"Self-love" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... prose which follows the fable, Mandeville may at least claim the credit of being outspoken, and he does not scruple to say that modesty is a sham and that what seems like virtue is nothing but self-love. 'I often,' he says, 'compare the virtues of good men to your large china jars; they make a fine show, but look into a thousand of them, and you will find nothing in them ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... activity which is lacking in our existences of artists; regular occupations; high spirits, songs, innocent gaieties, which would oblige you to play instead of thinking in the air, in the dark—to laugh at a wound to one's self-love, to be only a contented mother on the day when the public should see you as ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... Like Sterne and Fielding he is delighted by people whose idiosyncracies are harmless and appealing. As for the harsh satiric animus of a character-writer like Butler, it is totally alien to Gally, who would chide good-naturedly, so as "not to seem to make any Attacks upon the Province of Self-Love" in the reader. "Each Man," he writes, "contains a little World within himself, and every Heart is a new World." The writer should understand and appreciate, not ridicule, ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... Verneuil hastily advanced and stood between them and the commandant, who smiled amusedly; then she rapidly unfastened the frogged fastenings of her jacket. Acting with that blindness which often seizes women when their self-love is threatened and they are anxious to show their power, as a child is impatient to play with a toy that has just been given to it, she took from her bosom a paper and presented it ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... nephew, the Count de Guiche, was a victim: he had in truth, offended the Count de Grammont, by having supplanted him in the affection of the Countess de Fiesque, whom he loved afterwards for the space of twelve years. Here was enough to irritate the self-love of a man less persuaded of his own merit." Hamilton does not describe the exterior of the count, but accuses Bussi-Rabutin of having, in the following description, given a more agreeable than faithful portrait ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... Chesterton, with his usual felicity of phrase, hits the nail on the head when he says that upon this principle "the whole cosmos is only one enormously selfish person;" certainly it should be clear that on this assumption, as there can be no return of affection from a God whose love is only self-love, so the effect of prayer can only be that which is produced upon the soul by its consciousness—supposed to be elevating—of being an infinitesimal fraction of an infinite totality. We say that this consciousness is supposed to be elevating, though why it should be so is not quite apparent; for whatever ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... evolution this principle of the survival of the fittest at the expense of the rest gives way to a counter principle, that of the fitting of as many as possible to survive. The thief tendency gives way to the shepherd tendency, self-love to mother-love, the struggle to survive to the struggle for the life of others. I do not pause at the moment to account for these two antithetic tendencies, there they are; all through the history of this sad old world of ours these two tendencies have been in sharp conflict. Both are cosmic, ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... together, and know almost by heart the work they are executing. Even then, the inattention of a single player may occasion an accident. Why incur its possibility? I know that certain artists feel their self-love hurt when thus kept in leading-strings (like children, they say); but with a conductor who has no other view than the excellence of the ultimate result, this consideration can have no weight. Even in a quartet, it is seldom that the individual feeling of the players can be left entirely free ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... a strong admixture of a too lofty estimate of self in most of the disagreements of Christian people. They expect more deference than they get, or their judgment is not taken as law, or their place is not so high as they think is their due, or in a hundred different ways self-love is wounded, and self-esteem is inflamed. All this is true in reference to the smaller communities of congregations, and with the necessary modifications it is quite as true in reference to the larger aggregations ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... is, a belief in the value of our, own opinion of a doctrine, of a church, of a religion, of a Being, a belief quite independent of any evidence that we can bring to convince a jury of our fellow beings. Its roots are thus inextricably entangled with those of self-love and bleed as mandrakes were said to, when pulled up as weeds. Some persons may even at this late day take offence at a few opinions expressed in the following pages, but most of these passages will be read without loss of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... intercourse with the officers who occasionally came upon the lake to fish and hunt, had an effect in producing her present sentiments towards the young stranger. With them, while her vanity had been gratified, and her self-love strongly awakened, she had many causes deeply to regret the acquaintance—if not to mourn over it, in secret sorrow—for it was impossible for one of her quick intellect not to perceive how hollow was the association between superior and inferior, and that ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... fall from wise men, if they speak in haste or be extemporal. It therefore behoves the giver of counsel to be circumspect; especially to beware of those with whom he is not thoroughly acquainted, lest any spice of rashness, folly, or self-love appear, which will be marked by new persons and men of experience ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... most appalling desolations of the Great Saharan Wilderness. This should teach us to lower our pretensions, and take a large discount from our merits in originating our various enterprises; but, alas! our over-weening self-love always manages to get the better of us. The brochure alluded to was a number of the Revue de L'Orient, published at Paris, containing a notice of Ghadames by M. Subtil, the notorious sulphur[6]-explorer and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the individual, or of the world?' This little addition has changed the whole aspect of the discussion: the same word is now supposed to include two principles as widely different as benevolence and self-love. Some modern writers have also distinguished between pleasure the test, and pleasure the motive of actions. For the universal test of right actions (how I know them) may not always be the highest or best motive of ...
— Philebus • Plato
... hurried outline of the affair as it really stood, dwelling much on the fact that Oaklands and Fanny had become attached in bygone years, long ere she had ever seen Lawless—which I hoped might afford some slight consolation to his wounded self-love. As I concluded, he exclaimed: "So Fanny's going to marry Harry Oak-lands—that's the long and short of it all. Well, I'm uncommonly glad to hear it—almost as glad as if I was going to marry her myself; there is not a better fellow in the world than Harry, though he has ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... Mahomet, on this important hour, And give at length my famish'd soul revenge! What is revenge, but courage to call in Our honour's debts, and wisdom to convert Others' self-love into our own protection? But see, the morning dawn breaks in upon us; I'll seek don Carlos, and ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... last a few days," the jailer replied: "I grieve to say that the Queen's orders are to the contrary; anger not the Queen by any bravado, else you will be placed in the irons, and if these fail we can have recourse to sharper means." To the excessive self-love, intemperance, conceitedness, and want of foresight which had characterized all his actions, the unhappy Albert had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... this occurred, so Edward quitted the house, and was forbidden to enter it afterwards. The Major suddenly entertained a violent dislike to Edward O'Connor, and hated even to hear his name mentioned. It was in vain that explanation was attempted; his self-love had received a violent shock, of which Edward had been the innocent means. In vain did Dick endeavour to make himself the peace-offering to his father's wounded consequence; in vain was it manifest that Fanny was grieved: the old Major persisted in declaring that Edward O'Connor ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... or mine deserve the charge—we do not; to the lowest hem of us! for I don't pass to the other extreme, mind, and adopt besetting sins 'over the way' and in antithesis. It's an undeserved charge, and unprovoked! and in fact, the very flower of self-love self-tormented into ill temper; and shall remain unanswered, for me, ... and should, ... even if I could write mortal epigrams, as your Lamia speaks them. Only it serves to help my assertion that people in general who know ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... la Peyrade's absence grew prolonged he felt the necessity of taking some conciliatory step, and accordingly he went to see the barrister, intending to make honorable amends and so put an end to his sulkiness. Wishing, however, to give this advance an air which allowed an honest issue to his own self-love, he entered la Peyrade's room with an easy manner, and ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... was gone; she wished to spare him the humiliation of a refusal; she understood his character well, and felt that the wound inflicted on his self-love, by being rejected, would be more painful to him than his actual disappointment; she knew that Adolphe would not die for love, but she also knew that he would not quietly bear the fancied slight ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... smiled upon him. Presently, after half an hour of hard small talk, he found himself for a moment without an acquaintance, leaning against an archway between two rooms, and free to watch the throng. Self-love, "that froward presence, like a chattering child within us," was all alert and happy. A feeling of surprise, too, which had not yet worn away. A year before he had told Marcella Boyce, and with conviction, that he was an ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... like Claire; and perhaps, after all, she best comprehended the nature she dealt with. Certainly no tirade of accusing scorn could have so wounded the self-love of the selfish, conscienceless man as did her cool ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... of Mr. Godwin's philosophy, in one word, was too much ambition—"by that sin fell the angels!" He conceived too nobly of his fellows (the most unpardonable crime against them, for there is nothing that annoys our self-love so much as being complimented on imaginary achievements, to which we are wholly unequal)—he raised the standard of morality above the reach of humanity, and by directing virtue to the most airy and romantic heights, made her path dangerous, solitary, and impracticable. The ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... heaven? 'Creator,' the childlike heart might cry, 'give me all the wages, all the reward thy perfect father-heart can give thy unmeriting child. My fit wages may be pain, sorrow, humiliation of soul: I stretch out my hands to receive them. Thy reward will be to lift me out of the mire of self-love, and bring me nearer to thyself and thy children: welcome, divinest of good things! Thy highest reward is thy purest gift; thou didst make me for it from the first; thou, the eternal life, hast been labouring still to fit me for receiving it—the vision, the knowledge, the possession ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... least interesting. Among the vast mass of unceremonied, or call it unmannered, Americans the receiver of a letter probably knows no better than the sender how it should be addressed; but in the rarer case in which he does know, his self-respect or his self-love is wounded if it is misaddressed. It is something like having your name misspelled, though of course not so bad as that, quite; and every one would be glad to avoid the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... the vices against which he used to warn me—how exhibit the utter failure of all his teachings and his hopes? What would this be but to imbitter his reflections needlessly. Such were the specious reasons with which I fed my self-love, and satisfied my conscience; but now, as I read his name in that terrible catalogue, their plausibility served me no longer, and at last I forgot myself to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... kills them, or at least they feel almost killed. What makes this great difference in their feelings? Why do they feel for themselves so much more than they do for others? Trace the feeling back to its origin, and you will find that their self-love is the thing that has been hurt. If they loved others as they love themselves, they would feel just as much hurt by that which was directed against the other as by that which was directed at themselves. It is self-love that makes people ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... evasions of the Athenian lords, their smooth professions and pitiful ingratitude, are very satisfactorily exposed, as well as the different disguises to which the meanness of self-love resorts in such cases to hide a want of generosity and good faith. The lurking selfishness of Apemantus does not pass undetected amidst the grossness of his sarcasms and his contempt for the pretensions ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... Reflections, those illiterate Conclusions, and those insipid Jokes; and, in short, for that Flow of unmeaning Words, which was call'd polite Conversation in Babylon. He had learned from the first Book of Zoroaster, that Self-love is like a Bladder full blown, which when once prick'd, discharges a kind of petty Tempest. Zadig, in particular, never boasted of his Contempt of the Fair Sex, or of his Facility to make Conquests amongst them. He was of a generous Spirit; insomuch, that he ...
— Zadig - Or, The Book of Fate • Voltaire
... in the matter, and that he has himself become so far alienated from the scheme that we may sleep quietly upon it." And James appeared at that moment so vexed at the turn affairs were taking in France, so wounded in his self-love, and so bewildered by the ubiquitous nature of nets and pitfalls spreading over Europe by Spain, that he really seemed waking from his delusion. Even Caron was staggered? "In all his talk he appears so far estranged from the Spaniard," said he, "that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... arrived at the barrier of Paris. I experienced a sort of self-love in exhibiting to my son, by its most beautiful entrance, that capital, of which he could probably retain but a feeble recollection. I ordered the postillion to take us through the Boulevards to the Rue de la Paix, and to stop at the first hotel. Chance conducted us to the Hotel D'Hollande. I ...
— Hortense, Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... of defrauding, of stealing, of acting cruelly, indeed, in the worst men, of blaspheming the holy things of the church and of inveighing against God. The fountainhead of those enjoyments is the love of ruling from self-love. They come of lusts which obsess the interiors of the mind, from these flow into the body, and excite uncleannesses there which titillate the fibers. The physical pleasure springs from the pleasure which ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... causes of the pleasure given by this extravagant and absurd diction. It depends upon a great variety of causes, but upon none, perhaps, more than its influence in impressing a notion of the peculiarity and exaltation of the Poet's character, and in flattering the Reader's self-love by bringing him nearer to a sympathy with that character; an effect which is accomplished by unsettling ordinary habits of thinking, and thus assisting the Reader to approach to that perturbed and dizzy state of mind in which if he does not find himself, he imagines ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... still apply this name to something, lies in the work of breeding genius . from such training everything is to be hoped. All consolation comes from art. Education is love for the offspring; an excess of love over and beyond our self-love. Religion is "love beyond ourselves." The work of art is the model of such a love beyond ourselves, and a perfect ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... man whose own means are small, or even moderate, finds himself rather hard put to it to make both ends meet, and is constantly harassed by desires which he is unable to gratify. When he sees others gratifying them, his self-love drives him often unconsciously into ascribing it to recklessness and improvidence. Very close people, too, who have a constitutional repugnance to spending money freely for any purpose, and especially ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... secular and sensual goods; violent passions, urging the prosecution of what men affect; wrath and displeasure against those who stand in the way of compassing their desires; emulation and envy towards those who happen to succeed better, or to attain a greater share in such things; excessive self-love; unaccountable malignity and vanity, are in some degrees connatural to all men, and ever prompt them to this dealing, as appearing the most efficacious, compendious, and easy way of satisfying such ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... oppression, injustice, or legal murder. This willingness to commit one sin, in order to prevent our neighbor from committing another, is a form of brotherly love we are nowhere enjoined to practise; it springs from an overweening self-love, that believes itself too pure to be contaminated by a small sin, while it forgets that a wilful disobedience of one commandment is in its essence disobedience towards the whole law. All who do evil that good may come of it, in any department of life, belong to this same class of persons. They ever ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... measures, as far as they have been confided to my care, have all succeeded; but, as I have stated (p. 79) in a printed report, a copy of which will be sent to you, they have neither flattered the vainglory of any particular nation, nor enlisted on their side the self-love of any influential class or powerful individual, and they have, in consequence, been attended with little eclat. They have, however, tended to secure to the Government the gratitude and affection of the people of India, and are measures of which ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... over the blue AEgean, and woman, shrinking from their blasts and the agitations that have followed them, has prayed to her gods, and been suspended between the depths of man's depravity and the heights of his achievements, around whose wintry peaks winds of ambition have roared, storms of vaulting self-love have gathered, tempests of passion have contended in angry and fierce strife. To brighten the heights they assailed each one, to clear the lofty airs embracing them. They shine now where clouds were wont to hover; sunshine steeps the rugged declivities where mists of ages hung their impenetrable ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... expenditure for a man with Castanier's income. The ex-dragoon was compelled to resort to various shifts for obtaining money, for he could not bring himself to renounce this delightful life. He loved the woman too well to cross the freaks of the mistress. He was one of those men who, through self-love or through weakness of character, can refuse nothing to a woman; false shame overpowers them, and they rather face ruin than make the admissions: "I cannot——" "My means will not permit——" ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... on an anthill, where they are almost always placed, and they keep a look-out while working. We have the protection of an all-embracing Providence, and trust that He, whose care of His people "xceeds all that our utmost self-love can attain, will shield us and make ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... and silent of late, and showed a growing tendency to dark hats. His refusal had been so unexpected that the blow, when it came, fell with all the more crushing force. His self-love and self-esteem had been wounded; but so had something else. Under the velvet corduroy waistcoat, which he wore in imitation of Ralph, he had a heart. Whether it was one of the very best of its kind or warranted to wear well is not for us to judge; but, at any rate, it was large ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... this change in her, and was touched with the wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his responsibility deepened, and he heard her voice but ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... through the spiritual united with the corporeal—that is, through spiritual bodies in material bodies. In other words, we can act on men's minds, and they can do our works on earth for us. Now, seeing that we can do nothing to stop this temperance movement, except through the self-love of the rum-sellers and rum-makers, it will never do to let old Graves fall. We must help him to some new scheme by which to bring back his diminished custom. ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... praises echoed from every beer-bench in the parish. Nobody ever thought of asking how Klaus got possessed of his new money. He had it; that fact was all-sufficient for the multitude. One or two might itch to make their comments upon the quick metamorphosis, but self-love kept them quiet; for every man already licked his lips in anticipation of the marriage-feast ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... imaginations, how thou mayest ease thy mind of them. Which thou shalt do; if thou shalt go about every action as thy last action, free from all vanity, all passionate and wilful aberration from reason, and from all hypocrisy, and self-love, and dislike of those things, which by the fates or appointment of God have happened unto thee. Thou seest that those things, which for a man to hold on in a prosperous course, and to live a divine life, are requisite and necessary, are not many, for the gods will require no more of any man, that ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a nature as to outbalance that of three or ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... at Paradise, found Huntington in a bad way, due not so much to the wound in his left shoulder as to the state of his mind. Haig's bullet was extracted without difficulty or serious complications, but Haig's words were encysted too deep for any probe. Huntington's self-love had been dealt a mortal blow; and ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... that emotional faculty which is the will. So that to will is nothing more than to love what is good, and love is the willing or desiring what is good. If we desire good for ourselves we have what is called self-love; if we desire good for another we have ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... estimate of his own writings is another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not, I think, fail of making a just critique; whatever should be deducted on the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate acquaintance with the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... or to abandon the hope of conquering Great Britain. If national love and pride have idealised in our great sailor a character which, with its Homeric force and freshness, combined something of the violence and the self-love of the heroes of a rude age, the common estimate of Nelson's work in history is not beyond the truth. So long as France possessed a navy, Nelson sustained the spirit of England by his victories; his last triumph left England in such a position that no means remained to injure her but ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... would have been nothing out of the common if you had been prompted by self-love to put some money down on the table. In the eyes of men of the world you are quite old enough to assume the right to commit such follies. So I should have pardoned you, Raphael, if you had ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... time, hang not the weight of our wellbeing on our duties, but on Christ by faith. I am a reeling, unstable, staggering, unsettled, lukewarm creature. For Thy compassion's sake forgive and heal, warm, establish, enlighten, draw me and I will follow. I am full of self-love, darkness in my judgment, fear to confess Thee, or hazard myself, or my estate, or my peace. . . . We poor creatures are commanded by our affections and our passions; they are not at our command; but the Holy One doth exercise all His attributes at His own will; they are ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... services from the Governor-General of India, and other documents of the same kind. He fasted severely, and having by nature a peculiar horror of the decay and mouldering of death, he deemed it pride and self-love, and dug a grave beside which he would sit meditating on the appearance of the body after death. He had a bamboo hermitage on the borders of the jungle, where he would live on rice for weeks together—only holding converse with those who came ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... other hand, the foreign word expresses a shade of meaning which the English word misses, and then, of course, it is quite right to use it. For instance, amour propre is not in any way better than "self-love," betise than "stupid action," camaraderie than "comradeship," savoir faire than "knowledge of the world," chef d'oeuvre ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... possibilities,—but even then there was Marcia! She set her sharp little teeth into her red lips till the blood came. She could not get over her anger at Marcia. It would not have been so bad if David had remained her lone lorn lover, ready to fly to her if others failed. Her self-love was wounded sorely, and she, poor silly soul, mistook it for love of David. She began to fancy that after all she had loved him, and that Fate had somehow played her a mad trick and tied her to a husband she ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... contemptible. The most indifferent thing has its force and beauty when it is spoken by a kind father, and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful child. I know not how to express it, but I think I may call it a transplanted self-love." ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... her, and was in turn transfigured. Not half so well would his native land have pleaded for the forgiveness of a British damsel who had wrecked a young man's immoderate first love. That glorified self-love requires the touch upon imagination of strangeness and an unaccustomed grace, to subdue it and make it pardon an outrage to its temples and altars, and its happy reading of the heavens, the earth too: earth foremost, we ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a monstrous personality which leered out of Logan Black's diary. Boastful of his own iniquity, swaggering in his wickedness, fatuous with self-love, he recounted his deeds with gusto and with particularity. They did not read a quarter of this terrible autobiography at the time, but they read enough to see the man in the process of building up a criminal ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis
... Standard (April 7). The gentry present were few, the nobility none, the clergy one only, while 'the mob beneath the grand stand was Athenian in its levity, in its recklessness, in its gaping expectancy, in its self-love and self-conceit—in everything but its acuteness.' 'If, sir, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy are to be alarmed, overawed, or smothered by the expression of popular opinion such as this, and if no great statesman be raised up in our hour of need to undeceive ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... much more were I myself less praised in it; but I am unwilling to do so, lest my praises should seem rather the effect of self-love than to be founded on reason and justice. I am fearful that, like Themistocles, I should appear to admire their eloquence the most who are most forward to praise me. It is the usual frailty of our sex to be fond of flattery. I blame this in other women, and should wish not ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... the star of love, which for so many happy years had thrown its rays into the very midst of their fireside circle, had become hidden amid clouds, from which she looked at every moment for the bursting of a desolating storm. And her husband was, likewise, a changed man. His pride and self-love had been wounded, and he could not forgive her who had thus wounded him, even though she were his wife. Whenever he was under the influence of liquor, he would brood over her words, and indulge in bitter thoughts against ...
— Woman's Trials - or, Tales and Sketches from the Life around Us. • T. S. Arthur
... flattered by M. du Chatelet, discerned in him the superior qualities lacking in the men of their own sect, and the insurrection of self-love was pacified. These ladies all hoped to succeed to the Imperial Highness. Purists were of the opinion that you might see the intruder in Mme. de Bargeton's house, but not elsewhere. Du Chatelet was fain to put up with a good deal of insolence, but he held his ground by cultivating ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... vanity, or gives a present from vanity, or writes a book from vanity, or seeks an office from vanity,—then, as certainly as the bite of an asp will poison the body, will the expected good be turned into a bitter disappointment. Self-love cannot be the basis of human action without alienation from God, without weariness, disgust, and ultimate sorrow. The soul can be fed only by divine certitudes; it can be enlarged only by walking according to the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... actual or anticipated, are the only motives by which the human will can be governed; that virtue resolves itself ultimately into well-considered interest and finds its ultimate reason in the happiness of those who practise it; that 'all our virtues,' as La Rochefoucauld has said, 'end in self-love as the rivers in the sea.' Such a proverb as 'Honesty is the best policy' represents no doubt a great truth, though it has been well said that no man is really honest who is only honest through this motive, and ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... corn-laws, he never refused a lease. Notwithstanding there ran through his whole demeanour and the habit of his mind, a vein of native simplicity that was full of charm, his manner was finished. He never offended any one's self-love. His good breeding, indeed, sprang from the only sure source of gentle manners, a kind heart. To have pained others would have pained himself. Perhaps, too, this noble sympathy may have been in some degree prompted by the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... magistracy. Men often oppose a thing, merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike. But if they have been consulted, and have happened to disapprove, opposition then becomes, in their estimation, an indispensable duty of self-love. They seem to think themselves bound in honor, and by all the motives of personal infallibility, to defeat the success of what has been resolved upon contrary to their sentiments. Men of upright, benevolent tempers have too many opportunities ...
— The Federalist Papers
... soul went through in that half-mile of listening is better guessed than analysed. There are certain moments of shame, which only women know, and which seem to sting and burn out of youth all its natural sweet self-love. A woman may outlive them, but never forget them. If she pass through one at nineteen her cheek will grow hot over it at seventy. Her companion's measured tone, the flow of deliberate speech which came from him, the nervous aloofness ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that one term of the proportion implied the other. Malthus's whole criticism of the poor-law, already noticed, is a commentary upon this text. It is connected with a general theory of human nature. The author of nature, he says, has wisely made 'the passion of self-love beyond expression stronger than the passion of benevolence.'[274] He means, as he explains, that every man has to pursue his own welfare and that of his family as his primary object. Benevolence, of course, is the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... army of the prince thought as little of the justice or injustice of his cause as those of the gang of the robber; the people of his capital hailed the return of the victorious prince who had contributed so much to their wealth, to his booty, and to their self-love by his victory. The village community received back the robber and his gang with the same feelings: by their skill and daring they had come back loaded with wealth, which they were always disposed to spend liberally with their neighbours. There was no more of truth in the prince and his army ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... How full of self-love are the self-righteous, and how void of the love of God! They esteem and admire themselves in their works of righteousness, which they suppose to be a fountain of happiness. These works are no sooner exposed to the Sun of Righteousness, than they discover all to be so full ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... uses!" she exclaimed parenthetically. "Ah! Kirylo Sidorovitch, you like other men are fastidious, full of self-love and afraid of trifles. Moreover, you had no training. What you want is to be taken in hand by some woman. I am sorry I am not staying here a few days. I am going back to Zurich to-morrow, and shall take Yakovlitch with me ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... some unknown and disadvantageous cross with the true poodle. It has all the sagacity of the poodle, and will perform even more than his tricks. It is always in action; always fidgety; generally incapable of much affection, but inheriting much self-love and occasional ill temper; unmanageable by any one but its owner; eaten up with red mange; and frequently a nuisance to its master and a torment ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... to ask of Me? Give Me, if thou wilt, a list of all thy desires, all the wants of thy soul. Tell Me, simply, of all thy pride, sensuality, self-love, sloth; and ask for My help in thy struggles ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... of Jean-Jacques' philosophy; I believed men were naturally honest and honourable. My misfortune was to have encountered a lover who was not formed in the school of nature and natural morality, and whom social prejudice, ambition, self-love, a false point of honour had ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... I have omitted them in my account of Samkhya as these have little philosophical importance. The viparyyaya (false knowledge) are five, viz. avidya (ignorance), asmita (egoism), raga (attachment), dve@sa (antipathy), abhimives'a (self-love), which are also called tamo, moha, mahamoha, tamisra, and andhatamisra. These are of nine kinds of tusti, such as the idea that no exertion is necessary, since prak@rti will herself bring our salvation (ambhas), ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... die to secure her good. He gives, and asks nothing. Or, in the same way, the woman loves the man so that her whole thought is not what she can obtain from him, but what she can give him. True love desires only to give. Self-love strives only ...
— What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... reflected on his reasons of the former night which induced him to authorize Matilda's stay. The cloud was now dissipated which had obscured his judgment: He shuddered when He beheld his arguments blazoned in their proper colours, and found that He had been a slave to flattery, to avarice, and self-love. If in one hour's conversation Matilda had produced a change so remarkable in his sentiments, what had He not to dread from her remaining in the Abbey? Become sensible of his danger, awakened from his dream of confidence, ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... in the rest of Europe. Conviviality, candour, and great simplicity of manner, unite the different classes of society in the colonies, as well as in the mother-country. It may even be said, that the expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... precisely the same kind of a person that George Barker is, and when they meet each other and realize that they are exactly alike, and see how sort of small and mean they really are, it destroys their self-love." ...
— The Booming of Acre Hill - And Other Reminiscences of Urban and Suburban Life • John Kendrick Bangs
... knowledge and quibble out of the use of it. In many cases a person makes an honest beginning and presents what he is sure is a solution. By conference with others he at last feels uneasy, fears the light, and puts self-love in the way of it. Dishonesty sometimes follows. The speculators are, as a class, very apt to imagine that the mathematicians are in fraudulent confederacy against them: I ought rather to say that each one of them consents to the mode in which the rest are treated, and fancies conspiracy against ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... "Willingly," said he, "would I have granted to the unfortunate prince a longer life and a safe return to his kingdom, had Germany been at peace." But when a trait, which is nothing more than a proof of a yet lingering humanity and which a mere regard to appearances and even self-love would have extorted from the most insensible, and the absence of which could exist only in the most inhuman heart, has, by a Roman Catholic writer of modern times and acknowledged merit, been made ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of human faculties, holding a just mean between the indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our self-love, must be the happiest and most durable epoch. The more we reflect on it, the more we find that this state was the least exposed to revolutions and the best for man; and that he can have left it only through some fatal chance which, for the common ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... definitions of genius in vogue, everybody is permitted to adopt that which flatters his self-love or serves his immediate purpose. "Great powers accidentally determined in a given direction" is what some one has called it. Millard was hardly a man of great powers, but he was a man of no small intelligence. If he had been sufficiently ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that, if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse. But thus much at least with his no few words he drove into me, that self-love is better than any gilding to make that seem gorgeous, wherein ourselves are parties. Wherein, if Pugliano his strong affection and weak arguments will not satisfy you, I will give you a nearer example of myself, who (I know not by what mischance) ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... recounted those leading incidents which it has been our task to accord. Alice listened with breathless interest; and though the young man touched lightly on the sorrows of the stricken father; taking care, however, not to wound the self-love of his auditor, the tears ran as freely down the cheeks of the daughter as though she had never wept before. The soothing tenderness of Duncan, however, soon quieted the first burst of her emotions, and she then heard him to the close with undivided ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... affect to make a joke of his want of success; but internally he was deeply wounded, and his self-love immensely piqued, to think that Albert de Morcerf, the most admired and most sought after of any young person of his day, should thus be passed over, and merely have his labor for his pains. And the thing was so much ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to say to this mountain, be thou cast into the sea. For I ask of the men of knowledge of the world, whether they would not hold him for a blockhead, that should hope to prevail in an argument, whose scope and object is to mortify the self-love of the expected proselyte? I ask further, when such attempts have been made, whether they have not failed of success? The indignant heart repels the conviction that is believed to debase it.... Let me expostulate with gentlemen to admit, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... to their true character by self-love, every man is his own first and chiefest flatterer, prepared, therefore, to welcome the flatterer from the outside, who only comes confirming the verdict of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... Fanny were returning from a children's afternoon tea-party at the Wilmots' house in William Street, from which entertainment Madge had stayed away because she had had another quarrel with Ned, whom she, with her self-love and high spirit, had early learned to hate for his hectoring and domineering nature. I shared Madge's feeling there, and was usually at daggers drawn with Ned Faringfield; for I never would take any man's browbeating. Doubtless my own ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake; The center moved, a circle straight succeeds, Another still, and still another spreads; Friend, parent, neighbor, first it will embrace, Its country next, and ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... D'Artagnan, "there lurks in everything the question of interest, the question of self-love. It is a very fine title, that of captain of the musketeers; but observe this: we have now the king's guards and the military household of the king. A captain of musketeers ought to command all that, and then he would absorb a hundred thousand livres ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all society. First comes the principle of self-care and self-love. Each man is given charge of his own body and life. By foresight he is to guard against danger. By self-defense he is to ward off attack. By fulfilling the instincts for food, for work and rest he is to maintain the integrity of his being. Upon each individual ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... can do, and I will show you what you are. I have spoken of love of one's work as the best preventive of merely low and vicious tastes. I will go farther and say that it is the best preservative against petty anxieties and the annoyances that arise out of indulged self-love. Men have thought before now that they could take refuge from trouble and vexation by sheltering themselves, as it wore, in a world of their own. The experiment has often been tried and always with one result. You cannot escape from anxiety or labor—it is ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... by the piano during the progress of the ballad, Mr. Mincin seizes him by the arm at one point of the melody, and softly beating time the while with his head, expresses in dumb show his intense perception of the delicacy of the passage. If anybody's self-love is to be flattered, Mr. Mincin is at hand. If anybody's overweening vanity is to be pampered, Mr. Mincin will surfeit it. What wonder that people of all stations and ages recognise Mr. Mincin's friendliness; that he is universally allowed to be handsome as amiable; ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... with his soft, sad smile, "have these ladies only been waiting for me in order to feel their heart palpitate? I seek mind and entertainment, but I fly from all those who display a desire to exercise a control over my heart; in this I see nothing but self-love, and I hold myself aloof ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... beauty so forget her birth That it should fruitless home return to earth! Love is the fruit of beauty, then love one! Not your sweet self, for such self-love ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... kind, it should ever be remembered that their master's interest sometimes possesses only the second place in their hearts. Self-love, with such, will be the ruling principle of action; and no fidelity whatever will prevent a person from bestowing a good deal of thought upon his own concerns. But this must, of necessity, break in more or less upon ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... attention by rendering their situation every way as comfortable and agreeable as we can. He who preaches integrity to those in the kitchen, (see "Advice to Cooks,") may be permitted to recommend liberality to those in the parlour; they are indeed the sources of each other. Depend upon it, "True self-love and social are the same;" "Do as you would be done by:" give those you are obliged to trust every inducement to be honest, and ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... adversities. Memb. 4. Against servitude, loss of liberty, imprisonment, banishment, &c. Memb. 5. Against vain fears, sorrows for death of friends, or otherwise. Memb. 6. Against envy, livor, hatred, malice, emulation, ambition, and self-love, &c. Memb. 7. Against repulses, abuses, injuries, contempts, disgraces, contumelies, slanders, and scoffs, &c. Memb. 8. Against all other grievous and ordinary symptoms of this ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... these softening emotions foolish weaknesses, which he would banish by shunning the society of all those who could call them forth. Their candid acknowledgment of having deserved his displeasure, and submission to his will, however, so soothed his self-love, his fondness for absolute power, that he permitted them to have vent with but little restraint. Agnes might have been the wife of a traitor, but he was out of Edward's way; the daughter of a traitress, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... Allworth. But, I must tell you as a friend, and freely, Where impossibilities are apparent. Canst thou imagine (let not self-love blind thee) That Sir Giles Overreach (that, to make her great In swelling titles, without touch of conscience, Will cut his neighbour's throat, and, I hope, his own too) Will e'er consent to make her ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... order to make sure that he will come to the rehearsal. Then I have also to provide the desks and mutes, which I had yesterday totally forgotten; without the latter the Adagio would be wholly insignificant, and its success doubtful. The Rondo is effective, the first Allegro vigorous. Cursed self-love! And if it is anyone's fault that I am conceited it is yours, egoist; he who associates with such a person becomes like him. But in one point I am as yet unlike you. I can never make up my mind quickly. But I have the ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... from philandering with one's own self-love or with one's own group or party—is to look over the entire field—the way one would on other subjects than being fooled by one's own side, strip down to the bare facts about oneself and facts about others for one's vision of action and fit them ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... which has been bartered for splendid slavery. The desire of dazzling by riches, the most certain pre-eminence that man can obtain, the pleasure of commanding flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which Genius "must hide its diminished head," it is, with a few exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... hundred and thirty-seven, whom he considers worthy of being recorded among the eminent men of France. The greater part of them are necessarily unknown to us in England; and allowance must be made for a man who is writing upon a subject, in which self-love may be considered as in some degree involved; the glory of our townsmen shining by reflection upon ourselves. A portion, however, of the number, are men whose claims to celebrity will not be denied.—Such, in the fifteenth century, were the poets John and Clement ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. II. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... offered it to Garrick, who was his personal friend. Garrick read, shook his head, and expressed a doubt whether it would be wise in Mr. Crisp to stake a reputation, which stood high, on the success of such a piece. But the author, blinded by self-love, set in motion a machinery such as none could long resist. His intercessors were the most eloquent man and the most lovely woman of that generation. Pitt was induced to read "Virginia" and to pronounce it excellent. Lady Coventry, with fingers which might have furnished a model to sculptors, forced ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... foot." This man imagined that he "was singled out alone to give his testimony for Christ, discovering Antichrist's marks." "If any," he cried out, "will be faithful for Christ, they must witness against Antichrist, which is self-love, and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. The witnesses are now slain, but shortly they will rise again," &c. He tried to get up "private Christian meetings," to run an opposition to "pulpit preaching." After going about ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... fire its destructive agency. The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. ...
— The Federalist Papers
... body there can be no dispute, but examine even the acquirements of his mind, you will find them all contribute in their order towards furnishing out an exact dress. To instance no more, is not religion a cloak, honesty a pair of shoes worn out in the dirt, self-love a surtout, vanity a shirt, and conscience a pair of breeches, which, though a cover for lewdness as well as nastiness, is easily slipped down for ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... I would be that maid!' Cuthbert resumed: 'The Christian Wife comes next: She drinks a deeper draught of life: round her In ampler sweep its sympathies extend: An infant's cry has knocked against her heart, Evoking thence that human love wherein Self-love hath least. Through infant eyes a spirit Hath looked upon her, crying, "I am thine! Creature from God—dependent yet on thee!" Thenceforth she knows how greatness blends with weakness; Reverence, thenceforth, with pity linked, reveals To her the pathos of the life of man, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... much in teaching men to regard themselves, as in leading them to forget, that their happiest affections, their candour, and their independence of mind, are in reality parts of themselves. And the adversaries of this supposed selfish philosophy, where it makes self-love the ruling passion with mankind, have had reason to find fault, not so much with its general representations of human nature, as with the obtrusion of a mere innovation in language for a discovery ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Gulbeyaz overdid her part, I know not—it succeeded, and success Is much in most things, not less in the heart Than other articles of female dress. Self-love in man, too, beats all female art; They lie, we lie, all lie, but love no less; And no one virtue yet, except starvation, Could ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... Besides, the antecedent self-love goes so far that it may become very important in the examination of the accused. Not that a trap is to be set for him; merely that since it is our business to get at the truth, we ought to proceed in such proper wise with a denying ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... cock-fights, which cover us with ridicule in the eyes of laymen? A cock draws himself up against another and bristles his feathers. . . . It is the same to-day with our professors. Cocks fight with blows from their beaks and claws; "Self-love," as some one has said, "is armed ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... as our stomach bids us eat, our moral sense bids us love our neighbours. Is that it? But our natural man through self-love opposes the voice of conscience and reason, and this gives rise to many brain-racking questions. To whom ought we to turn for the solution of those questions if you forbid us to put ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... present or future applause, in self-forgetfulness, or because they set moral or political ends above the ends of art; but in him this solitary culture of beauty seems to have hung upon a kind of self-love, and a carelessness in the work of art of all but art itself. Out of the secret places of a unique temperament he brought strange blossoms and fruits hitherto unknown; and for him, the novel impression conveyed, ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... prospect lost, another still we gain; And not a vanity is giv'n in vain: Even mean Self-love becomes, by force divine, The scale to measure others' wants by thine. Essay on ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... herself in an agony. And, indeed, there was a change. A touch of some withering blight seemed to have swept across the whole dainty face, and taken the dewy freshness from the eyes. There was fever in it—the fever of fret and mutiny and of a starved self-love. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the war which Truth or Freedom wages With impious fraud and the wrong of ages, Hate and malice and self-love mar The notes of triumph with painful jar, And the helping angels turn aside Their sorrowing faces the shame to bide. Never on custom's oiled grooves The world to a higher level moves, But grates and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a man wounded in his self-love could let fall in the shape of imprecations and reproaches upon the head of a woman Porthos let fall upon the bowed head of ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... our birth. Again, the word idea seems to be commonly taken in a very loose sense by Locke and others, as standing for any of our perceptions, our sensations and passions, as well as thoughts. Now in this sense I should desire to know what can be meant by asserting that self-love, or resentment of injuries, or the passion between the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... of the primary laws of existence in the physical world is self-love; that is, an instinct in every creature to procure its own good, even at the expense of others, so that the preservation of one is attended with the destruction of some others. All nature is in a perpetual struggle within itself, and every component part receives the elements ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... talkative, full of insipid life and laughter, we may venture to pronounce him a female favourite: Noise and flutter are such accomplishments as they cannot withstand. To be short, the passion of an ordinary woman for a man is nothing else but self-love diverted upon another object: She would have the lover a woman in every thing but the sex. I do not know a finer piece of satire on this part of womankind, than those lines of ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... thing if they had not some sense of themselves, and if that did not influence them to love themselves and what belongs to them. From which it ought to be understood that it is from the animal itself that the principle of self-love in it is derived. But among these natural principles of self-love most of the Stoics do not admit that pleasure ought to be classed; and I entirely agree with them, to avoid the many discreditable things which must ensue if nature should appear to have placed pleasure among those things which are ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... state; Dearer than swallows love the early morn, Or dogs of chase the sound of merry horn; Dearer than thou canst love thy new love, if thou hast Another, and far dearer than the last; Dearer than thou canst love thyself, though all The self-love were within thee that did fall With that coy swain that now is made a flower, For whose dear sake Echo weeps many a shower!... Come, thou forsaken willow, wind my head, And noise it to the world, my love ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... seems the effect of an assemblage of other passions, than a passion simple of itself, and natural to the mind of man; and I believe, whoever examines it to the fountain head, will find it takes its origin from pride and envy, and is nourished by self-love, nor ever appears in any great degree, where these do not abound.—Were it born with us, there would doubtless be some indications of it in childhood, but it is observable, that not till man arrives at ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... description is, that his Gertrude, &c. has no more locality in common with Pennsylvania than with Penmanmaur. It is notoriously full of grossly false scenery, as all Americans declare, though they praise parts of the poem. It is thus that self-love for ever creeps out, like a snake, to sting any thing which happens, even accidentally, to stumble ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... flattered at his dependence on you. If you saw any other girl acting as you do you'd say it was sheer impudence! And you think it's very wonderful that anyone so clever as Louis should notice you. You're flattered, you see—that's self-love, not Louis-love! Oh very beautiful! And you're such an illogical sort of idiot that you want to save him, and yet you want him so splendid and shining that he doesn't need any saving. Oh go—get out—all of you!" and she waved her hand to her dreams and sent the shining Lover ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... because she loved her husbands better than all else, better than heaven. Next Sahadeva fell, then Nakalu, and afterwards Arjuna and Bhima. Yudhi-sthira, still striding on, informed Bhima that pride had slain the first, self-love the second, the sin of Arjuna was a lie, and Bhima had loved too well the good things ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... self-love festered stingingly. I persisted in letting my thoughts dwell on it. I would frame sentences with which Radley would express his surprise at my transcendent powers, such as: "Ray, you're a find for the house"; "I'm glad Bramhall possesses you, ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... the coldest and most selfish character, being such as considers neglect as insult, and receives homage merely as a tribute; so that, while praise is received without gratitude, it is withheld at the risk of mortal hate. Self-love of this dangerous character is closely allied with envy, and Robespierre was one of the most envious and vindictive men that ever lived. He never was known to pardon any opposition, affront, or even rivalry; and to be marked in his tablets on such an account was a sure, though perhaps not ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... life many insults from his brother; but, as he was not a vain man, he generally thought his brother in the right, and consequently submitted with patience; but, though he had little self-love, he had for his wife an unbounded affection. On the present occasion, therefore, he began to raise his voice, and even (in the coarse expression of clownish anger) to lift his hand; but the sudden and affecting recollection of what ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... after breakfast every moment "runs itself in golden sands," and the break in your time crashes a worse break in your temper. "Are you busy?" asks the considerate wretch, adding insult to injury. What can you do? Say yes and wound his self-love forever? But he has a wife and family. You respect their feelings, smile and smile, and are villain enough to be civil with your lips, and hide the poison of asps under your tongue, till you have a chance to relieve your o'ercharged heart by shaking your fist in impotent wrath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... correct, and so do my friends: 'A mild, obliging, gentle, amiable person, with many fine traits of character; timid in nature, fond of society, loving peace and quietude, delighting in warm and close friendships. There is much that is firm, steadfast and industrious, some self-love, a good deal of diplomacy, a little that is subtle, or what is called finesse. You are reserved with those you dislike. There is a serious and sad side to your character; you are very thoughtful and contemplative ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... self-love simply advises; the law of morality commands. There is a vast difference between what we are advised and what we are obliged to do. No practical laws can be based on the principle of happiness, even on that of universal happiness, for the knowledge of this happiness ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... as he was, M. de Breulh could not conceal his surprise, in which a certain amount of wounded self-love was mingled. ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... marriages, of secret societies, of intemperance, and the indulgence of self-love in ardent and enthusiastic youth, find here the record of their fatal influence on social life, reflected through the medium of historical facts. Therefore we present to the young a chapter of warning—a tale of the past with a deep moral ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... not forgetting the cage: chary of this low life, even in the peril of his own. So, going out on the street, he tested his own nature by this trifle in his old fashion. "The ruling passion strong in death," eh? It had not been self-love; something deeper: an instinct rather than reason. Was he glad to think this of himself? He looked out more watchful of the face which the coming Christmas bore. The air was cold and pungent. The crowded city seemed ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... will easily be perceived how strictly I am reserved upon the ladies, and upon all gallantries, not intimately associated with what may be called important matters. I should be so here, more than in any other case, from self-love, if not from respect for the sex and dignity of the person. The considerable part I played in bringing about Madame la Duchesse de Berry's marriage, and the place that Madame de Saint-Simon, in spite ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... of self-pity at his own imperfectness; and the power of his will and his confidence in himself, of which he was so proud, seemed misplaced and little. And then he wondered if he had not neglected chances; but in answer to this his injured self-love rose to rebut the idea that he had wasted any portion of his time, and he assured himself that he had done the work that he had cut out for himself to do as best he could; no one but himself knew with what courage and spirit. And so he sat combating with himself, hoping one moment ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... no longer holy rage, Ecstasy nor madness sheer, But self-love alone that urges Them to slaughter ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine
... modesty of her demeanor, her brilliant complexion, large and languishing blue eyes, and profusion of flaxen hair, were enough of themselves to excite the admiration of one so enamored of beauty as was Louis XIV. But, in addition to this, the self-love of Louis was gratified by the assurance that Louise admired him for his personal qualities, and not merely for his kingly crown. As the king was well aware of the gossip with which the court was filled in view of his devotion to Madame ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott
... commonly adopted during that age, and to which the ambiguous nature of the English constitution gave so plausible an appearance, were firmly rivetted in Charles; and however moderate his temper, the natural and unavoidable prepossessions of self-love, joined to the late uniform precedents in favor of prerogative, had made him regard his political tenets as certain and uncontroverted. Taught to consider even the ancient laws and constitution more as lines to direct his ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... fellows of our life and love. So let us address ourselves afresh to the spiritual race, the course of faith. Let us, as athletes of the soul, strip all encumbrance off, "every weight" of allowed wrong, all guilty links with the world of rebellion and self-love; "the sin which doth so easily beset us," clinging so soon around the feet, like a net of fine but stubborn meshes, till the runner gives up the hopeless ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... ringing in his ear. Was he, then, to be set free to-night? Free in a measure, of course, since spies were to be set to watch him—but free, nevertheless? He could not understand Chauvelin's attitude, and his own self-love was not a little wounded at the thought that he was of such little account that these men could afford to give him even this provisional freedom. And, of course, there was ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... friend and foe alike, and by which effort to work out their beau ideal of the expression of Christian love they do signally damage their cause, by saddening the serious and repelling the gay. Much less do we mean that perpetual smile of good-will which argues more of personal comfort and self-love than anything else. No; the loving look we speak of is as often grave as gay. Its character depends very much on the face through which it beams. And it cannot be counterfeited. Its ring defies imitation. Like the clouded sun of April, it can pierce through tears of sorrow; like the noontide sun ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... his man, Sancho Panza, shows what the mere worship of ease and vulgar prudence will degrade a man to. If the enthusiasm and mad exaltation of Don Quixote could have been combined with a little of the vulgar self-love of Sancho, one extreme might have corrected the other, and we might have had a wise gentleman instead of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... they fear not to affirm, that all the sayings of all the Academics together, if they were collected into one body, are not comparable to what Chrysippus has writ in disparagement of the senses. Which is an evident sign of the ignorance or self-love of the speakers; but this indeed is true, that being afterwards desirous to defend custom and the senses, he was inferior to himself, and the latter treatise was much weaker than the former. So that he contradicts himself; for having always directed the proposing of an adversary's ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... damned; and his hell was death. He stood gazing on the white face. The world, heaven, God, and nature were dead, and that was the soul of it all, dead before him! But such death is never born of love. This agony was but the fog of disappointed self-love; and out of it suddenly rose what seemed a new power to live, but one from a lower world: it was all a wretched dream, out of which he was no more to issue, in which he must go on for ever, dreaming, yet acting ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... with a barbed arrow in my self-love, and a hard, resentful pain at my heart, on my mother's account. Fierce tears scalded the inside of my eyelids as I recalled her weeks of loving preparation for our school life, the thousand of stitches set by her dear hands, the gentle smile of satisfaction with ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... idea of our own weakness, is called "humility;" the pleasure, which springs from the contemplation of ourselves, is called "self-love" or "self- complacency." And inasmuch as this feeling is renewed as often as a man contemplates his own virtues, or his own power of activity, it follows that everyone is fond of narrating his own exploits, and displaying the force both of his body ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... picture of a domestic menage, "a wife not too learned..." She is not willing to lose a woman's birthright of love and devotion, but is not quite sure how far it might be affected by her ability to detect a solecism. Hence, she offers a great deal of subtle flattery to masculine self-love. With curious ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... that anger and fear are aroused if the object of love is threatened, joy is aroused as it prospers, and sorrow if it is deeply injured or lost, self-love remarkably resembles other-love. The pride we take in our own achievements is unalloyed by jealousy, and there is always a trace of jealousy in the pride we take in the achievements of others, but there is no difference in the pride itself. There is no essential difference ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... express!" she murmured, with the pride in him which implied that there were no thoughts worth expressing to which he could not give a monumental utterance. Her adoration flattered his self-love to the same passionate intensity, and to something like the generous ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells |
