"Selfishly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... self-centred; the first interest of every individual or group is self-preservation, and business must pay for itself and produce a surplus for its owner or it is not worth continuing from the economic standpoint; but a business enterprise has no right selfishly to disregard the interests of its employees and of the public. Its social value must be reckoned as small or great, not by the amount of business carried on, but by its contribution ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... trial which seems intolerable, pray,—pray that it be relieved or changed. There is no harm in that. We may pray for anything, not wrong in itself, with perfect freedom, if we do not pray selfishly. One disabled from duty by sickness may pray for health, that he may do his work; or one hemmed in by internal impediments may pray for utterance, that he may serve better the truth and the right. Or, if we have a besetting sin, we may pray to be delivered ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... doubtless, found it difficult also, for the call of nature manifested itself to them, and the girls and boys, rather selfishly, did not make it as ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... will close with her answer. If she receives Ned's letter by to-morrow noon, you may date their parting from to-morrow night. No thanks, I beg; you owe me none. I have acted for myself; and if I have forwarded our compact with all the ardour even you could have desired, I have done so selfishly, indeed.' ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... for a man with only you to stand between him and death. (As they look at one another for a moment, Raina hardly able to believe that even a Servian officer can be so cynically and selfishly unchivalrous, they are startled by a sharp fusillade in the street. The chill of imminent death hushes the man's voice as he adds) Do you hear? If you are going to bring those scoundrels in on me you shall receive them as you are. (Raina meets his eye with ...
— Arms and the Man • George Bernard Shaw
... selfishly pleased, but not ungrateful, and they passed a pleasant and affectionate time: and, as for leaving Hillsborough, the topic ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... as if sweeping something behind him). Oh, let us put aside all that cant. It horrifies me when I think of the doses of it she has had to endure in all the weary years during which you have selfishly and blindly sacrificed her to minister to your self-sufficiency—YOU (turning on him) who have not one thought—one sense—in ...
— Candida • George Bernard Shaw
... But did you think, selfishly engrossed though I have been with the Fight for Power, that this love-labour of yours was lost on me? No, 'terrible ambitious' as I was, I could still see I got the blackberries and you little more than the scratches, and the less ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... were tremendously active, but they were evil, selfishly evil. Nothing that did not benefit them counted. At one time our instruments went dead, and we feared that the commander had detected us, but we saw what happened a little later. The second in command ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... spite of pain I felt an odd happiness. I had nothing selfishly to hope for. Perhaps I had aged five years in one, and I viewed life differently. It was enough for me that she had come home, to the haven where no harm could befall her. She was my appointed task, even as her husband was Judith's. I recognised in myself the man with the one talent. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... and the weather grew warm and pleasant, Peepy thought to herself, "Bella loves me, and is grateful for all my care; but liberty is as sweet to birds as to little girls. I will not selfishly keep this bird in prison. I will take it into the ...
— The Nursery, October 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 4 • Various
... German comrades. Alas! the Gospel according to St. Marx has been as ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The Social Democracy which called itself the International (with a capital I) has proved selfishly nationalist, and the masses which had not the courage to fight for their rights under Kaiser Bebel are now slaughtering their French and English brethren, and are meekly enlisted in the ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... declared himself a boy. He got the microscope all into place and arranged, and then set himself to find out its powers and method of management.. There were some prepared objects sent with the instrument, which gave him enough to work with; and over them he was in an absorbed state for hours; not selfishly, however, for he allowed Eleanor to take her full share of the pleasure of looking, when once he had brought objects into view. At last he broke off and ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... who selfishly recollected that the more medicines I took the better for him if not for me, converted me into a human receptacle for his empirical abominations, but another surgeon, who was rather tardily called in, packed me off to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... metamorphosis had occurred in her; she was not the simple and loving Ruth to whom he had offered himself that day they picked berries in the canon. Or was it that only now her real self was revealed? Was it that she was capable of loving only selfishly? Did she love him ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... account for the latter half of the prophet's life. They do not seem to know where he spent his last days; they know not the time, manner, nor place of his death. And why, you ask? We answer, Because they selfishly and persistently limited his life and labours to his own land. They have not been willing to allow that he was set as a prophet over nations and kingdoms. Then again, they have been willing to allow him to be a puller down and destroyer, but not a builder and planter. To grant that ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... foregoing that even the sinful life is a quest for God, although it does not know itself to be such, for in seeking life saint and sinner alike are seeking God, the all-embracing life. And the sinner must learn that to seek life selfishly is to lose it; to seek it unselfishly is both to gain and to give it. The good man and the bad man are seeking the same thing ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... There should be two words for "serious," as there are literally two meanings. There is a certain intense form of taking the care and responsibility of one's own individual interests, or the interests of others which are selfishly made one's own, which leads to a surface-seriousness that is not only a chronic irritation of the nervous system, but a constant distress to those who come under this serious care. This is taking life au grand serieux. The superficiality of this attitude is striking, ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... continued to survey herself dubiously, took in the bright scarlet sweater which formed the top part of her costume. The girls had first sought a more tailored variety of coat, but peres Merriam and O'Neill were both, selfishly, very large men; Tess had brilliantly bethought the sweater—the English always wore scarlet for hunting, anyway. Missy then had warmly applauded the inspiration, but now her warmth was literal rather than figurative; it was a hot day and ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... batch, or of the rest of the harvest. Let us apply that to our money, which is one of the products of our activities; and not fancy, as a great many people do, that what we give as a subscription to some benevolent or religious institution buys for us the right to spend all the rest selfishly. That is another commonplace, very threadbare and very feeble, when we speak it, but with claws and teeth in it that will lay hold of us, when we try to put it in practice. The enjoyments and the products of our daily activities are ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... conclusion may be gathered also, indirectly, from other acts, interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition showed itself to exercise them selfishly. The city merchants, as I have said, were becoming landowners; and some of them attempted to apply the rules of trade to the management of landed estates. While wages were ruled so high, it answered better as a speculation to convert arable land into pasture; but the law immediately stepped in ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... wonder is, considering how easy it is to talk and how hard to say anything, that they did not hit upon that other and more excellent Muse of Leaving-off. The Spartans, I suspect, found her out and kept her selfishly to themselves. She were indeed a goddess to be worshipped, a true Sister of Charity among ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... aspiring to the throne was not that he might the better care for the welfare of others, but that he might selfishly enjoy wealth and honour. He cared much for outward show, while he failed to cultivate inward worth, preparing for himself chariots, horsemen, and a retinue of servants, but never displaying a love of justice or ability in statesmanship. And ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... don't think it will sell, and therefore most selfishly refuse to buy it. One bookseller, indeed, offered to treat for it if I would leave out all about the Hottentots and Caffres, the Greek philosophers and Egyptian priests, and confining myself solely to polite society, entitle ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet haec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stand ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... did soon marry again. Instead of at once taking this cruel sliver out of the flesh, acting on the sublime principle, "Duty belongs to us; leave consequences with God," the father of Louise very injudiciously and selfishly fell in with this child's foolish and wicked notions, and in order, as he thought, to remunerate this darling child for her great trial, allowed her to live almost entirely abstracted from ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... me for a series of articles, we might afford to take a room on the next floor for me to work in,' I said rather selfishly perhaps. ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... "Would you then selfishly deprive others of the blessings you enjoy?" he asked. "Would you, who know the gospel, keep back the instrument which brought it to you from presenting it to others? No, no; surely you, dear friends, ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city, learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... served only as an ideal, and at best has been of first aid to the male, primarily because of a question of personal health and cleanliness; secondly, as a means of developing in him the latent qualities of altruism, manifested selfishly enough at first in protecting his possessions; among which he egotistically conceded his children at least first place; although the wife was hardly more than ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... the twins were not so selfishly proud as to allow this state of matters to go on for ever. Mina opened the door, and said: "Why are you crying, Lina?" and Lina immediately stretched out both hands to her sister, and said: "Oh, Mina, why are you crying?" Then they fell upon each other's necks and cried again, and the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... of the time. But frankly I cannot find in the programme at the St. James's any apparent sign of consideration for present conditions. It is true that it supplies excellent entertainment for Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER, who has plenty of occupation in a part that suits him well. But I was thinking, selfishly enough, of my own needs and those ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 30, 1914 • Various
... clamor for no more, Or selfishly thy grace require An evil heart to varnish o'er; Jesus, the Giver, I desire, After the flesh no longer known: Father, thy ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... it's done now. It was twenty years ago that Roger bumped into his fate in that eddy of Broadway and I was as powerless as you are now to disentangle him and keep him for myself, which, selfishly enough, of course, I wanted terribly to do. You see, he was all I had, Roger, and I was hoping we would play the game out together. But—not to have known Margarita? Never to have watched that bending droop of her neck, that extraordinary colouring ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... denounce all forms of retaliation as a wasteful expenditure of spirit, wrong in themselves, and attaining no end but the worse injury of those who employed them. He might easily have used the miraculous power which He possessed for His own defense, and for the confusion of His enemies. Had He been selfishly ambitious, He might have organized a party so strong, that it would have become an irresistible force, which would have shattered the old order whose evils He denounced, and have made Him the dictator of ...
— The Empire of Love • W. J. Dawson
... leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss me, dear husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only because I was so selfishly anxious to keep you more with me—to be more certain that ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... would be so disappointed when he arrived to find that his friends of Collingwood had not deemed him worth waiting for. Finally, the Squire took them both aside, and, speaking seriously, said he had no right selfishly to detain them, but the time was critical, poor Nash was away on a dangerous errand, and their services, already great and highly appreciated, might yet be of the greatest importance. Besides, after the fatigue and excitement of the past night, they were not fit to travel. The dominie ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... concern, that future, to me who have for so long a time been a dramatic critic. A man soon comes to care, quite unselfishly, about the welfare of the thing in which he has specialised. Of course, I care selfishly too. For, though it is just as easy for a critic to write interestingly about bad things as about good things, he would rather, for choice, be in contact with good things. It is always nice to combine business and pleasure. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... in the way of education in public matters than he had realized. As for ideals, he had followed the masterful men who preached a gospel that appealed to him, living the life of the open, battling for the weak against the selfishly strong—so it seemed to the one who studied their achievements on the printed page. With his own opportunity now thrust upon him, Harlan Thornton determined to make candor his code, honesty his system. He entertained no false ideas of his personal importance. But his lack of experience did not daunt ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... as if we had done this thing deliberately and selfishly. We have renounced. We have struggled against it until we were beaten. And now we are driven together, not by our doing but Fate's. After this affair this morning there is nothing for you but to come to me. And as ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London
... in the world for the exercise of all Christian charity. The poor are here, and unless a woman deliberately shuts her eyes to their needs, and selfishly thinks only of her own people, and their sorrows, she cannot help being touched. And the luxury of doing good need not be confined to those of them whose purses are filled with gold. Poor women help ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... good-will and mutual understanding to a dozen groups and circles, it seemed impossible to recognise that he had done anything in his generation. It is not to be claimed that his was a life of persistent benevolence or devoted energy; but I thought of a dozen men who had lived selfishly and comfortably, making money and amassing fortunes, without a touch of real kindness or fine tenderness about them, who would yet be held to have done well and to have deserved respect, when compared ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to this! I threw my pride to the winds," she whispered. "But I don't care. I was determined, selfishly, to take happiness." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... he read the other bits, and so got through it again. As the letter was a pretty long one, it took him a considerable time to do all this. Then it suddenly occurred to him that he had been thus selfishly keeping it all to himself instead of sharing it with his father; so he started up and hastened back to the village, where he found Captain Ellice in earnest confabulation with the pastor of the place. ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... sunlight out of our rooms? Have we any right to stop the sunlight anywhere? Wouldn't it be better honour to our Christian friends who have gone, to be glad for them, and speak as if we were; and let it be seen that all the sorrow we have is on our own account, and we do not mean to indulge that selfishly? We do not sorrow as those that have no hope; for we believe that them which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. There will be a glorious meeting again, by and by, when Jesus comes; then we and our dear ones who ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... them, closed the case, pocketed it. When he had a chance he could try boiling water for one sort of trick. He could scratch one or two.... Sard would know. He wondered whether Sard had got away, not concerned except selfishly. However, there were others in Paris whom ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... I've been so selfishly self-centered." She frowned. "I forgot about it, but there were people in the crowd boasting they had been assigned to fight anti-social movements. I had to boast back that my husband ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner
... "No," she loyally said, "I am going with you," and although I knew that she was choosing a dreary alternative I was too weak, too selfishly weak, to prevent her self-sacrifice. We left that night at the usual hour and arrived in time to eat another farmer's breakfast with father and mother next morning. Aunt Susan ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... was, galloping on to the wagon. There he unsaddled his horse and turned it to graze, setting about immediately to get his dinner. Mackenzie waited for a summons when the meal was ready, but received none. Presently he saw that Reid had no intention of calling him in, for he was sitting down selfishly alone. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... is the society into which we have allowed our poor child to run! I blame myself exceedingly for not having made more inquiries. Grief made me selfishly passive, or I should have opened my eyes and theirs to the danger. My poor Mary, what a shock it will ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... moral discussion than that between acting from "principle" and from "interest." To act on principle is to act disinterestedly, according to a general law, which is above all personal considerations. To act according to interest is, so the allegation runs, to act selfishly, with one's own personal profit in view. It substitutes the changing expediency of the moment for devotion to unswerving moral law. The false idea of interest underlying this opposition has already been criticized (See Chapter X), but some moral ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... followed this assurance. It was broken by a little exclamation from Ethel. "Oh, dear," she said, "how selfishly thoughtless my happiness makes me! I have forgotten to tell you, until this moment, that I have a letter from Dora. It was sent to grandmother's care, and I got it this afternoon; also one from Lucy Rawdon. The two together bring Dora's affairs, I should say, to ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... patronage and encouragement than they probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or clearly through the destruction than through the preservation ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... asked. "Must I remind you of what you owe to your high position, your spotless integrity, your famous name? Think of all that you have done for me, and then think of the black ingratitude of it if I ruin you for life by consenting to our marriage—if I selfishly, cruelly, wickedly, drag you down to the level of ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... many young people place upon personal rights has encouraged the belief that marriage is intended for man's and woman's convenience, rather than for the building of normal homes and the development of community life. In too many marriages the contracting parties selfishly refuse to make the mutual concessions necessary in married life and so ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... great a darkness. Hour by hour, day by day, had his love increased for the child of his adoption, until now she was a part of his very life, pervading every corner and crevice of his being. He only lived for her, and in his mighty love, he became selfishly indifferent to all else around him. Edith was all he cared for;—to have her with him;—to hear her voice,—to know that she was sitting near,—that by stretching forth his hand he could lay it on her head, or feel her beautiful cheeks,—this was his happiness by day, and when at night he ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... suited to the semi-tropics; if, deaf to the voice of the Zeitgeist, we refuse to use and develop these men, we risk poverty and loss. If, on the other hand, seized by the brutal afterthought, we debauch the race thus caught in our talons, selfishly sucking their blood and brains in the future as in the past, what shall save us from national decadence? Only that saner selfishness which, Education teaches men, can find the rights of all in ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... is here who for years has lived selfishly within his own little round of pleasure. He looks back on a life of uselessness, of neglect of all that Christ did for him. He this day hears the voice of God. He listens; he repents; he cries out, smiting on his breast, ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... not the conditions of human life. An idealising Prince must fall before a practising world. A Prince must learn in self-defence how to be bad, but like Caesar Borgia, he must be a great judge of occasion. And what evil he does must be deliberate, appropriate, and calculated, and done, not selfishly, but for the good of the State of which he is trustee. There is the power of Law and the power of Force. The first is proper to men, the second to beasts. And that is why Achilles was brought up by Cheiron the Centaur ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... you have shown any patience thus far, sir. You have scarcely more than met her before you enter, recklessly and selfishly, on a 'suit,' as you term it, which can only bring wretchedness to her and to those who have the natural right to her allegiance ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... inherit; and one day they shall inherit it—not indeed as men of the world count inheritance, but as the maker and owner of the world has from the first counted it. So different are the two ways of inheriting, that one of the meek may be heartily enjoying his possession, while one of the proud is selfishly walling him out from the spot in it he ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... avoid trouble incident on hot temper Alida Ascott decamped, intending to cool off in the Palm Beach surf and think it over; but she met Portlaw at Palm Beach that winter, and Portlaw dodged the olive branch and neglected her so selfishly that she determined then and there upon ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... growing more and more nervous as the time for action advanced. He cursed Fortemani, who had selfishly refused to take an active part in the admission of Gian Maria. Here was a task that Fortemani could perform more satisfactorily than he. He had urged this fact on Ercole's attention, but the swashbuckler had grinned and shook his head. To Gonzaga fell the greater reward, and so Gonzaga must ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden in inaccessible peat-bogs, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... thank Heaven! we have one still—not exactly the same, but curiously reminiscent in voice and gesture. This succession of son to sire is one of the happiest arrangements of the British Constitution, one most promising for its maintenance and prosperity. If the House of Lords, peremptorily and selfishly, appropriated our ELCHOS and our GATHORNE HARDYS, turning them into Earl of WEMYSS, and Viscount CRANBROOK, leaving us no substitute or compensation, that long-threatened institution would be finally doomed. But, by beneficent arrangement, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 6, 1891 • Various
... do all he can to help make the ball successful, especially if his name appears on the invitation. He should assist in finding partners for the women, taking the chaperones into supper, preventing the men from selfishly remaining in the dressing-room, and at the end escorting ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green
... with economy. Want of employment added to the unrest, and the idle men found time to discuss the angry politics which rang through the debates in the Senate. The changed tariff on iron, to which Pennsylvania was always selfishly sensitive, affected the voting, and Penhallow was pleased when the Administration suffered disaster in the October elections. All parties—Republican, American and Douglas Democrats—united to cast discredit on the President's policy, but Penhallow knew that the change of duties on iron ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... principles, an independent spirit and friendly feelings; but others will undermine these by obsequiousness. Flattery, —fawning,—that worst bane of virtuous inclinations,—will assail you:—everybody seeks his own advancement. To-day you and I converse together quite disinterestedly; others all selfishly pay their court to our fortunes in preference to ourselves. Now to counsel an Emperor what he ought to do is a task of much difficulty: humouring the whims of this or that Emperor does not cost the slightest trouble." "Ea aetas tua, quae cupiditates adolescentiae jam effugerit: ea vita, in qua ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... convenience, to be formed and sundered almost at pleasure. "Marriage," said Madame de Stael, has become but the sacrament of adultery." The nation, under the influence of these views, would condemn her for selfishly refusing assent to an arrangement apparently essential to the repose of France and of Europe Never was a woman placed in a situation of more terrible trial. Never was an ambitious man exposed to ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... Eugene, very, very kindly. 'I hope it is not I who have distressed you. I meant no more than to put the matter in its true light before you; though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough, for ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... four years Grant Harlson studied feverishly,—selfishly might be almost the word,—such was the impulse that moved him under Morgan's teaching, and so purely objective all his reasoning. In his vacations he hunted, fished, and developed the more thews and sinews, and acquired new fancies as to whether an Irish setter or a Gordon made the ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... profitable; and where was the man of high and honourable principle who did not feel when breathing the pure atmosphere of that Heath, a lofty self-satisfaction at the thought, that though he might have left those who were near and dear to him in a less genial atmosphere, still he was not selfishly enjoying himself, without a thought for their welfare; for racing, while it brought health and vigour to the father, also brought what was dearer to the mind of a parent—the means of promoting the happiness and prosperity of ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... assizes for the county, had also long been held in the Town-Hall of Horsham; but this privilege was selfishly abstracted from the town, by the inhabitants of Lewes; and even the county gaol, which has been stationed here, for time immemorial, is, we understand, to be removed to the all devouring eastern rival: the quarter sessions however, ...
— The History and Antiquities of Horsham • Howard Dudley
... Then the society went selfishly on in its old channels, unmindful of the young life set adrift again in a sea of doubt and discouragement, with no hand held out to draw it back from the peril of shipwreck. The despairing mood that had settled down ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston
... of Plombieres. All this, notwithstanding an alliance of France with Piedmont, for the destruction of the Pope's temporal sovereignty, appeared as yet to be so completely out of the question, that the French ambassador at Rome refuted publicly the calumnies which M. de Cavour had so selfishly promulgated. Count de Rayneval had been a long time at Rome, first as Secretary of the Embassy of King Louis Philippe, and afterwards as Plenipotentiary of the Republic, before he was appointed to represent the Emperor Napoleon. None could be better qualified to give a luminous ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... love you, I should act selfishly; but self is all gone from me. In this moment I could do greater things to help you to happiness. Tell me; have you ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... adopting only one version of their interest, and that having adopted it, they move fatally to realize it. It assumes the existence of a specific class interest. That assumption is false. A class interest can be conceived largely or narrowly, selfishly or unselfishly, in the light of no facts, some facts, many facts, truth and error. And so collapses the Marxian remedy for class conflicts. That remedy assumes that if all property could be held ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... what must have been the fate of the other schooner's crew, and somehow it seemed that they deserved it. Then I began thinking of my own friends, and then, very selfishly no ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... the leader does not have sufficient strength to support such a statement, and, therefore, his lead generally says, "Partner, I know you have considerable strength, you may have declared expressly for the purpose of asking me to lead your suit, but I selfishly prefer to play my own hand rather than act for the ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... mother," continued Roland, "I selfishly rob you of the credit. The beginning of all this was really your gift to me of five hundred thalers, that time I came to crave your assistance in procuring me this document I still carry, and without your thalers ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... hours elapsed it would be necessary to start on my journey to Cumberland. I sat down and tried, first to sketch, then to read—but the woman in white got between me and my pencil, between me and my book. Had the forlorn creature come to any harm? That was my first thought, though I shrank selfishly from confronting it. Other thoughts followed, on which it was less harrowing to dwell. Where had she stopped the cab? What had become of her now? Had she been traced and captured by the men in the chaise? Or was she still capable of controlling her own actions; and were we two following ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... the goodness of Faraki, who has implanted an unconscious mutual attraction between the sexes that constantly draws them towards each other. It is this mutual love, these invisible ties, that make the world brighter, cheerier, happier. It has been truly said that those who selfishly cut themselves away from these ties, those that lead narrow, lonely, morbid lives, lose most of life's joys. What should we say to the favourite of a King from whom he had received a beautiful house, and fine estates, ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... you do not suppose that I should be selfishly considering my own personal feelings at such a time," said Sir Timothy, in a lofty tone of reproof. "I am only desirous of doing what is right in the matter. I am asking your advice because I feel that ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... making four, or five, or six beautiful flounces for your own ball-dress—flounces which will clothe no one but yourself, and which you will yourself be unable to wear at more than one ball—you are employing your money selfishly. You have maintained, indeed, in each case, the same number of people; but in the one case you have directed their labour to the service of the community; in the other case you have consumed it wholly ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... selfishly bent on pain and renunciation, he was selfishly bent on pleasure and indulgence. Isn't that the one difference ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... the majority had been only twenty-three in a full House; that the motion to except the Universities had been lost by a majority of only eight. On full consideration he resolved not to pass the bill. Nobody, he said, could accuse him of acting selfishly on this occasion; his prerogative was not concerned in the matter; and he could have no objection to the proposed law except that it would be ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... ere it was empty? That would be just like the jade. He scanned the sky anxiously for a sign of the coming storm, and, finding it cloudless, saw in this calm some new miracle of treachery, and feared the worst. He was afraid, selfishly, for Mr. Bumble's health. The man was pink and well nourished. Anthony thought of apoplexy, and, had a medical book been available, would have sought a description of that malady's favourite prey. Mrs. Bumble was also well covered. Anthony hoped ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who "climb," who, by labour and learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become "lords over the heritage," though not "ensamples ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... really breaks out, and the less recording and reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements say:Good gracious! Why cant the paper ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... of the lowest, too full of love for the race to have love to spare for self. To this ideal he was struggling, but he had not yet reached it, and the thought of his own reputation, his own feelings would creep in. He was not a selfishly ambitious man, but every one who is conscious of ability, every one who feels within him energies lying fallow for want of opportunity, must be ambitious for a larger sphere of work. Just as he was beginning to dare to allow himself the hope of some change ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... she talked with her other companion as if she had nothing but him to consider. He had given her the note amazingly, by his allusion to the pleasantness—that of such an occasion as his successful dinner—which might figure as their bribe for renouncing; so that it was all as if they were speaking selfishly, counting on a repetition of just such extensions of experience. Maggie achieved accordingly an act of unprecedented energy, threw herself into her father's presence as by the absolute consistency with which she held his eyes; saying to herself, at the same time that ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... be strong to enforce discipline among his men, but alas! alas! he had left the reins loose upon the neck of his passions. Basil never did that, never. Basil never would in the like circumstances have sought a weak gratification at her expense. That was the word; weak. Evan had been selfishly weak. Basil was always, so far as she had known him, unselfishly strong. And yet, and yet!—she loved the weak one; although it pained her that ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... reduced the importance of the mercantile navy of Germany and Italy in the Mediterranean. Where there was any national feeling left, it was a feeling of shame and despair, and the Emperor and the small princes of Germany might have governed even more selfishly than they did, without ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... children. Because a woman, in her ignorance, has married a man who is incapable of producing healthy offspring, due to his having "sown his wild oats," should not be a reason why she should be condemned to forego the pleasures of motherhood. Because a man has married a woman who is sterile or who selfishly refuses to bear children should not be a reason why he should be denied ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... which in her absence had been so crowded with soldiers and civilian passengers that she had great difficulty in finding her place and seating herself. The young man whom she had seen pacing the deck of the steamer approached her and said: "There is more room in my compartment; in fact I have selfishly got one all to myself. Won't you ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... her sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for her in the hour of peril. God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly, or selfishly! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... at him vindictively, but impotently. His jaw was set and hard. A cold fire glittered in his eyes. How selfishly eager he was to be started on his way not even the girl could have known. Moreover, some sort of plan for the horseman's speedy punishment had taken possession ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... "Have you dreamt of me often?" "Will you love me always, always, always?" and so on ad infinitum. "Ridiculous rubbish!" exclaims the would-be strong-minded, but secretly savage old maid,—and the selfishly matter-of-fact, but privately fidgety and lonely old bachelor. Ah! but there are those who could tell you that at one time or another of their lives this "ridiculous rubbish" seemed far more important than the decline and fall of ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... asking myself what I can do for her as a slight acknowledgment of her heroism. Surely we ought to let her have Dorothy to bring up, since she still desires to do it? It would be so much to Dorothy's advantage. We ought to look at it in that light, and not selfishly.' ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy
... back from the soft rustling peace of the woods, not a careless, selfishly happy girl any more, but ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... not having written to the purpose, you laid down one proposition in which I quite acquiesce; that the subject of the supremacy of Rome should be moved argumentatively, if at all. I felt I had gained something here, and rested upon it, and gave up answering you, as it turns out, selfishly.' At the end of the letter he says: 'As to myself, I don't like talking; when we meet we shall see how we feel about it.' His reserve may, I think, be safely accounted for by his great unwillingness that such a man as Mr. Hope should be swayed by him to an act to which, as yet, he himself ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... doctrine of Progress was illustrated by the distinguished speaker in more senses than one.[01] Who can tell how great the influence of such associations may become in cherishing kind feeling, in fostering literature, in calling out talent, in leading men to act, not selfishly, but more efficiently for the general cause through particular institutions?"—Pres. Hopkins's Miscellaneous Essays and Discourses, ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... don't intend that you shall wait, Robin," interrupted Sam. "You need not go on talking so selfishly about yourself. You must consider the girl. I'm not going to stand by and see injustice done to her. You have paid marked attention to her, and are bound in honour to lay yourself at her feet, even at ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... to the first days of October. I am afraid it may be said of scenery as has been said of lover's tete-a-tete talks, that it resembles those delicate fruits which are exquisite where they are plucked, but incapable of transmission. As my father can never enjoy any thing selfishly, he was particularly pleased with the nice little foot-path won from the mountain-side, and the frequent foot-bridges that indicate the numbers that have taken this wild walk before us. My father fancies he enjoys our security ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... The excitement which you have just caused him has overcome him, and if I had not been here I do not know what might have happened. Remember, my child, that love is shown not by words but by deeds; and it would be but a poor return for all your father's affection to give way selfishly to your own grief." ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... changes have been a great evil, and have again and again brought unmerited losses to the many in business and still greater and unearned gains to a favored few. It is incredible that such a hit-or-miss, in large part selfishly determined, policy could have been an important cause of our national prosperity. The fundamental causes of the general high wages and popular welfare that we have enjoyed is to be found rather in our rich ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... yet the great sea of it one can never touch! It is a nightmare—I am weak still, I suppose; I don't know myself; but I can see nothing but jarred, tortured creatures everywhere. All my own joys and comforts seem to lift me selfishly above the ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... God and of Christ, surely the act of voting, which many think so lightly of, and which many more consider a thing wholly political and worldly, becomes, indeed, a very important Christian duty, not to be discharged hastily or selfishly, in blind prejudice or passion, from self-interest, or in mere careless good nature and respect of persons; but deliberately, seriously, calmly, and, so far as we can judge our deceitful hearts, purely; not without prayer to Him who giveth wisdom liberally ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... pressed her lips together. They were dry and pale. "Well," she broke out, "I'll have to tell you the truth and not care for my own feelings. They don't matter really. It wouldn't be my business if I didn't love him myself, dearly—oh, but not selfishly! And he doesn't dream of it. He never will. And he never thinks about me except to pity me a little and do kind things because I'm alone in the world. And that's all I want of him. It is, truly, though I can't explain very ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... You know I have no prejudices; but, excuse my frankness, to my mind you have both acted selfishly. Of course, I shan't say so to my sister—it will distress her; but you ought to know: mother is ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... largest mule-owner in Cruces came to me and implored me to accompany him to his kraal, a short distance from the town, where he said some of his men were dying. One in particular, his head muleteer, a very valuable servant, he was most selfishly anxious for, and, on the way thither, promised me a large remuneration if I should succeed in saving him. Our journey was not a long one, but it rained hard, and the fields were flooded, so that it took us some time to reach the long, low hut which he called his home. I would rather ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... wake into active or objective consciousness when reborn in the Region of Happiness, while the poor unhappy and misguided mortal who, seeking to elude fate, selfishly loosens the silver string and breaks the golden bowl, finds himself terribly alive and awake, instinct with all the evil cravings and desires that embittered his world-life, without a body in which to gratify these, and capable of only such partial ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... behind them all they held dear. This, one felt, was a little hard of the captain; but those of us whose position was exactly the reverse, who had friends on the other side, all whose hopes indeed were invested there, were too selfishly expectant of port to be severe on the captain who ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne
... said Aunt Blin, thinking it out to this same point, as she watched his face of greed, mortified, but persistent; not a bit changed to any real humility. Why do they say "dogged," except for a noble holding fast? It is a cat which is selfishly, stolidly obstinate. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... blacker than his face, and he took no heed of me as I ran after him, thinking selfishly of the sweetmeats he had promised to bring me—but I thought no more of them when I got to the door of the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... too, seems to me a great euthanasia; and I think that for Johnson to have died thus, that night in Fleet Street, would have been a grand ending to 'a life radically wretched.' Well, he was destined to outlive another decade; and, selfishly, who can wish such a life as his, or such a Life ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... fine for human eye to see, too strong for human might to break, were being woven into the intricate pattern of life and fate. Though miles lay between the many men whose lives were unalterably mingled, though each man went selfishly or unselfishly about his own pursuits, although each fashioned daily his life for the day, still the mills of God were grinding, the looms were weaving, and grist and kernel, warp and woof found their way from the individual existences into ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... my mother has been suffering, and am afraid this exquisite weather is too good to agree with her. I enjoy it all over me, from top to toe, from right to left, longitudinally, perpendicularly, diagonally; and I cannot but selfishly hope we are to have it last till Christmas—nice, unwholesome, unseasonable, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... might also have been helping his twin sister to enjoy her birthday; and when he remembered how bravely she had concealed her own disappointment, and how unselfishly she had told him to go and spend his birthday in the manner that pleased him best, he began to see how very selfishly he had behaved. ...
— A Tale of the Summer Holidays • G. Mockler
... been. The dumb man is not said to have used his recovered speech to thank his deliverer, nor is there any sign that he clung to Him, either for fear of being captured again or in passionate gratitude. It looks as if he selfishly bore away his blessing and cared nothing for its giver. That is very human, and we all are too often guilty of the same sin. Nor was the effect on the multitudes much better, for they were only struck with vulgar wonder, which had no moral quality in it and led to nothing. They saw ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... selfishly given, where to receive Is hoped again, or when some end is sought, Or where the gift is proffered with a grudge, This is of Rajas, stained with ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... to me to give a negative to the hopes of the noble family, whose only disgrace is, that so very vile a man is so nearly related to them. But yet—alas! my dear, I am so fearful of consequences, so selfishly fearful, if this negative must be given—I don't know what I should say—but give me leave to suspend, however, this negative till ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... restitution of her family name. It may cost you something. Are you willing to buy it at a sacrifice? Your Uncle Silas," he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones that sounded almost terrible, "lies under an intolerable slander. He troubles himself little about it; he is selfishly sunk in futurity—a feeble visionary. I am not so. The character and influence of an ancient family are a peculiar heritage—sacred, but destructible. You and I, we'll leave one proof on record which, fairly read, will go far to convince ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... only stand by and give them freedom to unfold. I do not know whither they are going, but that is all the more a reason why I ought not to try to guide their footsteps. This is the final argument for the abolition of authority. We may beat and break a horse because we selfishly require a horse's service, and according to the accepted view a horse has no immortal soul. We dare not beat and break a child, for a child is going to an ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... heartily on your arrangements being completed, with some prospect for the future. It will be a noble voyage and journey, but I wish it was over, I shall miss you selfishly and all ways to a dreadful extent ...I am in great perplexity how we are to meet...I can well understand how dreadfully busy you must be. If you CANNOT come here, you MUST let me come to you for a night; for I must have one more chat and one more quarrel ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... for that oppressed child an avenger, or a supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king, the usurper—you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an inheritance to which a man has ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... convince a man that it is better on all accounts that he should keep his hands clean and he might answer, "Yes, I appreciate that; but I have never thought of my hands, and to keep them clean would make me conscious of them." Try to convince an unselfishly-selfish or selfishly-unselfish person that the right care for one's self means greater usefulness to others, and you will have a most difficult task. The man with dirty hands is quite right in his answer. To keep his hands clean ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... Yu mentioned in this stanza. Hwang-fu appears to have been the leading minister of the government at the time when the ode was written, and, as appears from the next two stanzas, was very crafty, oppressive, and selfishly ambitious. The mention of 'the chief Cook' among the high ministers appears strange; but we shall find that functionary mentioned in another ode; and from history it appears that 'the Cook,' at the royal and ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... from raw materials; corn, for example, fish, butter, horned cattle, leather, &c. And, that nothing may escape, all goods exported that are not contained in the book of rates, pay five per cent, ad valorem.' ii. 413. These export duties were selfishly levied in what was supposed to be the interest ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... of a number of people in my room, one day said that he would like to hang Secretary Bryan as high as Haman and President Wilson one foot higher. The American newspapers stated that I called a servant and had him thrown out of the Embassy. This statement is not entirely true: I selfishly kept that pleasure ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... life and survival of the race? Perhaps the evils of excess, called sin, were after all due to defects in social and political institutions that had applied incorrect regulative principles, or to the selfishly imposed religious fears which had driven the healthy instincts into tantrums. Rid man of these erroneous fears and of a political system begot for purposes of exploitation and see whether by returning to an age of primitive ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... a day of joy and happiness. Sunday afternoon games and recreation are fine, but one enjoys them more if one has been to church in the morning or spent part of the day in either solitary or community worship. Those parents who selfishly seek only their own pleasures every weekend, who do nothing but amuse themselves—are they likely to ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... dash and a less wide experience of varied warfare than his followers, they had far more of true, heroic endurance. The Greeks had reached that stage of individual culture where they were much too selfishly intelligent to be willing to die in battle. Pyrrhus withdrew from Italy. Grecian brilliancy was helpless against Roman strength ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... "I was, selfishly, only thinking of myself," said Alice, "and forgetting that you, at all events, would be exposed to the rain; so I hope that you will set to work and get the house up as soon as possible. I only wish ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... broken up her jewels for you," he said to himself; "your aunt shed tears over those relics of hers before she sold them for your sake. What right have you to heap execrations on Anastasie? You have followed her example; you have selfishly sacrificed others to your own future, and she sacrifices her father to her lover; and of you ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... distress of mind. Some one said to me at the close of a talk on worry, "some folks ought to worry more." Of course he meant that some people should bear their share of the responsibilities of life, instead of selfishly and lazily shirking them. There is a proper concern about matters for which we are responsible. A man never makes a good speech unless there is a feeling of concern, of apprehension lest there be failure in that for ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon |
