"Self" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when I had lost one shaft, I shot another of the self-same flight, The self-same way, with more advised watch, To find ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... sixteenth century. Because I was born in Rotterdam and educated in the city of Gouda, I ran continually across Erasmus and for some unknown reason this great exponent of tolerance took hold of my intolerant self. Later I discovered Anatole France and my first experience with the English language came about through an accidental encounter with Thackeray's "Henry Esmond," a story which made more impression upon me than any other book in ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... have it said that I stood in the way of a poor girl like Mattie marrying a smart fellow like Denis Eady," Zeena answered in a tone of plaintive self-effacement. ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... Laputa as the Christian minister, as the priest and king in the cave, as the leader of an army at Dupree's Drift, and at the kraal we had left as the savage with all self-control flung to the winds. I was to see this amazing man in a further part. For he now became a friendly and rational companion. He kept his horse at an easy walk, and talked to me as if we were two friends out for a ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... Bridge, his tone almost self-reproachful, as though he were entirely responsible for the boy's condition. "We're a nice aggregation of mollycoddles—five of us sitting half frozen up here with a stove on the floor below, and just because we heard a noise which we couldn't explain and hadn't the nerve to investigate." ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... To sacrifice one's own self-love to other people's, is a short, but, I believe, a true definition of civility: to do it with ease, propriety and grace, is good-breeding. The one is the result of good-nature; the other of good-sense, joined to experience, ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... is true. Christianity furnishes the true basis for raising up character; but the foundation must be laid in a very different manner from that which is commonly practiced. * * * We can, indeed, scarcely conceive of the purity, the self-denial, and the power that might be given to human character ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... all you that read This little story; And know, for whom a tear you shed, Death's self ...
— The Little Violinist • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... description. First the circumstances under which they were given were of the greatest assistance to their effectiveness. There was every aid that romance and mystery could give. Then it was in a strange and beautiful house where everything tended to caress the mind out of all self-consciousness. The little panelled room in which the exercises were given looked out over the quiet garden, and no sound penetrated there but the far-off muffled noises of the peaceful village life, the rustle of the wind in the evergreens, and the occasional coo or ...
— By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... good, as it recalled me, in an especial manner, to the nobler duties of humanity. I felt now that truth, and a high sense of honor, could alone enable me to redeem the past, and atone for my conduct with respect to Maria. But, above all, I felt that independence of mind, self-restraint, and firmness of character, were virtues, principles, what you will, without which man is but a cipher, a tool of others, or the sport ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... of this larva becomes self-evident. The young Meloe leaves the down of the Bee at the moment when the egg is laid; and, since contact with the honey would be fatal to the grub, it must, in order to save itself, adopt the tactics followed by the Sitaris, that is to say, it must allow itself to drop on the surface of the honey ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... informed by his own meditation, or by the traditional knowledge of the priests of Egypt, had ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... then answered, "Now I shall tell that which has happened to me, to my very self I was going to the mines of Pharaoh, and I went down on the sea on a ship of 150 cubits long and 40 cubits wide, with 150 sailors of the best of Egypt, who had seen heaven and earth, and whose hearts were stronger than lions. They had said that the wind would not be contrary, or that there ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... area.—The term "high-risk urban area'' means a high-risk urban area designated under section 2003(b)(3)(A). (7) Indian tribe.—The term "Indian tribe'' has the meaning given that term in section 4(e) of the Indian Self-Determination Act (25 U.S.C. 450b(e)). (8) Metropolitan statistical area.—The term "metropolitan statistical area'' means a metropolitan statistical area, as defined by the Office of Management and Budget. (9) National special security ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... boasting, but it did seem lately that everything he set his hand to prospered exceedingly. This had brought some self-exalting thoughts into his mind; not that he talked of them to others, but he communed with them to ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... mind to bear upon the subject; admired this, thought and decided upon that, as one by one Philip showed her all his alterations and improvements. Never was such a quiet little bit of unconscious and unrecognized heroism. She really ended by such a conquest of self that she could absolutely sympathize with the proud expectant lover, and had quenched all envy of the beloved, in sympathy with the delight she imagined Sylvia must experience when she discovered all these proofs of Philip's fond consideration and care. But it was a great ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... exclaimed, when, by the light of a held-up lantern, he had made the necessary adjustment. "We will see if it won't go. Of course you can't use the self-starter, since your storage battery is out of order, but we can crank up in the ...
— The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car - The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley • Laura Lee Hope
... outer cloak she wore a polka jacket and the thinnest of summer blouses; and her hat, though dark, was of rough straw, plainly trimmed. Nevertheless, these peculiarities were carried off with an air of breeding and self-possession that was unmistakable. It was possible that her cool self-possession might have been due to some instinctive antagonism, for as she came a step forward with coldly and clearly-opened ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... form had still much of the roundness of youth, and her step was sprightly and firm. She looked older than her age, because of the strong lines in her face, the determined set of her lips, and the general air of knowledge and self-sufficiency which pervaded her whole being. Throughout her life she had sacrificed everything to duty, whether it was the yearning of her own heart or the feelings of those who loved her. In the world about her she ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... gratitude was due where his friendship had so long been given, yet it naturally moved him very deeply when he found how Walter had been the means of effecting this. He also remembered vividly some acts of self-denial that added to the delicacy of his friend's silence, and made the action ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... not speak that word," Mr. Sabin said. Lady Carey shrugged her shoulders. The subtlety of her smile faded away. Her whole face expressed a contemptuous and self-assured cynicism. ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of mercy to which they have been called, smooth the path you have to tread alone! Children are left you. Your good sister (God bless her!) is by your side. You have devoted friends, and more reasons than most men to be self-reliant and stedfast. Something is gone that never in this world can be replaced, but much is left, and it is a part of her ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens
... Could See nothing of our hunters. I deturmined to proceed on to the next bottom where I thought it probable they had halted at 1/2 passed 2 P M Set out and proceeded on to the bottom 6 miles and halted at the next bottom formed a Camp and Sent out all the hunters. I also walked out my self on the hills but saw nothing. on my return found Capt. Lewis at Camp with two canoes which he had purchased at the Y-ep-huh village for two robes and four elkskins. he also purchased 4 paddles and three Dogs from the nativs ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Hampshire! from her granite peaks Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks. The long-bound vassal of the exulting South For very shame her self-forged chain has broken; Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth, And in the clear tones of her old time spoken! Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes The tyrant's ally proves his sternest ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... horsemen, innumerable foot-people, were crossing each other on the great esplanade before the Gate. We turned to the right, with our Column, towards Estain, on a limited highway, with ditches at each side. Self-preservation, in so monstrous a press, knew now no pity, no respect of aught. Not far before us there fell down a horse of an ammunition-wagon: they cut the traces, and let it lie. And now as the three others could not bring their ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... verse which struck a note of pure transparent sentiment rare in the epoch of Louis Philippe. She had, in an uncommon degree, the gift of intelligent admiration: her addresses to the great men of her time appear to be as far as possible from a spirit of calculation or self-interest, but they secured her an answering sympathy all the more valuable as it was never bargained for. Michelet said, "My heart is full of her;" Balzac wrote a drama at her solicitation; Lamartine, taking to himself a published ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... and strong voice; but he was distinguished by no other accomplishment.—L. Octavius Reatinus died in his youth, while he was in full practice: but he ascended the rostra with more assurance, than ability.—C. Staienus, who changed his name into Aelius by a kind of self- adoption, was a warm, an abusive, and indeed a furious speaker; which was so agreeable to the taste of many, that he would have risen to some rank in the State, if it had not been for a crime of which he was clearly convicted, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... mother had died, but Dorcas still kept on. She had no school yet, she told herself excusingly; but a self she would not hear knew how intently she was fighting Newell's own particular battle with him, how she watched here and there lest a penny be spilled and his road be made the longer to the goal he fixed. She was quite willing to consider breaking up Alida's intimacy with the ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... requiring all clergymen who had been appointed since 1649 to receive collation from the bishop of their diocese. Those who did not obey were, after a short respite, expelled from their parishes. Those who obeyed were regarded by their congregations as backsliders and self-seekers. Three hundred and fifty ministers were driven with their families from their homes in the depth of winter; and to supply their places new ministers were appointed, popularly known as the King's Curates. Another Act required attendance at the parish church on penalty of ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... dwelleth more towardes the North Sea. [Sidenote: The Samoits.] The Samoit hath his name (as the Russe saith) of eating himselfe: as if in times past, they liued as the Cannibals, eating one another. [Footnote: Samoyed means "self-eater", while Samodin denotes "an individual". Nordenskioeld considers it probable, however, that the old tradition of man-eaters androphagi, living in the north, which originated with Herodotus, reappears ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... and bless Heaven for, I think I have—a good heart. Without the affections, all the world is vanity, my love! I protest I only live, exist, eat, drink, rest, for my sweet, sweet children!—for my wicked Willy, for my self-willed Fanny, dear naughty loves!" (She rapturously kisses a bracelet on each arm which contains the miniature representations of those two young persons.) "Yes, Mimi! yes, Fanchon! you know I do, you dear, dear little ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... her, and she was concentrated again upon herself, still and always a factor among nations, and ever to be. But even in latter days, Napoleon could not do without her, and Francis the Second of Austria had to resign the Empire, in order that Pius the Seventh might call the self-crowned Corsican soldier, girt with Charlemagne's huge sword, the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... boisterous and pertinacious challengers. When we, who live in the fear of God, exhorted them earnestly unto peace and brotherly love, they held us in derision. Thus far indeed it might be an advantage to us, teaching us forbearance and self-seeking, but we cannot countenance the evil spirit moving them thereunto. Their occupations, as you remark most wisely, might have been useful and peaceful, and had formerly been so. Why then did they ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... now held the temporary post of cook and woodchopper at Teackle Hall, and Roxy saw him every day, sewed his tattered clothing up, put the germs of self-respect in him, and caused Vesta to say to her husband, as they were sitting in his storehouse parlor one afternoon, in the intermission of his chill ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... great reverence, and as they all had property, either much or little, they were strongly impressed with the solidarity of capital and understood that a small fortune is not safe unless a big one is protected. For these reasons they conceived a religious respect for the Jews' millions, and self-interest being stronger with them than aversion, they were as much afraid as they were of death to touch a single hair of one of the rich Jews whom they detested. Towards the poorer Jews they felt less ceremonious and ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... are somewhat ruthless in their pursuit of a wheat crop. You may see a farmer who plows hundreds of acres, but he will have his wheat growing up to the edge of his veranda. If he keeps a vegetable garden, he has performed a heroic act of self-denial; and as for flowers, they must grow among ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... long time thinking over this confession. It took her some time to recover her usual self-possession, because for a moment she had thought the girl was going to confess that she committed murder. In comparison with that awful crime, the theft seemed so trivial that Mrs. Brenton almost smiled when she ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... being said. A shy man is never popular. His shyness passes for pride, and people hate him for it. Tiberius was very shy. So society was always anxious to take down his pride a little. The truth was, he was humble to the verge of self-distrust. ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... attracted by such a subject, and, if so, what psychological ladies were like, than by any direct interest in the matters themselves, I applied to the hon. secretary, inquiring whether the inferior sex were admissible; and was answered by a ticket admitting one's single male self and a party of ladies a discretion. The very entrance to the hall—nay, the populous street itself—removed my doubts as to whether ladies would be attracted by the subjects; and on entering I discovered that the audience consisted of several hundred ladies, and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... a very strong and square-built man, of large size, but was now so overgrown, from overfeeding, perhaps, and want of exercise, as to bear the same resemblance to his former self which a stall-fed ox still retains to a wild bull. The look of no man is so inauspicious as a fat man, upon whose features ill-nature has marked an habitual stamp. He seems to have reversed the old proverb of "laugh and be fat," and to have thriven under the influence of the worst affections ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... this spot may be for some weeks whilst at our leisure we examine mines, hydrographic conditions, flora, or other matters of scientific or commercial interest which our self-chosen exile demands. The simple habitation is pitched when possible, of course, near to a water supply, a clear running stream, or lake, and if the latter we can take a morning plunge. This excites the surprise ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... quod nequeo monstrare, et sentio tantum, and which makes them impatient of the present,—if none can be got to feel that private persons may sometimes assume that sort of magistracy which does not depend on the nomination of kings or the election of the people, but has an inherent and self-existent power which both would recognize, I see nothing in ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... In this matter, I think, he made an error, and one which affected his whole career. He was not a man of private fortune, like some of those whom we have mentioned. He had not a business ready for him to step into. He had to force his own way in life, had to make himself 'self-supporting.' This was all the more essential to a man of his honourable independence of character, a man who not only would not ask a favour, but who actually shrunk back from such chances as were offered to him, if these chances seemed to be connected ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... friend's voice, darted forward through the darkness, caught his foot against the sprawling body of the lantern-bearer and fell heavily, his arms thrown out in an instinctive gesture of self-preservation. Even as he lost his balance he heard a sharp click, directly in front of him. The gaoler had pulled the trigger, and his pistol— contract-made and out of order, like many of the weapons of common soldiers in Russia's frontier ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... ecstatically happy was that course!—Derrick and Celia reached the ranch. On the steps stood Donna Elvira, his mother, awaiting them, with a kind of proud patience. She had drawn herself up to her full height, was evidently fighting for self-composure; but, at the sight of her son, her hauteur melted, and, with a cry, she clasped him in her arms; but, the next moment, with a Spanish courtesy which swiftly melted to tenderness, she turned to the rather pale and ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... when we have some difficult duty to perform, a chance word of discouragement will dwell in the mind, eating away our self-confidence and attuning our minds to failure. All the efforts of our will fail to throw it off; indeed, the more we struggle against it the more ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... afternoon of our first journey along this Shore Road the sky was overcast with low-hung clouds that foreboded rain. Towhees were calling noisily from wayside thickets; catbirds sang their self-conscious airs or mewed in derision as we passed; chickadees were calling their names and occasionally uttered their pensive minor strains; and far away in a dim- lighted hemlock grove we heard a new bird song that seemed in exquisite accord with ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... like John Randolph, of Roanoke, in being descended from. Pocahontas, and that he therefore had Indian blood in his veins. Born and reared on the frontier, tall, muscular, and raw-boned, an utter stranger to fear, a dead shot with pistol or rifle, cool and self-possessed in danger, he had become known far and near as a desperate and dangerous man when meddled with. But he had been converted, and had become a member of the Christian Church, and according to the light that was in him he did his best to conform his life to the maxims of ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Self-preservation is the fundamental law of nature, and supersedes the obligation of all others, whensoever they stand in competition with ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... no witch,—no common witch,—no astrology—nothing impermanent of however long duration; but he stands like the yew tree in Lorton vale, which has known so many ages that it belongs to none in particular; a living image of endless self-reproduction, like the immortal tree of Malabar. In Spenser the spirit of chivalry is entirely predominant, although with a much greater infusion of the poet's own individual self into it than is found in any other writer. He has the wit of the southern with the deeper inwardness ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... faithful servants called to see her, and, on beholding her mistress in such a situation, the poor girl burst into tears. Madame Roland was, for a moment, overcome by this sensibility; she, however, soon again regained her self-command. She endeavored to banish from her mind all painful thoughts of her husband and her child, and to accommodate herself as heroically as possible to her situation. The prison regulations were very severe. The government ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... Schofield!" said both the aunts Rennsdale publicly, and Penrod, wholly innocent, became scarlet with indignant mortification. Carlie Chitten himself, however, marked the true offenders. A slight flush tinted his cheeks, and then, in his quiet, self-contained way, he slipped through the crowd of girls and boys, unnoticed, into the hall, and ran noiselessly up the stairs and into the "gentlemen's dressing-room", now inhabited only by hats, caps, overcoats, and the temporarily ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... bark.[423] According to Featherstonhaugh, who visited the establishment a year later, thirty acres were under cultivation and the yield of corn amounted to eight hundred bushels. It is interesting to note that this critical traveller found only one thing about Fort Snelling to commend and that was the self-sacrifice of the two ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... irritability very hard to bear. Beneath the lash of her aunt's cruel tongue Lucy often writhed, quivered, and sometimes wept; but she struggled to keep her hold on her patience. Ellen was old, she told herself, and the self-centered life she had led had embittered her. Moreover, she was approaching the termination of her days, and to a nature like hers the realization that there was no escape from her final surrender to Death filled her with impotent rage. She had ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... more resolute discharge of duty. I say frankly that, in my opinion, this measure will be as popular at the North as at the South, when its provisions and principles shall have been fully developed, and become well understood. The people at the North are attached to the principles of self-government, and you cannot convince them that that is self-government which deprives a people of the right of legislating for themselves, and compels them to receive laws which are forced upon them by a Legislature in which they are not represented. ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... self-governing in free association with New Zealand on 4 August 1965 and has the right at any time to move to ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... laughed, rode and walked, with Claire Lessing with the same free abandon, the same show of uninterested good comradeship, that he had used towards her when they were boy and girl together. There was not a shade more of warmth or self-consciousness in his manner towards her than there had been fifteen years before. In fact, there was less, for there had been a time, when he was six and Claire three, that Francis, with a boldness that the lover of maturer years tries vainly to attain, had announced to Claire ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... issuance. Being under contract, I can not accept it now. The balance of the stock must be sold for development purposes. I further agree to place the girl in a boarding school of the first quality in the States, and to bear all expenses of her maintenance until such time as she is either self-supporting, or one or several of you may come to her, or effect her return to Colombia. Now, according to Ariza's sketches, we may proceed up the Boque river to its headwaters—how far did ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... related by themselves?—with whom they lived early; how their bent took a decided course; their likes and dislikes; their difficulties and obstacles; their tastes, their passions; the rocks they were conscious of having split upon; their regrets, their complacencies, and their self-justifications?" [198] ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... their free schools and all their enlarged liberties, are not superior to women brought up under monarchical forms of government, then there is no good in liberty." It is because of this freedom that Europeans are always struck with the greater self-poise, self-control and independence of American women. These characteristics will be still more marked when we have mingled more with men in their various meetings. It is only by the friction of intellect with intellect ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... along with his fondness for gettin' next to swell people, he seems to have a horror of mixin' at all with the common herd. "Waiters!" he sniffs. "The scum of mankind. If they had a spark of courage, or a gleam of self respect, or a teaspoonful of brains, they wouldn't ...
— On With Torchy • Sewell Ford
... never flinching, yet seldom injuring their good cause by reckless violence. To an Englishman this history ought to be especially dear, for more than any other in the annals of the world does it resemble the long-enduring constancy and sturdy determination, the temperate will and noble self-control, with which the Commons of his own country secured their rights. It was by a struggle of this nature, pursued through a century and a half, that the character of the Roman people was molded into that form of strength and energy, which threw back Hannibal to the coasts of Africa, and in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... self-evident. An enemy on the rock above would be able to fire down through the roof, without their having a chance ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... stammered, rather intimidated by this self-possessed young woman who looked him calmly through and through. "Why not call me Jefferson? ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... was no danger; that social enjoyment would harm no one; and seemed astonished, to use his own words, 'that such a sensible woman as I was should express any anxiety about the matter.' That night, to me, was a long and sad one. I feared the result of the too much dependence on self which ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... round the pylons and the walls; but in course of time the houses encroached upon this ground, and were even built up against the boundary wall. Destroyed and rebuilt century after century upon the self-same spot, the debris of these surrounding dwellings so raised the level of the soil, that the temples ended for the most part by being gradually buried in a hollow formed by the artificial elevation of the surrounding city. Herodotus noticed this at Bubastis, and on examination ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... their special religious services, and even to maintain their respective national post-offices. No Turkish policeman may enter the premises of a foreigner without the sanction of the consular authorities to whose jurisdiction the latter belongs. A certain measure of self-government is likewise granted to the native Christian ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... 2950 And y was left with outen helpe. So wiste I nought wher of to yelpe, Bot only that y hadde lore My time, and was sori ther fore. And thus bewhapid in my thought, Whan al was turnyd in to nought, I stod amasid for a while, And in my self y gan to smyle Thenkende uppon the bedis blake, And how they weren me betake, 2960 For that y schulde bidde and preie. And whanne y sigh non othre weie Bot only that y was refusid, Unto the lif which y hadde usid I thoughte nevere torne ayein: And in this wise, soth to seyn, Homward ...
— Confessio Amantis - Tales of the Seven Deadly Sins, 1330-1408 A.D. • John Gower
... how she longed to tell her something that she would not soon forget. How she was tempted to place Jasper and Sammie side by side and compare them; the one an insignificant, brainless, useless, overdressed nincompoop; the other a strong, self-reliant, masterful man, fighting against fate with face to the front ...
— Under Sealed Orders • H. A. Cody
... almonds,'(671) 'and will rise up.' "(672) "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" or, "thou shalt be accepted even if thou doest not well." "Cursed be their anger for it was fierce," or, "for in their anger they slew a man, and in their self-will they houghed cursed oxen." "To-morrow I will stand" or "go out, fight with Amalek to-morrow." "Made like unto almonds with their knops, and their flowers," or "four bowls made like unto almonds." "And this people will rise up," or, "thou shalt sleep ...
— Hebrew Literature
... social elements, which were strong and successful when united against external danger, failed in the more difficult task of properly adjusting their own internal organization, and thus gave way the great principle of self-government. Let us trust that this admonition will never be forgotten by the Government or the people of the United States, and that the testimony which our experience thus far holds out to the great human family of the practicability and the blessings of free government ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... talk till the horse was fetched, happily doing most of the talking himself, and when I was in the saddle gave me a hearty God-speed. Being so sick with self-despisings, I fear I made but a poor return for all this good comradeship; but at the time I could think of nothing but the hell that flamed within me, and of how I could soonest quench ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... in another view to illustrate what I have insisted on concerning the origin of pride and humility, love and hatred. I have observed, that though self be the object of the first set of passions, and some other person of the second, yet these objects cannot alone be the causes of the passions; as having each of them a relation to two contrary affections, which must from the ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... was not offered him, and sat with his hat-brim on his knees, and its crown pointed towards Lapham. "I want to know what you are going to do," he answered with sufficient self-possession. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... She was her gay, bright self after her visit with Aunt Debby. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks bright. She turned to the girls who stood waiting for her. Ignorant of the motive which had brought them here to meet ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... few of them had been executed as criminals for preferring their oath of allegiance and connection with the mother country to a renunciation of their former profession of faith, and absolute submission to a newly self-created authority of rule and a new political creed. At the conclusion of the war, and in the treaty of peace, "the question of Loyalists or Tories," says Lord Mahon, "was, as it ought to be, a main object with ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... to prove their independence, their proud spirit, their unbending self-respect, "I never apologize." They say it in such conscious pride, and so honestly expect me to admire them, and I am so amiable, that I never dare remonstrate. I simply keep out of their way. But I feel like saying: "Poor, pitiful soul! Poor, meagre nature! Not to know the gladness of restoring ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... Arhus, Bornholm, Frederiksberg*, Frederiksborg, Fyn, Kobenhavn, Kobenhavns*, Nordjylland, Ribe, Ringkobing, Roskilde, Sonderjylland, Storstrom, Vejle, Vestsjalland, Viborg note: see separate entries for the Faroe Islands and Greenland, which are part of the Kingdom of Denmark and are self-governing overseas ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... patronage. Unhappily for all states of mankind, enjoyment too often drives from the mind of the possessor, the bare remembrance of the means of acquisition: luxury forgets the innumerable ingenuities that minister to its cravings, and wealth, once obtained, unfits the mind for future self-exertion or sympathy for others. Many an upstart voluptuary surveys the elegancies of his well-furnished mansion in comparative ignorance of the means employed for their perfection; and, as regards his stock of knowledge conducive to happiness, he is in a more "parlous state" than ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... the leaders of this departure from the regular rules of the political game should have commended itself to every good citizen. Their idea was to organize the Assembly, not for self-advancement, or the promotion of special privileges as the machine leaders do year after year, but that good bills might be passed and bad bills defeated; that the waste of the public funds might be stopped; that worthy ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... less, in his "Minstrelsy" collection, may be mentioned the eccentric John Leyden, immensely learned in Border antiquities and poetry, and James Hogg, the "Ettrick Shepherd." The latter was a peasant bard, an actual shepherd and afterward a sheep farmer, a self-taught man with little schooling, who aspired to become a second Burns, and composed much of his poetry while lying out on the hills, wrapped in his plaid and tending his flocks like any Corydon or Thyrsis. He was a singular mixture of genius and vanity, at once the admiration and the butt of ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... amazed, bewildered, and sheepish group that faced each other in the light of the electric torch after the departure of the unknown man. Phyllis was the first to recover self-possession. ...
— The Dragon's Secret • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... buildings in the whole empire,—the present mansion having been completed within a few years.[1] Here the noble founder seems to have realized all that the ingenious Sir Henry Wotton considered requisite for a man's "house and home—the theatre of his hospitality, the seat of self-fruition, a kind of PRIVATE PRINCEDOM; nay, to the possessors thereof, an epitome of the ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... mind may be drawn out and the character enlarged by them; yet we feel also that they are attended with many dangers, and that this Romance of Heavenly Love requires a strength, a freedom from passion, a self-control, which, in youth especially, are rarely to be found. The propriety of such friendships must be estimated a good deal by the manner in which public opinion regards them; they must be ...
— Lysis • Plato
... throbbed sluggishly once, then lay quiescent as his mental self surged up from the deeps of non-entity. And gradually he came to know that someone had entered the room. His room, far ...
— Walls of Acid • Henry Hasse
... Ehrlich beneath the ice. Anyhow, there came a flicker of hope into his eyes. I daresay he saw some way to dodge the French authorities if he once got a chance to use his miraculous wits. Anyhow, he bowed with something very like self-possession, and asked permission to smoke. As I have said, the ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... fire has broken out in a man's house and one who has come to put it out has coveted the property of the householder and appropriated any of it, that man shall be cast into the self-same fire. ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... which was almost a sob rose from Herb's throat. It was his one valuable possession, his 45-90 Winchester rifle, his second self, which he had rested against the ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... derived. Reversing our conceptions, and regarding the molecules of gases and vapours not as the recipients but as the originators of wave-motion; not as absorbers but as radiators; it was proved that the powers of absorption and radiation went hand in hand, the self-same chemical act which rendered a body competent to intercept the waves of aether, rendering it competent, in the same degree, to generate them. Perfumes were next subjected to examination, and, notwithstanding their extraordinary tenuity, they were found vastly superior, ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... exterior denote? From a few casual and half-forgotten inquiries, Rochester knew that he was the son, or rather the orphan of working-people in the neighboring town. There was nothing in his blood to make him in any way the social equal of these men and women amongst whom he now sat with such perfect self-possession. Rochester found himself watching for some traces of inferior breeding, some lapse of speech, some signs of an innate lack of refinement. The absence of any of these things puzzled him. Saton was assured, without being ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... requires that the object should have been brought within the sphere of that personality, that the free will should have unrestrainedly set itself into that object. There must be then an intent to appropriate it, that is, to make it part of one's self, or one's own. ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... and I called him to us. He was a clean-cut seamanly fellow of about thirty. His blue eyes were frank and self-reliant. ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... complete command of my thoughts. Working in a logical succession of images they showed me at last as clearly as a picture on a wall, Therese pressing with fervour the key into the fevered palm of the rich, prestigious, virtuous cousin, so that he should go and urge his self-sacrificing offer to Rita, and gain merit before Him whose Eye sees all the actions of men. And this image of those two with the key in the studio seemed to me a most monstrous conception of fanaticism, of ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... like a magpie on the road, he was silent and sullen, nursing his injured pride and wounded self-sufficiency. Susan, who was interested in him for the novel reason she disliked him so heartily, parted from him with the air of a duchess, and entered the hotel, holding her head so high that he swore under his breath as ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... smoker a defensive argument, as he may uphold the habit as hygienic and highly useful in preventing microbic infection. The antiseptic power of tobacco smoke is undoubted, but it is intolerable that a physician under the pretext of avoiding self infection should enter the house of his patient and ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... of the engine are self-contained; they no longer depend upon the foundation, and in many cases the condensing is effected either by surface condensers, or, where there is not sufficient water, the condensation is, in a few instances, effected by the evaporative condenser—a condenser ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... bearers were at hand with his palanquin; he got into it; the men set off at a swinging pace, warning the bystanders with their cry of "Tok! Tok!" and Desmond walked by the side of the chair, amused to watch the self-important airs of the peon who went in front. They passed the fort and the Company's house, and arrived at length at a two-story flat-roofed house with a veranda, the windows filled, not with oyster shells as at Bombay, but with ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... make no mistake about the number of beans in the game," Mr. Moss observed in a self-congratulatory tone. "I can tell a crook from a mug a bit quicker ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... French endured in their retreat across the desert were very great, and afforded constant exercise for the self-possession and equanimity of their leader. "A fearful journey," says one of their number, "was yet before us. Some of the wounded were carried in litters, and the rest on camels and mules. A devouring thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat, a fatiguing march among scorching ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... teaches that right and wrong are real distinctions." The study of history, especially in the sphere of biography, has a moral value, and much may be done, even in the primary classes, to inspire children to admire the heroic and the self-sacrificing, and to despise the treacherous and the self-seeking. The constant struggle to right what is wrong in the world may be emphasized in the senior classes to show that nothing is ever settled until it is ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... bright, self-reliant lad. He leaves Plympton village to seek work in New York, whence he undertakes an important mission to California. Some of his adventures in the far west are so startling that the reader will scarcely close ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... who created Nature? without adducing satisfactory evidence that Nature was created, and without reflecting that if it is difficult to believe Nature self-existent, it is much more difficult to believe some self-existent Super-nature, capable of producing it. In their anxiety to get rid of a natural difficulty, they invent a supernatural one, and accuse Universalists ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... "If self is your first consideration—But, Clifton, whether you think it or not, you could do much in the business, and you are needed in it. Jacob has more on his hands than he can do well, and even if he had not, it is your affair ...
— David Fleming's Forgiveness • Margaret Murray Robertson
... and I who ne'er had trusted, save in self, grew cold With panic lest this precious life should know no ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... your utterly abominable politics." For the first time for months she was her unfettered self. His mind was still on his calamity. "I ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... the past which had led John Broom to act the part of one of those Good-Fellows who have, we must fear, finally deserted us, will be easily understood. And to a nature of his type, the earning of some self-respect, and of a character before others, was perhaps a ...
— Tales from Many Sources - Vol. V • Various
... the threescore years of his busy life, Galt did his best, consistently and on a large scale, with the pen; and that once was in the novel of Ringan Gilhaize, or the Covenanters. What is more—however lamentably he may appear in general to lack the faculty of self-criticism—he knew when he had done his best, and among all his books this one remained his favourite. But a man has to pay for artistic as he has for moral delinquencies, and it would seem that the penalty of many a careless tome has been exacted ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... meanwhile stood motionless in the oil-clothed hall, struggling to regain self-possession before turning the handle of the door. A gentleman waiting to see her! Who could the gentleman be? But at the bottom of her heart Claire believed the question to be superfluous, for there ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... must not be narrow. It isn't wrong to amuse one's self; and if we play with the religion of the Persians, why is it worse than to play with the mythologies of the Greeks or Romans? You wouldn't think it any harm to jest about ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... disposition, died suddenly. Though this was a cause of much grief to both Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, they did not consider themselves in any way justified in delaying the necessary preparations for their self-imposed Mission to Russia. ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... winged with joy, had been the expedition of Delvile to open to him his plan, than was his own, though only goaded by desperation, to make some effort with Cecilia for rendering it abortive. Nor could all his self-denial, the command which he held over his passions, nor the rigour with which his feelings were made subservient to his interest, in this sudden hour of trial, avail to preserve his equanimity. The refinements of hypocrisy, and ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... old barbaric conquerors this had been fine enough. A display of armor—of helmets, of shields, and of swords—a concourse of chariots, of trumpets, and of slaves, of victims kept for the Tarpeian rock, the spoils and rapine of battle, the self-asserting glory of the big fighting hero, the pride of bloodshed, and the boasting over fallen cities, had been fit for men who had in their hearts conceived nothing greater than military renown. Our sympathies go along with a Camillus or a Scipio steeped in the blood of Rome's enemies. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... better so. Some fine day Gryphus will commit some atrocity. I am losing my patience, since I have lost the joy and company of Rosa, and especially since I have lost my tulip. Undoubtedly, some day or other Gryphus will attack me in a manner painful to my self-respect, or to my love, or even threaten my personal safety. I don't know how it is, but since my imprisonment I feel a strange and almost irresistible pugnacity. Well, I shall get at the throat of that old ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... like a loathsome carcass upon my couch. I could not even think. My mind seemed like some untenanted recess in the unfathomable depths below. Instantaneous death, and even eternal perdition afterwards, could have presented no new horrors then. It was haply the design of Providence that the thought of self-destruction should not occur to me. With the means in my reach, I would in all probability have rushed, uncalled and unprepared, into the presence of an ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... to a delight I experienced in my rags and tatters which is denied the average American abroad. The European traveller from the States, who is not a Croesus, speedily finds himself reduced to a chronic state of self-conscious sordidness by the hordes of cringing robbers who clutter his steps from dawn till dark, and deplete his pocket-book in a way that puts ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... was marked by the self-command and dignified quiet that are so apt to distinguish the deportment of Indian warriors, when they are on the war-path, and alive to the duties of manhood. The bee-hunter shook hands with several, who received ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... in great danger of self-exaltation, I took the best medicine that I could—although by no means with intention—in waiting on my lord Quinton, who was then residing at the Manor. Here my swelled spirit was smartly pricked, and sank soon to its true proportions. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... reality, an escape within the mind from the reality outside the mind. But what if there is no detectable reality outside the mind? What is there to escape from? Suicide—death in any form—is an escape from life. But if death does not come, and can not be self-inflicted, what then? ...
— Suite Mentale • Gordon Randall Garrett
... that the manuscript "was written by a country amanuensis and probably contains many ridiculous errata," was scarcely gracious to the wife, who seems to have comprehended so well the first principle of wifely duty to an illustrious and, it must be admitted, autocratic genius—viz., self-extinction. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... met in Philadelphia in October, 1774, to make united {57} protest. This body, comprising without exception the most influential men in the colonies, presented a clear contrast to Parliament in that every man was the representative of a community of freemen, self-governing and equal before the law. The leaders did not regard themselves in any sense as revolutionaries. They were simply delegates from the separate colonies, met to confer on their common dangers. Their action consisted ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... will put a complete stop to our work," said Roylance, who was watching the restless movements of the self-imprisoned shark. "Don't stop them, Belton," he continued, in a low tone, "I want to see ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... literature of forty years ago; tales of Crusaders who were always right, and Saracens who were always wrong. (The same Saracens who taught the Christians to respect the philosophy of the Greeks, and introduced them to the basic ideas of straight, self-disciplined thinking!) ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... to the reader by this time, that Benjamin derived much benefit from his conversation with John Collins upon a useful topic. A large majority of boys, of their age, spend their leisure moments in vain and useless talking. They think not of self-improvement, and scarcely desire to be benefited in this way. The most unmeaning and thoughtless words escape from their lips, and a sound, sensible, valuable conversation they seldom, if ever, attempt. What an excellent example is that of young Franklin and Collins, ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... and mischievous in the gratification of his enmities. As long as he lived he had great power, owing to the magnificence of his gifts and to his frequent possession of office, and yet he was at times timid towards the bold, though domineering over the timid; so that when full of self-confidence he appeared to be spouting in the tragic buskin, and when he was afraid he seemed more abased than the most abject character ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... of these two, Dick Hayden, as the bolder and stronger spirit, was the leader, and Bob Stubbs the subservient follower. Stubbs was no less brutal, when occasion served, but he was not self reliant. He wanted some one to lead the way, and he was ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... whom the common people, as in duty bound, were learning humbly to resign the honors, emoluments, and authority of state. He saw,—or else deceived himself—that, throughout this epoch, the people's disposition to self-government had been growing weaker, through long disuse, and now existed only ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... idle hours in recording here in a strange land, for after all England is strange to me. I grow elderly. I have, as I suppose, passed the period of enterprise and adventure and I should be well satisfied with the lot that Fate has given to my unworthy self. ...
— The Ancient Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... shields. Where the deep trench in length extended lay, Compacted troops stand wedged in firm array, A dreadful front! they shake the brands, and threat With long-destroying flames the hostile fleet. The king of men, by Juno's self inspired, Toil'd through the tents, and all his army fired. Swift as he moved, he lifted in his hand His purple robe, bright ensign of command. High on the midmost bark the king appear'd: There, from Ulysses' deck, his voice was heard: To Ajax and Achilles reach'd the sound, Whose ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer |
