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Public-spirited   /pˈəblɪkspˈɪrɪtəd/   Listen
Public-spirited

adjective
1.
Showing unselfish interest in the public welfare.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Public-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books



... 1785:—"Mr. Williams, the public-spirited master of the Three Tuns Inn, and the chief contractor for conveying the mails, had in the morning of this day placed in the front of his house His Majesty's Arms, neatly carved in gilt. In the evening his house was illuminated in a very elegant manner with variegated lamps, ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs

... had recently become an inhabitant of the town, exhibited two fine merinoes, a ram and a ewe, on the green under the Old Elm. Great interest was aroused, and the importation of the best foreign breeds of cattle and sheep was encouraged and carried on by public-spirited and enterprising citizens. One farmer came into possession of a cow, in which he felt so much pride that it formed the subject of his conversation at all times and places, until his friends feared to meet him. At last ...
— Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 4, January, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... long been blest with his presence and affection. For in all family relations he was most truly kind and affectionate, in social life, genial and friendly, especially, even to the last, delighting in little children, and in the society of the young, generous and public-spirited, of spotless integrity in business affairs, faithful, earnest and skillful as a teacher, in all his ways a sincere and humble follower ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... the older and leading laymen and ministers is admirably illustrated in Rev. O.B. Frothingham's account of his father in his book entitled Boston Unitarianism. They were interested in many, public-spirited enterprises, and the social circle in which they moved was cultivated and refined; but they were provincial, and little inclined to look beyond the limits of their own immediate interests. Dr. Nathaniel ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke

... 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): some may suspect that culture was a man, whose name was Matthew Arnold. But Arnold was not only right but highly valuable. If we have said ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... a wealthy and public-spirited merchant, purchased the museum, which Dr. Lloyd's passion for natural history had induced him to form; and the sum thus obtained, together with that raised by subscription, sufficed not only to discharge ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... very public-spirited woman; moreover, she is quite as much interested in the boys and girls of Burmingham as the rest of us ...
— Paul and the Printing Press • Sara Ware Bassett

... on encouragement to art, on great objects of public beneficence, on public-spirited aid of political objects; and even in more selfish enjoyments there was a certain grandeur in his princely hospitalities, in his munificent generosity, in a warm-hearted carelessness for money. No indulgence in petty ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... can protect those who know enough to apply it, but the poor man remains unprovided with any satisfactory means of negotiating a loan. The legal rate of interest is too low to make loans on chattels profitable. The organization, by public-spirited business men, of companies that will be careful in taking risks, and will secure special legislation enabling them to charge not more than a reasonable rate of interest, is the only remedy. Companies like these ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... O'Connell and his "tail," as his followers were called, had been neutralised, since the reform act, by the overwhelming strength of the whigs, and the public-spirited action of Peel, who, as leader of the conservative opposition, actually supported the whig government in sixteen out of twenty most important contests on domestic policy. A very different spirit was now shown by the whig opposition, and an evil precedent, pregnant with disastrous consequences, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... the first meeting of that Council was held, on March 8 in that year, Mr. Christie travelled 2,000 miles by dog-train from Fort Simpson to Winnipeg to attend it. It was a good opportunity for collecting mileage and perquisites, but the probability is that this public-spirited man and the great Company he served made the contribution to the country. His usefulness was so apparent at the meeting that he was asked to help the Government in the great task of treaty-making which had baffled so many ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... we walk under the triumphal arches of the Elms. Leave it to Nature to appoint the days, whether the same as in neighboring States or not, and let the clergy read her proclamations, if they can understand them. Behold what a brilliant drapery is her Woodbine flag! What public-spirited merchant, think you, has contributed this part of the show? There is no handsomer shingling and paint than this vine, at present covering a whole side of some houses. I do not believe that the Ivy never sear is comparable to it. No wonder it has been extensively introduced into London. Let us ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various

... discussion of the possibility of a better social order, and for the numerous experiments undertaken to test the feasibility of dispensing with the private capitalist by co-operative industry. Already the more intelligent and public-spirited citizens were beginning to observe that their so-called popular government did not seem to interfere in the slightest degree with the rule of the rich and the subjection of the masses to economic masters, and to wonder, if that were to continue to be so, of exactly how much value ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... says, 'this little old village is all right! All it needs is a public-spirited resident to help it along. I propose to be the P. ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln

... was no less honest, fearless, or public-spirited than the recent one; it only remained to be seen whether he were not less astute and cautious. Coming to the office as he did, he was absolutely unfettered, which, in one of so frank a temperament, might prove a danger. He was more popular with the people than with ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... won't be made public till the executors—Sir William Amys and Mr. Kerchever—have proved it. I never knew a more public-spirited will. Hollingford gets a hospital, to be called the Lady Ogram; very generously endowed. Rivenoak is to be sold, and the proceeds to form a fund for a lot of Lady Ogram Scholarships. A working-girl's home is to be founded in Camden Town ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... they should at last become so numerous that they would be driven out of the towns into the country and would be scuttling over the moors, downs and woods like black beetles in kitchens in the night. They were better than she had been, these children; more public-spirited and more in ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... Pogram was far more fantastic than his satirist thought; and the most grotesque feature of Brick and Chollop was hidden from him. The really strange thing was that Pogram probably did say, 'Rough he may be. So air our bars. Wild he may be. So air our buffalers,' and yet was a perfectly intelligent and public-spirited citizen while he said it. The extraordinary thing is that Jefferson Brick may really have said, 'The libation of freedom must sometimes be quaffed in blood,' and yet Jefferson Brick may have served freedom, resisting unto blood. There really has been a florid ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton

... bodies they pitch into the gutter. For there are no parks and almost no playgrounds in the Harrison Avenue district,—in my day there were none,—and such as there are have been wrenched from the city by public-spirited citizens who have no offices in City Hall. No wonder the ashman is not more thorough: ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... appeared in 1766 in the tenth volume of Dr. Hawkesworth's quarto edition of Swift's works; but the editor made many changes in the text, including a suppression of most of the "little language." The publishers, however, fortunately for us, were public-spirited enough to give the manuscripts (with one exception) to the British Museum, where, after many years, they were examined by John Forster, who printed in his unfinished "Life of Swift" numerous passages from the originals, showing the manner in which the text had been tampered with ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... The public-spirited lady met the little boy on the street. Something about his appearance halted her. She stared at ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... class, dressed as pages, had been chosen to place the posters announcing the various numbers on the standards at each side of the stage. These posters had been designed and painted by Beatrice Alden and Frances Marlton, who, with Mabel Ashe, Constance Fuller and several other public-spirited seniors, had generously offered their services. As both Beatrice and Frances possessed considerable skill with the brush they turned out extremely decorative posters, which were afterward sold to various admiring students for souvenirs ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... system—so much down, and the rest when you feel like it. They have kind hearts, and they never forget birthdays. I forget what he was, something in the City, where the patriotism comes from; and she—oh, well, her frocks are built in Paris, but she wears them with a strong English accent. So public-spirited of her. I think she must have been very strictly brought up, she's so desperately anxious to do the wrong thing correctly. Not that it really matters nowadays, as I told her: I know some perfectly virtuous people ...
— Reginald • Saki

... the great-great-grandson of Don Alvaro de Valdes y Castillo, who lost his head because he was a braver and a better man than the king. Don Bartolome, too, was a great soldier and ruler. He was generous and public-spirited to a fault; and when the people of this province suffered from Indian raids he distributed thousands of sheep to ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine

... portion of the valley that earlier in the season is swampy, and gives the city an unenviable reputation for malarial fevers. To prevent the travellers drinking the unwholesome water in this part of the valley, some benevolent Mussulman or public-spirited pasha has erected at intervals, by the road side, compact mud huts, and placed there in huge earthenware vessels, holding perhaps fifty gallons each; these are kept supplied with pure spring-water and provided with a wooden drinking-scoop. Fourteen miles from Erzingan, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... very handsome hotel has been completed adjoining the Exchange, of which building it forms indeed a part; it is to be conducted after the manner of the Mansion-house at Philadelphia. This is the work of two or three public-spirited men, and the benevolence of their design merits the thanks of the travelling community; for the more such hotels are multiplied, the better ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... allured into personal investigations, and for young women because they get an exaggerated and pessimistic view of all sexual problems. For the intelligent reader who wants the general information that every public-spirited citizen should have, the well-known book by Jane Addams will serve both as an outline and an encyclopedia of the social evil. Social workers and some educators will find use for the ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... man. That's a lie! The village ruined the man.... Never looked at it that way; did you? Andrew Bolton had the interests of this place more deeply at heart than any other human being ever did. He was the one public-spirited man in the place.... Do you know who built your church, young man? I see you don't. Well, Andrew Bolton built it, with mighty little help from your whining, hypocritical church members. Every Tom, Dick and ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley

... one of the largest cities of Alaska, having a summer population of nearly 8,000. It is a lively, public-spirited place, and the army officers and business men greeted with enthusiasm the proposal of an ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... question; and very specially, Who the new Emperor is to be?"King of Poland, thinks your Majesty?"—"By all means," answers Friedrich, "if you can! Detach him from Austria; that will be well!" Which was reckoned magnanimous, at least public-spirited, in Friedrich; considering what Saxony's behavior to him had already been. "By all means, his Polish Majesty for Kaiser; do our utmost, Excellencies Valori, Courten and Company!" answers Friedrich,—and for his own part, I observe, is intensely ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... did something. Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Alexander Severus, for example, regularly supplied girls and boys with education at public expense[192]; under Trajan there were 5000 children so honoured. Public-spirited citizens were also accustomed to contribute liberally to the same cause; Pliny on one occasion[193] gave the equivalent of $25,000 for the support and instruction ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker

... undeviatingly devoted to the production of nothing but the real thing, which will go its own way, year in, year out, quite without regard to the great public; and we shall never get it unless we can find some benevolent, public-spirited person or persons who will place it in a position of absolute security. If we could secure this endowment, that theatre would become in a very few years the most fashionable, if not the most popular, in London, and even the ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... peculiarities than most other New England towns. It does not assimilate readily to the outside world. Nor is it surprising that few local visitors called upon the Hawthornes at the Old Manse. Emerson, always hospitable and public-spirited, went to call on them at once; and John Keyes, also a liberal-minded man, introduced Hawthorne at the reading- club. Margaret Fuller came and left a book for Hawthorne to read, which may have annoyed him more than anything she could have said. Elizabeth Hoar, a woman ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... communicative in a strange household as his clerical brethren, smiling John Foster of Brighton and chatty Jonathan Homer of Newton. Mr. Emerson says, "He was a natural gentleman; no dandy, but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited; his nature social, his house open to all men.—His brow was serene and open to his visitor, for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations, which company could interrupt. His friends were his study, and to see them loosened his talents and ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... of the committee of arrangements, "this evening, fellow-citizens, there will be a grand display of fireworks on the village green, superintended by the inventor and manufacturer, our public-spirited ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne

... had abolition societies composed entirely of persons of Color. "The Massachusetts General Colored Association" organized in the early days of the agitation movement. It had among its leading men the most intelligent and public-spirited Colored citizens of Boston. James G. Barbadoes, Coffin Pitts, John E. Scarlett, the Eastons, Hosea and Joshua; Wm. C. Nell, Thomas Cole, Thomas Dalton, Frederick Brimley, Walker Lewis, and John T. Hilton were a few of "the faithful." In January, 1833, the following communication ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... arrived on which the worthy and public-spirited inhabitants of Maranham have it in their power at once to declare the independence of their country, and their adherence to their patriotic monarch, Pedro Primiero, whose protection has afforded them the glorious privilege of freemen—that of choosing their constitution and enacting their ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... of adulthood. At the end of the process it is expected that they will be able to do the things that adults do; to think as they think; to bear adult responsibilities; to be efficient in work; to be thoughtful public-spirited citizens; and the like. The individual who reaches this level of attainment is educated, even though he may never have attended school. The one who falls below this level is not truly educated, even though he may have had a surplus ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt

... the world, was to bestow upon the public. Then it would come to the turn of the House of Commons again to be liberal and grateful to the crown. The civil list debts were to be paid off; with perhaps a pretty augmentation of income. All this was to be done on the most public-spirited principles, and with a politeness and mutual interchange of good offices, that could not but have charmed. But what was best of all, these civilities were to be without a farthing of charge to either of the kind and obliging parties. The ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... were getting serious, and absorbing the minds of the people. The grocers of Kimberley are a respectable and, in the aggregate, a public-spirited body of citizens; they are men of substance; most honourable; most humane, too; and, as events were to show, most human. With fine foresight they detected in the conflagration of patriotism which consumed the consumer, ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... Potter" and stack arms. There is running to and fro of friends in pursuit of oranges and lemons—so cool and refreshing on the hot march—and a dozen little trifles with which haversacks are soon stuffed. One public-spirited individual in the crowd seizes the basket of an ancient orange-woman, making good his title in a very satisfactory way, and tosses the glowing fruit indiscriminately among the troops, who give him back their best "Bully Boy!" with a "Tiger!" added. ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... very carefully, and then read the long account of the new archdeacon's life, and of the work he had accomplished at St. Margaret's! The article was most laudatory, and spoke of his ability as a preacher, an organiser, and a public-spirited citizen. It referred to Dr. Rannage as a hard worker, who visited his people, rich and poor, in season and out of season, doing all he could for their temporal and ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... College is another institution which has been established by this public-spirited and progressive Hindu, who has done more for the education of his people than any other native prince. There are now about 1,000 students, with a faculty of eighty-two professors, including fifteen Englishmen and twelve Persians. The college is affiliated with the University of Calcutta, and has ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... Park and the Glen I had a chance to find out what, if anything, money could do for the good of the masses of a community, if placed in the hands of a body of public-spirited citizens. Dr. Ross was taken into my confidence so far as Pittencrieff Park was concerned, and with his advice certain men intended for a body of trustees were agreed upon and invited to Skibo to organize. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie

... author,[192] living in those times, did conceive it an endeavour well worthy an honest satirist to dissuade the dull and punish the wicked, the only way that was left. In that public-spirited view he laid the plan of this poem, as the greatest service he was capable (without much hurt, or being slain) to render his dear country. First, taking things from their original, he considereth ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... were, I think it most likely, the family of Buccleugh. The crash was especially disastrous in Scotland; only three private banks in Edinburgh out of thirty survived it, and a large joint-stock bank, Douglas Heron and Company, started only three years before, for the public-spirited purpose of promoting improvements, particularly improvements of land, now seemed to shake all commercial Scotland with its fall. In this company the Duke of Buccleugh was one of the largest shareholders, and, liability being unlimited, it was impossible ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae

... purchased their peerages. But the glamour of comfort, the pleasure of reassuring himself and reassuring others, is too strong for this original knowledge; at last it fades from him, and he sincerely and earnestly calls on Englishmen to join with him in admiring an august and public-spirited Senate, having wholly forgotten that the Senate really consists of idiots whom he has himself despised; and adventurers ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... the habits of another. I have no quarrel with the aristocracy, and do not in the least wish to level them to the ground. I am quite prepared to acknowledge them as the upper class. They are, as a rule, public-spirited, courteous barbarians, with a sense of honour and responsibility. But they take a great many things as matters of course which are to me simply alien. I no more wish to live with them than Wright, my self-respecting gardener, wishes to live with me—though so deeply ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson

... the author of this agrarian law, there is no doubt he was patriotic in his intentions, was public-spirited, and wished to revive the older and better days of the republic. I do not believe he contemplated the usurpation of supreme power. I doubt if he was ambitious, as Caesar was. But he did not comprehend the issues at stake, and the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord

... the people won victories because wisely led? Think you that corruption and violation of law would have been so checked in Missouri a decade ago and the breakers of law been so thoroly punished, had it not been for the clear-headed work of that fearless, public-spirited Joseph W. Folk? Does not Charles S. Whitman come to your mind when the great struggle in New York City is mentioned? And Hiram W. Johnson in California? And when we recall the victories of the people in our own Motherland across the sea, do we not have at once a mental picture of the "Grand ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... make us feel at home. It joined us and it quitted us from time to time, as the whim took it, but it did not abandon us wholly till we showed a disposition to believe in that lake of Curtius, so called after those three public-spirited heroes, the first being a foreigner. Then the cat, which had more than once stretched itself as if bored, turned from us in contempt and went and lay down in a sunny corner near the tomb of ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... and of the system of education under which they are conducted, but yet the history of these schools, until within a few years, was one of struggle against parsimony and prejudice. It was only by persistent efforts on the part of a few public-spirited citizens, who believed that money spent in educating the masses is the best investment that can possibly be made, that the Public School system of Cleveland has attained its present excellence, and the miserable make-shift school buildings, in which the children of the city were taught have ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin

... dignity, they want energy and interest, and are now forgotten. He also produced a few dramas, which had little success. He is best remembered by his beautiful ballad, Hosier's Ghost, beginning "As near Portobello lying." G. had the reputation of a useful and public-spirited citizen. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... but it ought not to increase through unjust oppression of agriculture or at the expense of the physical stamina of the race. This fact is now winning recognition not only from the nation at large, but from public-spirited manufacturers as well. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... soldiers? Why take the pains to urge that it was vain to lecture and march abstract virtues into them, so long as the "champion boodler" of the town was the man whom the boys recognized as a loyal and kindhearted friend, the public-spirited citizen, whom their fathers enthusiastically voted for, and their mothers called "the friend of the poor." As long as the actual and tangible success is thus embodied, marching whether in kindergartens or brigades, talking whether in clubs or classes, does little ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... point of view was, I think, justifiable. Leaving out the intolerable implication that Lance had showered benefits upon her, she felt that the Lorrigans had been over-generous. The schoolhouse and the books might be accepted as a public-spirited effort to do their part. But the piano, since it had not been returned, must be paid for. And it seemed to Mary Hope that the Lorrigans themselves would deeply resent being invited to a dance openly given for the purpose of raising money to repay them. It would never do; she could not ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... down, and next day was dead from Asiatic cholera. But, with this exception, the patients were, so far as I learned, almost entirely from the peasant class. Although boiled water was supplied for drinking purposes, and some public-spirited individuals went so far as to set out samovars and the means of supplying hot tea to peasant workmen, the answer of one of the muzhiks, when told that he ought to drink boiled water, indicated the peasant view: "If God had wished us to ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... Central South Australian telegraph line to our north-west coast was set on foot and its expenses defrayed by private colonists of South Australia, I only allude to it to acknowledge the obligation that this colony lies under to those public-spirited gentlemen and to the gallant leader and his followers. Parties headed by Mr. Gosse, by Mr. Giles, and by Mr. Ross have all within the last two years penetrated from the eastern colonies to within the boundary of our unexplored territory, but, beyond a certain extension of geographical knowledge, ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... difficulty in fixing young men long enough at college. Innumerable devices have been tried with considerable ingenuity to remedy this evil, and the best possible intentions by the professors and other public-spirited persons who are sincerely grieved to see so many incompetent, half-qualified men in almost every corner of ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... was no personal charge. They came into incomes derived from a certain source under ancient laws for which they were not responsible. But, acting through the ascendancy Parliament far away in London, they remained, as an organized class—for we must always make allowance for an enlightened and public-spirited minority—blind to their own genuine interests and to the demands of humane policy. Their responsibility was transferred to English statesmen, who were not fitted, by temperament or training, to undertake it, and who always looked at the Irish land question, which had no counterpart in England, ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... armies. The whole of the special reserve and extra special reserve units will be maintained at their full establishments as feeders to the expeditionary force. In addition to the four new armies a considerable number of what may be designated local battalions have been specially raised by the public-spirited initiative of cities, towns, or individuals. Several more are in course of formation, and I have received many offers of this character. The territorial force is making great strides in efficiency and will before many months be ready to take a share in the campaign. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various

... of the war was the surrender of the British General Burgoyne with some six thousand men at Saratoga, on 17 October, 1777, after an unsuccessful invasion of northern New York. At that very time, Benjamin Franklin, the public-spirited Philadelphia publisher, was in Paris attempting to persuade France to ally herself with the United States. Franklin's charming personality, his "republican plainness," his shrewd common sense, as well as his knowledge of philosophy and science, made him welcome at the ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... responsibility to others. Ali Baba and Aladdin and Sindbad will tell the company, there in the firelight before your very eyes, how they felt that they owed something to' others because of the wealth they had, gained. Aladdin became a serious and public-spirited man, though as a boy he had been of little worth. Ali Baba and Sindbad helped others and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck

... puzzled. He was a public-spirited man, whose heart and pocket were open to people in real trouble, but for prayers he had never been asked before, and, was entirely destitute of them. He felt relieved when one of his customers—a leaden-visaged man, with bulbous nose and a bad temper—advanced toward the wounded man, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton

... I found that my landlord host was accustomed to make a circuit of his village once or twice a week in order to see how things were going with his tenants. Public-spirited landlords were working for their people by means of co-operation, lectures and prizes, the distribution of leaflets and the giving of from 2-1/2 to 7-1/2 per cent. discount in rent when good rice was produced. The rural philanthropist in Japan ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... forfeit?" asked Nat, sitting up in his eagerness to know what happened to those wretches who disobeyed this most peculiar, but public-spirited school-ma'am. ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... topics in life and letters. In his death, he manifested the strength of his religious faith, and resigned his spirit with a benignant composure. But I am forbidden to enlarge on the many excellences and services of the public-spirited John Pintard. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various

... of objects connected with the pursuits of literature and science, and the cultivation of the fine arts, originated with a few public-spirited individuals, in the year 1823, and was soon honoured with the public, and finally, with royal, patronage, The building, which has been erected from a design by Mr. Barry, of London, and is of a durable and richly-coloured stone, from the vicinity ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 20, No. 567, Saturday, September 22, 1832. • Various

... interested in, and I think everybody ought to have a fair show. I jedge from the defendant's testimony that he HAS got a set of the dishes, and I also jedge, from my experience and three years' dealings with him, that he's too public-spirited to keep 'em, provided he's paid four times what they're worth. Now my idea is this; Rogers will bring those dishes down here tomorrer and we'll put 'em on exhibition in the hotel parlor. Next day we'll have an auction and sell 'em to the highest ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln

... of Texas is true in greater or less degree of every State in the Union. Development, so dear to the heart of the patriotic and public-spirited citizen, has a tendency to transform an independent and moderately prosperous people into masters and slaves. But this is not the fault of labor-saving machinery, nor of capital, nor of development by itself considered. The more wealth labor creates, the more it should enjoy. When ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... find something he was looking for. But how could he find it if he didn't know what it was? And that he was quite in the dark about. The half-crown and the pretty girl who had given it to him, the train-guard and his cowardice about responsibility, the public-spirited gentleman, the railway-carriage itself, to say nothing of all the exciting experiences of the morning—all, all had vanished, leaving behind only the trace of the impulse to search. Nothing else! He stood looking bewildered, then ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... opened with the cheer of dawn in New York politics. Cleveland, the young Governor of forty-four, had proved himself fearless, public-spirited, and conscientious. So had Roosevelt, the young Assemblyman of twenty-three. One was a Democrat, one a Republican, but they were alike in courage and in holding honesty and righteousness above their ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... mechanism that the baskets seem positively to go through complex processes of thought and selection. Talking of thought and selection, by the way, every one connected with the library speaks with enthusiasm of President McKinley's wise and public-spirited choice of the new chief librarian. Mr. Herbert Putnam, late of the Boston Public Library, is the ideal man for the post, and his appointment was made, not only without suspicion of jobbery, but in the teeth of strong political influence. Mr. McKinley's action in this matter is considered ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... has ever been found effectual to preserve any man against the corruption of nature and example, is a habit of life and communication of counsels with the most virtuous and public-spirited men of the age you live in. Such a society cannot be kept without advantage or deserted without shame. For this rule of conduct I may be called in reproach a PARTY MAN; but I am little affected with such aspersions. In the way which ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... is not because the penalty would then be heavier, of necessity, but in order that the law may not be prostituted into license. The alternative of a fine instead of imprisonment defeats the object the public-spirited citizens have in demanding a law for the discouragement of vice, and places before the police officials a temptation to corruption. A mild sentence, which invariably puts the procurer or brothel-keeper in prison, is worth more than a heavy ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell



Words linked to "Public-spirited" :   unselfish



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