"Self-abnegation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... playing the part for the applause of those in front—Charles I. was a masterpiece of conception as to the representation of a great gentleman. His Cardinal Wolsey was the most perfect presentation of greatness, of self-abnegation, and of power to suffer I can realize.... Jingle and Matthias were in Comedy and Tragedy combined, masterpieces of histrionic art. I could write volumes upon Irving as an actor, but to write of him as a man, and as a very great Artist, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... sake of the memory of my dead sister, I will do as Nathaniel wished," said Mrs. Chichester with great dignity and self-abnegation. ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... 've seen it wi' ma ain eyes,"—for indeed this seemed to Carmichael an impossible height of self-abnegation,—"a man who loved an' served a wumman wi' his best an' at a great cost, an' yet for whom there cud be no reward but his ain luve." Marget's face grew so beautiful as she told of the constancy of this unknown, unrewarded lover that Carmichael left without further speech, but with a purer vision ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... self-sacrifice, that, in their pure, strong action, make woman's best development, and so the world, the needy people of the world, humanity at large, may receive the immediate benediction of it. Let no woman who, alone it may be, goes steadfastly on her way of duty and self-abnegation, think she has lived in vain because the special lot of woman has been denied her. If not happiness, which comes from content and satisfaction, yet there is something higher, diviner still, arising from duty done and trials endured—blessedness. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... say pretty girl," said Miss Cringle, with calm self-abnegation, "don't mind me, say it. The captain knows what he's about. He told me you were a milksop; he said you were a good young man and ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... temptation of personal gifts and of circumstances in a first or even second work. It is something capable of education and accomplishment, and the patience with which it submits itself to this needful schooling and self-abnegation is one of the surest tests of its actual possession. Could even Shakspeare's poems and earlier plays come before us for judgment, we could only say of them, as of Keats's "Endymion," that they showed affluence, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... a valley of humiliation, I intend no reproach to men; I simply state a fact dependent upon the nature of things, and upon the primal sentence passed against the pride that, in spite of the prohibition of the Almighty, sought to know all things, 'to become as gods.' Meekness, humility, self-abnegation, affection, are the beautiful flowers that grow by the wayside; but the pathway is not the less thorny, and no good can be accomplished by ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... ideal there are five great essentials—keenness, courage, high-mindedness, self-abnegation, humour. Ability to mix freely with private soldiers without loss of dignity is, I take it, the natural gift of a gentleman; and if the officer who devotes himself to his men is high-minded and courageous, always ready to ignore self, with the saving virtue ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... capacity for retention had no limitations. He smiled because it pleased him to think that his judgment of her character had not been at fault. Hers was a brave soul, not easily daunted or discouraged, better worthy of this life which was teaching its stoicism, charity and self-abnegation than of that other life which denied by self-sufficiency their very existence—a gallant spirit which for once soared free of the worldly, venal and time-serving. It pleased him to think it was by his means that she had been bought into his valley of contentment and that thus ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... associations of her early life had destroyed her faith in abstract nobility of character; self-abnegation she neither comprehended nor deemed possible; and of a stern, innate moral heroism she was utterly sceptical; consequently a delicately graduated scale of selfishness was the sole balance by which she was wont ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the moral grandeur of self-abnegation that fills the philosophy of humanity, we feel the contrast of strong human personality, which animates us with an inspiring sensation as we listen to the prophet ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... is a touch of protection and maternal affection in the way in which Ernest Daudet regards his younger brother, and the latter never mentions his early struggles without recalling the self-abnegation, generous kindliness, and devotion of "mon frere." The two went through some hard times together. "Ah!" says the great writer, speaking of those days, "I thought my brother passing rich, for he ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and loving words were needed, it was then; if ever mortal man had living texts before his eyes to illustrate and illuminate his thought, it was there; and if ever hearts were prompted to devoutest self-abnegation, it was in the work which brought us to anything but a Chapel of Ease. But some spiritual paralysis seemed to have befallen our pastor; for, though many faces turned toward him, full of the dumb hunger that often comes ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... during intermission last Sabbath; but Marg'et Ann, having arrived at her own position by a process of complete self-abnegation, found it hard to know how to proceed with this stalwart sinner who insisted upon understanding things. It is true he spoke humbly enough of himself, as one who had not her light, but Marg'et Ann was quite aware ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham
... all, was he making the best of his life? He had started a great work. Hundreds and thousands of his fellow creatures would be the better for it. So far all was well enough. But personally—was this entire self-abnegation necessary?—was he fulfilling his duty to himself? was he not rather sacrificing his future to a prejudice—an idea? In any case he knew that it was too late to retract. He had renounced his proper position in life, it was too late for him now to claim it. And there had gone with it—Sybil. ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... and follow Me." This cross is not forced upon us as are many of the little vexations and trials which we call 'our crosses'; it is taken up by us, in voluntary self-sacrifice for His sake. We choose self-abnegation, to lose our life in sacrifice that we may find it again in service. That is the self-oblivion of love. And Mr. Muller illustrated it. From the hour when he began to serve the Crucified One he entered more and more fully into the fellowship of His sufferings, seeking to be made ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... the Cross, the fellow-workman of St. Teresa in the reform of monasteries, is a still more perfect example of the Spanish type of Mysticism. His fame has never been so great as hers; for while Teresa's character remained human and lovable in the midst of all her austerities, Juan carried self-abnegation to a fanatical extreme, and presents the life of holiness in a grim and repellent aspect. In his disdain of all compromise between the claims of God and the world, he welcomes every kind of suffering, ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... thus for a valuable consideration consents to waive all his personal feelings, will even carry his self-abnegation so far as to be present and look on at the murder of his kinsman. But true to his principles he will see to it that the thing is done decently and humanely. When the struggle is nearly over and the man is down, writhing on the ground with the murderers busy about ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... father, his rugged face shining in the ardour of self-abnegation. "The only pain to me was pain on his account, poor, foolish young man. Do you suppose his incensed words could give me any pain, or even his blows? 'Being reviled we bless; being persecuted we suffer it; being defamed we entreat; ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... emotion passes through the great throng of spectators. Christ even washes the feet of Judas. Was there in all time or eternity past, or will there be in all time or eternity to come, such a scene of self-abnegation? The Lord of heaven and earth stooping to such a service which must have astounded the heavens more than its dramatisation overpowered us! What a stunning rebuke to the pride and arrogance and personal ambition of ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... by name. Following the example of Andrew, and of John the future apostle, the people were leaving the Baptist and gathering about the Christ. John's reply to his ardent followers constitutes a sublime instance of self-abnegation. His answer was to this effect: A man receives only as God gives unto him. It is not given to me to do the work of Christ. Ye yourselves are witnesses that I disclaimed being the Christ, and that I said I was one sent before Him. He is as the Bridegroom; I am only as the friend of the bridegroom,[373] ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of this glory, would cease. To work for the eyes of God alone is not a sufficient reward for very many who have climbed well up the gospel ladder. To know when we are dead in the highest light. Self-abnegation can not be discerned so long as we want to live. If we never reach the point where we literally "hate our own life," we shall never know how much there is in us not divine. The flesh is ever the veil that separates between the holy place and the holy of holies. Until ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... you, sire," cried Josephine, "and shall pray God every day to preserve you to your father—to your parents," she corrected herself with the self-abnegation of a true woman. "You will one day confer happiness on France and your people, for you undoubtedly wish to become as good, great, and wise, ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... at once. Then she turned upon him a face of radiant self-abnegation. "I will do anything you tell me. Only ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... pleasantly that even the skeptical Jim forgot what he believed were the "airs and graces" of self-abnegation, and said, "Let's go inside, and I'll introduce you," and turned to the house. But Clarence Brant drew back. "I'm going on as soon as my horse is fed, for I'm on a visit to Peyton, and I intend to push as far as Santa ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... infinite tortures; but my whole life shall be given to atone for those sins by meek submission, dutiful obedience, ardent love. I cannot choose between those paths you have shown me. I do not want to be consumed by the fires of sinful love, nor to freeze in the ice of solitude and self-abnegation. I want to be happy, and to make you happy. I want to love, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... to his excellent host. Unnoticed by them or disregarded, Vernon turned back to Laetitia, and sauntered, talking with her of things current for as long as he could endure to listen to praise of his pure self-abnegation; proof of how well he had disguised himself, but it smacked unpleasantly to him. His humourous intimacy with men's minds likened the source of this distaste to the gallant all-or-nothing of the gambler, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... other numerous works Iracema alone approaches Guarany in popularity. The dominant note of the author, afterward much repeated in the literary history of his nation, is the essential goodness and self-abnegation of the ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... class. Is not the dream of the European adventurer, of the same or better class, to make his pile of dollars and be off to the land of his birth? If he spends more money in the Colony than the Chinaman does, it is because he lacks the Chinaman's self-abnegation and thriftiness. Is the kind of civilization taught in the colonies by low-class ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... changes of climate; but what it cost to the true German woman to so long exile herself from her old home and her kindred none ever knew—at least none among her husband's unsympathetic family—for she was, as a Princess, too proud to complain; as a mother, cheerful in her devotion and self-abnegation. ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... humane theories under the smoking roof of a raided settler's cabin, whose owner, however, had forgotten his own repeated provocations, or the trespass of which he was proud. But Atherly's unaffected and unobtrusive zeal, his fixity of purpose, his undoubted courage, his self-abnegation, and above all the gentle melancholy and half-philosophical wisdom of this new missionary, won him the respect and assistance of even the most callous or the most skeptical of officials. The Secretary of the Interior had given him carte blanche; the President trusted ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... his conversation was all contradictory. In one breath, on the self-abnegation principle, he would say, 'I don't know any thing about paintings;' in the next breath, his overweening egotism would make him loudly proclaim: 'There never was but one painter in this world, and his name is Hockskins; he lives in my town, and he knows more than ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... that the sudden relenting of the tyrant is contrary to his character. The tyrant here has no individual character at all. He is the mere personation of disbelief in truth and love—which the spectacle of sublime self-abnegation at once converts. In this idea lies the deep philosophical truth, which redeems all the defects of the piece—for poetry, in its highest form, is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... stands almost at the opposite pole from Penthesilea. The pathos of Griselda's unquestioning self-abnegation is her portion; she is the extreme expression of the docile quality that Kleist sought in his betrothed. Instead of the fabled scenes of Homeric combat, we have here as a setting the richly romantic ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... after our garden, and sleeps here at night. The doctor thought it wasn't safe to be left here alone with sister Jane. It made it easy for them to pay for the place. It's nearly all gone now. But there'll be enough to last our time out," she commented with a soft sigh of self-abnegation. ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... of humanity, where centuries have trailed their dust, traditions gleam like monuments to attest the victory of this immemorial potency, female fidelity; and when we of the nineteenth century seek the noblest, grandest type of merely human self-abnegation, that laid down a pure and happy life, to prolong that of a beloved object, we look back to the lovely image of that fair Greek woman, who, when the parents of the man she loved refused to give their lives to save their son, summoned death to accept her as a willing victim; and deeming ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... souls and false! who loudly cried 'True chivalry no longer breathes in time.' Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime The heroic lives we witness; far and wide Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified; Self-abnegation, calmness, courage, power, Sway, with a rule august, our stormy hour, Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died— Wrought grandly, and died smiling. Thus, O God, From tears, and blood, and ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... if we think of that sweet, serene life as having clear before it from the very first steps that grim end, how infinitely it gains in pathetic beauty and in heart-touchingness! What wonderful self-abnegation! How he was at leisure from Himself, with a heart of pity for every sorrow, and loins girt for all service, though during all His life the Cross closed the vista! Think that human shrinking was felt by Him, think that it was so held back ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... large-mouthed, snub-nosed; the very type and essence of unrestrained, impulsive, emotional, sensual nature. A seeing eye would have noted inevitable danger for the early years of her womanhood. She seemed amazed by the self-abnegation implied by her companion's statement; after a pause ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... perhaps have accused her of ambition; and yet she loved him; but love is not always absolute devotion and self-abnegation; love is not always a virtue; it is often the result of egotism; it is, as Madame de Stael says, one personality in two persons, or a mere double personality. Frances loved the prince royal, but not the less had she been dazzled by ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... is a divine self-abnegation to which very few attain. But those few come nearest to the imitation of Him who 'pleased not Himself,' and I think—God knoweth—often they are the happiest. Let us all ask God for grace to reach it. 'This is My commandment, that ye have love one ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... Christian Europe seems to have been striving, out of a strong, primitive, animal nature, towards the self-abnegation and the abstraction of Christ. This brought about by itself a great sense of completeness. The two halves were joined by the effort towards the one as yet unrealized. There was a ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... Her own sorrow was no less poignant, but it was mitigated by a feeling of serenity and resignation, which was constantly gaining strength now that what has just passed had convinced her of the necessity of her sacrifice; and, from that moment, there reigned in the heart of Dolores, a boundless self-abnegation, a constant desire to insure the happiness of her friend by the surrender of her own. The remainder of the day passed uneventfully. Dolores and Antoinette made only one more visit to the hall below, and then Philip ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... president carrying self-abnegation and prudence to their extreme limits, went to the general's quarters, and having warmly thanked him, laid before him the dangers to which he would expose himself by running counter to the opinions of those who had had their own way in the city for the last four months. But General Lagarde brushed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... dependent on their judgment and their action, are called upon to endure this strain in its most exhausting manifestations, who are compelled to subordinate personal case, even health itself, to public obligation. In the end they pay, incontestable they pay, for their self-abnegation, for their unswerving obedience to the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... on the work of conversion. These were no stern exiles, seeking on barbarous shores an asylum for a persecuted faith. Rank, wealth, power, and royalty itself, smiled on their enterprise, and bade them God-speed. Yet, withal, a fervor more intense, a self-abnegation more complete, a self-devotion more constant and enduring, will scarcely find its record on the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... folded and directed to "Mr. Osmund Derwent, Esquire." And then, for one minute, human nature had its way, and Phoebe's head was bowed over the folded note. There was no one to see her, and she let her heart relieve itself in tears. Ay, there was One, who took note of the self-abnegation which had been learned from Him. Phoebe knew that Osmund Derwent did not love her. Yet was it the less hard on that account to resign him to Rhoda? For time and circumstances might have shown him the comparatively alloyed metal of the one, and the pure gold ...
— The Maidens' Lodge - None of Self and All of Thee, (In the Reign of Queen Anne) • Emily Sarah Holt
... on me, with what she heard from Phyllis Devereux, of the work Sister Angela has been doing at Albertstown— the most utter self-abnegation, through bitter disappointment in her most promising pupils—only the charity that is rooted could endure. It is just the old difference Tennyson points out between ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Nueva Espana. They disembarked near our house, which stands at the edge of the water; and, in acknowledgment of the debt that we also owe to that holy order and its blessed fathers—who, in so great self-abnegation and aversion to worldly things, in all seek only the things of Jesus Christ—I begged them to accept the use of our house. During their stay with me they displayed toward me the most signal charity; and I, on my part, was equally consoled and edified, until last Pentecost ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... magnanimity in the matter, his one chief desire appeared to be to avoid a quarrel between his royal friend and Parliament. Not many men would have had such self-abnegation as to renounce an estate estimated to be worth 6,000l. per annum, besides the product of royalties, when they had a King and a victorious army to support them in its possession. The Earl had saved the King's life, he had rendered invaluable services as a diplomatist and General in raising ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... man as the prize of victory; and the priest, self-constituted interpreter of the will of the gods, stood in front of the only refuge from harm and demanded as the price of entrance that ignorance, that asceticism, that self-abnegation which could but end in the complete subjugation of man to superstition. He was taught that Heaven, the refuge, was the very antithesis of Earth, which was the source of sin. To gain for himself a seat in Heaven, man devastated the Earth. Yet she renewed herself, the good mother, ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... weight with him, except his aspiration for the presidency, and even that seems to have passed away when his disagreement with Jackson put him out of the Democratic race, and when the new crisis arose in Southern interests, to which he ever after devoted himself with entire self-abnegation. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... He had accepted the announcement of their engagement. He could not do less, after all that had happened and the painful scene at their parting. And yet would it not be a blessing to her if he were killed? Even now in his self-abnegation and misery he did not fully realize how mean he was,—how mean he seemed to others. He resented in his heart what Sloat had said of him but the day before, little caring whether he heard it or not: "It would be a mercy to that poor girl if Jerrold were ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... envied Claire more than all else was the child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its cradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet, maternal duties, demanding patience and self-abnegation, of the long rockings when sleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with fresh water. No! she saw in the child naught but the daily walk. It is such a pretty sight, the little bundle of finery, with floating ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... many years ago, and ever since then you seem to have impoverished yourself to find her the means to live in luxury. I consider that you paid your debt over and over again, and that your final act of self-abnegation was entirely uncalled for. What more she wants from you I do not know. Perhaps I ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... demand, Mr. Stearns promptly declined. How well I remember his agitation, walking up and down the room, and finally entreating Mr. Stearns for 'friendship's sake' to go and take care of him. I can recall no instance of such self-abnegation in my husband's self-denying career. He did not stoop to an explanation, even when Dr. Howe declared in his presence, some months later, "that he never did any thing in his life he so much wished to take back." I had hoped that Dr. Howe would himself have ...
— 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
... of them were ugly and clever, some were stupid and beautiful, but they had all been dangerous. He had passed them by. No woman in the world that he had ever known had had the nobility of spirit, the courage, the self-abnegation ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... in a drawing-room resembles a soldier on a breastwork; self-abnegation is the first of her duties; however much she may suffer, she must present as calm and serene a countenance as a warrior in the hour of danger, and fall, if necessary, upon the spot, with death in her heart and a smile upon her lips. In order to obey this unwritten law, Madame de ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... in any aspect, must be regarded as a gloomy religion. It is hard enough to crucify all natural desires and lead a life of self-abnegation; but for the spirit, in order to be purified, to be obliged to enter into body after body, each subject to disease, misery, and death, and then after a long series of migrations to be virtually annihilated as the highest consummation of happiness, gives one but a poor conception ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... minutes, and then ran right into her. He assures me he was "'orror-struck." Like a man, he admitted that he was conversing with "that—that there." I always like this part of the tale. His confession seems to him to have been the uttermost depths of mortal self-abnegation. Alas, the heiress of Soap-Suds Senior had no appreciation of the queenly attribute of forgiveness. She boxed his ears, and he never saw her again. "She was allus a spiteful cat," he observes pensively; "so p'raps the wash 'us 'ud ha' been dear at the ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... mother, out of pure compassion, I believe, for the isolated and tragic situation in which the poor woman had placed herself, tried with all her might to read the book and believe the theory; she would take up the mass of manuscript night after night, and wade through it with that truly saintlike self-abnegation which characterized her, occasionally, too, reading out a passage which struck her. The result was that she could not bring herself to disbelieve in Shakespeare, but she conceived a higher admiration than ever of Bacon; and that, too, was ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... was out, enjoying an evening cigar,—a circumstance on which John secretly congratulated himself as a favorable feature in the case. He felt instinctively a sort of uneasy responsibility for his guests; and, judging the Fergusons by himself, felt that their call was in some sort an act of self-abnegation on his account; and he was anxious to make it as easy as possible. Mrs. Follingsbee was presentable, so he thought; but he dreaded the irrepressible Dick, and had much the same feeling about him ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the hand he held, while he was speaking, and was greatly surprised to find only a slight discoloration where he had expected to see unsightly sores or scars, and, while he did not wish to undervalue her heroism and self-abnegation, he began to think that his brother-in-law had greatly over-estimated the injuries which she ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... than men in anything, it surely is in individual self-sacrifice for those of their own family. But I lay little stress on this, so long as they are universally taught that they are born and created for self-sacrifice. I believe that equality of rights would abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the present artificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman would not be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the other hand, men would be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than at present, because ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... The small stake for self which she had invested in life was gone,—and henceforward all personal matters were to her so indifferent that she scarce was conscious of a wish in relation to her own individual happiness. Through the sudden crush of a great affliction, she was in that state of self-abnegation to which the mystics brought themselves by fastings and self-imposed penances,—a state not purely healthy, nor realizing the divine ideal of a perfect human being made to exist in the relations of human life,—but one of those exceptional conditions, which, like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... he would keep all dainty bits for himself, leaving the scraps for his devoted mate, who would wait meekly to eat what he chose to leave. She made up for this wifely self-abnegation by frequenting the hen houses. She would watch patiently by the side of a hen on her nest, and as soon as an egg was deposited, would remove it for her luncheon. She liked raw eggs, and six were her ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn
... self-denial, self-abnegation, self-sacrifice, self-immolation, self- control &c. (resolution) 604; stoicism, devotion, martyrdom, suttee. labor of love. V. be disinterested &c. adj.; make a sacrifice, lay one's head on the block; put oneself in the place of others, do as one would be done by, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... of woman is usually pure and elevated. But when she devotes her affections to a man who realizes her ideal, she does not hesitate to sacrifice all she holds dear for his gratification. Actuated by a noble self-abnegation, she derives a melancholy pleasure from the knowledge that she has utterly given up all she had formerly so zealously guarded, and she feels that her love has reached its grand climacteric when ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... him were purely potential. I did him the simple justice to believe that his self-abnegation was sincere. But, with your practical, cynical little mind, darling, you are hardly capable of—excuse me for saying so—of appreciating the real value and meaning of ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... men if they had tamely submitted to be caged like poultry. Again, we feel a thrill when we read the epitaph which says, "Gladly we would have rested had we won freedom. We have lost, and very gladly rest." The very air of bravery, of steady self-abnegation seems to exhale from the sombre, triumphant words. Russia is the chosen home of tyranny now, but her day of brightness will come again. It is safe to prophesy so much, for I remember what happened at one time of supreme peril. Prussia and Austria and Italy lay crushed and bleeding ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... subject of careful thought and earnest prayer during the last three months of the year. From the first I felt that the adjustment of the Ministers and their work required the nicest discrimination and the most absolute self-abnegation. Resolving to discharge my duty fearlessly, and yet fully in the spirit of the Golden Rule, I entered upon the responsibility. Whether I succeeded or not, is a matter I have referred to the day when ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... strong likeness to that of Paul. Previous to his conversion, he was a conscientious and virulent persecutor of Mohammedanism. [25] After his conversion, he was Mohammed's most efficient disciple, and it may be safely asserted that for disinterestedness and self-abnegation he was not inferior to the Apostle of the Gentiles. The change in his case was, moreover, quite as sudden and unexpected as it was with Paul; it was neither more nor less incomprehensible; and if Paul's conversion needs a miracle to explain it, Omar's ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... to himself or to his class to arise from such ideas. Unlike Jordan Jackson, and men of his type, there was nothing which his class could gain thereby, except a share in the ultimate glory and success of an enlarged and solidified nation. The self-abnegation which he had learned from three years of duty as a private soldier and almost a lifetime of patient attendance upon a loved but exacting invalid, inclined to him to study the movements of society and the world, without especial reference to himself, or the narrow circle of his family ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... even strong, that characteristic so loved by the red man. To these Coast tribes if a man is "kind" he is everything. And almost without exception their legends deal with rewards for tenderness and self-abnegation, and personal and ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... words," Grandmama said to that. For Grandmama had been brought up not to criticise sermons, but had failed to bring up Mrs. Hilary to the same self-abnegation. The trouble with Mrs. Hilary was, and had always been, that she expected (even now) too much of life. Grandmama expected only what she got. And Neville, wisest of all, had not listened, for she too expected what she would get if she did. She was really rather ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... consciousness, no words had passed between them. She felt as if she were a widow, and hoped he would understand. His full recognition of her position, and acceptance of the fact that she did and must mourn for her lover, his complete self-abnegation, brought ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... With their lives in their hands they flung themselves on the foe, and nothing could stand against the onset of men who recked not of themselves. There is one grand thing even about the devilry of war—the transcendent self-abnegation with which, however poor and unworthy may be the cause, a man casts himself away, 'what time the foeman's line is broke.' The poorest, vulgarest, most animal natures rise for a moment into something like nobility, as the surge of the strong emotion lifts them to that height of heroism. Life ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... more strong than solid, which might be mentioned; but he had a profound and almost innate sense of justice, on all public occasions a perfect control of his strong passions,[27] above all a most complete and extraordinary self-abnegation. Personal consequences and considerations were not even thought of, they never crossed his mind, they were altogether obliterated.' Mr. Gallatin held that "the Americans had a right to be proud of Washington, because he was selected and maintained ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... may depend upon it, sir, that your profession, and faith, and church-going, and ordinance-observing, will not stand you in that day when the book of your life is opened in the presence of God. If there has been no genuine love of the neighbor—no self-abnegation—no self-denial for the good of others, all the rest will go for nothing, and you will pass over to abide forever with spirits of a like quality with ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... speaks of is supposed to be an immortal God disguised as Man,— a God who voluntarily rejects and sets aside His own glory to serve and save His perishable creatures,—thus the root of that religion would consist in Self-abnegation, and Self-abnegation is, as experience proves, utterly impossible to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in this work and exemplified by it, is a thorough-going consecration. The men and women who have taken up this work, have followed Christ in his self-abnegation. There is no worldly honor in it. It is not an easy life. You know well enough how these devoted missionaries have braved social ostracism, and shut themselves in to their lowly ministry. With the Christly "sympathy of ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... unhallowed incense, and turned him sick and giddy. Accustomed as he had been to disease and misery in its humblest places and meanest surroundings, the wounded desperado lying in laces and fine linen seemed to him monstrous and unnatural. It required all his self-abnegation, all his sense of duty, all his deep pity, and all the instinctive tact which was born of his gentle thoughtfulness for others, to repress a shrinking. But when the miserable cause of all again opened his eyes and sought Gideon's ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... one's self in the first glow of feeling; but to forget one's self entirely, and one's comfort and happiness in all the little things of life; to consecrate one's self and all that one has to a lifetime of patience and self-abnegation; and to seek no reward and ask for no happiness but love,—do you not think that such things would cost one pain and bring a good ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... through them, he was none the less happy. For in those days his heart lived. Warmly and sadly it beat for you, Ingeborg Holm, and his soul embraced your blond, bright, and saucily ordinary little personality in blissful self-abnegation. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the sole of his foot. Thackeray had let the whole power of his intellect apply itself to a conception of the character of a gentleman. This man is brave, polished, gifted with that old-fashioned courtesy which ladies used to love, true as steel, loyal as faith himself, with a power of self-abnegation which astonishes the criticising reader when he finds such a virtue carried to such an extent without seeming to be unnatural. To draw the picture of a man and say that he is gifted with all the virtues is easy ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... Vanya, a man full of goodness, modesty, and self-abnegation contrasted with the celebrated professor Serebriakof, an egoist, unfeeling, scornful, and ungrateful. The latter, who has recently remarried, comes back to the estate which Uncle Vanya, the brother of his first wife, has managed for him. For several years Vanya has been working incessantly; he ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient saintly kings. My son, Yudhishthira, be steady in the path of liberality, and self-abnegation, and truth. And, O royal Yudhishthira, mercy and self control, and truth and universal sympathy, and everything wonderful in this world, are to be found in thee. Thou art mild, munificent, religious, and liberal, and thou regardest virtue as the highest good. O king, many are ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... they were by the revolutions and disasters arising from their own character, were without any good and noble traits which might redeem the lawlessness from which they suffered. Many deeds of Mexican arms, of self-abnegation in times of peril, and of heroic acts in the face of deadly odds, have left glorious episodes in their history. It is to be recollected that the struggles in which they were engaged arose often from an excess of zeal for liberty, and a strong spirit of individualism which ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... strategy. San Martin was great in his military achievements; his Napoleonic march across the Andes is entitled to be preserved in the history of military affairs so long as history is written; but the almost superhuman self-abnegation with which he laid aside power and greatness that peace might give its strength to his people, was greater than his military achievements. The triumphant march of the conquering hero is admirable and to be greeted with huzzas, but the conquering march ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... elected the fierce little man as their representative in the Imperial Parliament. This was a great start in life for the new-fledged barrister, and, had he moderated his overweening vanity, and studied wisely, and with some self-abnegation and honest adherence to party, he might have risen to some useful position, and been saved, at least, from the indignity of fetching and carrying for the Emperor of Austria, and from the impertinence of intruding himself into the august presence of Mr. Kinglake's amiable and virtuous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... marked assumption of inferiority which characterized the rest of the people, or nineteen-twentieths of the nation. I have already sufficiently dwelt on this aspect of national character. I here recur to it merely to enforce the truth that self-arrogation and self-abnegation, haughtiness and humility, proud, high-handed, magisterial manners, and cringing, obsequious obedience, are all elements of character that depend on the nature of the social order. They are passed on from generation to generation more by social ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... interest of all. Personal interest is perfectly legitimate. The love of self cannot be condemned. The Savior himself has enjoined us to love our neighbor as ourselves. To love him more than ourselves is a very high and beautiful virtue. It is the self-abnegation which inspired Christian heroes. But heroism is rare, and cannot be imposed, nor taken, as a rule. Personal interest is a powerful stimulant, and the superior harmony of social relations makes it contribute to ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... was "No. 4", and was generally told off to hold the horses; and that that day he had had the ill luck to lose his horse and get a little scratch himself, so he was not in the charge—did the finest work he ever saw, and really (so he claimed) saved the day. It was this self-abnegation that first arrested my attention, for I had been accustomed all my life to hear the war talked of; it was one of the inspiring influences in my humdrum existence. But the speakers, although they generally boasted of their commands, never of themselves individually, usually admitted ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... is therefore restless and unfaithful. He may be bored by monotony, a restless seeker of new experiences and new work, possessed by the devils of wanderlust. He may be an egoist incapable of the continuous self-sacrifice and self-abnegation demanded by the home,—quarrelsome and selfish. Sometimes he is wedded to an ideal of achievement or work and believes that he travels best who travels alone. Often in these days of late marriage he has waited until he could "afford" to marry and then finds that his habits chain him to single life. ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... can relieve a commander-in-chief only four miles distant of the responsibility, not for his own reputation—a small matter—but for his country's interests, in directing according to his own judgment the great operations of a campaign. However honourable to generosity, it is certainly carrying self-abnegation to an indefensible extreme to leave the decision of attack or withdrawal, of movement by direct attack or by flanking—"by the left"—to a junior, when one's self is on ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... was expected, would display more than her proverbial lack of logic by embracing with enthusiasm state direction and at the same time remain an exemplar of individualistic performance. The Adamistic scheme seems still further to demand for its smooth working that the feminine group show self-abnegation and agree that it is not itself suited ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... self-abnegation, but much sound and worldly wisdom, in the Pilgrims selecting "the best position on the whole coast" of America for their settlement; and there is as little truth in the statement, though a good antithesis—the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... wife of Lee when a young girl; and, afterwards, in speaking of the affair to a friend, he said, "I thought my wife would be a widow before sundown, and I did not wish to leave the world making another." All California rang with the story of this heroic act. It has its parallel only in the self-abnegation of the dying hero on the battle-field, who put away from his parched lips the cup of water tendered to him, and directed that it be given to a wounded soldier suffering in agony by his side, saying, "His need ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... gives a profound sense of our own nothingness and worthlessness, and lays us on our face in the dust in self-abnegation. ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... outcast, to reform a distorted soul, to give all she had to the most abject, to do all she could for the despised and rejected,—this was her craving and absorbing desire. I remember some comical instances of the pursuance of this self-abnegation, where the returns were, to say the least, disappointing; but she was never discouraged. It would be easy to name many who received a lifelong stimulus and aid at her hands, either intellectual or moral. She had much to do with the development of some remarkable careers, as well ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews
... An' so I thought as wuzn't nobody else to tell you, I'd tell you. I d'n know as I done rat," the boy's face was all a-quiver, too, as he looked up at the girl on the misty heights of her passion. His self-abnegation, his young heroism made him for the moment as finely luminous as she was. Sally Madeira took his head between her hands and gazed into his eyes tenderly, caressingly, and there was in her touch something large and sweet and tender that comforted and soothed the boy ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... in the little band of men who have given the world all that we mean by science, the little host of volunteers and underpaid workers who have achieved the triumphs of research, there is a tradition of self-abnegation and of an immense, painstaking, self-forgetful veracity. These traditions work. They add something to the worth of every man ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... Mrs. McKee's—for this wind-swept little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The other was the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of self-abnegation had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed. Back of its position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own situation. On a wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with tramps and beach-combers was at fault. No words can convey an idea of the pathos and humility he threw into his tone and actions. The yearning of the voice, the almost divine air of self-abnegation, the subdued flash of pride here and there that suggested better days, the hopeless droop of the arms, and the irresolute tremble of the corners of his mouth would have appealed to the heart of a heathen idol. That one of his caste should refuse a glass of "Usher's Best," and ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... before the war, exhorted the workers, in the name of the gradual transition into Socialism, to be temperate; who, during the war, asked for submission in the name of 'civil peace' and defense of the Fatherland, now again demand of the workers self-abnegation to overcome the terrible consequences of the war. If this preaching were listened to by the workers, Capitalism would build out of the bones of several generations a new and still more formidable structure, leading to a new and ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... "savior" in the sense of bloody sacrifice for the sins of the people. On the contrary, he was an example to mankind—a man who through moral purification and a life of self-abnegation had prepared himself for this holy office. Mythologically, or astrologically, he was the new sun born at the close of the cycle. He was the great Light which revealed the way to eternal repose—Nirvana. The mythical Buddha was the prototype of the mythical Christ. His mother ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... not self-abnegation, but it is the note which with that makes a perfect harmony. Joy in God and self-sacrificing love are the two wings of the angelic life. Long have the preachers taught self-sacrifice,—now let one child of God sing the joy ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... what we have ventured to call the gray tones of her life, and a certain weariness of routine breaks out even in the mechanical precision of her existence. Power, in the parochial as in the domestic circle, is bought by her at the cost of a perpetual self-abnegation, and it is a little hard to be always hiding the hand that pulls the strings. We may excuse a little forgetfulness in a wife when her daily sacrifice is wholly forgotten in the silver teapot and the emblazoned memorial which proclaim the ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... 'Are the Sisters of Charity really better nurses than most other women?' I asked an intelligent lady who had seen much of our military hospitals. 'Yes, they are,' was her reply. 'Why should it be so?' 'I think it is because with them it is a work of self-abnegation, and of duty to God, and they are so quiet and self-forgetful in its exercise that they do it better, while many other women show such self-consciousness and are ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... rigorous promptings of conscience; and while devoutly yielding allegiance solely to the Triune God, to whose service he had reverently dedicated his young life, there were times when in almost ascetic self-abnegation he unconsciously bowed down to that stem-lipped, stony Teraph who, under the name of "Duty," sat a cowled and shrouded idol in the secret oratory of his unselfish heart. Are there not seasons when even the most orthodox wonder whether the Dii Involuti passed away for ever, with the paterae ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... into the man's face. There was something in the simple, honest self-abnegation of this wealthy and important person that won the respect of all he met. The broker's stern eyes softened a bit as he gazed and he allowed a fugitive smile, due to his own change of attitude, to wreathe his thin lips again—just ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... make man better or more moral, and that the preaching of a morality is as easy as the establishment of it is difficult. His business ought rather to have been, to take the phenomena of human goodness, such—for instance—as pity, love, and self-abnegation, which are already to hand, and seriously to explain them and show their relation to his Darwinian first principle. But no; he preferred to soar into the imperative, and thus escape the task of explaining. But even in his flight he was irresponsible enough to soar beyond ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... stationed principally at the Fly River. The mission receives all its supplies from England via Thursday Island, from which place they are fetched in the little schooner, built by the carpenter Bruce, who was formerly a yacht-builder. The life of these good people appears to be one of much self-abnegation. I hope with all my heart that the mission may succeed, and that the devoted missionaries will be rewarded for their ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... dangerous leniency for any strong and consistent love, into a morbid admiration for any irresistible mutual passion, making us forget that love has in itself no moral value, and that while self-indulgence may often be innocent, only self-abnegation ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... and every energy of his mind and body, this man has indeed lost himself. Yet he lives in his art as the other has not, he has saved himself in a sense of which the other knows nothing; and exactly in proportion as he has succeeded in his self-abnegation, so far has he attained, as we say, immortality. There is not, then, one sphere of life in which the paradox is not true. The great historical lovers in romance, the pioneers of science, the immortals in every ...
— Paradoxes of Catholicism • Robert Hugh Benson
... here emerged all the religious teachers who have most powerfully influenced mankind, for it was in Asia in an unknown antiquity that the Persian Zoroaster taught the dualism of good and evil; that the Indian Gautama 600 years before Christ declared that self-abnegation was the path to a dreamless Nirvana; that less than a century later the Chinese Lao-tse enunciated the mysteries of Taoism and Confucius uttered his maxims regarding the five earthly relations of man, to be followed within another century ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... so-called Christian people to stand up and say what Paul says here, that the supreme design and aim towards which all their lives are directed is to please Jesus Christ. In his case the tree was known by its fruits. Certainly there never was a life of more noble self-abnegation, of more continuous heroism, of loftier aspiration and lowlier service than the life of which we see the very pulse ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... when they denounce the actual motives of the able man as he is and as they say he always has been. They attack the typically able man of all periods as a monster of congenital selfishness, and it is men of this special type whom they propose to transform suddenly into monsters of self-abnegation. ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... on. At twenty he returned to Edinburgh, desiring to enter the ministry, as he believed he had a religious vocation, and plunged into the study of theology with a deep hostility to everything that was outside a strictly literal interpretation of the Scriptures. Full of devotion and self-abnegation in his desperate struggle with the powers of evil, he read the Holy Book with avidity, and was constant in his attendance at theological conferences. Thus, nourished on the marrow of the Scotch theologians, ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... describes in simple language the life of a man, who, in our own time, earned by his holiness, acts of self-sacrifice, self-abnegation and miracles, wrought through the intervention of God, ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... such women to bridle their will or to restrain the sallies of their humor,—speak not to them of the good derived from self-mortification, self-abnegation and the love of the Cross,—words such as these have no signification for them. They are satisfied with simply feeling and giving expression to those virtues, after the manner of artists who, by a happy disposition of mind, are ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... not have the desired effect, but will make the reader laugh as loud as Musset is said to have done when she upbraided him with his ungratefulness to her, who had been devoted to him to the utmost bounds of self-abnegation, to the sacrifice of her noblest impulses, to the degradation of ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... ambitious minister began to feel the need of entire renunciation. It was long since he had known the riotous life of cities, but even the peace of his country retreat was broken by discords since all did not share that longing for utter self-abnegation which possessed the soul of Leo Tolstoy, now ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... told her wrongdoing and received absolution so far as it is in the power of God's mediators to absolve one, but to promise to live, uprightly forevermore did not satisfy her soul. She felt the need of further self-abnegation; she must crucify body and spirit ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... himself; and he was most sedulous in drawing the attention of men to that which most concerned their spiritual life. An unparalleled cordiality towards not only his own friends, but all who approached him; a self-abnegation, carried to the point of refusing the best deserved remuneration; a humility ready to waive any right of his own in order to support that of others; a hospitality full, generous, unasked; a continual exercise of charity and justice, which had become ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio
... upon true nothingness. If they are mystics, distrusting thought and craving the largeness of indistinction, they may embrace this alleged nothingness with joy, even if it seem positively painful, hoping to find rest there through self-abnegation. If on the contrary they are rationalists they may reject the immediate with scorn and deny that it exists at all, since in their books they cannot define it satisfactorily. Both mystics and rationalists, however, are deceived by their mental agility; the immediate exists, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... as men do, earning our own way in the world, active, live intelligences, writing books, nursing in hospitals, cleaning the plague-spots out of the cities, influencing in a thousand ways the uplift of that coarser brute man and besides all this practicing a thousand acts of self-abnegation in the home. Keeping man's house, cooking his ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... matter with Eurie. She knew so well what religious professions involved that she wanted to make none. She hated the thought of self-abnegation, of bridling her eager tongue, of going only where her enlightened conscience said a Christian should go, of looking out for and calling after others to go with her. She wished deliberately to ignore it all. Not forever, she would have been shocked at the thought. Some time she meant ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... For purity of motives, for an earnest desire to benefit the people among whom her lot was cast, for a deep sense of religion and great personal piety, for the unselfish performance of whatever duty lay before her, and for entire self-abnegation she is unsurpassed, and the chroniclers of the time all bear witness to her exalted character." Her solicitude for the nation was truly maternal. She set herself to combat, with zeal and energy, the abuses which had crept into the practice of religion, taking a prominent part—with ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... name that suggests all that was honorable in my father, and all that was good in my mother, and all that was pleasant in my brothers and sisters. I start with you on a journey which shall not part except at the edge of your grave or mine. Ruth, the Moabitess, made no more thorough self-abnegation than I make, when I take her tremendous words, the pathos of which ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... the automobile would be waiting for us at the right place. Well-to-do Chinese would have started a discussion as to whether the universe moves in cycles or progresses by a rectilinear motion; or they might have set to work to consider whether the truly virtuous man shows complete self-abnegation, or may, on occasion, ...
— The Problem of China • Bertrand Russell
... aches of heart would be brought to an end. It was not as if there were any prospect before her of better times. If sickness had failed to soften and sweeten the temper of the Broom-Squire, then nothing would do it. Before her lay a hideous future of self-abnegation, or daily, hourly misery, under his ill-nature; of continuous torture caused by his cruel tongue. And her heart was not whole. She still thought of Iver, recalled his words, his look, the clasp of his arm, his kiss on ...
— The Broom-Squire • S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
... scourged their flesh, lacerated their bodies, inflicted all manner of torture on their frames, that they might purge away every evil desire, every wrong propensity, and conquer their material elements into submission to the spiritual. Deeds of lofty self-abnegation, rarely if ever known to modern days, were then common. Stern virtue, as virtue was then understood, was largely prevalent. The habits of life were devout, reverential, careful of sanctities, solemn and austere. Individuals and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... not have been really good, but she may not commit herself to attributing a substantial value to the actions of a nature so corrupt as that of man. Among Protestants, the Church of England is the worst, for she is not wholly Protestant. In the utterness of the self-abnegation of the genuine Protestant there is something approaching the heroic. But she, ambitious of being Catholic as well as Protestant, like that old Church of evil memory which would be neither hot nor cold, will neither wholly abandon merit, nor wholly claim it; but halts on between two opinions, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... women and girls in the provinces have promised to help their country by making uniforms and bandages. Others will look after the children of widowers who have gone to the front, and in various other ways the women of France are justifying their reputation for cheerful self-abnegation. ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... in the meeting-house on the Sabbath and on Lecture days were sometimes painfully varied, though scarcely interrupted, by a very distressing and harrowing custom of public abasement and self-abnegation, which prevailed for many years in the nervously religious colonies. It was not an enforced punishment, but a voluntary one. Men and women who had committed crimes or misdemeanors, and who had sincerely repented of their sins, or who were ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... Accordingly, he maintains that the essence of religion must lie in 'something profounder than ecclesiastical and dogmatic considerations. And could we get at that something—call it spiritual life, godliness, holiness, self-abnegation, surrender of the soul to God; or, better still, love and loyalty to Christ as the one Redeemer and Lord of the spirit—could we pierce deeper than the notions of the understanding to that strange, sweet, all-subduing temper and habit of spirit, that climate and atmosphere of ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... human souls miracles abounded in Ars. For the conversion of sinners the holy cure lived; for them he entered upon his thorny way of heroic penance. His whole life was characterized by prayer, penance and self-abnegation. All counted as nothing if he could win the conversion of his parish, dreaming not of a world to be ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... sweet activity, many would have lapsed into a morbid, nervous condition, over which we might justly have thrown the mantle of charity, but this dear friend was so lovely and chastened in her affliction, that she seemed almost a Deity in her attributes of tender love and patient self-abnegation, united to a heroic endurance of pain with which she was daily, hourly ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms
... nothing to him of my love. But great satisfaction was afforded to my mind by the fact that our love was so pure, and that each would be ready, if needful, to make a sacrifice for the sake of the other. But that self-abnegation did not, after all, extend to Volodya, for when he heard that a certain diplomat was to marry the girl, he was disposed to slap his face and to challenge him to a duel. It happened that I had only spoken once to the young lady, and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... private life, not early trained to the self-abnegation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie did not bring into her new sphere all the aplomb and seriousness about little things which are early inculcated on ladies brought up to the profession of royalty. The career for which she had formed herself ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... and inspires. To him the highest virtue in its noblest activity has no charms; for he claims that he looks above and beyond all this to that absolute equilibrium of soul when passion, and when all desire, shall have been killed through self-mortification and self-abnegation and he shall have attained mental poise and repose rather than a perfect character. Thus, in its last analysis, his ideal is an intellectual, rather than a moral, one; for it is again absorption into the Divine Soul; and that he conceives to be the Supreme Intelligence rather than ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... would have been better at that time had he advanced his claims and accepted the sovereignty which Philip had forfeited. As he did not believe in the possibility of a republic, he might honestly have taken into his own hands the sceptre which he considered indispensable. His self-abnegation was, however, absolute. Not only did he decline sovereignty, but he repeatedly avowed his readiness to, lay down all the offices which he held, if a more useful substitute could be found. "Let no man think," said he, in a remarkable speech to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley |
