"Self-respect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... being does us an infinity of harm: he encourages us to display all the worst points of the female character; he cheats us of our due amount of homage from many a noble heart, and perhaps robs us of our own dignity and self-respect. Yet such is the creature we encourage in our blind vanity, and whilst we vote him "so pleasant and agreeable," temper our commendation with the mild remonstrance, "though I am afraid he's ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... where such ascendancy is threatened. Thus we see that the belly-crawler, meek and subservient to the judge, comes off with a token sentence while the man who attempts to maintain his pride, his rights, his self-respect gets ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... spines, which must have been designed by nature as weapons of defence, since there were certainly more of them than any fish could use to advantage for swimming purposes. I began to suspect that I had caught a Tartar; but I had now gone too far to back out with credit: my self-respect wouldn't admit of the thought. So, taking a short breathing spell, I again advanced to the attack, somewhat encouraged by perceiving that my scaly antagonist seemed exhausted and distressed by his recent exertions. His mouth was wide open, and his gills quivered; but I was rather uncertain whether ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... are not in other respects bad men. They may even be kindly and genial. Gentlemen they cannot be, nor men of delicacy, nor men of honour. They have sold themselves and their self-respect, some with ease (they are the least blamable), some with a struggle. They have seen better things, and perhaps vainly long to return to them. These are "St. Satan's Penitents," and ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... preference of the church would be that he should not apply; nay, we do not see why the principle is not the same if the well-known attitude of the church on the race question should be such that the Christian self-respect of the Negro would not allow him to ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., June, 1888., No. 6 • Various
... Matt will not sue me. Florry wouldn't let him! He'll make us lift the attachment on his bank account, and then he'll protect himself and tell us to whistle for the eighteen thousand dollars he owes us. Whichever way the cat jumps he wins. What I want to do is break even and with a modicum of my self-respect left intact." ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... he continued. "That coxcomb of a marquis always trailing his dignity in the dust of mid-road to worry with a common dog like La Chesnaye—pish! Hold your self-respect in the chest of your jacket, man! 'Tis the slouching nag that loses the ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... seven deadly sins. But of late years many of the seven have contrived to pass themselves off as virtues. Avarice, for instance; and Pride, when re-baptised thrift and self-respect, have become the guardian angels of Christian civilisation; and as for Envy, it is the corner-stone upon which much of our competitive system is founded. There are still two vices which are fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to remain undisguised, ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... carving with his knife many objects from pieces of wood. He employed his boyish leisure in building houses in the forest. As he grew older these mechanical pursuits took a more useful shape. The average native American is taught as a question of self-respect to despise female pursuits. To be made a "woman" is the greatest degradation ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... a land of different customs and language, have borne themselves in a manner in keeping with the cause for which they fought, is due not only to the efforts in their behalf but much more to other high ideals, their discipline, and their innate sense of self-respect. It should be recorded, however, that the members of these welfare societies have been untiring in their desire to be of real service to our officers and men. The patriotic devotion of these representative ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... other earliest operas, he played the harpsichord and Haym the violoncello. Dieupart, after the small success of the design set forth in this letter, taught the harpsichord in families of distinction, but wanted self-respect enough to save him from declining into a player at obscure ale-houses, where he executed for the pleasure of dull ears solos of Corelli with the nicety of taste that never left him. He died old ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... pressing the point of animus, the British Government reasserted Russell's refusal to recognize or entertain any question of England's good faith: "first, because it would be inconsistent with the self-respect which every government is bound to feel...." In Mr. John Bassett Moore's History of International Arbitration, Vol. I, pages 496-497, or in papers relating to the Treaty of Washington, Vol. II, Geneva Arbitration, page 204... Part I, Introductory Statement, you will ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... conviction. She made Cornelia's tragedy her romance, and solemnly exulted in its fatality, while she lifted her in her struggle of conscience to a height from which for the present at least, Cornelia could not have descended without a ruinous loss of self-respect. In the renunciation in which the worshipper confirmed her saint, Ludlow and his rights and feelings were ignored, and Cornelia herself was offered nothing more substantial than the prospect that henceforth she and Charmian could live for ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... was never left out; and these things he would sell for twenty, thirty, even fifty francs. He painted very quick and very well. He was also a capital good fellow, industrious and cultivated and refined, and full of self-respect. ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... as though she also could tear the coverings from her own bosom to let out the fever which was there; for in her life she had loved two men who had trampled on her self-respect, had shattered all her pride of life, had made her ashamed to look the world in the face. Blantyre, her husband, had been despicable and cruel, a liar and a deserter; and to-night she had seen the man to whom she had given all that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... courts of justice, present scenes that would strike one with astonishment and alarm. If the jurors are not, as has been asserted, run down with dogs and guns, color is given to charges like this, by the repeated successful defiances of law and judges that occur, by the want of dignity and self-respect evinced by the judges themselves, and by the squabbles and brawls that take place between members of the bar. There is to be found occasionally there, however, a judge of decision and firmness, to compel decorum even ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... in order to win Becky seemed absurd on the face of it. But he would at least be doing something towards solving the problem of self-support, and towards increasing the measure of his own self-respect. ...
— The Trumpeter Swan • Temple Bailey
... trembled: superstitions, like suspicions, are "as bats among birds, and fly by twilight." Harley had ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between Audley and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery emotions of the last, and the high spirit and austere self-respect which were proverbial to the first. Involuntarily she strengthened her intimacy with Helen. In case her alarm should appear justified, what mediator could be so persuasive in appeasing the angrier passions, as one whom courtship and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mrs. McLane witheringly. "I should think it would be beneath your self-respect to listen to it. Fancy gossiping with ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... never repent the preservation of my self-respect, sir,' said Edward. 'Forgive me if I say that I will not sacrifice it at your bidding, and that I will not pursue the track which you would have me take, and to which the secret share you have had in ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... died of the fruit of her guilty connection, and though her portion was doubtless hell-fire, there is nothing to show that one cannot keep respectable even under such disquieting circumstances. The elder Loveday had clung obstinately to her self-respect under circumstances which her neighbours had tried to render nearly as trying on earth. She had died, as she had lived, impenitent and only crying for the foreigner who had seduced her, while he was then lying, had she but known it, in the lap of his first mistress, the sea, ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... proportion as it remains self-possessed,—proud of its own traditions, not unwilling indeed to learn, but also quite ready to teach the stranger its own wisdom. And in similar fashion provincial pride helps the individual man to keep his self-respect even when the vast forces that work toward industrial consolidation, and toward the effacement of individual initiative, are besetting the life at every turn. For a man is in large measure what his social consciousness makes him. Give him the local community that he loves ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... that he was a bad man. He robbed no one. He never lied. He was not self-indulgent. He was affectionate. But he had spent his life in an intention to write the life of Lord Verulam, and not having done it, had missed the comfort of self-respect. He had intended to settle for himself a belief on subjects which are, of all, to all men the most important; and, having still postponed the work of inquiry, had never attained the security of a faith. He was for ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... How could she feel otherwise and hold her self-respect. The irony of it brought a bitter smile to his lips. If she only knew it, the years would avenge her a hundredfold. For he had cut himself off from even the chance of the joy ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... way to put it," she admitted. "But I refuse only out of my boundless esteem and tenderness for you and your success. I am putting down happiness when I do this, and taking up an additional load of pain. But what peace or self-respect would ever be mine again if I should consent to add the burden of two helpless old people to what you will have to carry on your ...
— Claim Number One • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... red filled his cheeks. Evidently he did possess some self-respect, after all. Contrition, too, she thought she could detect in his manner ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... in a house-to-house canvass has always seemed to me (and not least clearly when I was the candidate) to sink beneath the level of humanity. To beg for votes, as if they were alms or broken victuals, is a form of mendicancy which is incompatible with common self-respect, and yet it is a self-abasement which thirty years ago custom imperatively demanded. "If my vote ain't worth calling for, I suppose it ain't worth 'aving" was the formula in which the elector stated ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... though for a different reason. She wanted to be alone because she suddenly felt rather nervous about her errand. Impulse had cooled, especially since Dan had bruised her self-respect. She must go through with it, but she no longer had enthusiasm to sustain her. She was going to see Norman Douglas and ask him to come back to church, and she began to be afraid of him. What had seemed so easy and simple up ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... contract a marriage that would enable him to claim all his advances, had induced the deacon never to bestow a cent on her education, or dress, or pleasures of any sort, that the money was not regularly charged against her, in that nefarious work that he called his "day-book." As for the self-respect, and the feelings of caste, which prevent a gentleman from practising any of these tradesmen's tricks, the deacon knew nothing of them. He would have set the man down as a fool who deferred to any notions so unprofitable. With him, not only every man, but every thing ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... moment I admit I hung back. Then I rallied. There are times in a man's life when he has got to show a flash of the old bulldog pluck, don't you know, if he wants to preserve his self-respect. I did then. My grip was still unpacked. I told my man to put it on a cab. And in about two ticks I was bowling off to the club. I left for England next day ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... priests like you. No, I will not be silent, I will cry it upon the house-tops, if I must. Ah! you have taken me like a thing which one makes use of when convenient, and which one throws away, when one has no more need of it: I understand you; but I have more self-respect than that, although I am only ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... drooped an eye upon him like a question.... Let her look out or maybe he'd blaze into her teeth: howl menace down her throat until she swooned. Some one should yield to him a visible and tangible agony to balance his. Does law probe no deeper than the pillage of a watch? Can one filch our self-respect and escape free? Shall not our souls also sue for damages against its aggressor? Some person rich enough must pay for his lacerations or there was less justice in heaven than in the Police Courts; and it might be that girl's lot to expiate the sins of Mary. It would be a pleasure, if a ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... tore the check into tiny pieces and scattered them upon the carpet. "I shall leave your house," he continued, meeting the other's gaze squarely, "without a dollar of Carmody money, but with ten thousand dollars' worth of McKim self-respect. Good-by." ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... charlatanism and the kind of advertisement that will bring you notoriety at the sacrifice of your self-respect and the respect of your best friends. Remember that real worth is, after all, the thing that ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... could be neither self-respect nor pride in their profession. Of their general behaviour, we may gather some idea from an entry concerning Lieutenant Parker at this time. He was arraigned before the Council for drinking, brawling with his men, and frequenting base ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... as if they were small. Is it a fortune that smiles upon you, that you can win by suppressing a moral scruple, by transgressing the eternal law? Put it aside as a thing not worth a second glance, if the price exacted be the loss of self-respect, if the bargain to which you must subscribe be the betrayal of principle. Is it life itself that is at stake; the dear life to which we cling so fondly? Yes, life is precious in its nobler uses; but life itself shall not be esteemed as great in the hour in which we must choose ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... it exposed him to all the miscarriages and all the indignities which such an attempt is sure to entail. He was a vessel of earthenware, or rather of very fragile porcelain, swimming among vessels of brass. Self-respect would perhaps have prescribed retirement from public life; but, to say nothing of his egotism, he had done too much to retire. Egotistical he was in the highest degree, and that failing made all his humiliations doubly ignominious; but still, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... at all. Scruples aren't in my line, sir, and I am Swiss by birth. No particular feeling of loyalty to anybody. The fact is, sir, a man must keep his self-respect. I daresay you'll understand. I had no objection to taking on a valet's job, sir, in the way of business, as an agent of the Intelligence Department. But it's rather a different thing, sir—if you catch my point—to enter domestic service as a profession. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... opponents, merely asking a preference for other methods. Above all, it must be modest and sober and give up bounce and slap-dash. The people are becoming more serious. They reason more on politics and with better lights; a sense of power teaches them self-respect, and they resent clap-trap. Perhaps I ought to ask pardon for saying so, but they can see through a merely clever man, like Lord Salisbury. A Liberal would find Sir Stafford Northcote a more formidable antagonist. ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... years ago, when she had married him, what a ruin her life had been! There had been, again and again, thank Heaven! periods of peace, periods of regained self-respect, of the enjoyment of the respect of others. These had been secured by flight only, by concealment of her whereabouts, and were of varying lengths of duration. Two years ago, with her hard-earned savings, she had paid his passage out to Africa. She had not believed him likely to earn ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... those seen in the case of the dog, in which animal intimate association with man has developed something strongly approaching a conscience. A dog needs only to be well treated to display a sense of dignity and a self-respect analogous to these feelings in man. A sensitive resentment against injustice in high-caste and carefully nurtured dogs has often been observed; while shame for an act which the animal knows to be forbidden ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... with a rasp of nails on rock, waved his arms in a manner likely to cause envy in any mere flag-wagger, and recovered himself with all the clatter and confusion inseparable, under such circumstances, from the saving of self-respect and the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory except virtue. He looked like a great man and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect; a high and intellectual forehead; a brow pensive, but not gloomy; a mouth of inflexible decision; a face pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, as legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis; such was the aspect with which the great ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... will bring neither the millennium nor pandemonium the next day; but it will surely right many wrongs. It will open to her the colleges, the professions, the profitable and honorable walks of life, and give her better wages for her work. In securing to woman self-respect, independence and power, we shall purify and exalt our social relations. Helpless and dependent, woman must ever be the victim of society. "Give a man a right over my subsistence," says Alexander Hamilton, "and he has a right over ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... cani lupini, and noted the general attention and alarm which the dog caused. Encouraged by the landlord, we introduced ourselves to the dog at Cama, and found him to be a most sweet person, with no sense whatever of self-respect, and shrinking from no ignominy in his importunity for bits of bread. When we put the bread into his mouth and felt his teeth, he would not take it till he had looked in our eyes and said as plainly as though in words, "Are you quite sure that my teeth are not painful to you? Do you really ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... careful not to bring prominently into sight anything of a literary kind which could become a stone of stumbling. But, when I was nearly sixteen, I made a purchase which brought me into sad trouble, and was the cause of a permanent wound to my self-respect. I had long coveted in the bookshop window a volume in which the poetical works of Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe were said to be combined. This I bought at length, and I carried it with me to devour as I trod the desolate road that brought ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse
... merely trivial observation, was of importance to Aylmer. Edith wouldn't have said that unless she meant it. If it was true, did it matter? Aylmer was very free from vanity and masculine coquetry. He had a good deal of pride and great self-respect. Like almost every human being who is superior to the average, he didn't think ill of himself; there were things that he was proud of. He was proud, secretly, of having gone into the army and of having been wounded. ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... delivered, repair homeward. If, when those infernal finger-marks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred Lammle, Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing his dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at once divesting her of any lingering reality or pretence of self-respect, the purpose would seem to have been presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty little need of powder, now, for her downcast face, as he escorts her in the light of the setting sun ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... impolite even to the youngest and weakest author. A little courtesy, or a good deal, a constant perception of the fact that a book is not a misdemeanor, a decent self-respect that must forbid the civilized man the savage pleasure of wounding, are what I would ask for our criticism, as something which will add sensibly to its ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... them by abstinence; there my privations were negative, at Frapesle they were active; so active that I was possessed by the impulse to theft, by visions of crime, furious desperations which rend the soul and must be subdued under pain of losing our self-respect. The memory of what I suffered through my mother's parsimony taught me that indulgence for young men which one who has stood upon the brink of the abyss and measured its depths, without falling into ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... is a mere supposition, an illusion, so the other must be. Mr. Mill, however, is one of those courteous and affable writers who are always conscious, as it were, of the presence of their readers, and extremely careful not to shock their feelings or prejudices; besides, he has too much conscious self-respect to avow himself an atheist. As a speculative philosopher, he would rather regard Theism and Theology as "open questions," and he satisfies himself with saying, if you believe in the existence of God, or in Christianity, I do not interfere with you. "As a theory," he tells us that his ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... disturbing the general order of things. These exceptional cases temper the general rule, but they can not abrogate that rule as regards the entire sex. Man learns from them not to exaggerate his superiority—a lesson very often needed. And woman learns from them to connect self-respect and dignity with true humility, and never, under any circumstances, to sink into the mere tool and toy of ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... ladies, into whose pretty heads the thought would never enter that another would be so silly as to stand upon position, and if by any chance it did momentarily arise, it would be scouted as inconsistent with one's own self-respect as a woman. England will never be truly homogeneous till throne and aristocracy give place ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... that the circumstances which have caused them to lead a single life would secure for them the sincere sympathy and the increased esteem of all who know them, if delicacy and propriety allowed them to be expressed, they feel a strong degree of self-respect, they live happily, and are a continual means of comfort and joy to all around them. This was not so, however, with Elizabeth. She was jealous, petulant, irritable. She envied others the love and the ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... coming with you. And you must leave me and never come back. My sole reason for seeing you to-night was to tell you that. But—" she hesitated and then said, with quiet emphasis, "you may tell my aunt not to worry about me. In spite of my singing in a cafe chantant I shall keep my self-respect. I shall not be—like those others. And when I have paid my debt—I can't pay my father's; I wish I could—I shall send you the money. When I do that you will know that I have resigned my present position and am trying to find a ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... prophesied evil things. My lips parted into a smile as I thought of her words. Did she indeed think me a creature so weak as to pile gloom on the top of sorrow, to shut my eyes to all the joys of life, because supreme happiness was denied me, to play skittles with my self-respect, and—marry a kitchen-maid? I, who had turned over great pages in the book of life! I, who had known Feurgeres! Wallace had left the room for a moment, and I raised my glass full of clear amber ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... impudence even if I can't say a thing worth remembering. But rather than have words with you I will ride on, not to accommodate you, but to preserve my own dignity and self-respect." ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... which they felt to be invidious and improper. The French also, in their co-operation with the British, were avaricious of glory, and by their self-assertion, vanity, ambition, and ostentatious depreciation of everything not performed by themselves, offended the self-respect of the English, who were in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and has to leave her service. If a little may be said in favour of the poor girls, not a word can be said in favour of the agricultural men, who are immoral almost without exception, and will remain so until a better-educated generation with more self-respect arises. The number of poor girls, from fifteen to five-and-twenty, in agricultural parishes who have illegitimate offspring is extremely large, and is illustrated by the fact that, out of the marriages that take place—and agricultural poor are a marrying class—scarcely ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... and absorbing a passion Lord Nelson was capable is shown by the immensity of the sacrifice that he made to it. Principle apart,—and principle wholly failed him,—all else that most appeals to man's self-respect and regard for the esteem of others was powerless to exert control. Loyalty to friendship, the sanctity which man is naturally fain to see in the woman he loves, and, in Nelson's own case, a peculiar reluctance to wound another,—all ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... free from uneasiness and anxiety, from a certain lack of self-respect that was unfamiliar. Mr. Young, the Colonel explained, was a legal light in Galesburg, near Elkington,—the Railroad lawyer there. And when at last Mr. Young appeared he proved to be an oily gentleman of about forty, inclining to stoutness, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... struggled with discretion; but discretion got the better, being aided by self-respect. "No, Jael," said she; "he is charming, when he is here; but, when he gets away, he is not always so civil as he might be. I had to go twice after him. I shall not go nor send a third time. It really ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... apprehend the deep arguments of the religious teacher, but the least intelligent can appreciate a bit of practical advice that tells on the well-being of his household as well as on the labourer's own daily comfort and self-respect. Dr. Duncan knew that, even in the poorest family, there were odds and ends of income apt to be frittered away in unnecessary expenditure. He saw some thrifty cottagers using the expedient of a cow, or a pig, or a bit of garden-ground, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... me. I am glad you see in my face and form the change reflected from within. It is very sweet to me, this flattery you pour on my broken heart. I thank you, Morris. You have restored my self-respect and given me strength. It is an honour to receive such love from an honest man. You must not think ill of me if I tell you ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... old and respectable ties, and would force the present independent Indian cottage-farmer to seek employment from the extensive cultivator, and, without getting more work out of him in the course of a year, would lower him in self-respect, and in the many virtues which that teaches, without deriving ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... bearing fruit in the educational, industrial and social opportunities for the women of today; these in turn presage the full harvest—political enfranchisement. Under the stimulus of an educated intelligence and awakened self-respect women daily grow more unwilling that their opinions in government, the fundamental source of civilization, should continue to be uncounted with those of the defective and criminal ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... a slim, straight girl not yet nineteen. Even before his sickness Dick, with the instinct for deference to all women of self-respect that obtains among frontiersmen, had won the gratitude of the shy creature. There was something wild and sylvan about her sweet grace. The deep, soft eyes in the brown oval face were as appealing as those of a ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... that character. What! a class that is to be in want from no fault of its own, and yet greedily eager to receive from strangers; and to be quite respectable, and at the same time quite devoid of self-respect; and play the most delicate part of friendship, and yet never be seen; and wear the form of man, and yet fly in the face of all the laws of human nature:—and all this, in the hope of getting a belly-god Burgess through a needle's eye! Oh, let him stick, by all means: and let his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... human nature, I suppose—but discreditable. I am overjoyed—really. I no longer hate people. I too am an initiate! But I can pity poor devils who are houseless, I hope.... I order sundry things: "Send them in to PLAPPER'S." Luggage regained and sent back—to PLAPPER'S. I feel self-respect once more. ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 3, 1887 • Various
... sacrifices have to be made to interest, to enjoyments, to vanity. This is the secret of the return to monarchical forms, to titles. crosses, ribbons, harmless baubles suited to exciting the respect of the multitude while at the same time enforcing self-respect."] ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... inner and unsentimental honesty compelled utterance: "You see," she remarked once when her husband called her, "we dress for dinner because when we started in New York we belonged to the dining-out class. If we didn't keep up the habit, we should lose our self-respect.... My neck is thin and I don't look well in evening dress. But that makes no matter.... We have prayers on Sunday morning; religion is part ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... wise to risk the anti-climax. That she had been rescued by a hero, that the hero should have been wounded in the affray, and his wound bandaged with her handkerchief (which it could not even bloody), ministered incredibly to the recovery of her self-respect; and I could hear her relate the incident to "the young ladies, my school-companions," in the most approved manner of Mrs. Radcliffe! To have insisted on the torn coat-sleeve would have been unmannerly, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... father, Edward I., who has been deservedly styled "the greatest of the Plantagenets," he proved himself the weakest of that line of kings, spending his time in such trifling diversions as "cross and pile," a game of chance with coins. He was so utterly devoid of self-respect that he even borrowed money of his barber to carry on this frivolous pastime, such items as the following being found in his wardrobe rolls:—"Item, paid to Henry, the king's barber, for money which he lent the king to play at cross and pile, five shillings. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... my own notions of what is due to one's own self-respect in these matters, and I marched across the bare open space with head erect, giving the Empress gaze for gaze. She was clearly summing me up. I was frankly doing the like by her. Gods! but those few short seconds made me see a woman such as I never ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... accorded to the chief of the Chi, and that given to the chief of the Mang family.' Finally he said, 'I am old; I cannot use his doctrines [2].' These observations were made directly to Confucius, or came to his hearing [3]. It was not consistent with his self-respect to remain longer in Ch'i, and he returned to Lu [4]. 6. Returned to Lu, he remained for the long period of about fifteen years without being engaged in any official employment. It [Sidebar] He remains ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... have "made good." For the first time in their lives they have been accepted as members of great society, and not driven away as outcasts. The Army has welcomed them, disciplined them, and taught them the elements of self-respect—a quality whose very existence ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett
... not," said Dr. O'Grady, "how could I? Do you think I've lost all my self-respect? Is it likely I'd order another bottle of whisky out of your shop when you're dunning me every day of my life for the price of the last I got? Tell me what happened ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... From "For Self-respect and Self-protection." When the people complain they must either be right or in error. If they be right, we are in duty bound to inquire into the conduct of the ministers and to punish those who appear to ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... pay," And, in truth, no operations of this kind do really pay. They may seem to secure advantage, but always result in loss—if not in lose of money, in loss of that which should be dearer to a man than all the wealth of the Indies—his self-respect ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur
... force, and wrote in terms carefully measured. He begged her to believe he had no design to intrude upon her, without absolute necessity, and for her own good. Respect for her own wishes forbade this, and also his self-respect. ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... of London, and that whatever religious ideas lurked in their minds were of very little use to them in struggling with the temptations of a sailor's life. Where was the sense in telling them that the ordinary motives which make for good conduct—prudence, self-respect, loyalty, etc., etc.—are of no avail, and that they must inevitably be bad men if they had not "found religion"? If such talk does no positive harm, it is only because men have learnt to discount the patter of theology. Yet here we find Mr. Wells, after vigorously ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer
... of it; glad she was going to be hurt. She could get back some of her self-respect, she thought, by enduring it all, first the wretchedness, then the pain, with a Spartan fortitude. There would he a sort of savage satisfaction in marching through all her miseries with her ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... minister's philosophic severity strained their concord. Turgot was the friend of Voltaire and Condorcet; he counted Christianity a form of superstition; and he, who as a youth had refused to go through life wearing the mask of the infidel abbe, had too much self-respect in his manhood to practise the rites and uses of a system which he considered a degradation of the understanding. One day the king said to Maurepas: 'You have given me a Controller-general who never goes to mass.' 'Sire,' replied ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... all the man who looks upon the loss of money as anything compared to the loss of honor, or health, or self-respect, or friends; a man who can find no source of happiness except in riches, is to be pitied for his blindness. I certainly feel that the loss of money, of home and my home comforts, is dreadful; that to be driven again to find a resting place away from the friends ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... dreams of fame, the stubborn power we call Our self-respect, our hopes of worldly good, Our jealousies and fears, how in the flood Of this new light they faded, poor and small; Showing our pettiness beside God's truth, Besides His age our poor, ...
— A Woman's Love Letters • Sophie M. Almon-Hensley
... universe heaped injuries upon me, they should not crush me. If I had a self-respect like yours, I would lift my head to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... filled with disappointment and mortifying conjecture as to the cause of her non-appearance, Thurston presented himself before Jacquelina at Luckenough. He happened to find her alone. With all her playfulness of character, the poor fairy had too much self-respect to relate the scene to which she had been exposed the day before. So she contented herself ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... like Booker T. Washington, who founded a notable trade school in Alabama in 1881, worried little over discrimination, and hoped to solve their problem through common and technical education which might lead the race to self-respect ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... self-respect and shyness made Aurelia shrink from the point-blank question whether the ungrateful little things had acknowledged their obligations to her. She was always hoping they would say something of their ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... abusive language. While maintaining discipline and the thorough and prompt performance of military duty, all officers, in dealing with enlisted men, will bear in mind the absolute necessity of so treating them as to preserve their self-respect. Officers will keep in as close touch as possible with the men under their command and will strive to build up such relations of confidence and sympathy as will insure the free approach of their men ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... self-respect. Never trample on any soul, though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is as its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life; the voice of God which still whispers to it, "You are ...
— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley
... the fruits of a deed which cost him his royal honor, and perhaps, also, his self-respect. Liberty struggled on still with despotism, in obstinate and dubious contest; sanguinary battles were fought; a brilliant array of heroes succeeded each other on the field of glory; and Flanders and Brabant were the schools which educated generals ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... had finished his meal he had sunk so low in his own eyes—lost so much self-respect, that the rest did not seem worth keeping, and he inquired whether anything had been seen of the lady whose dog his had fought, in much the same spirit of recklessness as moves a bravo to toss his ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... this favor from the Duke, so persistently suspicious was the old nobleman of the man that he designated as "le Sire de Rubempre." This shade of distinction, understood by every one who visited at the house, constantly wounded Lucien's self-respect, for he felt that he was no more than tolerated. But the world is justified in being suspicious; it ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... low desires, Absence of noble self-respect. Death, in the breast's consuming fires, To that high nature which aspires ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... very marked distinctions of rank; and in the lighter social life, which made no pretense of work, the sleighing parties and athletic sports, the suppers and dances which followed the bees, an equality of condition was assumed, very favorable to self-respect and independence of judgment. It is to be noticed that the substitution of alphabetical order in college classes for a rank based upon social distinction occurred earlier at Yale than at Harvard, and it is not unlikely that the more democratic life of ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... and troubles of people who appeared to us unworthy, what were we that we should blame her? The value of each soul is equal in God's sight; and when the books are opened there may be more entries than we now can count of hearts comforted, self-respect restored, and souls raised by her help to fresh love and trust in God,—ay, even of old sins and deeds of shame turned into rungs on the ladder to heaven by feet that have learned to tread the evil beneath them. It was this well-spring of sympathy in her which made my sister rejoice as she did ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... hasty and superficial view. Though I am not much acquainted with the works of Goethe, I should say that it was one of his chief excellences as a writer, that he was satisfied with giving an exact description of things as they appeared to him, and their effect upon him. Most travellers have not self-respect enough to do this simply, and make objects and events stand around them as the centre, but still imagine more favorable positions and relations than the actual ones, and so we get no valuable report ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... an immense deal of volition, will be necessary. And it is because I know the difficulty, it is because I know the almost disastrous effect of failure in such an enterprise, that I earnestly advise a very humble beginning. You must safeguard your self-respect. Self-respect is at the root of all purposefulness, and a failure in an enterprise deliberately planned deals a desperate wound at one's self-respect. Hence I iterate and reiterate: ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... woman herself is lovely, and the taste which she displays in her personal adornment is very attractive. It does not surprise one to know that not a few Europeans marry these Burmese ladies of beauty. But above her beauty is that pose of freedom and self-respect which commends her everywhere. Nor is this assumed. The woman of Burma is "the man of the family." In business, and in all forms of trade, she is far superior to her lord, and much of the support and the honour of the family depends upon her industry, cleverness, and independence. ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... another expert mentioned in print that no man who had any self-respect wore collars ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... of Pennsylvania, said: "The cheapest elevator and best moralizer for an oppressed and degraded class is to inspire them with self-respect, with the belief in the possibility of their elevation. Bestow the elective franchise upon the colored population of this District, and you awaken the hope and ambition of the whole race throughout the country. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... men into leaders of forlorn hopes, into holders of last ditches, into bearers of heroic blazons, into sleepers under memorial shafts erected by the citizens of a proud, a grateful and a sorrowing country. A sense of self-respect is a ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... these men were of their own race and their own kin has given them a pride in their own race, a sense of national unity and of national dignity, which has endured—and surely for their benefit, for reverence for ancestors and the self-respect which springs from it is a benefit to every human being—through all the miseries, deserved or undeserved, which have fallen upon the Irish since Pope Adrian IV. (the true author of all the woes of Ireland), ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... dress, and congratulated herself on having sold some toilette-china as sound, of which she had daintily doctored two fractures with an invaluable cement. The pecuniary gain may have been half-a-crown. The loss in self-respect she did not seem to estimate. Aunt Theresa would not have done it herself, but she laughed encouragingly. It is difficult to be strait-laced with a lady who had so much old point, and whose silks are so stiff ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... to be unwarranted, and thereupon declined to further recognize the diplomatic character of the person whose continuance in such function would destroy that mutual confidence which is essential to the good understanding of the two Governments and was inconsistent with the welfare and self-respect of the Government of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... it moved to martial music, to bugle-calls, to words of command, to the ringing challenge of the sentry, and what I had found was this camp of gypsies, this nest of tramps, without authority, discipline, or self-respect. It was not even picturesque. My indignation stirred me so intensely that, as I walked down the hill, I prayed for a rude reception, that I might try ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis
... and did not "mix", as Bella called it, with the "poor people." This was partly because of his learning, which in itself gave him a position apart, and also because he had a certain dignity of character which comes of self-respect and simplicity wherever they are found. Mrs Greenways was indeed a little afraid of him, and as anxious to make the best of herself in his presence as she was in that of her rector ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... duty, as the main end of life,—not indeed pleasure simply of the grosser type, but the gratification of one's own wish for enjoyment and excitement, without a thought of the misery all around, or any sense of the self-respect that ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... present continued to be pleasurable long after she had determined that it could never crystallise into anything more definite, and so she went on from day to day, enjoying herself, yet vaguely hoping something would happen which would enable her to retire from the engagement without loss of self-respect or that of Ishmael. ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... any claim to purity; her self-respect is lost; she sinks lower and lower; society shuns her, and she is to-day a brothel inmate, the toy and plaything of ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... truth I believe thou art possessed of the arts of magic. Now, if thou art lost in the hills and devoured by a wolf, upon thine own head be it. Pull in that paw, before thou becomest a foolish sacrifice to the sacred crocodile. I wonder thy self-respect does not keep thee from coming when thou art unwelcome." And subsiding into silence, the sculptor ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... great part of the straggling bishopric of Muenster. Even at that time of shameless rapacity, there were those who saw that the gain of half a million of subjects to Prussia was a poor return for the loss of self-respect that befell all who shared in the sacrilegious plunder bartered away by Bonaparte and Talleyrand. Frederick William III. was even suspected of a leaning towards French methods of Government; and a Prussian statesman ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... a thing that does not live and feel—a toy, that has no will of its own, no self-respect; given as a prize to a man who is nothing to me. And it is all done in the name of ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... friends? Ah, yes! He makes friends who will cheat him at betting, cheat him at horse-dealing, cheat him at gambling when the orgies of the course are over, borrow money as long as he will lend, and throw him over when he has parted with his last penny and his last rag of self-respect. Those who can carry their minds back for twenty years must remember the foolish young nobleman who sold a splendid estate to pay the yelling vulgarians of the betting-ring. They cheered him when he all but beggared ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... the self-respect of the prisoner should be cultivated to the utmost and every effort be made to give back to him his manhood." "There is no greater mistake in the whole compass of penal discipline, than its studied imposition ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... bear witness to his worth and services, and the general commanding remitted most of the sentence, restoring to him everything the court had decreed forfeited except the chevrons. They had to go, yet could soon be regained. But no man could restore to him the pride and self-respect that went when he realized that he was only one of several plucked and deluded victims of a female sharper. While the Frenchwoman ogled and languished behind the bars, Shannon wandered out into the world ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... stage-coach on the way to Moosehead Lake, two other boys in the coach began tormenting him. When he tried to fight them off, he found himself helpless. Either of them could handle him, could hit him and prevent him from hitting back. He decided that it was a matter of self-respect for a boy to know how to protect himself and ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson
... children is indeed a thing of which a poor wanderer may be proud, a credential confirming his self-respect, and worthy one day to be presented at the gate of heaven. Once during one of my worst hours of desolation, when I was tramping across the fields, I found a little maid of seven picking primroses on the edge of an old orchard. ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... the autumn, and extended as far as Tiary.[1] The mountaineers may be viewed, he says, in two very different lights; first, as feeble, unreasonable, and lawless; poverty stricken, and lacking in self-respect, and self-reliance; connecting their interest in spiritual things too often with the hope of temporal benefits. Then there are constant feuds between villages, clans, and chiefs. The hopeful side is in the great preparatory work that has been accomplished, the general friendliness ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... justify the fears of the people, the universal fear! The king has then resolved as no sovereign ought to resolve. In order to govern his subjects more easily, he would crush, subvert, nay, ruthlessly destroy, their strength, their spirit, and their self-respect! He would violate the inmost core of their individuality, doubtless with the view of promoting their happiness. He would annihilate them, that they may assume a new, a different form. Oh! if his purpose be good, he is fatally misguided! It is not the king whom we resist;—we but place ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... she was the subject. They might, or might not, have had reference to her—Hair; and her—Figure. She would not distress Mrs. Marrable by repeating them. Neither would she mention names, because it was foreign to her nature to make bad worse. The only course at all consistent with her own self-respect was to resign her part. She inclosed it, accordingly, to Mrs. Marrable, with many apologies for her presumption in undertaking a youthful character, at—what a gentleman was pleased to term—her Age; ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... fellow was, that bribery could be effectually used. This man, who thus offered to subvert, by the basest of means, the claims of public and private justice, was so lost to shame and self-respect, that he verily thought it an honourable and creditable act, if he could render himself notorious for clearing the most abandoned scoundrels. It argued the most deep-seated depravity, to commit unblushing crime and then glory in his infamy. He heeded not the means, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... there arose before him her picture as she flung the hateful words at him; they came back as keenly as if he heard them again and he could feel his cheeks burning in the cold night air. Self-respect, if nothing else, would prevent his even speaking another word to her that night. His hatred of her father swelled in the thought that he should let ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... am still a Gordon. The irrevocable ubi tu Caius, ego Caia, has not yet been uttered, and while it would grieve me very much to wound his feelings, I claim the exercise of my own judgment. I am not indifferent to his wishes; on the contrary, I ardently desire, as far as is consistent with my self-respect, to defer to them; but when I pledged him my faith, I did not surrender my will, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... a return of pride and self-respect. On he rambled, looking at the scenery, and particularly at the higher portions of it, this so as to avoid the eyes of passing people. Luckily for his peace of mind, he did not know that cut flowers need water, or ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... satisfaction. There could be but one reason why he held aloof from her, and that an all-sufficient one. In her new position, it was impossible for him to be more than just friendly to her. If that had been his attitude in the old days, how could his self-respect allow him to show the slightest change? In his anxiety not to do so, he had even fallen short of the former kindness. No forgiveness was needed, when she felt that she understood him so well. But all the more did it ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... at the Big House was a well-looking figure enough as he advanced up the path toward the white-pillared galleries. In height just above middle stature, and of rather spare habit of body, alert, compact and vigorous, he carried himself with a self-respect redeemed from aggressiveness by an open candor of face and the pleasant forthright gaze of a kindly blue-gray eye. In spite of a certain gravity of mien, his eyes seemed wont to smile upon occasions, as witnessed divers little wrinkles at the corners. A hurried observer might have guessed ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... to have two or three rooms of their own, with their own privacies, where they can entertain their own friends and be themselves. If they live thus under the parental roof, they can keep their self-respect by paying something a month as rent, no matter how small. Furthermore, they should own their furniture—at least some of it; it should represent their own joint taste; the possession of some lares and penates is ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... Hunter were married in 1810, and took up house at first in Glasgow. The furnishing of their house indicated the frugal character and self-respect of the occupants; it included a handsome chest of drawers, and other traditional marks of respectability. Not liking Glasgow, they returned to Blantyre. In a humble home there, five sons and two ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... were captured by the Confederate forces. Colonel Hallowell says: "The Governor counselled with certain leading colored men of Boston. He put the question, Will your people enlist in my regiments? 'They will not,' was the reply of all but Hayden. 'We have no objection to white officers, but our self-respect demands that competent colored men shall be at least eligible to promotion.'" By the last of February less than two companies had been recruited, and the prospects of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts did not ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... restless friend, became by the end of a week the very principle of reaction: so that he woke up one morning with such a sense of having played a part as he needed self-respect to gainsay. He hadn't in the least stated at Lancaster Gate that, as a haunted man—a man haunted with a memory—he was harmless; but the degree to which Mrs. Lowder accepted, admired and explained ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James |
