"Public-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peonage, a crime under the Federal statutes, was being flagrantly practised in the State. This allegation was supported by a voluminous brief, giving names and dates and particular instances of barbarity. The colonel was not without some quiet support in this movement; there were several public-spirited men in the county, including his able lieutenant Caxton, Dr. Price and old General Thornton, none of whom were under any obligation to Fetters, and who all acknowledged that something ought to be done to purge the State of ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... bless the woman with the black mittens, for making me laugh so this morning! I take her to be a kind of public-spirited Mrs. Sparsit, and as such take her to my bosom. God bless you both, my dear friends, in this Christmas and New Year time, and in all times, seasons, and places, and send you to Gad's Hill with ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda. I, less of a humbug than you, neither applaud myself for my pleasure nor ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... trash cans at the street corners needed paint, or the park trees needed trimming, or the new hospital needed an additional bed, or the band needed new uniforms, Mrs. Handy might be seen on the streets with two or three women of a much better social status than she had, making it clear that she was a public-spirited woman and that she moved in the best circles. Whereupon Abner Handy got work in the court-house—as a deputy, or as a clerk, or as an under-sheriff, or as a juror—and when the legislature met he went to Topeka ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... a nightmare fear lest they should at last become so numerous that they would be driven out of the towns into the country and would be scuttling over the moors, downs and woods like black beetles in kitchens in the night. They were better than she had been, these children; more public-spirited and more in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... may not be improper to observe, that several eminent men had appeared in England, who, pitying the miserable state of the western world with respect to religion, had proposed some public-spirited design for the propagation of the gospel among the heathens on that vast continent. Robert Boyle, no less distinguished for his eminent piety than universal learning, had been appointed by Charles II. governor of a corporation established for the propagation of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... disease. Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar had found the sweets of arbitrary power, and each being a check to the other's growth, struck up a false friendship amongst themselves and divided the government betwixt them, which none of them was able to assume alone. These were the public-spirited men of their age—that is, patriots for their own interest. The commonwealth looked with a florid countenance in their management; spread in bulk, and all the while was wasting in the vitals. Not to trouble your lordship with the repetition of what you know, ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... spend his money upon demoralising amusement; or if, again, he tries to succeed by quackery instead of by the production of honest work, he is, of course, so far mischievous and immoral. But a man whose aims are public-spirited, nay, even if they be such as simply tend to improve the general comfort; who develops, for example, the resources of the country, and introduces new industries or more effective modes of manufacture, is, undoubtedly, in fact conferring a benefit upon his fellows, and may, so far, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... to 'em straight—asking 'em politely. They're public-spirited, y'know. Hitting 'em with a club would be another thing. It's an easy-going nation, but kings have been sorry they tried force. Did you never hear of a king who used force ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... The public-spirited lady met the little boy on the street. Something about his appearance halted her. She stared at him in ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... confuse the ethics of the young soldiers? Why take the pains to urge that it was vain to lecture and march abstract virtues into them, so long as the "champion boodler" of the town was the man whom the boys recognized as a loyal and kindhearted friend, the public-spirited citizen, whom their fathers enthusiastically voted for, and their mothers called "the friend of the poor." As long as the actual and tangible success is thus embodied, marching whether in kindergartens or brigades, talking whether ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... and larger privileges; and for the sake of power to strip themselves of the resources which alone could give their power any meaning. But good government in the Middle Ages was only another name for a public-spirited and powerful monarchy. Such monarchies existed in the western states; they rested upon the shoulders of a middle class of small landowners and wealthy merchants, too weak to defend themselves in a state of nature, a ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... to Tempest's exploit in rescuing me from the fire; and secondly, to Crofter's caution in declining to enter for the Mile race at the coming Sports. A few weeks had dispelled the little glamour which the latter had derived from his apparently public-spirited conduct last term, and the attitude of the Philosophers had effectually deprived him of any opportunity of exercising his authority, and left him to the enjoyment of an ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... acknowledges the liberal assistance afforded him by the Hudson's Bay Company, in the collection of specimens. Indeed, to this public-spirited body are we indebted for our earliest systematic knowledge of the Hudson's Bay birds. The reader may likewise witness a few living evidences of the Company's liberality, in the fine collection of eagles and owls presented ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... mind of the idea that because a man tries to understand a thing he therefore defends it. But I can see how they would defend it to their own consciences—just as these thrifty Whig farmers hereabout explain in their own minds as patriotic and public-spirited their itching to get hold of Johnson's Manor. Try and look at things in this light. Good and bad are relative terms; nothing is positively and unchangeably evil. Each group of men has its own little world of reasons and motives, its own atmosphere, its own standard of right and wrong. If you shut ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... interesting building in this section of old Boston is Faneuil Hall, the "Cradle of Liberty" whose dignified, old-fashioned proportions were not lost—thanks to Bulfinch—when it was enlarged. A gift of a public-spirited citizen, this building has served in a double capacity for a hundred and seventy-seven years, having public market-stalls below and a large hall above—a hall which is never rented, but used freely by the people whenever they wish to discuss ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... interests by way of conflicting at many points with the laws of his country and with its well-being. He did not take this conflict very seriously. He was still reflected in the mirror of his own mind as a patriotic and a public-spirited citizen; but at the same time his ambition was to conquer, and he did not scruple to sacrifice both the law and the public weal to his own prosperity. All unknowingly he began to testify to a growing and a decisive division between the two primary interests ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... African Association in 1788, no certain information was obtained concerning Central Africa. While British enterprise and courage had made most important discoveries in every other quarter of the world, the ignorance which prevailed concerning Africa was felt to be most discreditable. A few public-spirited individuals, desirous of wiping away this stigma, formed themselves into an Association, and subscribed the requisite funds for the purpose of sending out intelligent and courageous travellers upon this hazardous mission. The management ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... possession, but as a practical means to a definite end. They are being taught that mind-training is the logical helpmeet of hand-training, and that both, supplemented and sweetened by heart-training, make the high-souled, useful, productive, patriotic, law-loving, public-spirited citizen, of whom any nation might well be proud. The outcome of such education will be that, instead of the downtrodden child of ignorance, shiftlessness, and moral weakness, we shall generate the thoroughly rounded man ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... at a time when goods had to be carted all the way from Connecticut, over rivers and mountains to the Ohio, and then floated down river by flatboat, with a high tariff for every pound of freight. Young Israel was public-spirited, and, having been at so great cost and trouble to get this library out to the wilderness, desired his fellow-colonists to enjoy it with him. It would have been unfair not to distribute the expense, so a stock company was formed, and shares ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... Thomas H. Benton had fought for this through a long lifetime. He died too soon to see the full apotheosis of the squatter, who gradually developed, in point of law, from the criminal stealing the public land to the public-spirited pioneer in whose interest a wise Congress ought to shape its laws. Under the influence of this new Homestead Law, aided by the Preemption Law, which remained in force, land titles were established in the Mountain States as rapidly as the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... matter is, I object to taxation only in so far as it affects me. I have no objection to other folk being taxed, but I do not fancy being taxed myself. I agree with Brother Harland that there is palpable injustice in making an industrious and public-spirited man pay for the so-called privilege of building himself a home; he pays the carpenters and masons and painters for making that home, and he is then expected to pay the city and the State for having invested his hard ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... are soon at the Battery where without halting we proceed on board the steamboat "John Potter" and stack arms. There is running to and fro of friends in pursuit of oranges and lemons—so cool and refreshing on the hot march—and a dozen little trifles with which haversacks are soon stuffed. One public-spirited individual in the crowd seizes the basket of an ancient orange-woman, making good his title in a very satisfactory way, and tosses the glowing fruit indiscriminately among the troops, who give him back their best "Bully Boy!" with ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood
... don't infect them. It is advisable, and well worth the trifling trouble and expense, to fumigate thoroughly with formalin all churches, theatres, and schoolrooms at least once a month. Reasonable and public-spirited precautions of this sort are advisable, not only to avoid colds themselves, which are disagreeable and dangerous enough, but because mild infections of this sort are far the commonest single means of making a breach in our body-ramparts through which more ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... or "Barkis is willin'," or something of that kind. This manner of regarding human beings as homogeneous is preserved even by the great Moliere. Harpagon is nothing but miserly, although Harpagon might as well have been at once miserly and a financial genius, a fine father, and a public-spirited citizen. What is worse yet, his "defect" is of distinct advantage to his son-in-law and daughter, who are his heirs, and for that reason should not find fault with him, even if they have to wait a little for their wedding. I do not believe, ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... other New England towns. It does not assimilate readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... under which they are conducted, but yet the history of these schools, until within a few years, was one of struggle against parsimony and prejudice. It was only by persistent efforts on the part of a few public-spirited citizens, who believed that money spent in educating the masses is the best investment that can possibly be made, that the Public School system of Cleveland has attained its present excellence, and the miserable make-shift school ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... 25. Attend a meeting of some public-spirited men, at Samuel Coots's store near the Gap, for the purpose of agreeing upon the construction of a bridge across the river near the store; for cutting down the face of the Gap Rock; for making a new road through the Cut; and for raising funds ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... advertise yourself to all the world," he snarled, "as an unworthy Pontiff and a contemptible caitiff. You attempt to entrap me into the meanest unfairness! You pose as a public-spirited citizen solicitous about the sanctity of the worship of Vesta and I find you a pettifogging wretch actuated by spite and malice. You desire not a fair test, but the ruin of a woman you are low-minded enough to hate. Eugh!" With one of his excesses of unconventional energy he flung the ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... whole capital which was to be employed in those improvements of which the returns are the most slow and distant, such as the improvements of land. To promote such improvements was even said to be the chief of the public-spirited purposes for which it was instituted. By its liberality in granting cash-accounts, and in discounting bills of exchange, it, no doubt, issued great quantities of its bank notes. But those bank notes being, the greater part of them, over and above what the circulation of the country could easily ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... it is to be public-spirited!" mourned Raymonde to her chums afterwards. "I'm sure I gave everybody a treat, and especially Gibbie. I'm a martyr to the cause of emergencies. For goodness' sake don't any of you drink poison by mistake, or they'll lay the blame on me and send ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... fled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, and telegraph, ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... of the two candidates, though differing in every other respect, afforded a beautiful tribute to the merit and high worth of the electors of Eatanswill. Both expressed their opinion that a more independent, a more enlightened, a more public-spirited, a more noble-minded, a more disinterested set of men than those who had promised to vote for him, never existed on earth; each darkly hinted his suspicions that the electors in the opposite interest had certain swinish and besotted infirmities which rendered them unfit for the ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... throne, and in this way most of the old dynasties ended and new ones began. The course of events brought about such a state of affairs in the nineteenth century. Though the Chinese have never been content with their Manchu rulers, they submitted to them as long as they were just and public-spirited. But in time this dynasty suffered the fate of all others, weak emperors following the strong ones, and in the reign of the incompetent Kea-king, who succeeded Keen Lung, rebellions broke out in a dozen quarters, pirates ravaged the coast, and the disaffection extended throughout ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... A Parliament is to make choice of understanding, able and public-spirited men to be Leaders of an Army in this case, and to give them Commissions and Power, in the name of the Commonwealth, to manage the work ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... can conceive, till he comes to try it, how great a pain it is to be a public-spirited person. I am sure I am unable to express to the world, how much anxiety I have suffered, to see of how little benefit my Lucubrations have been to my fellow-subjects. Men will go on in their own way in spite of all my labour. I gave Mr. Didapper a private ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... my thanks in particular to the American Geographical Society of New York, and still more especially to the American Museum of Natural History of New York, with whom I have had the honour of being connected more or less closely for ten years. To its public-spirited and whole-souled President, Mr. Morris K. Jesup, I am under profound obligations. I also take pleasure in acknowledging my indebtedness to Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who initiated my Mexican ventures with a subscription of $1,000; furthermore to the Hon. Cecil Baring, Mr. Frederick ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... us feel at home. It joined us and it quitted us from time to time, as the whim took it, but it did not abandon us wholly till we showed a disposition to believe in that lake of Curtius, so called after those three public-spirited heroes, the first being a foreigner. Then the cat, which had more than once stretched itself as if bored, turned from us in contempt and went and lay down in a sunny corner near the tomb of ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... seldom figure there. Some 1,700 Jews live in the towns, and seem more numerous and prominent in the north than in the south. They belong to the middle class; many are wealthy. These are often charitable and public-spirited, and active in municipal rather ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... the Argus Leader, had, probably, no idea of the mass of literature with which the theme was potential, and the way the papers, even outside the State, have followed his lead must be flattering to him both as an editor and public-spirited citizen. My indebtedness to Mr. Tomlinson for some of my facts being thus cheerfully acknowledged, let me plunge in medias res into the turbid waters of the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... the easiest, cheapest, and pleasantest way of establishing what ought to exist, I think, in connection with every institution like this, namely, a museum. If the young men were really ready and willing to collect objects of interest, I doubt not that public-spirited men would be found, who would undertake the expense of mounting them in a museum. And you cannot imagine, I assure you, how large and how interesting a museum might be formed of the natural curiosities of a neighbourhood like this, I may say, indeed, of any neighbourhood or ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... he" went free. Our old jailer took good care that he should hear what good times they were having and laughing at him for being caught. Indeed, he liked it so little that he gave the whole plot away—at least what he called the whole. This landed four more of his friends in the same honest and public-spirited occupation which he was himself pursuing; though all escaped shortly afterwards by paying fines to the Government which aggregated some eight hundred dollars—which sum was largely paid by others ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... much down, and the rest when you feel like it. They have kind hearts, and they never forget birthdays. I forget what he was, something in the City, where the patriotism comes from; and she—oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited of her. I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. Not that it really matters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous people who ...
— Reginald • Saki
... that Mr. Payne Knight told the directors it was the custom of the Greek nobility to strip and exhibit themselves naked to the artists in various attitudes, that they might have an opportunity of studying fine form. Accordingly those public-spirited men, the directors, have determined to adopt the plan, and are all practising like mad to prepare themselves for the ensuing exhibition, when they are to be ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... is not that a good reason?" asked Montagu Samuels. "The community is to be congratulated on having a few public-spirited men left in days when there are wealthy German Jews in our midst who not only disavow Judaism, but refuse to support its institutions. But, Mr. Graham, I would join issue with you. The men you allude ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... claims glory and renown from that by which every other person since the beginning of time has been dishonored and disgraced. It has been said of an ambassador, that he is a person employed to tell lies for the advantage of the court that sends him. His is patriotic bribery, and public-spirited corruption. He is a peculator for the good of his country. It has been said that private vices are public benefits. He goes the full length of that position, and turns his private peculation into a public good. This is what you are to thank him ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... undermined by the principle of population, because in the highest possible state of the subjugation of the passions to reason, they will be absolutely lawless and unchecked, and because as men become enlightened, quick sighted and public-spirited, they will shew themselves utterly blind to the consequences of their actions, utterly indifferent to their own well-being and that of all succeeding generations, whose fate is placed in their hands. ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... own it, in spite of every motive to prejudice. Gilbert Hearn is not my ideal man by any means. Good things are essential to him. He would feel personally aggrieved if the weather was bad for two days in succession. He is very charitable and public-spirited, and he likes our paper to recognize the fact: I have proof of that too. Alms given in the dark are not exactly wasted—but I'm thinking scandal. He so likes to let his 'light so shine.' He's respectability ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... of such arguments; the majority of mankind are so ignorant of their value, that they would be more ashamed of employing them in the refutation of others than of being refuted by them. I must further express my approval of your kind and public-spirited denial of all differences, whether of good and evil, white or black, or any other; the result of which is that, as you say, every mouth is sewn up, not excepting your own, which graciously follows the example of others; and thus all ground of offence ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... men more eloquent, than when discoursing of their cattle, and of their pleasure in ranging over their pastures, and examining their herds and flocks. They have both been importers of stock, and liberal in their dissemination among their agricultural friends and neighbors. Public-spirited, patriotic men, in almost every one of our states, have either imported from Europe, or drawn from a distance in their own country, choice animals, to stock their own estates, and bred them for the improvement of their several ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... musical contests and declamations. The original building was raised by Pericles, in imitation, it is said, of the tent of Xerxes. The present ruins are those of the structure erected in the second century A.D. by a public-spirited benefactor of Athens. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... she was pathetically concerned lest her visitor should catch cold because "she wasn't used to it." She lighted a small candle to show her the room, furnished with one straight hard chair, a cot, and a wash-stand with a broken pitcher, but with barely space besides for Mrs. Clark and her kind, public-spirited little hostess. They sat, drowned at times in the noise of the elevated, in almost complete darkness, as Mrs. Hallett insisted on making a vain effort to extract some heat for her guest from the single gas-jet, by attaching to it ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... to materialize in print on some subject entirely unrelated, preferably an announcement on behalf of one of the charitable or civic organizations which he officially headed. Thus he shone forth as a useful, serviceable, and public-spirited citizen, against whom (such was the inference which the newspaper reader was expected to draw) only malignancy could allege anything injurious. In this instance his offering upon the altar of publicity, carefully typed and mimeographed, had just enough importance to entitle it to ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... was chaplain of the Liverpool Borough jail. He was respected by all classes, Protestant as well as Catholic, not only for what he did for the unfortunate creatures who came under his ministrations, but as a public-spirited citizen and benefactor of the town. It would be wrong if I did not pay a high tribute to the splendid service done by him in Liverpool towards elevating the condition of our own people. I would be ungrateful, too, if I failed to recognise the great educational work he did in giving opportunities ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... victories because wisely led? Think you that corruption and violation of law would have been so checked in Missouri a decade ago and the breakers of law been so thoroly punished, had it not been for the clear-headed work of that fearless, public-spirited Joseph W. Folk? Does not Charles S. Whitman come to your mind when the great struggle in New York City is mentioned? And Hiram W. Johnson in California? And when we recall the victories of the people in our own Motherland across the sea, do we not have at once a mental picture of the ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... existence amongst them; but if they ought not to be hated, they can never be much loved, for they are incapable of insinuation, and their ignorance of the world makes them unfit for entertaining sensible strangers. They are public-spirited, but torn to pieces by factions. A gloominess in religion renders one part of them very barbarous, and an enthusiasm in politics so transports the genteeler part, that they sacrifice to party almost every consideration of tenderness. Among such a people, a man may long live, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... stove, for which he refused to take out a patent, took decided steps toward improving education and founding the University of Pennsylvania, and helped establish a needed public hospital. The Autobiography shows his pleasure at being told that there was no such thing as carrying through a public-spirited project unless ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Parliament. I have been long concerned with Evening Play Centres for school-children in Hoxton, one of the most congested quarters of our East End. And seven years ago I began to hear of the young and public-spirited doctor and man of science, who had made himself a name and place in Hoxton, who had won the confidence of the people crowded in its unlovely streets, had worked for the poor, and the sick, and the children, and had now beaten the Tory member, and was Hoxton's Liberal representative ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a service was held, at which there was a good voluntary attendance. The effect of the prominence thus given to Christian teaching was shown early in 1857, when on a plan arranged by the zealous public-spirited Commissioner of the Benares Province, Mr. Henry Carre Tucker, there was a gathering in the city of the pupils from all the schools in the province who choose to attend to submit to an examination in Scripture knowledge. Prizes in ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Napoleon, the only commander who has not yet disgraced himself, still fights an uphill battle in the centre, inflicting terrific losses and upholding the honour of his country single-handed. The infamous Osbourne is shaking in his spectacles at Savannah. He was roundly taken to task by a public-spirited reporter, and babbled meaningless excuses; he did not know, he said, that the force now falling in on us at Yolo was so large. It was his business to know. What is he paid for? That force has been ten days at least turning the east of the Mar ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... people's life. They cleanse and discipline the children's minds, but their bodies they pitch into the gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the Harrison Avenue district,—in my day there were none,—and such as there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more thorough: he learns ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... gives them added value as maps of the areas shown. In renewing my acknowledgments to the photographers, I must mention especially Mr. Asahel Curtis of Seattle. The help and counsel of this intrepid and public-spirited mountaineer have been invaluable. Mr. A. H. Barnes, our Tacoma artist with camera and brush, whose fine pictures fill many of the following pages, is about to publish a book of his mountain views, for which ...
— The Mountain that was 'God' • John H. Williams
... government of the Union or the States; but in this, as in every other department of liberal art and science, the great dependence,—and may I not add, the safe dependence?—as it ever has been, must continue to be upon the bounty of enlightened, liberal, and public-spirited individuals. ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... the famous United Empire Bank Fraud. Bonds had been stolen and negotiated, vast sums of money were discovered to be missing, and the manager and one of the directors were absent also. So cleverly had the affair been worked, and so flaring were the defalcations, that had it not been for the public-spirited behaviour and generosity of two of the directors, the position of the bank would have been most seriously compromised, if not shattered altogether. How the culprits had managed to slip through the fingers ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby
... borough, not even every election day. For a London borough, unlike a country town, has very little corporate life of its own. You cannot get up as much enthusiasm for Kilburn, say, as a social or historical entity, as you can for Winchester or Canterbury. You may perform civic duties, if you are public-spirited enough, with business-like zeal, and if you are borough councillor you may be proud of the nice new public baths which you have been instrumental in presenting to the community. But the ordinary man in the street ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... spoken of to kalon, and we should speak of moral good, Cicero speaks of honestum, and founds precisely similar arguments upon it. This conception implies, besides self-regarding rectitude, the praise of others and the rewards of glory, and hence is eminently suited to the public-spirited men for whom he wrote. To it is opposed the base (turpe), that disgraceful evil which all good men would avoid. But as his whole moral theory is built on observation as much as on reading or reflection, he never stretches a rule too tight; he makes allowance for overpowering ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... to interviewing. Poor old Adeline lived in the pious hope of making Northwick's old age comfortable in their beautiful home on the money he had stolen; and now that she's dead it goes to his creditors. Why, even Billy Gerrish, a high-minded, public-spirited man like William B. Gerrish,—couldn't have his way about Northwick. No, sir; Northwick himself couldn't! Look how he fooled away his time there in Canada, after he got off with money enough to start him on the high road to ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... against usury can protect those who know enough to apply it, but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... Polish Government appointed a special body to deal with Jewish affairs. It was called "Committee of Old Testament Believers," though composed in the main of Polish officials. It was supplemented by an advisory council consisting of five public-spirited Jews and their alternates. Among the members of the Committee, which included several prominent Jewish merchants of Warsaw, such as Jacob Bergson, M. Kavski, Solomon Posner, T. Teplitz, was also the well-known mathematician Abraham Stern, ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... the rigging and what fraction of the pay of the crew the government provided is by no means clear from our evidence. It is certain that a public-spirited and lavish trierarch could almost ruin himself (unless very wealthy) during the year he ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... paper had the audacity to remark, propos l'affaire Svensen and Burnley. Even Svensen and Burnley, so pure-hearted, so public-spirited, so League-minded, were not ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... association business therefore at an end, I turned my thoughts to the establishment of an academy. I published a pamphlet; set on foot a subscription, not as an act of mine, but of some "public-spirited gentleman," and the schools were opened in 1749. They were soon moved to our largest hall; the trustees were incorporated by a charter from the governor, and thus was established the University of Pennsylvania. The building of a hospital for the sick, and the paving, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... to terminate: any scampish apprentice with designs upon his master's till, any burglar plotting an entry into a goldsmith's shop, may become convinced of his rectitude of purpose, and even take credit for public-spirited zeal, in seeking to appropriate to his own use part of another's wealth, which he may fairly suppose would be productive of more enjoyment if divided between two or more than if left in the hands of one, and that one already perhaps the possessor of more than ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... when his son George was born. The land had been in the family ever since Augustine's grandfather, John Washington, had bought it, when he came over from England in 1657. John Washington was a soldier and a public-spirited man, and so the parish in which he lived—for Virginia was divided into parishes as some other colonies into townships—was named Washington. It is a quiet neighborhood; not a sign remains of the old house, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... efforts of the people to turn these slow-moving streams so that their torrents might flow into wilderness places rather than over the fields and towns. In the great flow of 1669, which menaced the city of Catania, a large place on the seashore to the southeast of the cone, a public-spirited citizen, Senor Papallardo, protecting himself and his servants with clothing made of hides, and with large shields, set forth armed with great hooks with the purpose of diverting the course of the lava mass. He succeeded in pulling away the ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... He was a public-spirited man, whose heart and pocket were open to people in real trouble, but for prayers he had never been asked before, and, was entirely destitute of them. He felt relieved when one of his customers—a leaden-visaged man, with bulbous nose ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... explorers were not idle, and in 1892 a large expedition, equipped by that public-spirited colonist, Sir Thomas Elder—now alas! dead—was fitted out and put under the leadership of David Lindsay. Sir Thomas was determined to finish what he had so well begun, viz., the investigation of the interior, for by him not only had Giles ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... low portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers. To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side, compact mud huts, and placed there in huge earthenware vessels, holding perhaps fifty gallons each; these are kept supplied with pure spring-water and ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... Presidential chair (1809) Jefferson retired once more, and finally, to "Monticello," after over forty years of almost continuous public service. His career in this high office was entirely worthy of the man, being that of an honorable and public-spirited, as well as an able and patriotic, statesman. If not so astute and sagacious as some who have held the presidency, especially in failing to see where his political principles, if carried out to their logical conclusions, would lead, his conscientiousness and liberality ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... always delighted to patronise native industries," said Norton the First. "San Francisco is public-spirited in what concerns its emperor; and indeed, sir, of all my domains, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... enough to change it, and to learn the habits of another. I have no quarrel with the aristocracy, and do not in the least wish to level them to the ground. I am quite prepared to acknowledge them as the upper class. They are, as a rule, public-spirited, courteous barbarians, with a sense of honour and responsibility. But they take a great many things as matters of course which are to me simply alien. I no more wish to live with them than Wright, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... they belong as well as in this; and it cannot be doubted that the charge is, to a considerable extent, well founded. But it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion of the body, which consists of independent and public-spirited men, who have an influential weight in the councils of the nation. Hence it is (the present reign not excepted) that the sense of that body is often seen to control the inclinations of the monarch, both with regard to men ...
— The Federalist Papers
... glitter of Italians; the blonde dulness of Germans; the cold quiet of Scandinavians —fire under ice—were aspects that he identified, and that gave him abundant suggestion for the personal histories he constructed, and for the more public-spirited reveries in which he dealt with the future economy of our heterogeneous commonwealth. It must be owned that he did not take much trouble about this; what these poor people were thinking, hoping, fearing, enjoying, suffering; just where and how ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... asked Nat, sitting up in his eagerness to know what happened to those wretches who disobeyed this most peculiar, but public-spirited school-ma'am. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... such a result being contemplated as possible; it allowed of an enlarged market for Spike only through the enlargement of his neighbours' market, and the Possible is always the ultimate master of our efforts and desires. Spike was obliged to contemplate a general benefit, and thus became public-spirited in spite of himself. Or rather, the nature of things transmuted his active egoism into a demand for a public benefit. Certainly if Spike had been born a marquis he could not have had the same chance of being useful as a political element. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... after the death of a member of Parliament, a prominent county magistrate, the owner of large estates, and an active, public-spirited man in all local and national matters, was it known by those who had not seen him, that it was but the misshapen block of a man that had lived this active, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... in especial by this generation of idealists, whose flags rise and go down, whose battle line wavers and breaks a thousand times? What is the high quixotic splendid call? We know of a group of public-spirited people who advocate, in endowed films, "safety first," another that champions total abstinence. Often their work seems lost in the mass of commercial production, but it is a good beginning. Such citizens take an established studio for a specified time and ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... what he is about, or why he is doing it. Think upon nothing but what you could willingly tell about, so that if your soul were laid open there would appear nothing but what was sincere, good-natured, and public-spirited. A man thus qualified is a sort of priest and minister of the gods, and makes a right use of the divinity within him. Be cheerful; depend not at all on foreign supports, nor beg your happiness of another; don't throw away your legs ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... scream of "Wa-wa-wa", and the piping of the fish-hawk, are sounds which can never be forgotten by any one who has sailed on the rivers north of 20 Deg. south. If we step on shore, the 'Charadrius caruncula', a species of plover, a most plaguy sort of "public-spirited individual", follows you, flying overhead, and is most persevering in its attempts to give fair warning to all the animals within hearing to flee from the approaching danger. The alarm-note, "tinc-tinc-tinc", ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... India, and returned not until after his father's funeral; and over his grave, in the old church-yard of Chelsea, a stone and sculptured brass record his name and age and parentage, together with that of his aged and more distinguished sire. This stone, too, was placed by the above-mentioned public-spirited societies, (unto both which the writer has the honour to belong) at the same time as the monument, stated by Faulkner, to the never-dying fame ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... She was a public-spirited woman and was glad to be made one of the trustees of the Public Library. She was one of the most efficient members of the board, though she was seldom strong enough to be driven as far ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... a generous victor, and the men saved from the enemy's ships owed their lives to him. Five years later the returned hero, now become Lord Heathfield, sat to Reynolds for his portrait, ordered by a wealthy admirer—the public-spirited Alderman Boydell. The picture shows the brave old soldier as he took his stand in command of Gibraltar. Some one has said that it tells the whole ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... Davidson is one of the most prominent and public-spirited citizens of Iredell county, and implicit reliance may be ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... protection of a Saint, or of the Holy Trinity. The regulation and protection of trade interests, generally aiming at monopoly and the exclusion of outsiders, were later developments. But without doubt they were public-spirited bodies according to their lights, maintaining schools (as at Stratford-on-Avon) hospitals and almshouses, and giving freely on all occasions of public importance. By pageants too, they contributed to the happiness and amusement of the people as well as by the presentation of Mysteries and Moralities, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... others in the settlement? My wife has a valuable gold necklace. Hint to her to-day that it is needed for the public service, and, my word for it, to-morrow you will find it in the treasury of freedom. But is my wife any more public-spirited than yours and many others among us? ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... landscape was covered with small cottages, painted white or yellow; but as they proceeded they came to a country very sparsely settled, and very similar to that of New England. The road lay through woods of pine and fir, and had been constructed by Mr. Heftye, a public-spirited citizen, who owned a large estate at the summit ...
— Up The Baltic - Young America in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark • Oliver Optic
... regard to the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the shock he ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... into the hands of Richard Chiswell, a bookseller living in S. Paul's Ch.-yard, London: who printing a catalogue of, with others added to, them, which came out after Mr. Smith's death, they were exposed to sale by way of auction, to the great reluctancy of public-spirited men, in May and June 1682.' The sale, which commenced on the 15th of May, and was continued day by day the first five days of every week until all the books were sold, took place at 'the Auction House known ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... to bring home to the railway companies, and for the execution of this part of my Scheme I must wait till I get some manager sufficiently public-spirited to try the experiment. When such a man is found, I purpose to set at once about my Sea-Side Establishment. This will present the following special advantages, which I am quite certain will be duly appreciated by the very poorest of ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... singing during the coming Carnival; and, secondly that the Lalli should produce such an enthusiasm as should lead all the theatrical world to think and say that a great stroke had been achieved, and a very public-spirited thing done in bringing about the engagement. He was anxious that the step, which he had had a large share in taking, should result in a ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... were getting serious, and absorbing the minds of the people. The grocers of Kimberley are a respectable and, in the aggregate, a public-spirited body of citizens; they are men of substance; most honourable; most humane, too; and, as events were to show, most human. With fine foresight they detected in the conflagration of patriotism which consumed ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... an intelligent man, and he had seen a great deal of the world. As a citizen of London, he had called a public meeting, at the Paul's Head Tavern, to petition for peace; and this public-spirited and truly constitutional act was at that period quite sufficient to draw down the vengeance of Pitt and his myrmidons. His ruin was decided upon by them, and he was handed over to the care of the minister's pliant, powerful and dangerous tools, the Judges of the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... Government. The same way they built those storm-shelters. But that would be in the public interest, and if the Kwanns weren't public-spirited enough to do the work, they'd be made to—at about half what planters like Sanders are paying them now. But don't you realize that profit is sordid and dishonest and selfish? Not at all like drawing a ...
— Oomphel in the Sky • Henry Beam Piper
... the cheer of dawn in New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty and righteousness ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... carefully, and then read the long account of the new archdeacon's life, and of the work he had accomplished at St. Margaret's! The article was most laudatory, and spoke of his ability as a preacher, an organiser, and a public-spirited citizen. It referred to Dr. Rannage as a hard worker, who visited his people, rich and poor, in season and out of season, doing all he could for their temporal ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... and fragments of clothing found anywhere within a radius of two miles are being preserved, I am told, as specimens of your remains. Boots would appear to have been your chief apparel. Seven pairs have already been collected from the surrounding ditches. Among the more public-spirited there is talk of using you to start ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... the village as being ruined years ago by the villainy of one man. That's a lie! The village ruined the man.... Never looked at it that way; did you? Andrew Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any other human being ever did. He was the one public-spirited man in the place.... Do you know who built your church, young man? I see you don't. Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from your whining, hypocritical church members. Every Tom, Dick ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... and Sindbad will tell the company, there in the firelight before your very eyes, how they felt that they owed something to' others because of the wealth they had, gained. Aladdin became a serious and public-spirited man, though as a boy he had been of little worth. Ali Baba and Sindbad helped others ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... important bloodhound trials had been taking place in the near neighbourhood, and some dozen and a half couples of trained animals had been put on the track of the supposed murderer—on my track. One of our most public-spirited London dailies had offered a princely prize to the owner of the pair that should first track me down, and betting on the chances of the respective competitors became rife throughout the land. The dogs ranged far and wide over about thirteen counties, and though my own movements had become ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)
... suppose that the numerous women in the households of the Chinese merchants, though called servants, are persons who have been purchased in China, and are actually held in bondage. Apart from these exceptions, the Chinese population is a valuable one, and is, in its upper classes, singularly public-spirited, law-abiding, and strongly attached to ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... Market;—from Moorfields to the Bank, and thence obliquely to Southwark Bridge;—widening and opening the area around St. Paul's Cathedral,—are all calculated to be very beneficial to the public. Other essential alterations are still required; and the legislature, as well as all public-spirited individuals, should co-operate to promote them. The formation of open, respectable quays, terraces, and streets, on the banks of our fine river, is an event ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, No. - 361, Supplementary Issue (1829) • Various
... I'm a lot public-spirited. I hate to see taxes go up, and every lunatic that goes to the asylum costs the State just that much more. I don't know an easier recipe for going crazy than just to stay off alone and think. It's a fright the way it gets ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... crusade against the swill-milk dealers, and the men who had allowed all this to be possible. "What is the Health Board about, that poison for children can be sold in the public streets?" "Where is the District Attorney, that prosecutions for the public good have to be brought by public-spirited citizens?" they demanded. Lynx-eyed reporters tracked the milk-supplies of the city, and though the alarm had been given, and many cows had been hastily sent to the country, they were able to show up ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... and began to practice it in the town and county of Northampton. He was public-spirited, and he became a leader in all the enterprises of the county, and people looked up to him as a great man. Everything ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... newspapers informed the public that the sad case of the two lepers at the pest-house had become tragic, because the white one had gone insane. Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, declaiming against the maintenance of such a danger to the community, and demanding that the United States government build a national leprosarium on some remote island or isolated mountain peak. But this tiny ripple of interest faded out ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... was a magnate in the frontier newspaper field. His career is particularly interesting because it is, in more ways than one, typical of the qualities which made many western men successful. Basically, he was a reformer, a public-spirited man who backed, with every means at his command, and great personal courage, the issues he believed for the good of the country, and fought with equal intensity those ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... It is quite the same, only over one shop we hang three gilt balls: on the other we nail a sign which reads: 'Financial Agents.' And it is the same Jew, remember, who stands behind both counters. The first Jew is overhauled almost every day by the police; the second Jew is regarded as our public-spirited citizen. So you see, my young friend, that it is only a question of the amount of money you have got whether you ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Leaving far behind him even Lord Camelford's generous design of bestowing Old Sarum on the Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in the borough of Cricklade to reinforce the county representation. Not content with this, in order to station a steady phalanx for all future reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amidst his charitable toils for the relief of India, did not forget the poor, rotten Constitution of his native country. For her, he did not disdain to stoop to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this House,—to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry figures ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a collection of ballads for the cause of liberty is very public-spirited. I wish, Sir, I could say I thought it would answer your view. Liberty, like other good and bad principles, can never be taught the people but when it is taught them by faction. The mob will never sing lilibullero ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve. Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the example by ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... Mayor? From what I hear, they dassen't put up any old machine hack, same's they been doin' f'r years. They might want to do it, but they're a-scared the people won't stand f'r it. From what little I hear, the feelin's strong that they got to put up some young progressive public-spirited man of the reformer type. Now s'posin' the friends of a certain fine young man, sittin' not a hundred miles from this table, had it in their minds to bring him forward f'r the nomination. This ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... from where it had fallen and read the article once more. It was a floridly and violently written account of how a projected branch of the Tennessee and Northern System through Greenstream valley, long striven for by solid and public-spirited citizens of the County, had been prevented by the hidden avarice of a well-known ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... altogether too good for poor folks, and she really didn't know what she should do with him, it seemed too bad to send him away shelterless, that stormy November night. Besides, her husband was a rising politician,—the public-spirited Judge Gingerford, you know,—the eloquent philanthropist and reformer;—and to have it said that his door had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, after duly weighing the matter, to call him back. And ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... afflicted. The pamphlet is written merely in a speculative form, inculcating no sanguinary measures, or sudden revolution; but the consequences are likely to be most disastrous to the fearless and public-spirited author. Even those who most question his prudence in taking this step, agree that in this, as well as in every other political action of his life, he has acted from thorough conviction and from motives of the purest patriotism, unalloyed by one personal ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... up. "Mr. Kettleman," he said in his most official voice, "I want you to know that the FBI appreciates what you've done. Your information will probably be very helpful to us, and the FBI certainly commends you for being public-spirited enough to come to us and tell us what you know." He thought for a second, and then added: "In the name of the FBI, ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Park and the Glen I had a chance to find out what, if anything, money could do for the good of the masses of a community, if placed in the hands of a body of public-spirited citizens. Dr. Ross was taken into my confidence so far as Pittencrieff Park was concerned, and with his advice certain men intended for a body of trustees were agreed upon and invited to Skibo to organize. They imagined it was in regard ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... at Marblehead, of Adoniram C. Orne, a well-known and highly respected citizen of that town, at the age of 74. He was one of the earliest shoe-manufacturers in Marblehead, and a public-spirited citizen, many important local improvements having been suggested and carried into effect by his persistent efforts. He was a consistent advocate of temperance, and was the author of several statistical pamphlets on the subject, some of which ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... could take your pipe from your mouth to exclaim, the water-vole was not swimming. He was squealing in a most loud and public-spirited fashion from between Pharaoh's jaws, and it was the cat who was swimming. He had just taken a flying leap from the bank and landed full upon the dumbfounded water-vole—splash! Then he swam calmly ashore and dined, all wet and cold. Now, what is ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... among them, and described the trials and hardships he had encountered as a first settler in that district, while it was yet in the wilderness. He extolled his conduct as a good citizen, and faithful Christian, and a public-spirited man. His sermon was a very complete piece of rural biography, very curious and graphic in its way, and was listened to with the deepest attention ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... grunted and turned to go. From the nearest group of spectators a single figure detached itself and moved towards him, blocking his path. It revealed itself at close quarters as a stout, middle-aged man, prosperously fur-coated, with a spike of dark beard the inevitable public-spirited citizen ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... great many outlaws and brigands in that part of the world still, and though their methods have so largely altered as to require a corresponding alteration in the tactics of the Steward, I do not see why an energetic and public-spirited Steward should not ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... bad habits, perfect health, never being tired, willing to listen to others, able to decide quickly, and world-wide in his interests, Henry Ford is one of the twentieth century's greatest public-spirited business men. No better illustration can be found than the fact that although Mr. Ford did not believe in war and was a man of peace, yet when the United States entered the World War, he hastened to Washington, offered his great factory to the government to make war supplies, and began running ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... and, having retired to the private office, gave the writer's age within a year, his nationality, being a native-born Frenchman, his height and size, being very short and fleshy, his temperament and occupation; and described him as a generous, high-toned, public-spirited man, of strong religious convictions and remarkable modesty: all of which the landlord ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... and encouraged in learning (as all my uncles were) by an Esquire, then the principal gentleman in that parish, he qualified himself for the business of scrivener; became a considerable man in the county; was a chief mover of all public-spirited undertakings for the county or town of Northampton, and his own village, of which many instances were related of him, and much taken notice of and patronized by the then Lord Halifax. He died in 1702, ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... the fictitious stuff of this rumor was spawned a veritable inspiration. Several of our most public-spirited citizens ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... bad man, every man is a feeble man and every man is a good man. My motives come and go. Yours do the same. We vary in response to the circumstances about us. Given a proper atmosphere, most men will be public-spirited, right-living, generous. Given perplexities and darkness, most of us can be cowardly and vile. People say you cannot change human nature and perhaps that is true, but you can change its responses endlessly. The other day I was in Bohemia, ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... meeting-house, it has become glorified by our men of letters. John Fiske and other historians have celebrated it in some of the most brilliant pages of our political writing; and that citizen literature, so deeply characteristic of us, found in the plain, forthright, and public-spirited tone of town-meeting discussions its keynote. The spectacular debates of our national history, the dramatic contests in the great arena of the Senate Chamber, the discussions before huge popular audiences in the West, have maintained the civic point ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... consisted of two "company trainings" of half a day each in May and October, and one "general training" or "regimental muster" of one day in October. While no uniforms were required at the trainings, except to distinguish the officers, yet there were usually enough public-spirited people in every town to furnish uniforms to the crack company. The other company, the tatterdemalions of the town, was called "the flood-wood." The regiment consisted of one company each of artillery, grenadiers, light infantry, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... It won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... mind and uncommon activity and energy, of striking and commanding personal appearance and pleasing address, she had been, before the war, remarkably successful in the prosecution of those works of charity and benevolence which made her life a blessing to mankind. Well-known to the public-spirited and humane of her native city, her claims to attention were fully recognized, and her appeals in behalf of the needy and suffering were never ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... Richmond, whose daughter Maria was the wife of General Scott, had purchased this country seat many years before as a favor to his wife, Miss Abigail De Hart of New Jersey, and Mrs. Scott subsequently inherited it. Colonel John Mayo, who was a citizen of large wealth and great prominence, was so public-spirited that not long subsequent to the Revolutionary War, and entirely at his own expense, he built from his own plans a bridge across the James River at Richmond. I have heard Mrs. Scott graphically describe her father's trips from Richmond ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... When the public-spirited M. Charles who had contributed largely to the cost of this experiment came in a day or two to seek his balloon he found nothing but some shreds of cloth, and some lively legends of the prowess of the peasants in demolishing the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... town had bought uniforms and new horns for the band often enough for it to do something public-spirited once in a while without being paid for it. So the band did not come to the town as a shock in and of itself. Neither for that matter did the hack—the new glistening silver-mounted hack, with the bright spick-and-span ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... seem positively to go through complex processes of thought and selection. Talking of thought and selection, by the way, every one connected with the library speaks with enthusiasm of President McKinley's wise and public-spirited choice of the new chief librarian. Mr. Herbert Putnam, late of the Boston Public Library, is the ideal man for the post, and his appointment was made, not only without suspicion of jobbery, but in the teeth of strong political influence. Mr. McKinley's action in this ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... Europe was aroused to attention; and that Swiss and German, Scotch and English, alike pressed forward to this promised land. Appeals were made by the trustees to the liberal, the philanthropic, the public-spirited, the humane, the patriotic, the Christian, to aid in this design of mercy, closing their arguments with the noble thought: "To consult the welfare of mankind, regardless of any private views, is the perfection of virtue, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... who takes it into his Protection, and on the Market-Day harangues the good People of the Place with Aphorisms and Receipts. You may depend upon it, he comes not there for his own private Interest, but out of a particular Affection to the Town. I remember one of those Public-spirited Artists at Hammersmith, who told his Audience 'that he had been born and bred there, and that having a special Regard for the Place of his Nativity, he was determined to make a Present of five Shillings to as many as would accept of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... town nowadays with the air of a man on whose shoulders the weight of empires did depend. But for all his airs it was not the Head o' the Town who was the ablest advocate of the route up the Water of Barbie. It was that public-spirited citizen, Mr. James Wilson of the Cross! Wilson championed the cause of Barbie with an ardour that did infinite credit to his civic heart. For one thing, it was a grand way of recommending himself to his new townsfolk, as he told his wife, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... still farther. I found part of it by accident a long time ago. Once, as you came close to the river, you were sure to find fishermen scattered along,—sometimes I myself have been discovered; but it is not much use to go fishing any more. If some public-spirited person would kindly be the Frank Buckland of New England, and try to have the laws enforced that protect the inland fisheries, he would do his country great service. Years ago, there were so many salmon that, as an enthusiastic old friend once assured ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... window of a confectioner's shop. As he approached nearer, he distinctly heard the voice of Tom Random, who was haranguing the mob. The device and motto which the confectioner displayed in his window displeased this gentleman, who, beside his public-spirited abhorrence of all men of a party opposite to his own, had likewise private cause of dislike to this confectioner, who had refused him his ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... Bourgeois aux Champs, the benevolent hero finds himself detested by the neighboring peasants and farmers, not because he preserves game, and sets mantraps for poachers, and defends his legal rights over his land to the extremest point of unsocial savagery, but because, being an amiable and public-spirited person, he refuses to do all this, and thereby offends and disparages the sense of property in his neighbors. The same thing is true of matrimonial jealousy; the man who does not at least pretend to feel it and behave as badly as if he really felt ...
— Overruled • George Bernard Shaw
... somewhat unfairly associated by foreigners with a bitter hostility to the Catholic priests of his day, simply because he refused to allow them a free hand in matters outside their proper sphere. Altogether, it may be said that he was a just and public-spirited ruler, anxious for his people's welfare. He hated war, and failed to carry on his father's vigorous policy in Central Asia; nevertheless, by 1730, Chinese rule extended to the Laos border, and the Shan States paid tribute. He was a man of letters, ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... vast bodies of land in the hold of a great nobleman who had contrived a title in them by the simple device of enclosing the people's commons. It was a wrong, but there was no one of the wronged who was brave enough or rich enough to dispute it through the broken law, and no witness public-spirited enough to come to their aid. Such things make us think patiently, almost proudly, of our national foible of graft, which may really be of feudal origin. Doubtless the aggression was attacked in the press, but we all know what the attacks of the press amount to against the steadfast will of ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... sharp man. You ain't a-goin' to be taken in by any of them paupers' rigmarole. I always said, Squire Pope, that you was the right man in the right place, and that the town was lucky to have so intelligent and public-spirited a citizen fillin' her most ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... frequently changing policies regulated from the outside under the influence of the greater and lesser lights and exigencies of State and municipal organization, the New York Hospital has its self-perpetuating body of Governors chosen from the most public-spirited and thoughtful representatives of our people. Bloomingdale thus has always had a remarkable Board of Governors, who, from contact with the General Hospital and with this special division, are in an unusual ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... clean and public-spirited young men, with expert knowledge and ideals, who wish to enter a political career, is gradually becoming more encouraging. The reformer in politics must be not merely an idealist, but a man who can do things. He must show his constituents ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; and adventurers whom ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... authorities, but the graduates, too, and other public-spirited men and women outside of the universities, have warmly welcomed the Menorah Movement. They see in it the expression of a spontaneous and earnest desire on the part of growing numbers of Jewish students for Jewish knowledge and idealism, for a realization of the Jewish noblesse ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... possibly some of the general public also imagined, that these decorations had been erected by the city government, or at least by some committee of public-spirited citizens. Mr. Barnum, however, never found fault with any one for suspecting that he was chiefly responsible for them, and there is every reason to believe that the cost of them was to be found entered in his books, charged to the ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... press, and that he thought it right to ask whether such and such payments had been made by the Prime Minister. In his meditations Mr. Slide went so far as to arrange the very words which the indignant gentleman should utter, among which words was a graceful allusion to a certain public-spirited newspaper. He did even go so far as to arrange a compliment to the editor,—but in doing so he knew that he was thinking only of that which ought to be, and not of that which would be. The time had not come as yet in which the editor ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... find it if he didn't know what it was? And that he was quite in the dark about. The half-crown and the pretty girl who had given it to him, the train-guard and his cowardice about responsibility, the public-spirited gentleman, the railway-carriage itself, to say nothing of all the exciting experiences of the morning—all, all had vanished, leaving behind only the trace of the impulse to search. Nothing else! He stood looking bewildered, then ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... penny, and we are all growing poorer. We should starve in a short time were it not for the kindness and benevolence of the people. We are receiving contributions of food from everywhere. Doctor Warren, John Hancock, and a large number of our public-spirited ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... has arrived on which the worthy and public-spirited inhabitants of Maranham have it in their power at once to declare the independence of their country, and their adherence to their patriotic monarch, Pedro Primiero, whose protection has afforded them the glorious privilege of freemen—that of choosing their constitution and enacting ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald |
