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Self-forgetful   /sɛlf-fɔrgˈɛtfəl/   Listen
Self-forgetful

adjective
1.
Showing lack of self-interest.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Self-forgetful" Quotes from Famous Books



... young lad in one of the lower grades of school work. He had been seriously sick for weeks, and the teacher to whom he wrote sat with him and ministered to his comfort after the weary hours of her school work were over. This lad appreciated her self-forgetful kindness; his heart was touched, and as she left the malarial atmosphere of this Southern country for brief rest in her Northern home, this boy sent her this letter. His letter is "phonetic" and of the individual type, but I venture that the tearful prayer going ...
— American Missionary, August, 1888, (Vol. XLII, No. 8) • Various

... in spite of herself into the errors of her time, redeemed her character by her romantic heroism, her unselfish devotion, and her final revolt against what seemed to be an inexorable fate. The struggle between her self-forgetful love for the knightly Chevalier d'Aydie and her sensitive conscience, her refusal to cloud his future by a portionless marriage, and her firmness in severing an unholy tie, knowing that the sacrifice would ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... thro' the live-long summer, tried, A pure devotion we may see; The ebb and flow of Nature's tide; A self-forgetful sympathy. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... objects have a worth in themselves, and rights of their own which we must respect. They resent our attempts to bring them into subjection to ourselves. We must surrender to them, we must take the attitude of humble and self-forgetful suitors, if we would win the best gifts they have to give, and claim them ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... true-hearted, self-forgetful older sisters rarely ever honor them half enough for their sacrifices, their unselfishnesses, the influence of their gentle purity and their hallowed love. Many a sister has denied herself everything, and has worn out her very life, for a brother who in his wealth or fame too ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller

... letters I know nothing so rare as this.' To the gibe about 'Muscular Christianity' Kingsley had his own answer. He said that with his tastes and gifts he had a special power of appealing to the wild rough natures which were more at home in the country than the town, who were too self-forgetful, and too heedless of the need for culture and for making use of their opportunities. Jacob, the man of intellect, had many spiritual guides, and the poor outcast, Esau, was too often overlooked. As he said, 'The one idea of my life was to tell Esau that he has a birthright as well as Jacob'. ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... glancing at Mary, who was already bending with self-forgetful devotion above her mother's pillow, and before Mr. Sinclair could ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh

... and only dreading the slightest interruption, the smallest duty. I know by some subtle sense that I am seldom absent from Maud's thoughts; but, with her incredible courage and patience, she betrays nothing by word or glance. She is absolutely patient, entirely self-forgetful; she quietly relieves me of anything I have to do; she alters arrangements a dozen times a day, with a ready smile; and yet it almost seems to me as if ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... learn your secret?" asked the girl wistfully, for there was nothing in the man's manner to disturb her self-forgetful mood, but much to foster it, because to the solitary worker this confiding guest was as welcome as the doves who often hopped ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... from day to day, In such a self-forgetful way, That even when I kneel to pray, My ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... I did not stop until I was in the middle of my room; and then I stood still for a long time in a self-forgetful ecstasy, while the many wax candles of the high candelabrum burned without a flicker in a rich cluster of flames, as if lighted to throw the splendour of a celebration upon ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... means so unhappy as he looks, for, where you see a furrow in the brow, or a mouth a little open, it portends absorption rather than thoughtfulness—unless, indeed, it means adenoids—and is the mark of a naturally self-forgetful nature; nor should you suppose that poverty and dirt which abound, as you see, even under the sway of the Laborious, is necessarily deterrent to the power of living in the moment; it may even be a symptom of that ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... are being urged by the ministers of doom—the flames bite them, the devils fish for and catch them with long grappling-hooks:—in sad contrast to the group on the opposite side, a queen, condemned herself but self-forgetful, vainly struggles to rescue her daughter from a demon who has caught her by the gown and is dragging her backwards into the abyss—her sister, wringing her hands, looks on in agony—it ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... and was an active member of the Radical or Chestnut Street Club, thirty years later; but her chief distinction was the introduction of Froebel's Kindergarten teaching, by which she well-nigh revolutionized primary instruction in America. She was a most self-forgetful person, and her scholars ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... every sense in him was covetously striving to hold and fix the experiences of the last half-hour. The white muffled figure standing in the turret door, the faint lamp light streaming on the bent head and upraised arm—those tones of self-forgetful passion, drawn straight, as it were, from the pure heart of love—the splendid energy of that last defiance of fate and circumstance—the low vibrations of her dying words—the power of the actress and the personality of the woman,—all these different impressions were holding ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... poet of deep and self-forgetful feeling must, we venture to think, survive when mannered muses are forgotten. Mr. Gibson is such a poet.... It is his distinction to belong to the school of Wordsworth in an age which is generally too clever, hasty, and conscious to wait upon "the still ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

... man from her ill-gotten earnings. Either the man was her husband, who had driven her on the street in order that he might live in luxury and ease, or else he was her paramour, upon whom with a woman's self-forgetful devotion she delighted to shower everything that she could earn. In addition to this form of slavery I also found that the majority had to pay a certain percentage of their earnings to some individual or organization who had promised ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... could not forbear to look out upon the singer. She was small and looked very pale under the white light of the high windows. She was singing alone, a wonderful thing in itself, and in her eyes was neither fear nor maidenly shrinking; she was indeed thrillingly absorbed and self-forgetful. There was something singular and arresting in the poise of her head. Her eyes seemed to look through and beyond the prison walls, far into some finer, purer land than any earthly feet had trod, and her song had a touch of genuine ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... now dwelt on Horace and the circumstances of their brief past together, the memory of his honest, tender, self-forgetful attitude toward her recurred to her half wistfully, in contrast to her recent experiences. Lord Hurdly's manner toward her had, in truth, changed from the very hour of their marriage. He no longer had the air of a solicitous suitor, but took at once that of the assured ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... saw from its windows. Her father watched her, and could not observe that she was either timid or excited in the prospect of the new scenes upon which she was about to enter. Her big brown eyes were wide open, busy and interested, at the same time wholly self-forgetful. Self-forgetful they remained when arriving at the house, and when she was introduced to the family; and her manner consequently left nothing to be desired. Yet house and grounds and establishment were on a scale to which Dolly hitherto had been ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... away from his face and eyed Bland with lofty tolerance. "And where do you expect to come in? You needn't kid yourself into hoping I'll take you for a self-forgetful martyr person. What's ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower

... is exclusively severe and tragic. The public was divided concerning the merit of the new work. Already the notion of a music of the future had been conceived, and the notion suggested that only in a more self-forgetful future would a work of such severity and of such lofty aim ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews



Words linked to "Self-forgetful" :   unselfish



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