Maurice. She knew that, when he spoke the words, "My child," and jealousy of an unknown woman struck like some sharp weapon to her heart. She realised that he did not love her, yet so great was her simple unselfishness, that she did not dwell on the knowledge, or blame for an instant the selfishness which concentrated Maurice's mind so entirely upon himself and his own sorrow. Her only anxiety was how to help him. Her only feeling was one of tender pity for ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... life, her waking stupor that smothered pain and hunger,—even more fit to be a type of her class. Deeper yet if one could look, was there nothing worth reading in this wet, faded thing, halfcovered with ashes? no story of a soul filled with groping passionate love, heroic unselfishness, fierce jealousy? of years of weary trying to please the one human being whom she loved, to gain one look of real heart-kindness from him? If anything like this were hidden beneath the pale, bleared eyes, and ...
— Life in the Iron-Mills • Rebecca Harding Davis
... a moment. It was necessary that, at least for a moment, the poison of some aeons should distil. There was need of savagery to say what she proposed to say. The voice of training, of civilization, of unselfishness, of friendship raised a protest. Wait then for a moment. Wait until the bitterness of an ambitious and unrounded life could formulate this evil impulse. Wait, till Mary Connynge could summon treachery enough to slay her friend. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... and Gough, if one may select when all did so nobly. Both these officers took their turns with the men, Stewart with his gunners, and Gough with his Gurkhas, in carrying the guns, and both, with utter unselfishness and with complete disregard for their own personal comfort, gave their snow glasses to sepoys who, not having any, were suffering from the glare experienced on the first day. It is by these small acts that officers ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... States, high-minded as its foreign policy might pretend to be, was far from "idealistic" in the observance of the treaty that it had made with Great Britain concerning the Panama Canal. There was a certain embarrassment involved in preaching unselfishness in Mexico and Central America at a time when the United States was practising selfishness and dishonesty in Panama. For, in the opinion of the Ambassador and that of most other dispassionate students of the Panama treaty, the American policy on Panama tolls amounted ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... successfully on so bizarre a steed? And then again, was not the whole agony of the man on the physical and mental, not the spiritual plane? For did not Wriford before his illness give many obvious signs of unselfishness? Is there not in effect a certain confusion of the clean heart with the unclouded mind? I suspect the author has some subtle sufficient answer. And anyway I urge everyone to make acquaintance with two very lovable folk, the tramp and little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... told what their army is doing. Let Lord Kitchener announce its deeds, its courage, its vast unselfishness. Let him put the torch of publicity to the national pride and see it turn to a white flame of patriotism. Then it will be possible to tear the recruiting posters from the walls of London, and the remotest roads of England will echo to the tramp ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... uncle. He had ruled the Church during the last years of Pius IV.; and the newly-appointed Cardinals were his dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity to the new phase ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... came to tell him that the emperor was no more. Soon he was all alone but one; these brave soldiers who had planned with him were no more. An alien, an outcast, he too longed for night. And what should he do with it, this vast treasure, every franc of which meant sacrifice and unselfishness, bravery and loyalty? Let the gold rot. He would bury all knowledge of it in yonder chimney, confident that no one would ever find the treasure, since he alone possessed the key to it, having buried it himself. So passed the greatest Caesar of them all, the most brilliant ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... any criticisms are very much like looking a gift horse in the mouth. If it be agreed that life is made up of something more than one stern, continuous race for wealth, then it must be conceded that these carnivals occupy a most important part in the routine of life. The absolute unselfishness of the entire work commends it to the approval of the most indifferent. Those who raise the expense have to work so hard during the parades and balls that they get comparatively little pleasure from them, while they are also prevented by the absolute secrecy which prevails ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... primary principles of belief, to excite inquiry; and, though at first only reinforcing the idea of morality, they ultimately drew men out of themselves into aspirations after the infinite spirit, and developed the sense of dependence, of humility, of unselfishness, of spirituality. They produced indeed evil effects in pantheism and ideology;(740) but the results were partial, the good was general. The problem, What is truth?—was through their means remitted to men for ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... simple. Thane was not a Goth nor a Vandal; by choice he would have sought to preserve the amenities of life; but a meek man he was not, and the thing he now desired was, he considered, well worth the sacrifice of such small pretensions as his in the direction of unselfishness. ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... superiority over Roman paganism, in its humane doctrine of universal brotherhood, its unselfishness, its holiness; and thereby it attracted to itself (among other and baser materials) all the purest natures and most enthusiastic temperaments. Its first conquests were noble and admirable. But there is nothing superhuman or unusual in ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... aid of those numerous little things which every woman understands. Now, oddly enough, the effect upon her was only a little less disturbing than upon him, for this first boy-love was a thing which no good woman could have treated lightly: its simplicity, its purity, its unselfishness were different to anything she had known—so different, for instance, to that affection which Count Courteau had bestowed upon her as to seem almost sacred—therefore she watched its growth with gratification not unmixed with apprehension. It ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... his guests intoxicated; but this was not observed by them. They only believed that his hospitality was pushed a little too far,—so much so as to be rather annoying. But this was a fault they had observed in many, who were only trying to put on their best behaviour, and, considering its unselfishness, it ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... The unselfishness of the latter suggestion appealed to Hancock. To be the friend of humanity, to assist others—this is the highest ambition to which a man can aspire! And, of course, if one is pointed out on the street as the good Mr. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... authority, and while we could not have a higher duty than to follow it, we should seek to meet those whose aims were incompatible with it as we meet things physically inconvenient, without insulting them as if they were morally vile or logically contemptible. Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of others. Beyond the pale of actual unanimity the only possible unselfishness is chivalry—a recognition of the inward right and justification of our enemies fighting against us. This chivalry has long been practised in the battle-field ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... selfishness, unselfishness, or unintelligence—that density of mental vision which has never been educated to perceive the subtle bonds ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various
... altruistic principles involved in these teachings contain the highest wisdom—that they form the basis of a true social science, and that a high stage of civilization will never be reached until these principles are recognized as the foundation of human conduct Unselfishness, purity of life, and the brotherhood of man will never be realized so long as man shifts the responsibility ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... and for whom he was saving his rival. Surely in that terrible hour, in Nina's cell, with death staring him in the face on every side, Arthur St. Claire atoned for all the past, and by his noble unselfishness proved how true and brave ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... Tom McChesney. All day long I watched him, and thanked God that Polly Ann could not see him thus. And yet, how the pride would have leaped within her! Humor came not easily to him, but charity and courage and unselfishness he had in abundance. What he suffered none knew; but through those awful hours he was always among the stragglers, helping the weak and despairing when his strength might have taken him far ahead toward comfort and safety. "I'm all right, Davy," he would say, in answer to my look as he passed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... emphatic answer. "There is no crime, there is no sin, that has not for its basis selfishness. It is the evil part of life, and the Christ life that ought to be man's pattern, is the type of unselfishness." ...
— What Two Children Did • Charlotte E. Chittenden
... imperfection and disgrace in obligation. So far is God from thinking so that in every act of his being he lays himself under obligation to his creatures. Oh, the grandeur of his goodness, and righteousness, and fearless unselfishness! When doubt and dread invade, and the voice of love in the soul is dumb, what can please the father of men better than to hear his child cry to him from whom he came, 'Here I am, O God! Thou hast made me: give me that which thou hast made me needing.' The child's ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... woman with a masculine mind is not a being of superior efficiency; she is simply a phenomenon of imperfect differentiation—interestingly barren and without importance. Dona Emilia's intelligence being feminine led her to achieve the conquest of Sulaco, simply by lighting the way for her unselfishness and sympathy. She could converse charmingly, but she was not talkative. The wisdom of the heart having no concern with the erection or demolition of theories any more than with the defence of prejudices, has no random words at its command. The words it pronounces have the value of acts of integrity, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... the "wonder grew" why it was that, among the many smiles hitherto lavished upon him from beautiful eyes, he should have chosen the blind girl. His reiterated assertion of faith in the purity and unselfishness of the life, and the inner light of the soul, found in them a ready acceptance of his choice, and they warmly extended to her all the confidence ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... age," cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... not help in the councils of war, these ladies were of great assistance in training the knights to be tender and courteous. They taught the little pages good manners and unselfishness. They assisted the knights in removing their armor when they came in tired from riding or fighting. They sat with Arthur and the knights in the evening in the dining-hall, singing or playing upon harps, or listening to the tales that were told. When the knights were away the ladies stayed in their ...
— King Arthur and His Knights • Maude L. Radford
... but also that she should be condemned to divorce on the pretext of barrenness. Joseph Bonaparte was never tired of saying that Napoleon ought to marry some foreign Princess, or at least some daughter of an old French family, and he skilfully laid stress on his own unselfishness in urging a plan which would necessarily remove himself and his descendants from the line of inheritance. The Emperor's sisters showed the same hostility towards Josephine, whom they hated, although she well deserved their love. Since ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... furies forbid rash meddling. Unless human nature here in America has undergone a radical change, nay, a most complete transmogrification, since I abjured it some years ago; unless this year is to be chronicled as an Avatar of truth and unselfishness, I will stake all my possessions on the assertion that some very peculiar and cogent reason, something beyond the desire to prosecute archaeological researches, has driven ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... not thought of it? Eunice Mountjoy, with her calm, cool head, her perfect unselfishness, her entire devotion to the good of others; Eunice, who was known and blessed wherever throughout the village there was sickness, suffering, or want; Eunice, who had many a time helped him out of a perplexity,—Eunice ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow
... you acquainted with some of the people who live here," she added, quickly recalling herself from her own interests to mine, with her natural unselfishness, "it is pitiful to come into this place—as you have done. You always knew so many people. You had such friends about you. I never saw you walk alone in ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... their individualities; but there are many little, but often serious, problems that the physiology and psychology of sex cannot solve. They are problems that involve mutual affection, comradeship, sympathy, unselfishness, cooperation, kindliness, and devotion of husband and wife. Obviously, these can never be developed ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow
... of asceticism—have been and are very generally recognized as "good;" and the Author contends that it is simply impossible to conceive that such ideas and sanctions should have been developed by "Natural Selection" alone, from only that degree of unselfishness necessary for the preservation of brutally barbarous communities in the struggle for life. That degree of unselfishness once attained, further improvement would be checked by the mutual opposition of diverging moral tendencies and spontaneous variations in all directions. Added to which, we have ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... brought a wealth of food to her from over the mountains, who had faced death for her on the frozen seas, who had tended her in her time of trial with the gentleness of a woman, his indomitable heroism, the splendor, the dauntless unselfishness and bravery of his offering to father her sightless child—all this—all this, and more—welled up in the heart ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... character,—earnestness and love, especially to Paul as Christ's servant. But all these fair attributes lacked completeness without the crowning grace of liberality. It is the crowning grace, because it is the practical manifestation of the highest excellences. It is the result of sympathy, of unselfishness, of contact with Christ, of drinking in of His spirit, Love is best. Utterance and knowledge and earnestness are poor beside it. This grace is like the diamond which clasps a necklace ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of society, this overturning of old conditions—this bringing in of the radically new, so that their enemies said of them they had "turned the world upside down"; this repudiation of brutality and the exaltation of unselfishness; this building up of a condition in which a community now judged itself by the standards of chastity, righteousness and neighborly kindness; this renovation of whole centres of life till the erstwhile deserts wherein not a flower of gentleness had bloomed, now blossomed ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman
... ever before, we know the aspirations of humankind, and share them. We have come to a new realization of our place in the world and a new appraisal of our Nation by the world. The unselfishness of these United States is a thing proven; our devotion to peace for ourselves and for the world is well established; our concern for preserved civilization has had its impassioned and heroic expression. There was no American failure to resist the attempted ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... misrepresentation. The British have to think hard over this quite legitimate German tu quoque. It is no good getting into a patriotic bad temper and refusing to answer that question. We British people are so persuaded of the purity and unselfishness with which we discharge our imperial responsibilities, we have been so trained in imperial self-satisfaction, we know so certainly that all our subject nations call us blessed, that it is a little difficult for us to see just how the fact that we ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... responsibility in different walks of life. I do not merely count those who have won fame and success but I also claim many others who have taken up the burden of life manfully and whose life of purity and unselfishness has brought gleams of joy ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... it went its way, while he went his—on a business of whose pure unselfishness it is to be feared he was a trifle proud—I mean, to see how Mrs. Ravenel was and ask what more he could do for her. He was kindly received by a sweet little woman of thirty or so, who lived in a small high room of the hotel, taught ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... of the mother. It is she who must train the little girl into habits of neatness, of obedience, of order, of regularity, of punctuality—small virtues, but the foundation stones of a moral character, and into habits of unselfishness and ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... this aspect: Tolstoy, like Goethe, is an interesting combination of genius and hypocrisy. He preaches unselfishness, while himself the embodiment of self. Max Nordau is his antithesis. Nordau gives with generous enthusiasm—of his time, his learning, his genius, most of all, of himself. Tolstoy fastens himself upon each newcomer ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... pitiful-hearted man, who knew what sorrow was, and who for a whole year had watched her with the acuteness which love alone teaches, especially the love which, coming late in life, had a calmness and unselfishness which youthful love rarely possesses. The sort of love which, as he had once quoted to her out of an American book, could feel, deeply and solemnly, "that if a man really loves a woman, he would not marry her for the world, were he not quite sure he was the best person ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... due, to a certain extent, his later misfortunes, and his fall from power. The more generous he became, the more selfish did his brothers and sisters grow. For their interests he neglected his own safety and the welfare of France. His unselfishness was, indeed, his greatest selfishness; and the boy who uncomplainingly took his sister's punishment for the theft of the basket of fruit, stood also as the scapegoat for all the mistakes and stupidities and wrong-doings that were due to his ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... blessing others, let us be willing to endure shame or pain. There is always pleasure to be earned by those who are willing to pay the price,—the pleasure of unselfishness,—but this cannot be tasted except by those who seek their highest joy in the wellbeing of others. Our risen and glorified Lord tastes this joy every day, Good-Friday not excepted, and we think it will lead us to spend ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... kinder-hearted man than Admiral Darling never saw the sun. There was nothing about him wonderful in the way of genius, heroism, large-mindedness, or unselfishness. But people liked him much better than if he combined all those vast rarities; because he was lively, genial, simple, easily moved to wrath or grief, free-handed, a little fond, perhaps, of quiet and confidential brag, and very ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and child-like submission as the goal of ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... view, and every grade of refinement exists in the spiritual vision: by imperceptible gradations they may shade from one into the other, but the two extremes are material and spiritual. The latter view will tend to result in unselfishness, in altruism and a keen desire to leave one's own little corner of the world better for having lived in it. The material idea must almost of necessity lead up to a selfish course of conduct, where the personal interests are put foremost, and the sole object is to "get" as much as possible, ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... demanded more. From the blind girl he had acquired, with this thirst for knowledge, a tremendous power of concentration; but, to the regret of those about him, had failed utterly to absorb any of her power of self-sacrifice. That spiritual side—that all important lesson of unselfishness—had never reached him. He was as blind to it as she was to the light of day, and in spite of all Jane could do, or the Colonel could do, his nature closed tighter about ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... have said so much that, with the expression of her grievance, her mood changed. She went back to her own room in the gallery, and sat there for a long time thinking. And she thought herself into a mood of absolute unselfishness, of absolute self-contempt, too. She said to herself that she was no good; that she had failed in all her efforts—in her efforts to get Edward back as in her efforts to make him curb his expenditure. She imagined herself to be exhausted; ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... of it, then? Or, if you must, remember that in his surpassing unselfishness he saved you much anxiety; for you ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... expectation that she might yet regain her husband's love, a passion which she began in her secret heart to fear had found its limit and died out. Still, Hitty, out of her meek, self-distrusting spirit, never blamed Abner Dimock for his absence or his coldness; rather, with the divine unselfishness that such women manifest, did she blame herself for having linked his handsome and athletic prime with her faded age, and struggle daily with the morbid conscience that accused her of having forgotten his best good in the indulgence of her own selfish ends of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... in uncomprehending wonder. He drew away another step. He accounted her mad, and, that he might humour her, he put by his own fears for the moment—a wonderful unselfishness this in the ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will wish to do nought but what is right. He is not under the law, but under ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... wasted, struck aside from the natural order of things—for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect, while ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... same is true with me," I replied. "We may well say that it was good to have known her. She was so true, so just, so unconscious of self, that truth, justice, and unselfishness were always lovelier in your eyes for having seen them illustrated in her person. And there was no pious cant about her. No parade of her unworthiness; no solemn aspects, nor obtrusive writings of bitter things ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... Suppose he should; suppose the rest. What a predicament! How unreasonable and conceited, even to think of such a thing, when her mind was made up. What could result, save tossings to and fro, a passing gratification set against infinite pain, and strife with her own heart and with her father's unselfishness! Had he but come before Flora's marriage! No; Ethel hated herself for the wish that arose for the moment. Far better he should keep away, if, perhaps, without the slightest inclination towards her, his mere name could stir up such a tumult—all, it ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... made no excuse, but something a little defiant began to grow in her eyes. It was not that she loved her work less. She was learning, day by day, the endless sacrifices of this profession she had chosen, its unselfishness, its grinding hard work, the payment that may lie in a smile of gratitude, the agony of pain that cannot be relieved. She went through her days with hands held out for service, and at night, in the chapel, she whispered soundless little prayers to be accepted, and to be always ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... companion through his gentleness, sympathy, wide range of knowledge, cheerfulness, animated and earnest speech, vigor of thought and expression, deference for the opinions and rights of others, and unselfishness. He asked nothing, demanded nothing for himself, but was alert to contribute to the enjoyment of those around him. The work of his life was of inestimable value. He was abundant in labors. Only the life to come will reveal how much he accomplished ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... I said. I thought that to tell an untruth would be the least thing I could do to reward the little man for his unselfishness. ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... that struck one's imagination during this August battle, the majority were simply of the rank and file, whose pluck and unselfishness were incomparable. Of most I have forgotten the very names. There was a postman from Bradford, who was forty-seven years old and had thirteen children. I remember his telling me of South African experiences. He ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would for a moment enter into bondage, or minister unto selfishness when it is, of itself, unselfishness! Passion-slaved and self-bound, they never see beyond their own horizon, nor guess that the great truths of life and love ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... Labour Party. He shrinks from the thought of a revolution, but does not believe that the present industrial system can be Christianised. There must be a fundamental change. Christianity is intensely personal, but its individualism is of the spirit, the individualism of unselfishness. He laughs grimly, in a low and rumbling fashion, on hearing that Communism is losing its influence in the north of England. "I can quite imagine that; the last thing an Englishman will part with ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... me hasten to add that these men claim no especial merit for their altruism and unselfishness. They do not pose before the world as philanthropists. They do not strut about and preen themselves as who would say: "See what a noble man am I! See how I sacrifice myself for the welfare of society!" The attitude of cant and pose is entirely alien to the spirit of true service. Their delight ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... great mercy as I did this morning, on reading of dear Jem's danger and safety. He is less accustomed to talk about his feelings than I am, in which I see his superiority, but partly because our tastes are in several respects different, chiefly because of his exceeding amiability and unselfishness. I am sure we love each other very dearly. Ever since his illness at Geneva, I have from time to time contemplated the utter blank, the real feeling of loss, which anything happening to him would bring with it, and the having it brought home close ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Eighty-three, I think, was the age, dear, but that's just another instance of his dear unselfishness—so that you wouldn't worry over him. I know! I'm going up to my room—you've upset me for the rest of the day. Call me the very moment he comes. Oh, how could you? How could you be so unkind? Oh, just look at my nose, it's all ...
— I'll Leave It To You - A Light Comedy In Three Acts • Noel Coward
... tour the safety of the party may ultimately depend upon the trust and confidence placed in the Guide in charge, and by him in his clients, and this should be remembered in all negotiations. These men often have to risk their lives for the sake of the people who employ them, and their staunch unselfishness is a fine example of human endeavour for the benefit of others. Their fees may appear to be high, but when everything is taken into consideration, including the shortness of their Winter and Summer Seasons, it is soon realized that the ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... become a very different thing from its beginning in Hawkeye. Whether he ever thought that if he could save her from ruin, he could give her up himself, is doubtful. Such a pitch of virtue does not occur often in real life, especially in such natures as Harry's, whose generosity and unselfishness were matters of temperament rather ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Talk was the medicine she trusted to, talk about everything, talk that was free, unguarded, and as candid as a habit of talking with men made natural in her own case. Nor did she encourage those habits of unselfishness and amiability founded upon insincerity which are put at so high a value in mixed households of men and women. She desired that Rachel should think, and for this reason offered books and discouraged too entire a dependence upon Bach and Beethoven and Wagner. ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf |
