"Disinterested" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deportment. In a letter written from California, in 1847, introducing Carson as the bearer of dispatches to the government, Col. Fremont says: 'with me, Carson and truth mean the same thing. He is always the same—gallant and disinterested.' He is kind-hearted, and averse to all quarrelsome and turbulent scenes, and has never been engaged in any mere personal broils or encounters, except on one single occasion, which he sometimes modestly ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Samuel was the type of a disinterested, incorruptible judge, who even refused compensation for the time, trouble, and pecuniary sacrifices entailed upon him by his office. (43) His sons fell far short of resembling their father in these respects. Instead of continuing Samuel's plan of journeying from place to place to dispense judgment, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... certain theories which he used to talk about. He believed in a high, spiritual, disinterested affection which would raise a man above himself, making him more noble, inspiring a disgust for all ignoble pleasures. The woman willing to accept such homage might do anything she pleased with a heart that would be hers alone. She would be the lady ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... colleagues, could yet find time to send him a three-paged communication. In reply, the young traveller assures him that the character of the great minister had 'filled many of my best hours with the noble admiration which a disinterested soul can enjoy in the bower of philosophy.' He informs his lordship that he is preparing for publication his Tour in Corsica, that he has entered at the bar, and 'I begin to like it. I labour hard; and feel myself coming forward, and I hope to be useful to my ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... sale may not be a vexatious and useless attempt to interfere unduly with national customs. States have sought to attain these ends in various ways. The sale of alcohol may be made a State monopoly, as in Russia, or, again, it may be carried on under disinterested municipal or other control, as by the Gothenburg system of Sweden or the Samlag system of Norway.[206] In England the easier and more usual plan is adopted of heavily taxing the sale, with, in addition, various minor methods for restraining the sale of alcoholic drinks and attempting to ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... first come across John Locke—he had mixed there with all and sundry, rubbing shoulders with the riff-raff of nations; he had seen its vice and destitution, had mingled with its feverish surface gaiety and known its underlying squalor and ugliness, but always as a disinterested spectator, a transient passer by. Always he had had money in his pocket. He had never known the deadly ever present fear that lies coldly at the heart of even the wildest of the greater number of its inhabitants. He had seen but never felt starvation. He had never sold his ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... and were annexed to the imperial crown; that those idolaters had better inclinations towards Christianity than was generally thought; and that they would come over to the faith of their own accord, when they should see amongst them disinterested preachers, free ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... for the gudewife was of a stirring, household nature, and Theophilus himself, albeit douce and temperate for a publican, was a man obliging and hospitable, not only as became him in his trade but from a disinterested good-will. He was, indeed, as my grandfather came afterwards to know, really a person holden in great respect and repute by the visitors and pilgrims who resorted to the abbey, and by none more than by the worthy wives of Irvine, the most ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... himself she would, and let her deceive him with thinking so, instead of, as we all did, seeing that what she wanted was to secure the credit of being constant and disinterested in case he retained his position. So, although she took Emily home, she left him cheered and hopeful, admiring her, and believing that she so regarded her daughter's happiness that, if he had enough to support ...
— Lady Hester, or Ursula's Narrative • Charlotte M. Yonge
... sums expended on missions should have produced so little effect, we may consider lamentable, but it is lamentably true; for in addition to the mass of evidence we have to that effect, from disinterested white men, we have also the speeches and communications of the Indians themselves. The celebrated Seneca chief, Saguyuwhaha (keeper awake), better known in the United States by the name of Red-jacket, in a letter communicated to Governor De Witt Clinton, at a treaty held ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... draw out of it large sums of money. If this goes on, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poor people? [Bravo.] Let us prohibit foreign wood. I am not speaking for myself, for you could not make a tooth-pick out of all the wood I own. I am, therefore, perfectly disinterested. [Good, good.] But here is Pierre, who has a park, and he will keep our fellow-citizens from freezing. They will no longer be in a state of dependence on the charcoal dealers of the Yonne. Have you ever thought of the risk we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of these foreign forests ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... interrupted Manoel, whose coolness did not forsake him. "It is necessary that not the slightest possible doubt should exist in the mind of the magistrate! It is better that disinterested witnesses should affirm that this case was really found on ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... the situation into which her own despotic violence had thrown Raleigh, she appears to have compelled him to buy his liberty, and the undisturbed enjoyment of all that he held under her, by the sacrifice of no less than eighty thousand pounds due to him as admiral. Such was the disinterested purity of that zeal for morals of which Elizabeth judged it incumbent ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... de Sigognac, in much agitation, "that she always absolutely refused me, though she knew that I was perfectly disinterested." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Everyone will love you, they couldn't help it!——" He rushed on heedlessly, oblivious to any ulterior construction which might be put upon his words, intent only on assuring her of her welcome in the place which her father had said was her rightful one, and in convincing her of his disinterested friendship. ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... not governed by the will, do themselves greatly influence the will. All acts of will produced entirely by pure affection for another are disinterested.... So soon as the affections move towards an object, the will is proportionally influenced to please and benefit that object, or, if a superior being, ...
— God's Plan with Men • T. T. (Thomas Theodore) Martin
... hitherto appeared, or else that great lady and he would never have used such familiarity with each other. Imagining him no better than he was, Climene had made him her own. And now she was to receive the reward of disinterested affection. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... should have chosen a text from the Koran so singularly appropriate to his condition. There were hundreds of suras familiar to Michael, relating to the benefits to be received by the faithful who performed disinterested acts of charity. "Do good to the creatures of God, for God loves those who do good." These words came to his mind as more suitable, as referring only to his hospitality to the fainting wayfarer. Or again, "The truly righteous are those who, in order to please ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... His course was entirely generous and disinterested. Most visitors to art galleries have ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... greatest statesman of his age; a pure patriot, a disinterested politician, a great orator, a man possessing at once immense talent, unbounded perseverance, a fortitude under misfortunes beyond proof, and an unshakeable faith in God. But terrible as was the blow to the Netherlands, it failed to have the effect ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... to understand then, that you are a candidate for the hand of my ward," says the professor, slowly, so slowly that it might suggest itself to a disinterested listener that he has great ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... revealing what for many reasons had better be left untold. But many such have come to my knowledge, and I believe there are many more known only to himself and to those who derived benefit from his disinterested friendship."[35] ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... children besides myself in my family. When I was six years old, all of us children were taken from my parents, because my master died and his estate had to be settled. We slaves were divided by this method. Three disinterested persons were chosen to come to the plantation and together they wrote the names of the different heirs on a few slips of paper. These slips were put in a hat and passed among us slaves. Each one took a slip and the name on the slip was the new owner. I happened ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves: Indiana Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... manner lent me the sum I wanted to complete the purchase-money of the diamonds, but obstinately refuses to share the profits which, on my return to Europe, are sure to accrue from this speculation. What generosity! M——is assuredly the most disinterested and the truest of friends. We are becoming each day more attached to each other. He has formed a project to come and settle near Hamburg, and there we shall pass the rest of our days together. He is a most singular ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... with a delightful house, whom he called his Marraine because she had given him a nickname. These women, and others—but these two above the rest—were sincerely and loyally attached to him with a disinterested regard which did not spare advice, nor even rebuke, or relax under his loss of health and brilliancy or neglect of their kindness, which nevertheless he felt and valued. His purest source of pleasure was in the talent of others, which gave him a generous and sympathetic enjoyment. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... I have something to show you—my father's will! It was discovered, or rather, produced, yesterday. The lawyers who have charge of the estate—Anderson & Wallace, you know—seem to me to be perfectly disinterested, and honest, but I am so hedged in on every hand by a stifling feeling of deceit and treachery that I feel I can trust no one save you and Mr. Hamilton—not even poor old Ellen, my maid, who has been with ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... and even handsome as he said this. Involuntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province "Uncle" had the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... them, wondering what weighty discussion was keeping them there in the cold. Vaughan he passed by with the cursory glance of a disinterested stranger, and went on to where Miss Conroy waited stubbornly in ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... 415, how right I was to have held him in good esteem; he is by far the best and most disinterested of my Japanese family. When all my commissions are finished, he puts up his little vehicle under a tree, and much touched by my departure, insists upon escorting me on board the Triomphante, to watch over my final purchases in the sampan which ...
— Madame Chrysantheme • Pierre Loti
... which they are born furnish little chance for them to develop their minds and their tastes, but their souls suffer nothing from working in squalour and sordidness. Certain acts of impulsive generosity, of disinterested kindness, of tender sacrifice, of loyalty and fortitude shone out in the poverty-stricken wretches I met on my way, as the sun shines glorious in iridescence on the rubbish heap that goes to fertilize some rich ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Qualities which should characterize and dignify their chiefe Magistrate. Our present Governors may probably stamp the moral as well as political Character of the People. I shall most heartily rejoyce, if the "Abilities and disinterested Zeal" of the Gentleman called to fill the Chair prove adequate to the strong Expectations of my fellow Citizens in Boston, expressd in their late Vote of Thanks. But why do I trouble you with a Subject of this Nature? Let me ask you before I finish this Letter—Are you in Health? ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. The slight reproach to which the virtue of patriotism is commonly liable, the noble are most likely to incur. Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... Dorjiling on the 17th of April, and Dr. Thomson and I commenced our arrangements for proceeding to the Khasia mountains. We started on the 1st of May, and I bade adieu to Dorjiling with no light heart; for I was leaving the kindest and most disinterested friends I had ever made in a foreign land, and a country whose mountains, forests, productions, and people had all become endeared to me by many ties and associations. The prospects of Dorjiling itself ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... character would have appeared in a more resplendent light had he not succeeded a brother singularly endowed, and whose death was considered to be a public calamity. Of Francis, Duke of Bedford, who was summoned away in his thirty-seventh year, Fox said: "In his friendships, not only was he disinterested and sincere, but in him were to be found united all the characteristic excellencies that have ever distinguished the men most renowned for that virtue. Some are warm, but volatile and inconstant; he was warm too, but ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... this wide Earth, Mr. President, there is not one disinterested, determined, intelligent champion of the Union Cause who does not feel that all attempts to put down the Rebellion, and at the same time uphold its inciting cause, are preposterous and futile—that the Rebellion, if crushed out to-morrow, would be ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... common law. We can conceive of Disraeli moaning that the Titan interests of the earth have overthrown the celestial hierarchy,—that the realm of genius has been stormed by worldly workers,—that literature, like the angels, has fallen from its first estate,—and that authors, no longer the disinterested and suffering apostles, of art, have chosen rather to bear the wand of power and luxury than to be inspired. We can imagine his horror at the sacrilegious vulgarization of print, that people without taste rush into angelic metre, that dunces and sages thrive together on the public indiscrimination. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... of the grand pieces whose position Le Notre marked, and whose future beauties he described, Louis XIV interrupted him, saying, 'Le Notre, I give you twenty thousand francs.' This magnificent approbation was so frequently repeated that it annoyed Le Notre, whose soul was as noble and disinterested as that of his master was generous. At the fourth interruption he stopped, and said brusquely to the King, 'Sire, Your Majesty shall hear no more. I shall ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... to succeed beyond all hope; yet the money was to be given, not lent. The operation was purely disinterested, in the literal meaning of the word, and ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... to the time when thought shall people their solitude as with the presence of angels. They hear heavenly voices asking, Why stay ye on the earth, unless to grow? Vanity, frivolity, and fickleness die within them; and they grow to be humble and courageous, disinterested and laborious, strong and persevering. The cultivation of their higher nature becomes the law of their life; and the sense of duty, "stern daughter of the voice of God," which of all motives that ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... cannot attempt to check him. He knows many strange tales of 'lamentable things done long ago and ill done'; he is extraordinarily loyal to his Rajas and Chiefs, who have not always acted in a way to inspire devotion; he is capable of the most disinterested affection; he loves his wives and his little ones dearly; and, if once he trusts a man, will do anything in the wide world at that man's bidding. He is clean in his habits; nice about his food and his surroundings; is generally cheery; and is ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... at court), and a great warrior from Herculaneum, who had fought with Titus against the Jews, and having enriched himself prodigiously in the wars, was always told by his friends that his country was eternally indebted to his disinterested exertions! The party, however, extended to a yet greater number: for although, critically speaking, it was, at one time, thought inelegant among the Romans to entertain less than three or more than nine at their banquets, yet this rule was easily disregarded by the ostentatious. And we are told, ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... turned into commentary of the Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral commentary. They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever their nature, were directed to this result." There was no disinterested love of learning; no desire to become acquainted with God's world. In fact, the old hostility to everything natural characterizes all monastic history. Europe did not enter upon that broad and noble intellectual development which is the glory of our era, until the right ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... manner we have seen. He told how, disgusted in early life by the treachery and ingratitude of friends and relations who had combined to ruin him, he had become a misanthrope and miser; how the spectacle of Simon's disinterested fidelity, rigid sense of honor, self-denial and cheerfulness, had won back his better nature; and he wound off, as he shook Quillpen warmly by the hand, by announcing that he had raised his salary to twelve hundred ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... chosen branch of study. Such men ordinarily take up subjects of practical bearing; physical science is wont to be their field; or if they study history it is from the point of view of current politics. Taste for literature pure and simple, and disinterested love of historical search, are the rarest things among the self-taught; naturally so, seeing how seldom they come of anything but academical tillage of the right soil. The average man of education is fond of ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... The disinterested behaviour of the converts betokened their intense earnestness. "All that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need." [52:2] These early ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... administered the affairs of Hindostan was distinguished as the East India Company. Hence, too, the spiritual welfare of the Great Khan engaged the attention of both Columbus and Cabot, whereas, in fact, this potentate (if, indeed, he existed) was secluded from their disinterested zeal by a vast continent, and thousands of miles of ocean. These misconceptions were based on a strange underestimate of the circumference of the world, but they add, if possible, to our wonder at the ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... asserted. "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in the end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a favour? You humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested generosity. Let me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in assuming it you do not treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is mean to take advantage of my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself thus at my expense. Of course I understand your point of view. From your associations ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... was to be an Easter party at Valley House. The writer hinted in vague terms that he was a private detective aware of certain things, yet so placed that he could have no handling of the affair, except from a distance, and through another person. He pretended a disinterested desire to serve Ruthven Smith, and signed himself, "A Well Wisher"; but the nervous recipient of the advice felt that his correspondent was quite likely to be of the class opposed ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... forbore to question her. Margie appreciated his delicacy, and something impelled her to confide to him what she had not entrusted to the descretion of any other person. She owed him this confidence, for his disinterested kindness. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... faithful workers are not martyrs; but there is something heroic in their lives. It is the heroism of those who lay upon themselves the lowliest duties, and perform them in the spirit of the loftiest devotion. The work that calls forth such consecration as this, so disinterested and sincere, bears its own letter of commendation. The spirit of Him, who "came to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many," is ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... the liberty of the individual were not wanting, and they exhibited themselves passionately and at any risk, at one time by brutal and cynical outbursts which were followed occasionally by fervent repentance and expiation, at another by acts of courageous wisdom and disinterested piety. At the commencement of the eleventh century, William III., count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, was one of the most honored and most potent princes of his time; all the sovereigns of Europe sent embassies to him as to their peer; he every year made, by way of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of poverty in London, which extended over eighteen years and were finally embodied in seventeen volumes, is an example of such a disinterested investigation. It is an attempt to put to the test of fact the popular conception of the relation between ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... in her unsuspecting mind. But if I jest about this matter, it is not that I underestimate the sweetness of the practice of married people remembering each other at Christmas. I am not so sure that of all other gifts—not even excepting those to children—these are not the most disinterested and spring from the truest affection. It is no easy feat to have lived with a man for ten, fifteen, twenty years; to know his weakness thoroughly; to measure the wide distance from the heroic stature for which we took him, and the size into which thorough knowledge shrinks ...
— Observations of a Retired Veteran • Henry C. Tinsley
... of these persons," he said to Joseph Smith, "is worth his weight in gold. Their disinterested fidelity to duty is a type of character that almost became extinct generations ago, and no more valuable leaven could be introduced into the society of the future. Rather than leave them, I would ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... declares that he only thrice criticised his contemporaries in an unfavourable sense, and as one wishful to find fault. The victims were Casimir Delavigne, Scribe, and Ponsard. On each occasion Dumas declares that, after reflecting, he saw that he was moved by a little personal pique, not by a disinterested love of art. He makes his confession with a rare nobility of candour; and yet his review of Ponsard is worthy of him. M. Ponsard, who, like Dumas, was no scholar, wrote a play styled Ulysse, and borrowed ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... clergy formed a distinct order in temporal society and, above all others, a body possessing property and exempt from taxes, a tax-payer apart which, represented in periodical assemblies, negotiated every five years with the King himself, granted him subsidies and, in exchange for this "disinterested gift," secured for itself concessions or confirmations of immunities, prerogatives and favors. Today, it is merely a collection of ordinary individuals and subjects, even less than that—an administrative ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... most gratefully," returned Mr. Minford, "and fully appreciate the noble motives of your conduct. Your appearance convinces me that you are entirely disinterested. But I should feel ashamed to take money from you, without giving some security for its repayment. I shall therefore insist upon making over to you a certain interest in the invention, the most valuable of modern times, which lies almost finished ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the offer to act as secretary himself. This came as a great surprise, and the offer was at once and unanimously accepted, all unpleasant feelings being forgotten, and for the first time in his life Elijah heard himself praised as a disinterested person, one it was good ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... considerateness and sympathy with which he met those who asked the benefit of his opinion in matters of importance was, I believe, his characteristic in many other ways in his intercourse with those towards whom he stood in various relations. He was always prompt, clear, decided, and disinterested. He entered into their pursuits, though dissimilar to his own; he took an interest in their objects; he adapted himself to their dispositions and tastes; he brought a strong and calm good sense to bear ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... furrowed his brow. He had relied on easily prevailing upon her through her gratitude; continuing in his disinterested role for yet some time; resuming the journey on the morrow, carrying her farther away under pretext of mistaking the road, until—Here his plans had faded into a vague perspective, dominated ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... affairs? I don't like to hear such tales; he's arter somethin' as sure as the world, if he warn't he'd say, 'What's that to me.' I never believe much what I hear said by a man's violent friend, or violent enemy. I want to hear what a disinterested man has to say. Now, as a disinterested man, I say if the members of the House of Assembly, instead of raisin' up ghosts and hobgoblins to frighten folks with, and to show what swordsmen they be, ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... strewers of flowers and leaves, &c., to a pretty spot by the sea-side, where he had lately made a tobacco-plantation, and which, he remarked, "would be scarce worth the plucking, as he had not been able to attend to it of late;—however, he hoped his venerable and disinterested friend and spiritual comforter, the priest, would accept the crop, such as it was, as a slight testimony of his eternal gratitude." Hereupon the crowd clapped their hands with delight, the singers shouted, the drummers ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... nonsense the hours that would otherwise seem long to their brooding mates on the nests, and the hum of insects, my fancy began to create a future for the fair stranger—a future, rest assured, that did not leave the dreamer a calm and disinterested observer. ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... and Sybil Seymour in a cab. As they entered I fancied that a friendship had sprung up between the two, that Miss Kendall had won her fight for the girl. Indeed, I suspect that it was the first time in years that the girl had had a really disinterested friend of ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... power of elocution as struck his hearers with astonishment and admiration. It flashed like the lightning of heaven against the ministers and sons of corruption, blasting where it smote, and withering the nerves of opposition; but his more substantial praise was founded upon his disinterested integrity his incorruptible heart, his unconquerable spirit of independence, and his invariable attachment to the interest and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... about to embark for England, the Committee cannot allow him to quit these shores without expressing their regret that his stay has been so short, and the sense they entertain of the great interest he has evinced in the welfare of the colony, and the disinterested support he has given an enterprise which is likely to lead to such generally beneficial results as ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... conversant with the army's machinery are well aware how entirely and radically the whole system has changed, and how, from a band of devoted and disinterested workers, united in the bonds of zeal and charity for the good of their fellows, it has developed into a colossal and aggressive agency for the building up of a system and a sect, bound by rules and regulations altogether subversive of religious ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... bourgeois England of priggishness and provinciality. I mean, of course, Matthew Arnold. Against Mill's "liberty" and Carlyle's "strength" and Ruskin's "nature," he set up a new presence and entity which he called "culture," the disinterested play of the mind through the sifting of the best books and authorities. Though a little dandified in phrase, he was undoubtedly serious and public-spirited in intention. He sometimes talked of culture almost as if it were a man, or at least a church (for a church has a sort of personality): ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... or pursued by his creditors, Balzac sought refuge in her home, and with a pure and disinterested maternal affection, she calmed him and inspired him with courage to continue the battle of life. It was indeed the maternal element that he needed and longed for, and Madame Carraud seems to have been a rare mother ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... member of a church, in good and regular standing; you had graduated with all the honors worth mentioning; you had not a sin, a vice, or a fault that I knew of; and you were so thoroughly good and repulsive that you were a great grief to me. Do you think, you dear, disinterested wretch, that I have forgotten how you were continually putting yourself to horrible inconveniences on my account? Do you think I am not now filled with remorse for the aversion that rooted itself ineradicably in my soul, and which now gloats ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... a true and disinterested friend," said Lupex. And Johnny did accept the hand, though it was very dirty and stained ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... that a prudent archer has always a second bowstring. Eugenia was a woman of finely-mingled motive, and her intentions were never sensibly gross. She had a sort of aesthetic ideal for Clifford which seemed to her a disinterested reason for taking him in hand. It was very well for a fresh-colored young gentleman to be ingenuous; but Clifford, really, was crude. With such a pretty face he ought to have prettier manners. She would teach him that, ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... a brother. To say that she was not gratified by learning her mistake would be to say that she was more than woman. Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the captain evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nothing further concerning him, we remained in uncertainty respecting his intentions. We were the more thankful to God, who had disposed the heart of this man cheerfully to accept of the commission, and wait to be our guide, an office which he performed with a degree of faithfulness and disinterested kindness, which claims ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... jealousy and mistrust, and suspected me of loving her. He said nothing to her, but attacked me in private, and charged me with designing to corrupt the fidelity to himself—observe his selfishness— of a young creature who was his only disinterested and faithful companion. The upshot of it was that I was to renounce her or be renounced by him. Of course, I was not going to yield to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... spine which confined her to a recumbent position for several years, and from the effects of which she never fully recovered. In 1826 she pub. anonymously An Essay on Mind and Other Poems. Shortly afterwards the abolition of slavery, of which he had been a disinterested supporter, considerably reduced Mr. B.'s means: he accordingly disposed of his estate and removed with his family first to Sidmouth and afterwards to London. At the former Miss B. wrote Prometheus Bound (1835). After ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... them from my head to my heels. Tells of the probability of a splinter of bone knocked off my left hip, the possibility of paralysis in the leg, the certainty of a seriously injured spine, and the necessity for the most violent counter-irritants. Follow blisters which sicken even disinterested people to look at, and a trifle of suffering which I come very near acknowledging to myself. Enter the fourth. Inhuman butchery! wonder they did not kill you! Take three drops a day out of this tiny bottle, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... with mocking derision. "But, while on the subject, why don't you prove that you have sacrificed yourself for my sake? You did not need me as a tool for carrying out plans for your own benefit; did you? oh no, not at all! Dear, kind, generous, disinterested uncle! You ought to have the Montyon prize; I think I must recommend you as the most deserving person I ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... and moving towards a hill called Calvary. Amidst soldiers and civilians, both friends and foes, the central figure is that of a man scarcely more than thirty years of age. He has all the attributes, in form and features, of true manliness. A disinterested judge has just declared that he finds nothing amiss in him; but the rabble cry out, all the more, "crucify him." While ardently loved by a devoted few in that tumultuous crowd, he is, to all the rest, an object of severest scorn, the butt of ribald jest. Wearing his crown of thorns, he is made ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... lastly, to support a candidate, be his nomination as unsullied as his personal integrity, and his legislative career as free from 'strikes' as his advocacy of our pirate-infested waterways is disinterested, who is yet so slavishly the henchman of his party machine that no measure it may propose is too unsavory to enlist his Dugald Dalgetty loyalty. By your closed lips you countenance the land-jobbing steal which your great state Boss failed by the merest fluke to saddle upon the River and ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... that the people are not with them but against, and yet that the people might be won by visible forthright kingly service to a loyalty outdoing theirs as the sun the moon; ay, that the people verily thirst to love and reverence; and that their love is the only love worth having, because it is disinterested love, and endures, and takes heat in adversity,—reflect on it and wonder at the inversion of things! So with a Church. It lives if it is at home with the poor. In the arms of enriched shopkeepers it rots, goes to decay in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some reinforcement ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... not sleepy although she did not see anything very distinctly, but although the figures passing through the hall became vaguer and vaguer, she believed that they all knew exactly where they were going, and the sense of their certainty filled her with comfort. For the moment she was as detached and disinterested as if she had no longer any lot in life, and she thought that she could now accept anything that came to her without being perplexed by the form in which it appeared. What was there to frighten or to perplex in the prospect ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... am not afraid, Lady Blakeney. You see, I do not happen to believe in God. Come!" he added more seriously, "have I not proved to you that my offer is disinterested? Yet I repeat it even now. If you desire to see Sir Percy in prison, command me, and the doors shall be ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... and resumes in patents; it lurks in the limitation of a subscription, and invites in the assurance of crowd and incommodation at public places; it delights to draw forth concealed merit, with a most disinterested assiduity; and sometimes wears a countenance of smiling censure and tender reproach. It has a wonderful memory for parliamentary debates, and will often give the whole speech of a favoured member with the most flattering ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... observe how few philologists there actually are, except those that have taken up philology as a means of livelihood, we can easily decide for ourselves what is the matter with this impulse for antiquity: it hardly exists at all, for there are no disinterested philologists. ...
— We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... woman of high purpose and degree, of the type which used to be called, in the old days when it flourished in Great Britain, feminist, often walked out in the evening for a purpose which did her great credit. She was of those good and disinterested women who care greatly for the troubles of their less fortunate, less well-educated and less well-principled sisters, and who often patrol streets in whatever city they happen to find themselves, with a view to extending the hand of succour to those of ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... way was to get a few seed catalogues, pick out a list of the vegetables most enthusiastically described by the (wholly disinterested) seedsman, and then, when the time came, to put them in at one or two plantings, and sowing each kind as far as the seed would go. There is a better way—a way to make the garden produce more, to yield things when you want them, and in ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... won the admiration of distinguished European thinkers and writers: Carlyle accepted his friendship and his disinterested services; Miss Martineau fully recognized his genius and sounded his praises; Miss Bremer fixed her sharp eyes on him and pronounced him "a noble man." Professor Tyndall found the inspiration of his life in Emerson's ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... in others. Craft studies the world calculatingly, from without, instead of understandingly from within. Especially would it have cheapened the feline philosophies; for not simply how to know but how to circumvent the universe would have been their desire. Mankind's curiosity is disinterested; it seems purer by contrast. That is to say, made as we are, it seems purer to us. What we call disinterested, however, super-cats might call aimless. (Aimlessness is one of the ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... dormant in Manyuema. Appetite returned, and instead of the spare, tasteless, two meals a day, I ate four times daily, and in a week began to feel strong. I am not of a demonstrative turn; as cold, indeed, as we islanders are usually reputed to be, but this disinterested kindness of Mr. Bennett, so nobly carried into effect by Mr. Stanley, was simply overwhelming. I really do feel extremely grateful, and at the same time I am a little ashamed at not being more worthy of the generosity. Mr. Stanley has done his ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... such questions expressed themselves in her neglect of him and in her yawns. Under his locket, and his paunch, and his layers, he burned with pain; Wetter was laying the blisters open to the air, that their sting might be sharper. At last, sorely beset, he divined a sympathy in me. He thought it disinterested, not perceiving that he had for me the fascination of a travesty of myself, and that in his marriage I enjoyed a burlesque presentiment of what mine would be. That point of view was my secret until Wetter's ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... constitutional by a bench of slaveholders, whose pecuniary interests connect them directly with slavery; or by those who have surrendered themselves to a pro-slavery policy from political hopes. But if we gather the opinions of unbiassed and disinterested men, of those who have no money to make, and no office to hope for, through the triumph of this law, then I think the preponderance of opinion is decidedly against its constitutionality. It is a fact universally known, that gentlemen who ...
— The Duty of Disobedience to the Fugitive Slave Act - Anti-Slavery Tracts No. 9, An Appeal To The Legislators Of Massachusetts • Lydia Maria Child
... Sam shown such gratitude; and never before had Thornton Lyne been less disinterested in his attentions. There was a hot bath—which Sam Stay could have dispensed with, but which, out of sheer politeness, he was compelled to accept, a warm and luxurious breakfast; a new suit of clothes, with not two, but four, ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... of their scientific periodicals {3} to the celebration of Mr. Darwin's seventieth birthday. There is no other Englishman now living who has been able to win such a compliment as this from foreigners, who should be disinterested judges. ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... me you were 'spying'," she replied; coldly. "I have never thought of you as—a spy, Cap'n Kendrick. I have always considered you a friend, a disinterested ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... approbation on any dress, decoration, etc., belonging to you. Know that the reviews are superb; and were I dissatisfied with them, I should be a conceited ape. Nothing higher is ever said, FROM PERFECTLY DISINTERESTED MOTIVES, of any living authors. If all be well, I go to London this week; Wednesday, I think. The dress-maker has done my small matters pretty well, but I wish you could have looked them over, and given a dictum. I insisted on the dresses being ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of all this, produced, momentarily, the effect of ranging Mary on the other side, with Paula and her musician. But just at this point, she lost her character of disinterested spectator, for Wallace, having put March back in his box and laid him deliberately on the shelf, abruptly produced, by way of diversion, another piece ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... prospect to the young officer who had still his second "swab" to win. That was where the advantage of accidents at sea came in. On shore the judiciary, however kindly disposed to the naval service, were painfully disinterested. At sea the scales of justice were held, none too meticulously, by brother officers who had the service at heart. Under the judicious direction of Admiral Osborn, who in the meantime had succeeded Sir Edward Hawke ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... thousand francs a year, and a handsome face, courted Florentine. Every danseuse makes a point of having some young man who will take her to drive, and arrange the gay excursions into the country which all such women delight in. However disinterested she may be, the courtship of such a star is a passion which costs some trifles to the favored mortal. There are dinners at restaurants, boxes at the theatres, carriages to go to the environs and return, choice wines consumed ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... and famine in 1729 by supplying the poor with bread, medicines, attendance, and every possible comfort and accommodation. Again, in 1740 and 1741, no fewer than 250,000 persons were fed, twice a-day, principally at his expense. Boulter was certainly the most disinterested, the most humane, the most beneficent, and after this it is little to say, the most enlightened and learned man that ever guided the counsels of a kingdom.[97] Mr. Philip Savage, Chancellor of the Exchequer, married his wife's sister, of his own ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... pressing at a thousand points on relations and interests vital to the free states, should be hailed, as it has been, by a portion of the northern press as a "compromise" originating in deference to northern interests, and to be received by us as a free-will offering of disinterested benevolence, demanding our gratitude to the mover,—may well cover us with shame. We deserve the humiliation and have well earned the mockery. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... all the money out of them she can. They are obliged to dress handsomely, and their wants are numerous, so that they save nothing. The proprietress cares for them faithfully as long as they are of use to her, but she is not disinterested, as a rule, and turns them out of doors without mercy in case of sickness or loss ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... impressiveness of scene. Crowded House sitting breathless; Members opposite leaning forward lest they might miss a phrase. Everyone conscious that at the door also listening were jealous France, the wily Turk, the interested Egyptian, the not entirely disinterested CZAR, and the other Great Powers concerned for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, May 13, 1893 • Various
... so beautiful and so noble-minded that at the age of thirteen she was known far and near for her Christian character and exceptional ability. While she was still but thirteen and Mr. Edwards twenty, he wrote in a purely disinterested way of the remarkable girl: "She is of a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and universal benevolence of mind. She will sometimes go about from place to place singing sweetly; and seems to be always full of joy and pleasure; and no ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... exhausted, and indeed, incapable as he must have proved, of encountering the fatigue of our very next day's journey, so that I felt his resolution to be prudent, I was sensible that his determination to remain, was chiefly prompted by the disinterested and generous wish to remove impediments to the progress of the rest. Dr. Richardson and Hepburn, who were both in a state of strength to keep pace with the men, besides this motive which they shared with him, were influenced ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... parable concerning the tyranny and stupidity of man and the superior virtue of woman; and sometimes she felt it her duty to put it to Thurstane that he owed everything to his wife; all of which was more or less wearing, even to her niece. At the same time she was such a disinterested, well-intentioned creature that it was impossible not to grant her a certain amount of admiration. For instance, when Clara proposed to make her comfortable for life by settling upon her fifty thousand dollars, she replied peremptorily that it was far too much for an old ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... country had no immediate interests with those ancient empires, would have been placed by a cynical observer among the curious idleness of a mere man of letters. These studies were indeed prosecuted, as Mr. Mathias observes, "on the disinterested principles of liberal investigation, not on those of policy, nor of the regulation of trade, nor of the extension of empire, nor of permanent establishments, but simply and solely on the grand view of what is, and of what is past. They were the researches of a solitary scholar ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... about the tone of this letter which Mrs. Wharton did not like, and she had a foreboding that this journey would not be for the happiness of her friend, and tried to dissuade her from undertaking it. And in this she was entirely disinterested; for great as would be the loss of this gifted young lady to her, Mrs. Wharton was not the one to put a straw in her way, if she felt assured the journey ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... Miss —— here, the nicest girl I ever met; but don't be afraid, the dead do not marry." His own secret opinion seems to have been that marriage spoilt both men and women, and it will be at least admitted that if he had married he could never have lived the disinterested, heroic life which remains a marvel ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... The benefits of the integrity and moderation of the judiciary have already been felt in more States than one; and though they may have displeased those whose sinister expectations they may have disappointed, they must have commanded the esteem and applause of all the virtuous and disinterested. Considerate men, of every description, ought to prize whatever will tend to beget or fortify that temper in the courts: as no man can be sure that he may not be to-morrow the victim of a spirit of injustice, by which he may be a gainer to-day. And every man must ...
— The Federalist Papers
... West what he thought of Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, and his answer was, 'It is a work of the highest value to everyone studying the art. Hogarth was a strutting consequential little man, and made himself many enemies by that book; but now that most of them are dead, it is examined by disinterested readers, unbiassed by personal animosities, and will be more and ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the grave sincerity of his soul which gives him this pre-eminence. He is not more eloquent than many others, he is not greatly distinguished by scholarship, he is only one in a numerous company of high-minded men who live devout and disinterested lives. But no man conveys, both in his writings and in personal touch, a more telling sense of ghostly earnestness, a feeling that his whole life is absorbed into a Power which overshadows his presence and even sounds in his voice, a conviction that he has in sober truth ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... of Matthias was, in truth, anything but disinterested; the conduct of the Emperor only accelerated the execution of his ambitious views. Secure, from motives of gratitude, of the devotion of the Hungarians, for whom he had so lately obtained the blessings of peace; assured by his agents of the favourable disposition of the nobles, ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... former visions. He accepted his mission and began to make converts All his converts renounced idolatry, and gave up the worship of Confucius. They travelled to and fro teaching, and formed a society of "God-worshippers." The first convert, Fung-yun-san, became its most ardent missionary and its disinterested preacher. Hung-sew-tseuen returned home, went to Canton, and there met Mr. Roberts, an American missionary, who was induced by false charges to refuse him Christian baptism. But he, without being offended with Mr. Roberts, went home and taught his converts how to baptize themselves. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... always at supreme power, and, in his harassed and stormy domain, removed far from the public opinion of the free states of Greece, it was natural that his political code should have become tempered by a sinister ambition, and that the citizen of Athens should be actuated by motives scarcely more disinterested than those which animated the tyrant of the Chersonese. The ruler of one district may be the hero, but can scarcely be the patriot, of another. The long influence of years and custom—the unconscious deference to the opinion of those whom our youth has been taught to venerate, can alone suffice ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Public, I would inscribe this work to a Statesman, who, in a long, a stormy, and at length an unfortunate administration, had many political opponents, almost without a personal enemy; who has retained, in his fall from power, many faithful and disinterested friends; and who, under the pressure of severe infirmity, enjoys the lively vigor of his mind, and the felicity of his incomparable temper. Lord North will permit me to express the feelings of friendship ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... more months she was apathetic and appeared disinterested, often would not reply, again, at the same interview, she would do so promptly and with natural voice. This condition may be illustrated by the summary of a note made on January 29, 1908, which is representative of that period. It is stated ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... they forget that Miss Rosa Birch is no longer a young chit as she was ten years ago, when Gaunt was brought to the school. On the contrary, she has had no small experience in the tender passion, and is at this moment smitten with a disinterested ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... more distant were to be acquired; and as he supposed these to be already secured to him by his birth, there was nothing he was solicitous to obtain as the reward of merit, nor any thing that he considered himself to possess as the bounty of Heaven. If the sublime and disinterested rectitude that produces and rewards itself, dwells indeed with man, it dwelt not with ALMORAN: with respect to God, therefore, he was not impressed with a sense either of duty or dependence; he felt neither reverence nor love, gratitude nor resignation: in abstaining ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... shown the disinterested patriotism, courage, and foresight demanded by this stupendous crisis, I would have supported him with hearty enthusiasm. But his action, or rather inaction, has been such that it has become a matter ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... who dwells next door, has a very respectable library, which he has put with mine; histories, encyclopedias, and all the modern poetry, etc. etc. etc. A more truly disinterested man I never met with; severely frugal, yet almost carelessly generous; and yet he got all his money as a common carrier, by hard labour, and by pennies and pennies. He is one instance among many in this country of the salutary effect ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... well press their point—it went by default. It is the misfortune of Orientals generally, that in all their controversies with the English, the latter have been the historiographers, and therefore, in almost every step of their aggressive career, appear as disinterested champions of justice, seeking the improvement of semi-civilized peoples, by inflicting upon them wholesome and merited chastisement. Let it be conceded that the charges against the Japanese which we find in the Blue Book and in Sir Rutherford Alcock's 'Capital ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... mood is dominant, reasserts itself as the mood fades, but with a desire to retain the vanishing insight, or at least to prove that it was insight, and that what seems to contradict it is illusion. The logic which thus arises is not quite disinterested or candid, and is inspired by a certain hatred of the daily world to which it is to be applied. Such an attitude naturally does not tend to the best results. Everyone knows that to read an author simply in order to refute him is not the way to understand him; and to read the ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... the respect of every one under him. Zealous in the discharge of his public duties, honourable and just in private life; a lover and a follower of science; indefatigable and dauntless in his pursuits; a steady friend, an entertaining companion; charitable, kind-hearted, disinterested, and sincere—the task is equally difficult to find adequate expressions of praise or of regret. In him the king lost one of his most valuable officers, and his regiment one of its most efficient members. Beloved as he was, the news of his loss struck his ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... learn particulars of the situation of the inhabitants, that rendered his visit unpleasant to himself, and not very welcome to some of those to whom it was made. Those who were duly sensible of his disinterested devotedness to the advancement and welfare of the settlement, were actuated, on this occasion, by a principle of real regard and gratitude; those who were apprehensive that their conduct in his absence might be investigated ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... instincts in fowls and dogs and bears, anxious only about their offspring, to put us mortals out of countenance and to give us a bad name? considering these examples for us to follow, while disgrace justly attaches to our inhumanity, for mankind only is accused of having no disinterested affection, and of not knowing how to love except in regard to advantage. For that line is greatly admired in the theatres, "Man loves man only for reward," and is the view of Epicurus, who thinks that the father so loves his son, the mother her child, children ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... theologian, as he is plumed by the prisoners, whom he daily visits in his mission of good. There was something so frank and gentle in this young man's demeanor-something so manly and radiant in his countenance-something so disinterested and holy in his mission of love—something so opposite to the coldness of the great world without—something so serene and elevated in his youth, that even the most inveterate criminal awaited his ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... gain the support of William of Orange because he was distrustful of its objects. The members were young and imprudent, and many of them were not at all disinterested in their desire to secure the broad lands belonging to the Catholic Church. Their wild banquets were dangerous to the whole country, since spies sat at the board and took note of all extravagant phrases that might be construed into disloyalty. Orange himself held ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... too, should never forget the extraordinary assistance afforded her during the first six months of 1919 through the agency of Mr. Hoover and the American Commission of Relief. Never was a nobler work of disinterested goodwill carried through with more tenacity and sincerity and skill, and with less thanks either asked or given. The ungrateful Governments of Europe owe much more to the statesmanship and insight of Mr. Hoover and his band of American workers than they have yet appreciated or ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... from the desires of particular objects, are essential to egoism. The idea of an alter-ego, i.e., of a community with others which makes their interests our own, and hence the rise of a love for them,—which is not merely disinterested as the animal appetites are disinterested, because they tend directly to their objects without any thought of self, but disinterested in the sense that the thought of self is conquered or absorbed, is essential ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various |
