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noun
Altruism  n.  Regard for others, both natural and moral; devotion to the interests of others; brotherly kindness; opposed to egoism or selfishness. (Recent)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Altruism" Quotes from Famous Books



... vision of Mr. William Morris. When we compare the spiritual attitudes of two thinkers, one of whom is considering whether social history has been sufficiently a course of improvement to warrant him in believing that it will culminate in universal altruism, while the other is considering whether he loves other people enough to walk down tomorrow to the market-place and distribute everything but his staff and his scrip, it will not be denied that the latter is likely to undergo certain deep and acute emotional experiences, which will ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward

... a provisional synthesis. We find here, in solution together, the physiological element of incipient sexuality, the psychical element of the tenderness natural to this age and sex, the element of occasion offered by the environment, and the social element with its nascent altruism. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... consciousness of right, of powers greatly and nobly spent. It comes to know itself in the motives which satisfy it, in the zest and power of rectitude. Christianity has liberated the world, not as a system of ethics, not as a philosophy of altruism, but by its revelation of the power of pure and unselfish love. Its vital principle is not its code, but its motive. Love, clear-sighted, loyal, personal, is its breath and immortality. Christ came, not to save Himself, assuredly, but to save the world. His motive, His example, ...
— When a Man Comes to Himself • Woodrow Wilson

... not yield an inch to —— or to anybody else in my desire to displace and crowd out altruism in our modern life. I believe that altruism is a feeble and discouraged thing from a religious point of view. I have believed that the big, difficult and glorious thing in religion is mutualism, a spiritual genius for finding identities, for putting people's interests together-you-and-I-ness, and ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... between men and women; the evil man, at war with all but himself, cannot but admit that for his supremest pleasure he depends on one other than himself, and by his gratitude to her is tainted with altruism and is no longer single-minded in his war on others. Such men uphold prostitution because it exorcises sex of that magic. It is not a device to save sensuality, for love with a stranger is like gulping new spirit, and ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West

... And for the same reason he insisted on the pre-eminence of the sympathetic affections over the intellect. The reason, he declared, must ever be the servant, though not the slave, of the emotions. Altruism, or the service of others (a word of his own coining), must be made to prevail over egoism or selfishness. There could not be a nobler conception of ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan

... Hale: "A Unitarian church to you merely means one more name on your calendar. To the people in this town it means better books, better music, better sewerage, better health, better life, less drunkenness, more purity, and better government."[5] The Unitarian conception of the relations of altruism and religion was pertinently stated by Dr. J.T. Kirkland, president of Harvard College during the early years of the nineteenth century, when he said that "we have as much piety as charity, and no more."[6] One who knew intimately of ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... affinity, love was psychical in its essence, and hence immortal. But he maintained that moderation should control spirit no less than matter, and that either undue exaltation or a lack of sentiment were inconsistent with the noblest type of altruism. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant

... time for deeds of beneficence which endeared him to the people, who everywhere hailed him as their deliverer from thraldom. It would not be wise to join in the chorus of those who appear to have taken Cesare's altruism for granted. The rejection of the wild stories that picture him as a corrupt and murderous monster, utterly inhuman, and lay a dozen ghastly crimes to his account need not entail our viewing Cesare as an angel of deliverance, a divine agent almost, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... contending forces; they will respect you not; you must take your chances amid my flying missiles. My forces go their eternal round without variableness or shadow of turning, and woe to you if you cross their courses. You may bring all your gods with you—gods of love, mercy, gentleness, altruism; but I know them not. Your prayers will fall upon ears of stone, your appealing gesture upon eyes of stone, your cries for mercy upon hearts of stone. I shall be neither your enemy nor your friend. I shall be utterly indifferent to you. My floods will drown you, ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... thing for America than for us. Mind you, I don't say we need America to help us to make war, but we do need her help if war is to be averted; and any move of such a nature on her part demands what you author fellows would call "a high degree of altruism." How's that, Durwent, for a chap who never reads ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... but I did just have time to cast a casual eye over the "H's," and I didn't notice the name of "Henry" standing out in heavy-leaded capitals. It must be an inadvertence, of course. They must have said something about me, as, for instance: "Especially to be remarked is the noble altruism of Lieut. Henry, who on more than one march has been observed to take his pack, containing all his worldly goods, off his back and to hand it without ostentation to some lucky driver of a limber, saying, 'Take it, my lad; your need is greater than mine.'" Or again, referring ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 19, 1916 • Various

... if anybody would believe that his relationship with Anna was straight, under the circumstances. For weeks now he had been sending her money, out of a sheer sense of responsibility for her beating and her illness. He took no credit for altruism. He knew quite well the possibilities of the situation. He made no promises to himself. But such attraction as Anna had had for him had been of her prettiness, and their propinquity. Again she was girl, and that ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... be true only in a very superficial and strictly qualified sense. In reality, just as there is eternal conflict between egoism and altruism, so there is conflict between the ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright

... was not that he prided himself on knowing or doing better, he was not naturally a theorist, nor didactic; but education had awakened his mind, not only to difficulties in the path of faith, but to a higher standard of altruism than ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall

... They were a set of people necessarily immersed and absorbed in their own woes, or in that extension of their woes which was still more passionately their own, and even more unmercifully insisted upon in proportion to the decent veneer of altruism it possessed. ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various

... the greatness of the people, or the people—precisely because of its greatness—made the Torah; whether we have a case of natural election or artificial election to study, it is not in any self-sufficient superiority or aim thereat that the essence of Judaism lies, but in an apostolic altruism. The old Hebrew writers indeed—when one considers the impress the Bible was destined to make on the faith, art, and imagination of the world—might well be credited with the intuition of genius in attributing to their people a quality of election. And the Jews of to-day in attributing to ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill

... to be desired than spiritual compensation. This feeling will grow, it is growing, and when it comes to full fruition, the world will find but little difficulty in attaining a certain measure of altruism. I agree with you that this much-to-be desired state of society cannot be altogether reached by laws, however drastic. Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx cannot be entirely brought about by a comprehensive system of state ownership and by ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... with a burst of altruism, "it's this way. Gladys is as shallow as a pie-tin and a big cry baby and all that, but if she hadn't been like that her father wouldn't have wanted her to be a Camp Fire Girl and we never would have come to this camp. It's an ill wind, you know. Anyway, ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey

... him to attempt to fix the wages paid by his employer. We may in a thousand or more years reasonably expect that the employee will be so far civilized and become sufficiently sensible to know that strikes and threats and mob violence can never improve his condition. Altruism ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... American textiles. In the pending battle for the world's markets Uncle Sam should win trade by every proper means, and not by methods most easily invoked; and let it ever be remembered that shortsightedness is plainly distinct from altruism. ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... they are immeasurable; the hope seems as forlorn as that of the Israelites against the walls of Jericho. But they are forlorn and immeasurable only because, and so long as, we let our selfish personal interests govern and mold our public and social action. Altruism will not heal the inward sore, but at best only put on its surface a plausible plaster which leaves the inward still corrupt; for altruism is a policy and not an impulse, proceeding not from the heart but from the intelligence—the ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... dreamily through the mind of Prince Michael, as he smiled under the stubble of his polychromatic beard. Lounging thus, clad as the poorest of mendicants in the parks, he loved to study humanity. He found in altruism more pleasure than his riches, his station and all the grosser sweets of life had given him. It was his chief solace and satisfaction to alleviate individual distress, to confer favours upon worthy ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry

... only the pecuniary recompense of his work does ill, and his labours are but usury. In the words of St. Augustine, "thou shalt not commit usury with the work of thy hands, for thus wilt thou lose thy soul,"'[4] The necessity for altruism and regard for the needs of one's neighbour as well as of one's self were therefore motives necessary to justify labour as well as commerce; and it would be wrong to conclude that the teaching of the scholastics ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien

... gods, the drying up of their sources of spiritual energy, and the psychic derangement of communities and individuals by a long and fearful war. Political principles, respect for authority and tradition, esteem for high moral worth, to say nothing of altruism and public spirit, either vanished or shrank to shadowy simulacra. In contemporary history currents and cross-currents, eddies and whirlpools, became so numerous and bewildering that it is not easy to determine the direction of the main stream. Unsocial tendencies coexisted ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... purely social relations of nations (like those of individuals) always hide enmity and jealousy. We cannot expect, therefore, to create a moral spirit in the relations of peoples to one another by teaching alone. We cannot hope to change individualism to altruism merely by exciting feeling. Our main effort must be directed toward establishing ethical relations, rather than ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge

... these pseudo philosophers have attacked the Christian religion, 'tearing the soul of Christ into silly strips labelled altruism and egoism. They are alike puzzled by His insane magnificance and His ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... radiant enthusiasm that he gave to his music, and while some of his flirtations were of the utmost frivolity, such as his hilarious courtship of his pretty cousin, the "Baesle," he was capable of the completest altruism, and could turn aside from the aristocracy to lavish his idolatry upon the fifteen-year-old daughter of a poor music copyist, whose wife took in boarders. For this girl, Aloysia Weber, he wanted to give up his own career as a concert pianist; he wanted to give up the conquest he ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes

... looked at simply as a thing of beauty and perfume becomes yet more interesting to the child who watches the bee gather its golden pollen and its luscious nectar. There is a bond of union now between the fragile flower and its winged guest that begets an altruism which later becomes normally the corner-stone of character. When the graceful tribute of the bee to the flower is presently understood, and the child learns that the seeds of the flower have to thank the bee for their life, the mind expands yet more, and glows ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... his moral earnestness against the triple-headed curse of intemperance, slavery, and war. A mighty human love had begun to flow inward and over him. And as the tide steadily rose it swallowed and drowned all the egoism of self and race in the altruism of an all-embracing humanity. When an apprentice in the office of the Newburyport Herald, and writing on the subject of South American affairs he grew hot over the wrongs suffered by American vessels at Valparaiso and Lima. He was for finishing "with cannon ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke

... positive politics, only the first was adopted by the learned world,—that part which justifieth, on new promises, the existent evil of human societies; but the second part, treating of the moral obligations of altruism, arising from the recognition of mankind as an organism, was regarded as not only of no importance, but as trivial and unscientific. It was a repetition of the same thing that had happened in the case of Kant's works. The "Critique of Pure Reason" was adopted ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi

... petulantly, admitting defeat but resenting it. There came a time, months later, when she understood Grim's peculiar altruism and respected it, but she was a long way just then from ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... corner of Europe, magnified the wonderful deeds of that prince who had been instrumental in securing their release, and the massacre of the Tunisians was conveniently ignored. Charles had defeated Barbarossa and expelled him from Tunis; he had now displayed his magnanimity and altruism by the terms which he imposed on the miserable Muley Hassan. As far as that individual was concerned, he certainly deserved nothing better; but, as a finale to an expedition blessed by the Pope, and looked upon almost in the light ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... a dog's," said Jolyon suddenly: "The only four-footer with rudiments of altruism and a sense ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... a state of illusion," said Uncle Ingemar in his even, monotonous voice, "which ascribes to man the nonexistent attributes of altruism, humility, and piety. How can we recognize Good as being an illusion? Because there is only man and The Black One in the universe, and to worship The Black One is to worship the ultimate expression of oneself. ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... growth of altruism or humanitarianism in the last thirty years, with the application of sincere sympathy as one of the possible solvents of the mystery of misery, it is strange that this book should have passed from the minds of men. The book is a true satire. That is to say its irony is ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... and yet awkward. His life was full of arrested half gestures of assistance. And even this prodigy of a big man in green, leaping the wall like a bright green grasshopper, did not paralyze that small altruism of his habits in such a matter as a lost hat. He was stepping forward to recover the green gentleman's head-gear, when he was struck rigid with a roar ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... heroic nature of his abstention on this occasion. For in the presence of the Hero we lose our sense of values. If he were to scorn an offer to sell his father for vivisectional purposes, we should applaud enthusiastically his altruism. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... level of our hierarchy. It is always observed that with these patients certain actions have disappeared, that certain acts executed formerly with rapidity and facility can no longer be accomplished. The patients seem to have lost their delicacy of feeling, their altruism, their intelligent critique. The stopping of tendencies by stimulation, the transformation of tendencies into ideas, the deliberation, the endeavor, the reflection; in one word, both the moral effort and the call upon reserves for executing painful acts are suppressed. There ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various

... while the forces of egoism, the powers of capital, were concentrating in a vast organization of socialized individualism, the other forces and powers of society which were pointing toward a socialized altruism, were forming also. There was the man in the exquisite gray twill, harnessing Judge Van Dorn and Market Street to his will; and there was Grant Adams in faded overalls, harnessing labor to other wheels that were ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... in Hongkong afford an illustration of a different order, proving the truth of my contention that, excepting as a sphere for the exercise of altruism, the acquisition of new territories is an illusive gain. When Hongkong was ceded to Great Britain at the conclusion of a war in which China was defeated, it was a bare island containing only a few fishermen's huts. In order to make it a trading ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang

... coming to New York. And then I thought he was one of the greatest curiosities I had ever seen. I followed him about and listened to him talk to the passengers. And I learned that, like most of our young men, he had entered the practice of medicine under the pressure of dollars rather than altruism. Money is still the determining factor in the choice of a profession by our young men. And success and fortune in the medical profession, more than in any other, depend upon the credulity of the ignorant and helpless ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... glory, the economic cost of militarism; against the moral education of war, the higher heroism of peace; against class interests, the sanctity of human life; and against national egoism, the deeper spirit of national altruism. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association

... last. The matter has, I believe, been definitely decided so that posterity, whatever other responsibilities it has, will at least not have that one; and anything that we can do to relieve the future of its burdens is altruism ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent

... and then Besmuts her name, hath crossed his focus in Another age, and paled his spreading figment from Our sight. Thou art so far back toward The primal autocrat whose wish, hyena-like, Was his religion, that, appearing as thou dost On an horizon new flushed in the first Uncertain ray of Altruism, thou seem'st More ghost than human. Yet thou lovest, loving ghost, And thy fierce parent flame thyself snuffed out Scarce later than the dark'ning of the fire Thou gav'st to be eternal vestal of Thine Antony's spirit. Thou didst love and die Of love; let, therefore, no light ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy

... would impugn such selfishness? It is the best thing we have, it is our very selves. Think of a mistress's shame if her lover were to tell her that he loved her because she wished to be beloved, because he thought it would give her pleasure to be loved—she would hate him for such altruism, and deem him unworthy of her. She would certainly think like this, and turn her face from him for a while until some desire of possession would send her back to him. We are always thinking of ourselves directly or indirectly. I was thinking of myself when shame prevented me ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... always sobered and chilled Mr. Ferriday. He worked none the less for her and himself and he tried in a hundred ways to surprise the little witch into an adoration complete enough to make her forget herself, make her capable of that ultimate altruism to which a woman falls or rises when she stretches herself out ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... reason for wearing it. Sunstar determined to replace the watch in the stranger's pocket. He did his best, but he was far more practised in removing than in replacing. The stranger—a hulking, cowardly brute—caught my brother with his hand in his pocket, and failed to grasp the altruism of his motives, and that is why poor Sunnie walks a ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... counteraction, some continual intervention and providence, if it is to be kept in check. After all, this is only a dressing-up of the old platitude that a holy life means continual warfare and straining of the spirit against the flesh, of the moral order against the physical order, of altruism or the true egoism against selfishness or the false egoism. Of course an ideal civilization would help and not hinder religion; but the chances against civilization being ideal are so large as to make it historically ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... these individuals, serves to establish a pathologic degree of self-consciousness. This in turn makes them feel with an extraordinary keenness the everyday frictions in life, and now the pathologic emotionalism comes into play and being unsupported by any sense of altruism and morality they give way to their feelings in some criminal act. Their pathologic vindictiveness should also be mentioned. A sustained real or imaginary injury can never be ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck

... exchange for intellectual or manual labor furnished to society, will be assured of his daily bread and will thus be saved from daily anxiety, it is evident that egoism will have far fewer stimulants, fewer occasions to manifest itself than solidarity, sympathy and altruism will have. Then that pitiless maxim—homo homini lupus—will cease to be true—a maxim which, whether we admit it or not, poisons so much ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri

... power by which he may subdue others, and make all things yield to him, or similar selfish aims, he shall, before all, seriously reflect on how he may use it to do good. For I am absolutely persuaded from what I know, that he who makes Altruism and the happiness of others a familiar thought to be coupled with every effort (even as a lamb is always painted with, or appointed unto, St. John), will be the most likely to succeed. There is something in moral conviction or the consciousness of right which gives ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland

... been always dissipated, however, when she recalled, as she did so often, David as he stood before Nahoum Pasha, his soul fighting in him to make of his enemy—of the man whose brother he had killed—a fellow-worker in the path of altruism he had mapped out for himself. David's name had been continually mentioned in telegraphic reports and journalistic correspondence from Egypt; and from this source she had learned that Nahoum Pasha was again high in the service ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... philosophic dogma toward that of an established fact. The range of sympathy is narrow yet, selfishness predominates, the truly altruistic are the few, the feebly sympathetic and coldly selfish are the many; yet it must be admitted that there has been a great development of altruism during the nineteenth century, and the promise of the coming of Christ's kingdom on the earth is greater to-day than at any former period in the ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... the lowest point, and of the personal expenditure of each brother or sister.[5314] Evidently, with these men and with these women, the ordinary balance of motives which prompt people is reversed; in the inward balance of the scale it is no longer selfishness which prevails against altruism, but the love of others which prevails against selfishness.—Let us look at one of their institutions just at the moment of its formation and see how the preponderance passes over from the egoistic to the social instinct. The first thing we always find at the origin of the enterprise ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... him, demands on his time, run to him for refuge, he felt that he could ask no more of life. The strength of the ancient laws of earth was as yet hidden from him. He did not know the fierceness of the conflict in which he was engaging for Hazel's sake—the world-old conflict between sex and altruism. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... made up of some very noble attributes. He was brave, but not reckless like Custer; a veritable exponent of Christian altruism, and as true to his friends as the needle to the pole. Under the average stature, and rather delicate-looking in his physical proportions, he was nevertheless a quick, wiry man, with nerves of steel, and possessing ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... must use your critical faculties and make selections of what is best—and you must encourage common sense and distrust altruism. Sanity is the ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn

... whereon no trace of envy appeared, caught Hubert's attention as he gathered up the reins, and he thought how her altruism contrasted with the passionate egotism of ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore

... Marcus Aurelius, it is explained, acted according to the Inner Light. "He gets up early in the morning, just as our own aristocrats leading the Simple Life get up early in the morning; because such altruism is much easier than stopping the games in the amphitheatre or giving the English people back their land." The present writer does not profess any ability to handle philosophic problems philosophically; it seems to him, however, that if Chesterton had been writing a few years later, he would ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West

... or by conquest." England had no designs upon the distant colonies of Spain, Canning asseverated; at the same time it "could not see any part of them transferred to any other power with indifference." Not trusting implicitly in Canning's altruism, Rush wisely suggested that Great Britain should first recognize the South American republics as a preliminary to a joint declaration. To this Canning would not commit himself; and Rush would not assume responsibility for a public declaration ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... her territorial assets, which might have greatly reduced her financial debt to the Allies, while the latter obtained the German colonial possessions without the loss of any of their claims for indemnity. In actual operation the apparent altruism of the mandatory system worked in favor of the selfish and material interests of the Powers which accepted the mandates. And the same may be said of the dismemberment of Turkey. It should not be a matter of surprise, therefore, that ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing

... Japan may hope to avert some of the social perils which menace her. Yet it appears inevitable that her approaching transformation must be coincident with a moral decline. Forced into the vast industrial competition of nation's whose civilisations were never based on altruism, she must eventually develop those qualities of which the comparative absence made all the wonderful charm of her life. The national character must continue to harden, as it has begun to harden already. ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn

... Mantak al-Tayr (Colloquy of the Flyers) the Birds, emblems of souls, seeking the presence of the gigantic feathered biped Simurgh, their god, traverse seven Seas (according to others seven Wadys) of Search, of Love, of Knowledge, of Competence, of Unity, of Stupefaction, and of Altruism (i.e. annihilation of self), the several stages of contemplative life. At last, standing upon the mysterious island of the Simurgh and "casting a clandestine glance at him they saw thirty birds[FN250] in him; and when they turned their eyes to themselves the thirty birds seemed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... designed his suicide with considerable care, and a quite remarkable altruism. His passionate hatred for Miriam vanished directly the idea of getting away from her for ever became clear in his mind. He found himself full of solicitude then for her welfare. He did not want to buy his release at her expense. He had not the remotest intention of leaving her unprotected ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... rolling into his dug-out. By this opprobrious term he designates that distinguished body of men, the Army Service Corps. A prolonged diet of plum-and-apple jam has implanted in the breasts of the men in the trenches certain dark and unworthy suspicions concerning the entire altruism of those responsible for the distribution of ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... interests of the Diplomatic Service and of the country I think not," replied Arthur reflectively. "I feel that it is a case where true altruism becomes a duty." ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... monk, and acquired only through those peculiar necessities which colonial life in the tropics imposed upon all alike. The touch of cruelty here revealed produces an impression which there is little in the entire work capable of modifying. Labat seems to have possessed but a very small quantity of altruism; his cynicism on the subject of animal suffering is not offset by any visible sympathy with human pain;—he never compassionates: you may seek in vain through all his pages for one gleam of the goodness of gentle Pre Du Tertre, who, filled with intense pity for the condition of the blacks, prays ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... $160,000,000 which the criminal practices of Gorman Purdy had amassed, Ethel becomes the idol of the people, not only of Wilkes-Barre, but of the entire country. She gives substantial proof of the sincerity of her promise made at the grave of her father. This act of altruism does much to avert any reaction of the turbulent ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... barbarian from the south" (as Mencius called him—I do not know who he was) was proclaiming that property should be abolished, and all goods held in common. One Yang Chu was yelling universal egoism: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." Against him, one Mo Ti had been preaching universal altruism;—but I judge, not too sensibly, and without appeal to philosophy or mysticism. Thought of all kinds was in a ferment, and the world filled with the confused noise of its expression; clear voices were needed, to restate the message ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... history of human egoism. The Gods believed in—whether by crude savages or by men disciplined intellectually—agree with each other in recognizing a personal call." How could it be otherwise? The solitariness of each human soul is the first fact in religious consciousness. Altruism and communion with other souls are perforce attained through concern with the state of the ego. The spiritual egoism which demands pure thought, peace wherein to gather impressions of goodness, ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby

... detail to him and piloting him to England, Mr. Palford did not hold himself many degrees responsible. His theory of correct conduct assumed no form of altruism. He had formulated it even before he reached middle age. One of his fixed rules was to avoid the error of allowing sympathy or sentiment to hamper him with any unnecessary burden. Natural tendency of temperament had placed ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... ever deterred him. Nor ever would. He played his own hand with a cynical disregard of the rights of others. It was this that had made him what he was, a man who bulked large in the sight of the city and state. Long ago he had made up his mind that altruism ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... upon altruism, should be the underlying principles in determining the giving of emblems and awards. To give every boy an opportunity to do his best to measure up to the camp standard, is the thing desired in the awarding of emblems. Non-competitive tests are being recognized ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson

... respects human nature may be, all human endeavor must finally be measured by the principle of Altruism and must stand or fall by the measure in which it inspires ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck

... happy that he had not married. He hated unhappiness. His wish had always been to see people happy. Was not that why he wished to go away with Evelyn? A particularly foolish woman had once told him that she liked going out hunting because she liked to see people amused.... He did not pretend to such altruism as hers, and he remembered how he used to watch for her at the window as she came across the square with her dog. But Evelyn was quite different. He could not have her to luncheon or tea, and send her back to her father. Somehow, it would not seem fair to her. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... I marry him? I have asked myself that a hundred times, my dear. I wish I knew. I have told you what I see in him to-day; but tomorrow—why, to-morrow I shall see him an altogether different man. He will be perhaps a radiating center of altruism, devoted to his friends, a level-headed protector of the working classes, a patron of the arts in his own clearminded, unlettered way. But whatever point of view one gets at him, he spares one dullness. Will you explain to me, my dear, ...
— Ridgway of Montana - (Story of To-Day, in Which the Hero Is Also the Villain) • William MacLeod Raine

... uncompromising opponent of State action, even education and public sanitation coming in for his condemnation. Moreover, he holds that if the social organism be let alone it will tend to a future state of society in which social altruism will be so developed that the individual will voluntarily sacrifice himself in ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth

... illustrated by exciting incidents of river freshets, shipwreck on one of the great lakes, and a prairie fire. Love is shown to be no respecter of persons, but is found faithful, pure, and delicate, in people who never heard of cosmic philosophy, or the term "altruism," who knew not the classics, who went sadly astray in grammar. Without direct preaching, the story shows that the way of the transgressor is hard, and that the hardness is ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... attention to the happiness and welfare of others—because I choose to do so. On the contrary I have come under a divine imperative, I am obeying an irresistible call, I am a humble and willing servant of the righteousness of God. That altruism which Professor Metchnikoff and Mr. McCabe would have us regard as the goal and refuge of a broad and free intelligence, is really the first simple commandment in ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells

... worried, or forced the pace. And then Jill had disappeared! Gone was their pal, their little sister whom they had petted and spoiled from the day she too had appeared on a fat pony, gone without a trace, leaving these two honest souls, in a sudden unnecessary burst of altruism, to come to a mutual, unspoken understanding that their love must be laid aside in folds of soft tissue, that they must turn the key upon their treasure, until such time as definite news of the lost girl ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... temperature were not too low and the observations not too lengthy, the recorder stepped out into the blizzard with the conviction that he had learned something of value, and, when he sat down to dinner that night, it was with a genial sense of his own altruism. In his diary he would write it all up for his ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... at Sally's side, removing an elbow from her ribs in order the better to gesticulate. Sally, though no French scholar, gathered that he was startled and gratified. The entire crowd seemed to be startled and gratified. There is undoubtedly a certain altruism in the make-up of the spectators at a Continental roulette-table. They seem to derive a spiritual pleasure from ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... might trace the beginnings of this controversy as to the content of what is right and what is wrong to an older opposition in ethical thought, an opposition which especially affects the utilitarian doctrine—the controversy of Egoism and Altruism. If we look at these two conceptions of egoism and altruism as the Utilitarians did, if we regard the conception of egoism as having to do with one's own personal happiness, and that of altruism as describing ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley

... capable of being applied to the practical politics of his own day, or to busy himself with problems or economics? To us personally, of course, it is a matter of indifference how the historians of the twentieth century conduct themselves; but ought not our altruism to bear the strain of a hope that at least one of the band may avoid all these things, and, leaving political philosophy to the political philosopher and political economy to the political economist, remember that the first, if not the last, duty of the historian is to narrate, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... loved—was here, close to her once again, and that her heart was crying out for him. He was hers, her mate out of the whole world, and in a sudden blinding flash of self-revelation, she recognised in her refusal to return to him a sheer denial of the divine altruism of love. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... mankind, a doctrine was ever taught more impracticable or more false to the principles it professes than this very doctrine of communism. In a world where self-interest is avowedly the ruling motive, it seeks to establish at once an all-reaching and all-controlling altruism. In a world where every man is pushing and fighting to outstrip his fellows, it would make him toil with like vigor for their common welfare. In a world where a man's activity is measured by the nearness of reward, it would hold ...
— The Altruist in Politics • Benjamin Cardozo

... catalogue your Waterside Sketches with the word "scarce" against it. I already possess three copies, one the gift of the author, but I very nearly wrote off for a fourth because one cannot have too much of so good a thing. What restrained me really was honest altruism. "Hold," I said to myself, "there must be some worthy man who has no copy at all. Let him have a chance." For it is a melancholy fact that Red Spinner's books have been out of print an unconscionable ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... the best scholar in the class, and because you're a blessed philosopher with leanings toward altruism. A poor helpless little millionaire with no one to lean on must certainly excite your pity. You're just the man for the job, I tell you. And if you said you'd do ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... very mysterious worker, and no one ever saw him constructing the hinges. Reports went round that the devil was helping him, that he had sold his soul to the King of Darkness in order to enlist his assistance in his work; an instance of aesthetic altruism almost commendable in its exotic zeal. Certain jealous artificers even went so far as to break off bits of the meandering iron, to test it, but with no result; they could not decide whether it was cast or wrought. Later a legend grew up explaining the reason why the central door was not ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... preaching it. To preach anything is to give it away. First, the egoist calls life a war without mercy, and then he takes the greatest possible trouble to drill his enemies in war. To preach egoism is to practise altruism. But however it began, the view is common enough in current literature. The main defence of these thinkers is that they are not thinkers; they are makers. They say that choice is itself the divine thing. Thus Mr. Bernard Shaw has attacked ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... was foreign, and whose gift of universal sympathy co-existed with an uncommon practical ability to devise corrective reforms that commanded the attention and won the approval of the foremost statesmen and moralists of his time. True, he also had a vision of Utopia, and his flights of imaginative altruism frequently elevated him so far above the realities of this world, that the incorrigible frailties of human nature seemed to vanish from his calculations, but when the rude awakening came, he neither forsook the fight nor failed to profit ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... nor the vices that attach us to life. He is solitary and pure. Endowed with strong virtues, he becomes conceited. He lives among miserable people. He sees suffering. He has devotion without humanity. He has that sort of cold charity which is called altruism. He is not human because he ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... future;" and we shudder at the mention of vice, as at the remembrance of the tortures of Regulus, but will the Cain type ever become extinct, like the dodo, or the ichthyosaurus? When will the laws of heredity, and the by-laws of agnation result in an altruism, where human bloodshed is an ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the statements that I can absorb. What's behind 'em? That's what I want to know. Wait, I tell you! Don't insult my intelligence any more by telling me it's altruism, high-minded unselfishness in behalf of the people! I have heard others and myself talk that line of punk to a finish. Are you going to run for ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... hand he was fired by a passionate desire to aid; nor when occasion had arisen had he hesitated to sacrifice self for another's good. But such altruism was born of impulse and never considered. The spectacle of the universe absorbed him, and listening for the Pythagorean music of the spheres he sometimes became deaf to the voices of those puny lives about him. His attention ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... hungering nature of the man who had worked beside him. Love and parenthood in its smaller and more specific sense had passed Willie Spence by, but in their place there had sprung into life a broader altruism and a larger creative impulse. The children his mind begot were as much of his blood and marrow as if they had actually been born of his own flesh; and to have one of them go victoriously forth into that moving current that reached so far beyond his own humble door would be like ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett

... fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning. The illiberal letter of Swithin's uncle was suggesting to Lady Constantine an altruism whose thoroughness would probably have amazed that queer old gentleman into a withdrawal of the conditions that had induced it. To love St. Cleeve so far better than herself as this was to surpass the love of women as conventionally understood, ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy

... the Black Star and Queen Flavia, the strongly rebuilt Lamia, and several independent Space Viking ships, among them the Damnthing of his friend Roger-fan-Morvill Esthersan, who had volunteered to stay and help in the defense. This, of course, was not pure altruism. If Viktor attacked and had his fleet blown to Em-See-Square, Xochitl would lie open and unprotected, and there was enough loot on Xochitl to cram everybody's ships. Everybody's ships who had ships when the Battle of Tanith was ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper

... impression of the idea of fairyhood it may implant in the child a desire which may fructify into that pure, generous, disinterested kindness and love of the grown-up, which aims to play fairy to another, with sincere altruism to make appear before his eyes his heart's desire, or in a twinkling to cause what hitherto seemed impossible. Fairy tales thus are harbingers of that helpfulness which would make a new earth, and as such afford a contribution ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... national existence and those special relations which link us to your country, in order that when the seal of diplomatic silence is removed, and that statement becomes public property, the world may know, through the unimpeachable testimony of history, that only ideals of the highest altruism served as a guide to the foundation of our republic and to the celebration of the treaty concerning the construction of the interoceanic canal for our benefit ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root

... contradictions. He heard the limping effort to be formal as before a king or a court of justice. He heard the anxious fear break through the petition; He heard the selfish eagerness trembling in the pious phrases of altruism. He understood. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... is odd," said the Settlement worker, dull color flooding her sallow skin, "for a man to turn his back on greed and gain and devote his life to altruism——" ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... of gains not thus canceled by sacrifices, and the generic motive which may properly be called economic is the desire to make this surplus large. Except in a perfectly isolated individual life, there is opportunity for ethical motives to affect men's economic actions. Altruism has a place in any social system of economics, and so have the sense of justice and the positive compulsion of the law. Altruism does its largest work in causing men to give away wealth after they have acquired it, but conscience and the law powerfully ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... too, ideal and real are so far {269} apart that their conjunction seems quite hopeless. To eat our cake and have it, to lose our soul and save it, to enjoy the physical privileges of selfishness and the moral luxury of altruism at the same time, would be the ideal. But the real offers us these terms in the shape of mutually exclusive alternatives of which only one can be true at once; so that we must choose, and in choosing murder one possibility. The wrench ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James

... commonplaces of education. The absurdity of individuality and the subjectivity of the emotions were alike insisted on without notice of the paradox, which to me appeared extreme. The Associates were altruistic for the sake of altruism, not for the sake of its beneficiaries. They were not pantheists, for they saw neither universal good nor God, but rather evil in all things—themselves included. Their talk, however, was brilliant, and, with allowance for its ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie

... answered lightly. "But I do mean," she added, as he looked away from her, "that, whether it be the consequence of the altruism of the day, or of advancing age, as I said at first, it has grown to be provokingly difficult to ignore those who lose more serious things than a college championship. Verestchagin and such people have spoiled history for ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... background, and since these three States now recognized that if they try to swallow more of the late Austro-Hungarian monarchy they will suffer from chronic indigestion, we need not be suspicious of their altruism. It is perfectly true that the first impulse which moved the creators of the Little Entente was not constructive but defensive; their great Allies did not appear, in the opinion of the three Succession States, to be taking the necessary ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... his life for that of a little Polish defective. I can even see you talking about the greatest good of the greatest number. You would have loved the paradox of it; the mistaken martyr, self-preservation the greatest altruism, and all the rest of it. But because Ferguson did exactly what you would have said in your article that he ought to have done, you are in a state ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... humiliating attempt on the part of a man to barter something, which was persistently undervalued, for the feminine equivalent which was as persistently hoarded. It was an amalgam of physical yearning, wounded vanity and resentment of contempt. It was egotism masquerading as altruism. It was a dancing bear lumbering at the heels of insanity. Of all the passions it was the most hypocritical—a snare-setter, a digger of pitfalls, an enemy disguised as one's dearest friend. He thanked God there was no hint of love in his new-found friendship. Like an outcast fleeing ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... Should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one So well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice That if we live the reason is that we hope That sort of cold charity which is called altruism The discouragement which the irreparable gives The most radical breviary of scepticism since Montaigne The violent pleasure of losing Umbrellas, like black turtles under the watery skies Was I not warned enough of ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Immortals of the French Academy • David Widger

... he let her discover that he was suffering torments; he could not live without her. He played upon her sympathy, he played upon her childish innocence, he played upon that pitiful, weak sentimentality which caused her to believe in pacifism and altruism and socialism and all the other "isms" that were jumbled ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... being embodied in the person of an hereditary chief, so that the community realise that their efforts, instead of being directed to the protection of the personal interests of some chief, are as a matter of fact directed to the protection of their own interests, and their altruism has become self-interest, since self-sacrifice of a community for the sake of the community is a contradiction in terms. In the religious sphere a like development has been shown. Early religious ideals have ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell

... governed my life and thoughts from 1874 to 1886, and with some misgivings to 1889, and from which I drew strength and happiness amid all outer struggles and distress. And I shall ever remain grateful for the intellectual and moral training it gave me, for the self-reliance it nurtured, for the altruism it inculcated, for the deep feeling of the unity of man that it fostered, for the inspiration to work that it lent. And perhaps the chief debt of gratitude I owe to Freethought is that it left the mind ever open to new truth, encouraged the most unshrinking ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... forces, whitewashing Mother Nature after Huxley's Romanes lecture! He told the truth, and Nature loved him for it; but now come hysterical religious ciphers who squeak boldly forth in print that Nature is the mother of altruism, that self-sacrifice is her first law! One genius observes that 'tis their cruelty and selfishness have arrested the progress of the tiger and the ape! Poor Nature! Never a word of shotguns in all this drivel, of course. ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... wealth-producers if their mothers are stimulated by a practical interest in public affairs. I do claim that that nation will be the strongest in which the economic conditions are the most nearly just to all, and in which co-operation and altruism are the most completely incorporated in ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... a danger that in this instance the altruism of the time may develop a sentimentality not ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... proportion of our modern great properties, tramway systems, railways, gas-works, bread companies, have been created for their present owners the debenture holders and mortgagers, the great capitalists, by the unintentional altruism of that voluntary ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells

... devil do you know about painting?" Quell roughly interposed; "you are a poet and, pretending to love all creation,—altruism, I think your sentimental philosophers call it,—have the conceit to believe you bear a star in your stomach when it is only a craving for rum. I've ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... the college will be far from discharged unless it makes provision for laboratory religion where there is a working place for each member. Religion is a life and the college should be a society where this life may be lived in its fullest extent, encouraging practical altruism and giving the protection which an ideal society affords ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various

... as conditions of its realization, can never establish its right to permanent and universal dominion. The faithful discharge of unromantic, secular duties, the keeping of one's heart pure in the midst of temptation, and the unheralded altruism of private life, must ever be as welcome in the sight of God as the prayers of the recluse, who scorns the world of ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... world go 'round. The old Greeks who christened it knew that it was the god-energy in the human machine. Without its driving force nothing worth doing has ever been done. It is man's dearest possession. Love, friendship, religion, altruism, devotion to hobby or career—all these, and most of the other good things in life, are forms of enthusiasm. A medicine for the most diverse ills, it alleviates both the pains of poverty and the boredom of riches. Apart from it man's heart is ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler

... in to-morrow, choose! The road these others tread Is littered deep with jetsam and the bones Of their dishonored dead. What altruism for defeat atones? Have ye ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... picture do you get of Whitman in this account? What qualities of Whitman's do you think most endeared him to the soldiers? Was Whitman's carefulness about his personal appearance an evidence of egotism or altruism? Compare this estimate of Whitman with the "Appreciation of Lincoln." Are there any ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker

... and psychologist as Spencer tells us: "Of self-evident truths so dealt with, the one which here concerns us is that a creature must live before it can act ... Ethics has to recognize the truth that egoism comes before altruism." This is true for ANIMALS, because animals die out from lack of food when their natural supply of it is insufficient because they have NOT THE CAPACITY TO PRODUCE ARTIFICIALLY. But it is not true ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski

... shaken: the individual, separately considered; and the human universality. All intermediaries, like the family and the state, are organised groupings,[61] subject to change, and they do actually change with changing customs; they are not natural organisms. Egoism and altruism, the two powerful sentiments which give life to our moral world, acting therein like the contrasted forces of positive and negative electricity, are the respective expressions of the individual and of the collectivity. Egoism is the natural outflow of our individuality. ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... on the minister, but the lawyer cut it short: "Well, then, I don't really see why the trades-unions are not as business-like as the syndicates in their dealings with all those outside of themselves. Within themselves they practise an altruism of the highest order, but it is a tribal altruism; it is like that which prompts a Sioux to share his last mouthful with a starving Sioux, and to take the scalp of a starving Apache. How is it with your trades-unions in Altruria?" he ...
— A Traveler from Altruria: Romance • W. D. Howells

... to begin and end in nature. That certainly was Comte's view. The accusation of atheism also he avoids by a mere play on words. He is not without a God. Humanity is God. Mankind is the positivist's Supreme. Altruism takes the place of devotion. The devotion so long wasted upon a mere creature of the imagination, to whom it could do no good, he would now give to men who sorely need it and can obviously profit by it. Surely the antithesis between nature and the supernatural, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore

... a lesson for many sorts of people to-day. What they call altruism is no discovery of Christianity, but its practice is. I freely admit that there is much honest and self-sacrificing beneficence and benevolence which are not connected, in the men who practice them, with faith in Jesus Christ. But I question very much whether these ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren

... cut out of the silver disc of the moon. It is only full-orbed when in well-doing, and as a very large constituent element of it, there is included the doing good to others. That is too plain to need to be stated. We hear a great deal to-day about altruism. Well, Christianity preaches that more emphatically than any other system of thought, morals, or religion does. And Christianity brings the mightiest motives for it, and imparts the power by which obedience to that great law that every ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... unconquerable cynicism: a personal resentment and rebellion against the God who stood forth as the acknowledged creator of the miserably unhappy race of men. The eternal question:—if God be only Omnipotent Good, why the existence of evil?—he asked in ever-growing bitterness, till so-called altruism became to him a mockery; and he took a painful delight in twisting his wisdom into the most fantastic forms, which he also made the sport and butt of formal logic; knowing always, in his own heart, the evil that was wrought in him by those bitter reflections that formed the refuge of his idle hours. ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... hands was perhaps a little surprising now she looked back on it, but it had not astonished her at the time. Of course, there, there was something concretely to be done, an injustice to be averted from a possibly innocent head. She doubted though if it had been pure altruism. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... immorality abroad, who published the old Epicurean doctrine, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." This teaching was accompanied by a spirit of cold-blooded egotism which extinguished every spark of Confucian altruism. Even the pretended disciples of Confucius confused the precepts of the Master, and by stripping them of their narrow significance rendered them nugatory. It was at this point that Mang-tsze, "Mang the philosopher," arose. He was sturdy in bodily frame, vigorous in mind, profound ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous

... selfishness. I buy a motor-cycle because I am selfish; and you found a hospital for orphans because you are selfish. It is my pleasure to have a Sunbeam; it is yours to help the poor. Your selfishness has become altruism; that is, in pleasing yourself you have managed to please others. The aim in education is not to abolish selfishness; it is to educe the selfishness that is altruistic. Hence it may be said that education's chief aim is to teach ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill

... dozen already discovered and preserved in North India. And it is, perhaps, the most fully inscribed of all that have been found. And of the fourteen Asokan edicts inscribed, most of them inculcate a high morality, and some of them a noble altruism. For instance, the first is a prohibition of the slaughter of animals for food or sacrifice. The second is the provision for medical aid for men and animals, and for plantations and wells on the roadside. The third is a command to observe every fifth year ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... is most prominent at about "three or four" years of age, spontaneous imitation "becomes very prominent the latter part of the first year," the gang instinct is characteristic of the preadolescent period, desire for adventure shows itself in early adolescence, altruism "appears in the early teens," and the sex instinct "after about a dozen years of life." The child of from four to six is largely sensory, from seven to nine he is motor, from then to twelve the retentive powers are prominent. In the adolescent period he is capable of thinking ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy

... seen that the duty of a man to lead a wise life, to be prudent, to make the most of his powers, to maintain a good name, is not a duty to himself, merely an enlightened selfishness, as it is now called, but a genuine form of altruism, a duty to others, as truly as if those others bore different names instead of succeeding to his name. It will be seen that a man's duty to his later selves is like the duty of a father to his helpless children: to provide ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy



Words linked to "Altruism" :   egoism, altruist, unselfishness



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