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Unselfishness   Listen
Unselfishness

noun
1.
The quality of not putting yourself first but being willing to give your time or money or effort etc. for others.
2.
Acting generously.  Synonym: generosity.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Unselfishness" Quotes from Famous Books



... of my life," said Amidon, grasping the little man's hand warmly, "I'm going to take the liberty of holding you as my friend. I know faithfulness and unselfishness when I see it, no matter if I don't quite ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... said very clearly, very slowly, but with a fitful nervous ring in his voice: "Go back to your homes! Would you hang this poor old woman without a trial? Can you not see that she has lost her mind and is not responsible for her acts? Let the law decide. Shall not her life of unselfishness and good deeds be put against this one insane act of her old age? Go back to your homes! Some of you are my friends, some my neighbors—I ask you for her but a fair trial ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore

... excite inquiry; and, though at first only reinforcing the idea of morality, they ultimately drew men out of themselves into aspirations after the infinite spirit, and developed the sense of dependence, of humility, of unselfishness, of spirituality. They produced indeed evil effects in pantheism and ideology;(740) but the results were partial, the good was general. The problem, What is truth?—was through their means remitted to men for reconsideration; and the answers to it elicited, ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... friend was evidently in excellent spirits, though silent and preoccupied, from which I inferred that he was satisfied with the results of his labours; but, as I sat by his side in the hansom, I forbore to question him, not from mere unselfishness, but rather from the desire to hear his evidence for the first time in conjunction with that ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, was due the splendid response to the call to arms of the Canadian people. He put duty before public applause of petty politics like a true Canadian. Future generations will do full credit to his unselfishness. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... stars impartially; and the Sweep, who sweeps away all blacks and blues over the edge of the world, and the Dustman, with his sack of Dream-dust that is Star-dust (or isn't it?), and so forth. Then you sprinkle the precious stuff on people, and they become miracles of content and unselfishness. (The fact that life isn't in the very least like that is a thing you have just got to make yourself forget for three ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 5, 1916 • Various

... object. The purpose of religion in the mind of the Indian is to gain the favorable, or to ward off evil, influences which the super-spirits are capable of bringing to the tribe or the individual. Goodness, unselfishness, truth-telling, respect for property, family, and filial duty, are cumulative by-products of communal living, closely connected with religious beliefs and conduct, but not their object. The Indian, like other people, has found by experience that honesty is the best policy among friends and neighbors, ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett

... the newly-appointed Cardinals were his dependents. Had he attempted to exert his power for his own election, he might have met with opposition. He chose to use it for what he considered the deepest Catholic interests. This unselfishness led to the selection of a man, Michele Ghislieri, whose antecedents rendered him formidable to the still corrupt members of the Roman hierarchy, but whose character was precisely of the stamp required for giving solidity to the new ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... to withhold sacrifice where it was needless. But I am not sure; perhaps he would have made her more unhappy, if he had attempted this; perhaps he was the only sort of man whom, in her sense of his own utter unselfishness, she could have given her heart to in perfect peace. She now talked brilliantly and joyously to me, but all the time her eye sought his for his approval and sympathy; he, for his part, was content to listen in a sort of beatific pride in her which he ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells

... law of good breeding is unselfishness, that thorough forgetfulness of one's own wants and comforts, and thoughtfulness for the happiness and ease of others, which is the Christian gentleman's rule of life; which makes him yield the easy chair to another ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost

... over the House of Commons. His popularity indeed was soon roughly shaken; for the ministry was hardly formed when it was announced that its leader had accepted the earldom of Chatham. The step removed him to the House of Lords, and for a while ruined the public confidence which his reputation for unselfishness had aided him to win. But it was from no vulgar ambition that Pitt laid down his title of the Great Commoner. The nervous disorganization which had shown itself three years before in his despair upon Temple's desertion had never ceased to hang around him, and it had been ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green

... age," cried that enthusiastic woman. "You Spaniards are the best people I ever saw. Your men absolutely emulate women in unselfishness." ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... are of the highest order. Every one in it is American. The doctors are the best in Paris. The nurses and orderlies are both especially trained for the work and volunteers. The spirit of helpfulness and unselfishness is everywhere apparent. Certain members of the American colony, who never in their lives thought of any one save themselves, and of how to escape boredom, are toiling like chambermaids and hall porters, performing ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis

... Sanselme, and troubled him as well. He had studied Jane so closely that he thoroughly understood her character, her goodness, unselfishness and passionate gratitude. He knew that she had not forgotten her mother, and would never do so, and that the reason she never mentioned her was because her pain and shame were quite as acute as ever. Jane's character was a singular mixture of audacity ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina

... at her sadly and jealously. "There's a power over us which is too strong for girls," said she, "and you've come under it, Ellen, and you can't help it." Then she added, with a great, noble burst of utter unselfishness: "And I'm glad, I'm glad, Ellen. That man can lift you out of ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... have almost invariably centered about a service to be rendered. Even the first petition for political enfranchisement urged it as the "duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves the elective franchise." Unselfishness draws numbers as a magnet draws steel filings. The spirit of service lying at the heart of the great national organizations made possible quick response to new duties immediately upon our entrance into the war. The suffragists said, We wish to serve and we are ready for service. The government used ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch

... the most impractical men that ever lived, but in the exuberance of his nature and in his rare unselfishness he started a dozen social reforms in England, any one of which should have given fame to its founder. He gave away a great fortune in gifts to the public and in private generosity. He founded museums, established scholarships, tried to put into practical working ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... unworldly country parson; an old-fashioned English Churchman, with great veneration for the Church and its bishops, and a great dislike of Rome, Dissent, and Methodism, but with a quick heart; with a frank, gay humility of soul, with great contempt of appearances, great enjoyment of nature, great unselfishness, strict and severe principles of ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... boyhood, among twelve other pupils. Mr. John Thornton, the schoolfellow friend and correspondent of his life, describes him as having been much beloved there. He had no scruple as to fighting rather than submitting to tyranny from a bigger boy, but his unfailing good nature and unselfishness generally prevented such collisions; he was full of fun, and excellent at games of all sorts; and though at one time evil talk was prevalent among the boys, his perfect purity of mind and power of creating innocent amusement destroyed the habit, without estranging the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... suffragists, Mrs. Davis invited the three women to spend a few days with her. After this visit, Mrs. Hooker wrote to a friend in Boston, "I have studied Miss Anthony day and night for nearly a week.... She is a woman of incorruptible integrity and the thought of guile has no place in her heart. In unselfishness and benevolence she has scarcely an equal, and her energy and executive ability are bounded only by her physical power, which is something immense. Sometimes she fails in judgment, according to the standards of ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... mastery over Nature and hence over their weaker fellow men. It is not virtue but knowledge to which they owe their strength. No doubt much virtue has gone to the making of that knowledge—virtues of patience, concentration, perseverance, unselfishness, without which the great body of knowledge of which we are the inheritors could never have been built up. But we late-born heirs of the ages have it in our power to take the knowledge of our fathers and cast away ...
— Progress and History • Various

... homely woman had put aside her own hopes of happiness for the sake of the sickly creature dependent on her! She had owned her affection for Duncan with the utmost simplicity; but in her unselfishness she refused to burden him with her responsibilities. If she married him she must do her duty by him and his children, and she felt that Phoebe would be a drag ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... denotes you will gain popularity by your amiability and unselfishness. To eat them, portends possession of some much desired object. To see green ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; these are the fruits of the Spirit: the spirit of unselfishness; the spirit of charity; the spirit of justice; the spirit of purity; the Spirit of God. Against them there is no law. He who is guided by this Spirit, and he only, may do what he would; for he will wish to do nought but ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley

... simple lessons on good conduct by attributing the many of the same traits of character to his feathered heroes and heroines that are to be found wherever the human race made its habitation. The praise-worthy qualities of courage, love, unselfishness, truth, industry, and humility are portrayed in the dealings of the field and forest folk and the consequential reward of these virtues is clearly shown; he also reveals the unhappy results of greed, jealousy, trickery and other character weaknesses. The effect ...
— The Tale of Cuffy Bear • Arthur Scott Bailey

... are too near me; they do not awaken in me that sense of their high superiority which would keep me here to be bettered, to be elevated. They have much, very much. I desire Mr. Alcott's strength of self-denial, and the unselfishness of Mr. Lane in money matters. In both these they are far my superiors. I would be meek, humble, and sit at their feet that I might be as they are. They do not understand me, but if I am what my consciousness, my heart, lead me to feel—if I am not deceived—why then I can wait. Yes, ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... the dupe of that cunning spirit of delusion which in various forms is resolved to cast God and a Redeemer and Immortality out of the universe, in compliment to man's wonderful elevation, purity, unselfishness, and philanthropy! One man tells me, with Shaftesbury, that he does not want any "immortal hopes," or any such "bribes" of "prudence" to make him virtuous or religious,—delicate, noble-minded creature!—that he can serve and love God equally well, though he were sure of being annihilated ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... Unselfishness is an acquired art. Children rarely have it. That is why the Greeks represented love of a certain kind as a boy, selfish, treacherous, ingratiating, blind ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... imperfection, 3:12-16. (7) Worthy meditations, 4:8-9. (8) Outline the information the book gives concerning Paul's condition at the time of the writing. (9) Point out all the teachings of the book on the necessity of cultivating unselfishness and the blessing derived from it. (10) The expression of joy and rejoicing. (11) The number of times our Lord, under different ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell

... sister stitched, and taught unconsciously as she stitched, lessons of love and patience, lessons of cheerful helpfulness and sweet unselfishness, which Will ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... the phenomenal side and learn the lofty teaching from such beautiful books as After Death or from Stainton Moses' Spirit Teachings. There is a whole library of such literature, of unequal value but of a high average. Broaden and spiritualize your thoughts. Show the results in your lives. Unselfishness, that is the keynote to progress. Realise not as a belief or a faith, but as a fact which is as tangible as the streets of London, that we are moving on soon to another life, that all will be very ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle

... they went away on that march from which he had never returned. He meant to be like him, if he was not, and he remembered all that his mother had told him of his gentleness, his high courtesy, his faithfulness, his devotion to duty, his unselfishness. So it was all natural enough to Floyd to be as he was. But a man can no more tell whether or not he is a crank than he can tell how old he looks. He was, however, without doubt, different in certain ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page

... thinks that he travels light because his intelligence tells him it is the better way; but, as a matter of fact, he does so because he is lazy. Throughout the entire campaign he borrows from his friends, and with that camaraderie and unselfishness that never comes to the surface so strongly as when men are thrown together in camp, they lend him whatever he needs. When the war is over, he is the man who goes about saying: "Some of those fellows carried enough stuff to fill ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis

... herself. So it is wisest to let her have her way. The man she loves so desperately may die at any moment, and then she will be free. But meanwhile she will have the consolation of doing all she can for him, and the hope of helping him to recover; vain hope as it may be, there is a divine unselfishness in it. For she says that if he is restored to health she will go away at once and never let him ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... the discordant elements whose harmony was essential to success, was an herculean task, requiring the utmost forbearance, unselfishness, and wisdom. And of all the great questions, dividing the framers of that Constitution, perhaps none of them required a higher degree of self abnegation and patriotism ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... face, as if it might slide off at any moment. Fay's violet eyes were her greatest charm. She looked at you with a deprecating, timid, limpid gaze, in which no guile existed, any more than steadfastness, any more than unselfishness, any more ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... It has been an inspiring thing to be here in the midst of fine men who had turned aside from every private interest of their own and devoted the whole of their trained capacity to the tasks that supplied the sinews of the whole great undertaking! The patriotism, the unselfishness, the thoroughgoing devotion and distinguished capacity that marked their toilsome labors, day after day, month after month, have made them fit mates and comrades of the men in the trenches and on the sea. And not the men here in Washington only. They have but directed ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... estimate the shock our rupture gave me, nor tell how I tried to say "don't care," and never saw my savage spite till her gentle rebuke showed it to me. Her rectitude and unselfishness kept up my faith in woman, and saved me from souring and hardening. On the other hand, her firmness won Theodora's respect, her softness, her affection. She led where I drove, acted the sun where I acted Boreas; and it is she who has restored us to ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... (The passage which seems to be referred to occurs in the text (page 479) of 'Prehistoric Times.' It expresses admiration of Mr. Wallace's paper in the 'Anthropological Review' (May, 1864), and speaks of the author's "characteristic unselfishness" in ascribing the theory of Natural Selection "unreservedly to Mr. Darwin." about Wallace in Lubbock's last chapter. I had not heard that Huxley had backed up Lubbock about Parliament...Did you see a sneer some time ago in the "Times" about how incomparably more ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... same question by Mr. Chamberlain's late father, which I had read in manuscript. Both the letter and the essay are on the negative side of the question, which, in the essay at least, is pronounced the happier and better view, as conducive to unselfishness. Unselfishness, it must surely be, of a supreme kind. Annihilation is not a cheerful word. Bacon has a highly rhetorical passage flouting the fear of death. His was probably not a very loving nature, nor does he seem to have thought of the ...
— No Refuge but in Truth • Goldwin Smith

... exist together on such terms without ever quarrelling? I doubt it. To make marriage the ideal we love to picture it in romance, the elimination of human nature is the first essential. Supreme unselfishness, perfect patience, changeless amiability, we should have to start with, and continue ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome

... cowardly thought possessed me only an instant. I recalled the old Esquimau's unselfishness in wanting me to escape and leave him when he was wounded, and determined that, if I ever reached the Henry ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various

... intoxicated; but this was not observed by them. They only believed that his hospitality was pushed a little too far,—so much so as to be rather annoying. But this was a fault they had observed in many, who were only trying to put on their best behaviour, and, considering its unselfishness, ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid

... grew in slender spires a new flower,—the Indian plume: the transformed blood of sacrifice. The people loved that flower in all years after. They decked their hair and dresses with it and made a feast in its honor. When parents taught their children the beauty of unselfishness they used as its emblem ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... Dinsmore, "I know of no one more competent to minister to the enjoyment of either grown people or children. As regards talent, sweetness of disposition, and utter unselfishness combined, our Vi is ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley

... The unselfishness of it all appealed to the simple heart of the youth. But the passion that had taken possession of him overrode his finer scruples. The selflessness of the woman was the mother in An-ina. The emotions of the man were the emotions ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... stirring situations in which some of the boys are called upon to exercise all their ingenuity and unselfishness. A story ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... sinner's Karma would be a matter of minor consequence. The fact that every thought and act through life carries with it, for good or evil, a corresponding influence on the members of the human family renders a strict sense of justice, morality, and unselfishness so necessary to future happiness and progress. A crime once committed, an evil thought sent out from the mind, are past recall—no amount of repentance can wipe out ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... eulogized him in their sermons, August 30, was Rev. Dr. Spalding, who thanked God for raising up a man whose life was remarkable "for its large consecration to Church and people, for its high earnestness, its sacrifices and unselfishness, its purity and truthfulness. God grant unto us all," he continued, "a desire to imitate this life in its devotion to others, and its trust ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... instinctively, whenever the figure of Paul flashes into my mind, to think of him as a child I have actually known. But Nell—she has no such reality of existence. She has been etherealized, vapourized, rhapsodized about, till the flesh and blood have gone out of her. I recognize her attributes, unselfishness, sweetness of disposition, gentleness. But these don't constitute a human being. They don't make up a recognizable individuality. If I met her in the street, I am afraid I should not know her; and if I did, I am sure we should ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials

... is, that they would like it also to sit well, and look well, on somebody else. The pleasure of being well dressed, or even of seeing well-dressed people—for I will suppose in my fair hearers that degree of unselfishness—be that pleasure great or small, is quite a different thing from delight in the beauty and play of the silken folds and colors themselves, for ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... instance of a veritable heroine in history, from Joan of Arc downwards, who was not in her private life as sweet, as gentle, and as womanly as she was high-couraged and undaunted when the moment came that summoned her energies to the encounter. Unselfishness is the cause in both cases, you may depend. People that are always so dreadfully afraid something is going to happen to them think a great deal more of self than anything else; and the same cause which makes them tremble at imaginary ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... wandering long, seeking work, and finding next to none—all the time upheld by the feeling that something was waiting for him somewhere, that he was every day drawing nearer to it. Not once yet had he lost heart. In very virtue of unselfishness and lack of resentment, he was strong. Not once had he shed a tear for himself, not once had he pitied his ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald

... have said so much that, with the expression of her grievance, her mood changed. She went back to her own room in the gallery, and sat there for a long time thinking. And she thought herself into a mood of absolute unselfishness, of absolute self-contempt, too. She said to herself that she was no good; that she had failed in all her efforts—in her efforts to get Edward back as in her efforts to make him curb his expenditure. She imagined herself to be exhausted; ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford

... general opinion of his age. Few men have written more finely, or with more evident sincerity, about truth and courage, about the essential equality of man,[52] about the duty of kindness and consideration to slaves,[53] about tenderness even in dealing with sinners,[54] about the glory of unselfishness,[55] about the great idea of humanity[56] as something which transcends all the natural and artificial prejudices of country and of caste. Many of his writings are Pagan sermons and moral essays of the best and ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar

... was a chief of the old school. Among all the Indians of the plains, nothing counts save proven worth. A man's caliber is measured by his courage, unselfishness and intelligence. Many writers confuse history with fiction, but in Indian history their women and old men and even children witness the main events, and not being absorbed in daily papers and magazines, these events are rehearsed over and over with few variations. Though orally ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... enough to fear the veiled threat which this communication contained, and the queen-regent appeared with him at the opening of the session. The scene which followed is pathetic in the extreme, and shows the magnanimity and unselfishness of Maria in a most striking manner. She spoke to the members of the Cortes, recalled their former struggles against the encroachments of the nobles, and urged them to prudent action, that there might be no further occasion for ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... open to women, have made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her intellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met with in life. Her unselfishness was not that of a taught system of duties, but of a heart which thoroughly identified itself with the feelings of others, and often went to excess in consideration for them by imaginatively investing their feelings with ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... mother and brothers, sitting and talking at the cool nightfall in the moonlit garden, Walter was as happy as the day was long. And when Power came to spend a week with them, again charming every one whom he saw with his cheerful unselfishness and engaging manners, and himself charmed beyond expression with all he saw at Walter's home, they agreed that nothing was wanting to make their happiness "an ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... speaking of this young soldier, who had not reached man's estate and who died as the bravest of men, I speak of all his brothers-in-arms and hail thousands like him in his name, which name becomes a great and glorious symbol; for at this time, when a prodigious wave of unselfishness and courage, surging up from the very depths of the human race, uplifts the men who are fighting and giving their lives for its future, they all resemble one another in the ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck

... life in general,' he added, rubbing his hands and chuckling, 'it's full of folly; full of something worse. Professions of trust, and confidence, and unselfishness, and all that! Bah, bah, bah! We see what they're worth. But, you mustn't laugh at life; you've got a game to play; a very serious game indeed! Everybody's playing against you, you know, and you're playing against them. Oh! it's a very interesting thing. There are deep moves ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens

... the bulk of Demorest's fortune was in Stacy's hands, was touched at this proof of his unselfish thought, and answered with equal unselfishness that he was concerned only by the fear of Mrs. Barker's disappointment. "Why, Lord! Phil, whether she's lost or saved her money it's nothing to me. I gave it to her to do what she liked with it, but I'm afraid she'll be worrying over what I think of it,—as if ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... stalked away without another word: he had said enough to put Jael's bosom in a flutter, and open a bright prospect to her heart; Miss Carden once disposed of in marriage, what might she not hope? She now reflected, with honest pride, that she had merited Henry's love by rare unselfishness. She had advised him loyally, had even co-operated with him as far as any poor girl, with her feelings for him, could do; and now Mr. Coventry was going to propose marriage to her rival, and she ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade

... was only natural that, now he had decided to forsake it, the monotonous humdrum fisher's life became almost unbearably irksome to him. Old Bill Maskell was not slow to observe this, and with the unselfishness which was so eminently characteristic of him, though he loved the lad as his own soul, he decided to shorten for him as far as possible the weary time of waiting, and send him away ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood

... The wonderful unselfishness of the Padre had a greater power to stir Buck's heart than any other appeal. His sacrifice must not be permitted without a struggle. He knew the man, and he knew how useless mere objection would be. Therefore his duty lay plain before him. ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum

... us inevitably away from ourselves, away from the super-requirements of our families. It demands of them and of ourselves an unselfishness that is born of a love that finds its expression in the service of God. And what is the service of God if it is not such an entering into the divine purposes and spirit that we become with God re-creators in the world—working factors in the higher evolution of ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall

... eighty-third year. The Queen wrote of her to King Leopold, who must have been well acquainted with her in his youth, "Her age, and her being a link with bygone times and generations, as well as her great kindness, amiability, and unselfishness, rendered her more and more dear and precious to us all, and we all looked upon her as a sort of grandmother." Sixty-two years before, when the venerable Princess was a charming maiden of eighteen, she had gloried in the tidings of her princely cousin's ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... her in uncomprehending wonder. He drew away another step. He accounted her mad, and, that he might humour her, he put by his own fears for the moment—a wonderful unselfishness this in the most nobly-born ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... of our New England faith," said I. "Absolute unselfishness,—the death of self,—such were its teachings, and such as Esther's the characters it made. 'Do the duty nearest thee' was the only message it gave to 'women with a mission;' and from duty to duty, from one self-denial to another, they rose to a majesty of moral ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... and by his sprightly wit and genial manners, made many friends. He had been there but six months when he was attacked by a serious illness. When the illness was at its height, and the life of the young prince was despaired of, an incident occurred which shows, in a manner not to be mistaken, the unselfishness and affection of Babar. It is thus related in the supplemental chapter to ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson

... my affection is boundless. I love you as a mother loves her child, as a lover loves his mistress, with absolute unselfishness. To me the toil, to you the pleasures; to me all sufferings, to you all happiness. Amuse yourself; continue your habits of luxury; go to theatres and operas, enjoy society and balls; I leave you free for all things. Dear angel, when you return to this nest ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac

... endurance, wisdom in council, eloquence, chivalrous friendship, family affection, faith to plighted word; but with these mingle virtues unknown to Hector or Achilleus, temperance, self-control, nobleness and unselfishness of aim, loyalty to an inner sense of right, the piety of self-devotion and self-sacrifice, refinement of feeling, a pure and delicate sense of the sweetness of woman's love, pity for ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... always glanced off from direct personal issues, as subtlely and successfully as if she had been a practised diplomatist. Sometimes these perpetual evadings and non-committals seemed to Dr. Macgowan like art; but they were really the very simplicity of absolute unselfishness; and, gradually, as he came to perceive and understand this, he came to have a reverence for Hetty. He began to be ashamed of the curiosity he had felt as to the details of the sorrow which had driven ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous

... satisfaction. We were out in the open air once more, and I had triumphed; I was quite sure that she would tell the first person she met, for, as I have said before, she was entirely taken up with me, and to have kept me to herself would have required far more strength and unselfishness than she at that moment possessed. She walked slowly through the churchyard, feeling much pleased to see that the curate had just left the vestry door, and that in a few moments their ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... decidedly this time; "Ruth is not going home. You're to go home, Hester. I happen to know that the Maynard children and the Craig boys have already shown patience and unselfishness toward your tyranny and unreasonableness—now, they're not going to be imposed on any longer. I'll have a voice in this matter myself. Either you'll stay in the club and agree to have Ruth for a member also, and be pleasant and kind to her, or else you can take your hat ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... her practical training. She knew all the inconveniences and anxieties of an insufficient and variable income. But she also knew the unselfishness, the affectionate give-and-take of a big family. She knew what miracles the loving patience of her mother daily performed. She knew the selflessness of her father, which kept him at the treadmill of his ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke

... station in life to which He has called us. But what a difference there is between making our dress our main consideration, and considering first and foremost the attire of the soul in meekness and truth, purity and unselfishness. They who are set upon these may be trusted to put the other in the right place. But, on the whole, the truly consecrated soul should study simplicity. It should not endeavour to attract notice by glaring colours or extravagant display. It ought not to seek a large variety of dresses and costumes, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... allowing a sliding scale of motives in people? Starving people and slaves, or people who are ugly and hateful, i.e., not really quite bright toward others, who impute mean, inaccurate motives to them, can only be patiently expected to have a very small area or even mote of unselfishness at first. A cross-section of our society to-day represents the entire geological formation of human nature for 40,000 years. We need but look on the faces of the men about us as we go down the street. All ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... terrified glance on Mr. Gibney's tortured face. Scraggs was certainly a coward at heart, but there was something in Mr. Gibney's unselfishness that touched a spot in his hard nature—a something he never knew he possessed. He bowed his head and two big tears stole down his ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne

... third class, which I ought to have had anyway having the third class of another order already, and THEIR GETTING NOTHING, or our all getting the 4th or 5th class and of course I choose that they should get something and so they did and for my aimable unselfishness in the matter they have frequently drunken my health. I was delighted when Somers got his for he was happier over it than I have ever seen him over anything and kept me awake nights talking about it. I consider it the handsomest order there is ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... were now riding the ranges. Even the clerk in the general store at Stacey's had volunteered. And Lorry had considered him anything but physically competent to "make a fight." But it wasn't all in making a fight. It was setting an example of loyalty and unselfishness to those fellows who needed such an impulse to stir them to action. Lorry thought clearly. And because he thought clearly and for himself, he realized that he, as an individual soldier in the Great War, would amount to little; ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... lips to her hand in silence. I felt overwhelmed by the suggestion, by the unselfishness, by the grandeur of it. I saw that the proposition stood before her mind in a totally different light from that in which it would present itself to most women. But, then, the outlook of an artist upon life and all the things in life is entirely different from that ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... needed for a side-glance at the work which Sir Walter Besant has done for men of letters. He has worked hard at the vexed and difficult question of copyright; he has founded an Authors' Club and an authors' newspaper; and he has devoted with marked unselfishness much valuable time and effort to the general well-being of the craft. He has stood out stoutly for the State recognition of authorship, and in his own person he has received it. Esprit de corps is a capital thing in its way. Whether it is well to have too ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray

... his sister's conversation with Miss Sherman on the way from Pompeii to Sorrento with an exultation which it would have been difficult for him to account for. He gloried in the sweet unselfishness, the simple goodness of the young girl. "My little Barbara," his heart sang; and full of this emotion when they reached Sorrento, he allowed the two ladies to go alone into the hotel, while he waited impatiently to look into Barbara's face ...
— Barbara's Heritage - Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters • Deristhe L. Hoyt

... Wilmet, having made up her practical mind that the going was necessary, only made light of that value at home which was Cherry's one comfort, and which made herself feel it so hard to part with her, that this very want of tact was all unselfishness. ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... feeling of being nothing but a trouble and a worry, an "alvays naughty" Hoodie, and never again was any one tempted to say that among the fairies invited to baby Julian's christening, those of sweet temper and unselfishness had been forgotten. ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth

... hope he will have made a good thing of it. It was a little sad to say farewell to all these good fellows and Campbell and his men. I do most heartily trust that all will be successful in their ventures, for indeed their unselfishness and their generous high spirit deserves reward. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... loved Maurice. She knew that, when he spoke the words, "My child," and jealousy of an unknown woman struck like some sharp weapon to her heart. She realised that he did not love her, yet so great was her simple unselfishness, that she did not dwell on the knowledge, or blame for an instant the selfishness which concentrated Maurice's mind so entirely upon himself and his own sorrow. Her only anxiety was how to help him. Her ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... no other satisfaction can compare with that of looking back across the years and finding that you have grown in self-control, in charity of judgment, in a sense of justice, in generosity, and in unselfishness. ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... so much that it shall perish as that it could not live—that it is not in its nature a real, that is, an eternal thing. His children are shadows—their life a dance, a sickness, a corruption. The very element of unselfishness, which, however feeble and beclouded it may be, yet exists in all love, in giving life its only dignity adds to its sorrow. Nowhere at the root of things is love—it is only a something that came after, some sort of fungous excrescence in the hearts of men grown helplessly ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... enough, the effect upon her was only a little less disturbing than upon him, for this first boy-love was a thing which no good woman could have treated lightly: its simplicity, its purity, its unselfishness were different to anything she had known—so different, for instance, to that affection which Count Courteau had bestowed upon her as to seem almost sacred—therefore she watched its growth with gratification not ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach

... SOLUTION OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS... Why should we be altruistic? What is the exact meaning of selfishness and unselfishness? Are altruistic impulses always right? What mental and moral obstacles hinder altruistic action? How can we reconcile egoism ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... she is, it is a very different matter to-day now that the police have found her out. She has been forced into hiding, and, if alone and without any friend to help her, her situation, to put it mildly, must be desperate in the extreme. You befriended her last night, and I honor you for the unselfishness with which you laid yourself open to the future attentions of that animal Rorke, but that very fact has deprived her of what might otherwise have been a refuge and a quite secure retreat here with you. I do not wish to intrude, or force myself upon her, but I believe I could be of ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard

... am sure of that. If I could be only half as worthy! You are full of courage and unselfishness, and, I could ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the southern body. The sun makes bodily men, makes very strong the chariot of the flesh. Sight and touch are needful, the actions of the body, to keep the truly southern spirit true. Maurice could neither touch nor see Hermione. In her unselfishness she had committed the error of dividing herself from him. The natural consequences of that self-sacrifice were springing up now like the little yellow flowers in the grasses of the lemon groves. With all her keen intelligence she made ...
— The Call of the Blood • Robert Smythe Hichens

... performing a highly-valued service on the merely nominal salary of a Fellow of an Indian College. She maintained her connection with the College simply from love to the College and the work. During her College career both she and her sister had given evidence of their unselfishness by declining, on more than one occasion, scholarships to which their position in the University examinations would have entitled them, in order that poorer students less high in the lists might have the benefit of the aid and rewards which they were willing ...
— Les Parsis • D. Menant

... want to let her off, and she would feel in honour bound to hold on, and really of all the things I can't abide self-sacrifice is.... Well, Lady Gwendolen, only consider the feelings of the chap on the altar! Hasn't he a right to a little unselfishness for his own personal satisfaction?" This was a sad wet ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... seems too formal for his grandeur. Plain "John D." is best suited to express the admiration of his worshippers, the general fame that shines like a halo about his head. He is Plutus in human guise; he is Wealth itself, essential and concrete. A sublime unselfishness has marked his career. He is a true artist, who pursues his art for its own sake. Money has given him nothing. He asks nothing of her. Yet he woos her with the same devotion which a lover shows to his mistress. Like other great men, Rockefeller has concentrated all his thoughts, all his energies, ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley

... lights, he was honestly in love with Mrs. Vansittart, but Percy Roden's lights were not brilliant, and his love was not a very high form of that little-known passion. It lacked, for instance, unselfishness, and love that lacks unselfishness is, at its best, a sorry business. He was afraid of ridicule. His vanity would not allow him to risk a rebuff. His was that faintness of heart which is all too common, and owes its ignoble existence to a sullen vanity. He wanted to be sure that ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman

... is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or a love of approbation, benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the lust of power? Or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as doctors say, "an effort of nature," to make ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... be recorded that with all this young gentleman's simplicity and unselfishness, with all his loyal attitude to his partners, his FIRST thought at the moment he grasped the fact of his wealth was of a young lady. It was Kitty Carter, the daughter of the hotelkeeper at Boomville, who owned the claim that the partners ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte

... shall grow to control his actions absolutely, even in anti-social situations. But they have not yet done so, and as the rules of law are or should be based upon a morality which is generally accepted, no rule founded on a theory of absolute unselfishness can be laid down without a breach between law ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... what they did. There is, however, a striking uniformity in all the records as to the simple faith and almost fatalistic conviction of Daniel Boone that he was called to be a pathfinder for the new nation in America. His courage, reverence, rugged honesty, and unselfishness, his childlike simplicity that was mixed with a certain shrewdness, at least in his dealings with the Indians, are, however, qualities in ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson

... Blair loved the widow with the unselfishness of a generous nature and a first passion. He had admired her from the first day his lot was cast in Laurel Spring, where coming from a rude frontier practice he had succeeded the district doctor in a more peaceful and domestic ministration. A skillful and gentle surgeon rather ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Denison was so essentially good, so single-minded and truthful, that her influence, even her too great unselfishness for their sake, had not radically injured her grandchildren. Her death had been preceded by a slow and gradual decline—none of those about her suspected the extent of the sufferings she hid so resolutely under a calm and cheerful exterior—and the end came ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth

... scourge whereof we cannot easily estimate the destructive force and the extent, it is also for multitudes of souls an expiation, a purification, a force to lift them to the pure love of their country and to perfect Christian unselfishness? ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various

... of God and His righteousness all these other things would naturally come to us. This is what Jesus had in mind when He urged people to give and serve, promising that such giving and serving should be returned to them a hundred fold or more. Jesus never preached unselfishness or talked sacrifice as such, but only urged His hearers to look through to the end, see what the final result would be and do what would be best for them in the long run. Jesus urged His followers to consider the spiritual things rather than the material, and the eternal things rather ...
— Fundamentals of Prosperity - What They Are and Whence They Come • Roger W. Babson

... Then Mr. Quintin arose and said. "Mr. President, I hear no second to Dr. McLaren's motion to postpone. His words have indeed touched my heart, and in their modesty and unselfishness I see only a confirmation that I am making a wise nomination. I am thoroughly convinced that I am commending the right man, and with all due respect to the opinion of Dr. McLaren, I now ...
— The Mystery of Monastery Farm • H. R. Naylor

... prudence only in regarding the consequences in another world instead of consequences in this.[196] Reward and punishment 'presuppose the notions of right and wrong' and cannot be the source of those notions. The favourite doctrine of association, by which the Utilitarians explained unselfishness, is only admissible as accounting for modifications, such as are due to education and example, but 'presupposes the existence of certain principles which are common to all mankind.' The evidence of such principles is established ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... not inquire too closely into the characters of the men whom she makes heroes of. We find, when we come to look into the matter, that but few of those who figured as the great men of the world have been entirely unselfish; and unselfishness is the test of a man who is really good and great. Judged by this test, General Oglethorpe stands among the greatest ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Vol. II - The Planting Of The First Colonies: 1562—1733 • Various

... part. Already she had assumed it; steadfast unselfishness, renunciation, patience, the heroism greater than all others, that sits with folded hands, quiet, unshaken, and under fearful stress, endures, and endures, and endures. To be the inspiration of ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... him he was ashamed at the joy that his coming so obviously brought her. He felt her purity, her unselfishness, her single-heartedness, her courage, her nobility in that triumphant welcome that she gave him. That she should care so much for any one so worthless, so fruitless as he had ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... and prosperity of the winners. There is also an indirect compensation which can hardly be measured, but which is known to exist, in the increased courage inculcated, the banishment of fear, the strengthened sense of devotion, heroism and self-sacrifice, and all those principles of manliness and unselfishness which are inspired through war and react so beneficially on the morals of a race. There are some, however, who contend that these compensations do not overbalance the pain, the heart-rending, the horrors, brutalities ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... thus preferring her wishes to his own touched Fay more than any pleading could have done. She was convinced of his unselfishness, and her confidence in him remained unshaken. For some time after the scene in the boat she was very shy; but seeing he avoided the forbidden subject, and unconsciously growing each day fonder of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... his stories of himself he told me stories of his friends, some of which were disgusting, some horrifying, and some stupid. But with it all he had an air as if he believed everybody at heart was bad, and as if morality and sobriety and unselfishness were mere ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed

... had once more to learn the lesson, 'Not as thou wilt, but as I will.' He was not above being taught by his failures. Some of us are; and it is very difficult, and needs a great deal of Christian wisdom and unselfishness, to distinguish between hindrances in the way of work which are meant to evoke larger efforts, and hindrances which are meant to say, 'Try another path, and do not waste ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... his thought of making money in the business. He would never do a single dishonest or questionable thing or try in any remotest way to get the advantage of any one else in the same business. The principle of unselfishness and helpfulness in the business would direct all its details. Upon this principle he would shape the entire plan of his relations to his employees, to the people who were his customers and to the general business world with which ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon

... away at once with so many qualities with one fell swoop, that one can hardly tell what is left. It puts amiability out of the question, and unselfishness and cheerfulness, and—and tact, and everything which makes us care for a person or not. When they ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... Krishna's teaching. For the maintenance of the world it is necessary that men should do the works of their respective castes, and these works do not operate as karma to the detriment of the future life of their souls if they perform them not from selfish motives but as offerings made in perfect unselfishness to the Lord. This is the doctrine of Karma-yoga, discipline of works, which is declared to lead the soul of the worshipper to salvation in the Lord as effectually as the ancient intellectualism preached in the Upanishads and the Samkhya philosophy. ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett

... his change of residence to the local distributor of pensions; and one or two farewells had to be taken, with more than usual sadness at the necessity; for Philip, under his name of Stephen Freeman, had attached some of the older bedesmen a good deal to him, from his unselfishness, his willingness to read to them, and to render them many little services, and, perhaps, as much as anything, by his habitual silence, which made him a convenient recipient of all their garrulousness. So before the time for his departure came, he had the opportunity ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... appears to be a simple act of unselfishness, I endeavor to persuade him to take the other, pointing out that he has three mouths to fill while I have only one. My importunities are, however, wasted on so polite and disinterested a person, and so I reluctantly take possession ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... sometimes vexed at my sober ways. I was at times gay enough, but at others she would reproach me with not taking more pains to please her guests. Society, she said, had duties as well as pleasures. My friend Jack no one fully understood in those days, nor knew the sweet manhood and the unselfishness that lay beneath ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... whole life, as in the case of Frederick Norman—passion in itself is not a form of mental derangement in the medical sense. And it does not produce acute selfishness, paranoiac egotism, but a generous and beautiful kind of unselfishness. Not from the first moment of Fred Norman's possession did he wish to injure or in any way to make unhappy the girl he loved. He longed to be happy with her, to have her happy with and through him. He represented his plotting to himself as a plan to make her happier than she ever had been; as for ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... he not thought of it? Eunice Mountjoy, with her calm, cool head, her perfect unselfishness, her entire devotion to the good of others; Eunice, who was known and blessed wherever throughout the village there was sickness, suffering, or want; Eunice, who had many a time helped him out of a perplexity,—Eunice was the very person. ...
— Katie Robertson - A Girls Story of Factory Life • Margaret E. Winslow

... appointed ranches in Alberta. The chairman was, of course, Reverend Evans Rhye. The parson was a little Welshman, fat and fussy and fiery of temper, but his heart was warmly human, and in his ministry he manifested a religion of such simplicity and devotion, of such complete unselfishness as drew to him the loyal affection of the whole community. Even such sturdy Presbyterians as McTavish, the Rosses, Angus Frazer and his mother, while holding tenaciously and without compromise to their own particular ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... would not, and even dare not, trail across a friend's mind? So often the heart holds more than ever should be poured out into another's ear. There are in life strained silences that we could not break if we would. And there is a law of reticence that true love and unselfishness will always respect. If my brother hath joy, am I to cloud it with my grief? If he hath sorrow, am I to add my sorrow unto his? When our precious earthly fellowship has been put to its last high uses in the hour of sorrow or shame, the ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth

... more Philosophy than many suppose. It is unfortunate that the unworldly Coleridge and the worldly Thackeray should have both pitched upon Lamb's "saintliness" to make copy of. Nothing infuriated him more than such a tone towards himself. And he was right to be infuriated. His "unselfishness," his "sweetness," of which these good men make so much, were only one aspect of the Philosophy of his whole life. Lamb was, in his life, a great epicurean philosopher, as, in all probability, many other "saints" have been. The things in him that fretted ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys

... firing individually, almost abandoned to themselves, that they do not answer the shots directed at them, by near skirmishers, but aim at a distant body, which is not harming them, is to ask an impossible unselfishness. ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq

... or no resemblance to the woman who had died. But eagerly she helped him in this building of Amy's memory. She dwelt upon Amy's appealing side, her lovable moods, her beauty and dash, her unerring instinct for pretty things, her unselfishness, her anxious ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... acknowledge that the Sisters are far ahead and above any organization of the sort of which Protestantism can boast. The self-sacrifice, the devotion, the single-mindedness, the calm trust in a Power unseen, the humility of manner and rare unselfishness which characterize the Sisters, has no parallel in any organization of the reformed faith. The war placed the claims of the Sisters of Charity fairly before the country; but these Sisters of the different branches have, in peace, 'victories no less renowned ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... to a discipline of almost incredible minuteness in detail, and of extraordinary rigour in application. And this discipline had actually brought into existence a wonderful average of character,—a character of surprising patience, unselfishness, honesty, kindliness, and docility combined with high courage. But only the evolutionist [162] can imagine what the cost of developing ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... my thoughts went on, and found that this ideal of nature required of us something beyond good. The conception of moral good did not satisfy one while contemplating it. The highest form known to us at present is pure unselfishness, the doing of good, not for any reward, now or hereafter, nor for the completion of an imaginary scheme. This is the best we know. But how unsatisfactory! Filled with the aspirations called forth by the ideal before me, it appeared as if even the saving of life is a little work compared to what ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies

... household gathers three times a day furnishes the chief opportunity for showing the results of good training, whether received in school or home. We show our unselfishness in preferring one ...
— A Little Book for A Little Cook • L. P. Hubbard

... was purely individual and remedial; it did not seek to understand or to cure the causes of social maladjustment; it was sustained by no expectation of better conditions among men; it was valued because of the giver's unselfishness rather than because of the recipient's gain, and in consequence it was for the most part unregulated alms-giving, piously motived but inefficiently managed. In the eighteenth century a new outlook and hope emerged. If man could pioneer new lands, learn new truth and make new inventions, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick

... of it, then? Or, if you must, remember that in his surpassing unselfishness he saved you much anxiety; for you ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... man. There were others then besides himself, he thought, as he grasped it, who were making this fight for bread and glory; there was something else in the great city besides cruelty and misery, money-getting and money- spending—something of unselfishness, sympathy and love. ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith

... belonged to Mrs. Marx; universally esteemed and looked up to and welcomed by all her associates. She was not handsome; she was even strikingly deficient in the lines of beauty; and refinement was not one of her characteristics, other than the refinement which comes of kindness and unselfishness. Mrs. Marx would be delicately careful of another's feelings, when there was real need; she could show an exceeding great tenderness and tact then; while in ordinary life her voice was rather loud, her movements were free and angular, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... particularly grateful to us. Whatever opinion might be ultimately come to concerning the value of his theory, there could be but one about the value of the example he had set to men of science generally by the perfect frankness and unselfishness of his work. Friends and foes alike combined to do homage to ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... remember, Mr. President, that the American people have not had for fifty years a President who was not at this period in a campaign bending all of his power to purely personal and political ends. Your ideality and unselfishness are so rare that things need to be made particularly clear ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... higher duty than to follow it, we should seek to meet those whose aims were incompatible with it as we meet things physically inconvenient, without insulting them as if they were morally vile or logically contemptible. Real unselfishness consists in sharing the interests of others. Beyond the pale of actual unanimity the only possible unselfishness is chivalry—a recognition of the inward right and justification of our enemies fighting against us. This chivalry has long been practised in the battle-field without abolishing ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana

... openly hostile to him, were cold and indifferent, and some of them were steadily abusive. This led to a rather wide- spread feeling that "where there is smoke, there must be fire''; and we who knew the purity of his purpose, his unselfishness, his sturdy honesty, labored ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... said—"I almost believe you are. Men are selfish,—much more selfish than women. Nature made them so in the first instance,—and our methods of education and training all tend to intensify our natural bent. But"—here he paused and looked at her thoughtfully; "I am not sure that absolute unselfishness would be a wise or strong trait in the character of a man. You see the first thing he has to do in this world is to earn the right to live,—and if he were always backing politely out of everybody else's way, and allowing himself to be hustled to one side in an unselfish desire ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... intellectual concerns Helen soon left Isabel behind. A year the elder, she was also the more dominant, and had always taken the lead in their mutual affairs. Isabel, who had a will of her own, did not always follow; but there was never any struggle for precedence, and Helen's unselfishness prevented her from ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... me, Gloria, to be the crux of our endeavors. But when we speak of unselfishness, as we now have it in mind, we are entering a hitherto unknown realm. The definition of selfishness yesterday or to- day is quite another thing from the unselfishness that we have in view, and which we hope and expect ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House

... in a stable, not in the quad of Balliol. These thirty years were packed with the happiness and success which Matthew Arnold desired for them that must die young. He not only succeeded, but he took success modestly, and leaves a name for unselfishness and unbumptiousness. Also he 'did the State ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens

... the charmed circle of Miss Billy's radiant personality without a vast increase of good cheer, of insistent optimism and outgoing unselfishness. She is one of the vital characters that vitalize everyone."—Christian ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts

... Teacher's secret of living; He, the man of sorrows, was the man who could bequeath to His friends His joy. To Him life lost its anxiety, because the chief things of life were not food or raiment, or even social standing, but manhood and unselfishness to men, and the possibilities of these were as easily realized in need and adversity as in ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... Lord Denbigh visited the East. On the outbreak of the Civil War he served under Prince Rupert and was present at Edgehill. On the 3rd of April 1643 during Rupert's attack on Birmingham he was wounded and died from the effects on the 8th, being buried at Monks Kirby in Warwickshire. His courage, unselfishness and devotion to duty are much ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... dear fellow, if you please," said Hall, with mock of state—he was quite the Perfect Fool again. "Mr. Mark Strong condescends to dine with me, and in that utter unselfishness of character peculiar to him insists on paying the bill—don't you, ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton

... fresh story of what is the result in a young girl's life when it is governed by unselfishness and a sense of ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... Madame Nelson felt the inner necessity of running away with a handsome young tutor. She did this less out of passion than to convince the world—after having thoroughly fleeced it—of the unselfishness of her feelings. For it was her ambition to be counted among the ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann

... who could now easily receive the boy as well as himself, since their house and their general worldly condition had been so much bettered by their friend, sir Gibbie! With them Davie would see genuine life, simplicity, dignity, and unselfishness—the very embodiment of the things he held constantly before him! There might be some other reason behind the earl's request which it would be well for him to know; but he would sooner discover that by a free consent than by hanging back: anything bad it could hardly be! He ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald



Words linked to "Unselfishness" :   altruism, generosity, selflessness, generousness, selfishness, unselfish, sharing, share-out



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