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Selfishly

adverb
1.
In an egotistical manner.  Synonym: egotistically.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Selfishly" Quotes from Famous Books



... there was no knowing. He replaced them, closed the case, pocketed it. When he had a chance he could try boiling water for one sort of trick. He could scratch one or two.... Sard would know. He wondered whether Sard had got away, not concerned except selfishly. However, there were others in Paris whom he could trust—at ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers

... part, ate a most capital dinner, and I fancied that Jack seemed sorry for the way he has been treating me lately; treatment which I should never have put up with, except from a man whom I love so devotedly—a man whom I meant to rescue (selfishly, I admit) from that siren's clutches. In all I have done I have been guided by your advice, and therefore to you remains all the credit, coupled with the life-long ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... see why it is," observed Tolly, when the first whiffs curled from Mahoghany Drake's lips, "that you men are so strong in discouragin' us boys from smokin'. You keep it all selfishly to yourselves, though Buckie an' I would give anythin' to be allowed to try a whiff now an' then. Paul Bevan's just like you—won't hear o' me touchin' a pipe, though he smokes himself like a wigwam ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne

... and rot for want of the vast treasures contained in Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art? Here in this book is the wisdom of the whole world, and will you selfishly withhold it form those who need it so badly? If I know Kilo, I think not. If what is said in Jefferson regarding the unselfishness and liberality of Kilo is true, I think not. I know what you will say. You will say, 'Here, take this money we have collected this evening ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler

... good-will and mutual understanding to a dozen groups and circles, it seemed impossible to recognise that he had done anything in his generation. It is not to be claimed that his was a life of persistent benevolence or devoted energy; but I thought of a dozen men who had lived selfishly and comfortably, making money and amassing fortunes, without a touch of real kindness or fine tenderness about them, who would yet be held to have done well and to have deserved respect, when compared with ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson

... States, the need to live with economy. Want of employment added to the unrest, and the idle men found time to discuss the angry politics which rang through the debates in the Senate. The changed tariff on iron, to which Pennsylvania was always selfishly sensitive, affected the voting, and Penhallow was pleased when the Administration suffered disaster in the October elections. All parties—Republican, American and Douglas Democrats—united to cast discredit on the President's policy, but Penhallow knew ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... and silly,—his eyes are pitilessly clear,—and she may afford him some amusement when her unreasoning adoration ends. He sees the fact that he is attracted towards her, moves her curiously. If he is to take a wife he will not have her cold and selfishly considerate, but quaff the full cup of adoration at first, even if it does turn ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... not concern, but distress of mind. Some one said to me at the close of a talk on worry, "some folks ought to worry more." Of course he meant that some people should bear their share of the responsibilities of life, instead of selfishly and lazily shirking them. There is a proper concern about matters for which we are responsible. A man never makes a good speech unless there is a feeling of concern, of apprehension lest there be failure in that for which he is pleading. A strong ...
— Quiet Talks on Service • S. D. Gordon

... not wonder, in these later days, if any of us, who reap so carelessly and so selfishly where others have plowed and sown, reflect as we should upon the first cost of what we call our own? The fifteen million dollars paid for the vast empire which these men were exploring—that was little—that was naught. But ah, the cost in blood and toil and weariness, in love and loyalty and faith, ...
— The Magnificent Adventure - Being the Story of the World's Greatest Exploration and - the Romance of a Very Gallant Gentleman • Emerson Hough

... "I selfishly rob you of the credit. The beginning of all this was really your gift to me of five hundred thalers, that time I came to crave your assistance in procuring me this document I still carry, and without your thalers and the parchment, this never could have happened. So you see they have increased ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... "Would you then selfishly deprive others of the blessings you enjoy?" he asked. "Would you, who know the gospel, keep back the instrument which brought it to you from presenting it to others? No, no; surely you, dear friends, have not ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston

... its solipsism needs to be broken down by social influence. The child must learn to sympathise intelligently, to be considerate, rather than instinctively to love and hate: his imagination must become cognitive and dramatically just, instead of remaining, as it naturally is, sensitively, selfishly fanciful. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... is something in that," said Father Payne. "Of course that is always the difficulty about the artist, that he appears to live selfishly in joy—but it applies to most things. The best you can do for the world is often to turn your back upon it. Philanthropy is a beautiful thing in its way, but it must be done by people who like it—it is useless if it is done in a grim and self-penalising way. If a man is really ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson

... repudiated my reflections on his German comrades. Alas! the Gospel according to St. Marx has been as ineffectual as the Gospel according to St. Marc. The Social Democracy which called itself the International (with a capital I) has proved selfishly nationalist, and the masses which had not the courage to fight for their rights under Kaiser Bebel are now slaughtering their French and English brethren, and are meekly enlisted in the legions of ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... back to the question of what he personally might have been, how he might have led his life and "turned out," if he had not so, at the outset, given it up. And confessing for the first time to the intensity within him of this absurd speculation—which but proved also, no doubt, the habit of too selfishly thinking—he affirmed the impotence there of any other source of interest, any other native appeal. "What would it have made of me, what would it have made of me? I keep for ever wondering, all idiotically; as if I could possibly know! I see what it has ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... round me for a minute—yes, like that! Claudie, I want you to win, I want you to win. Oh, not altogether selfishly! I—I am an egoist, I suppose. I do care for my husband to be a success. But there's more than that. Yes, ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... dear, ever?' Whence the acute and intelligent reader will doubtless conclude that Mrs. Herbert Le Breton was a very prudent sensible young woman, and that perhaps even Herbert himself had met at last with his fitting Nemesis. For what worse purgatory could his bitterest foe wish for a selfishly prudent and cold-hearted man, than that he should pass his whole lifetime in congenial intercourse with a selfishly prudent and cold-hearted wife, exactly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... Act of Henry VIII.; and a sliding scale was instituted, by which, for the future, wages should be adjusted to the price of food. The same conclusion may be gathered also indirectly fom the acts interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition showed itself to exercise them selfishly. ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher

... consequently availed him nothing against the fact that he was missed during a raid of the Digger Indians, and lied to account for it; or that he lost his right to a gold discovery by failing to make it good against a bully, and selfishly kept this discovery from the knowledge of the camp. Yet this weakness awakened no animosity in his companions, and it is probable that the indifference of the camp to his fate in this final catastrophe came purely from a simple forgetfulness of one who ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte

... was not the simple and loving Ruth to whom he had offered himself that day they picked berries in the canon. Or was it that only now her real self was revealed? Was it that she was capable of loving only selfishly? Did she love him ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... have been broken down in the common sufferings of the stricken people on our Western Coast. The chord of brotherhood is vibrating in all our hearts. Its divine melodies are heard above the roar and rush of business in our streets. We have been amassing wealth too often selfishly, and madly. We have been making money our god; and now we see how vain a thing it is in which to put our trust. Now we feel "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Now, kindness and tenderness melt the hardness of our natures. Now, as we stretch the ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... as I grow older, but of that I am not very sure. I have another excuse; it is, that if I love money a little for the pleasure that it procures me, I love it still more for the good which it allows me to do. I love it—selfishly, if you like—for the joy of giving, but I think that my fortune is not very badly placed in my hands. Well, Monsieur le Cure, in the same way that you have the care of souls, it seems that I have the care of money. I have always thought, 'I wish, above all things, that ...
— L'Abbe Constantin, Complete • Ludovic Halevy

... been so selfishly self-centered." She frowned. "I forgot about it, but there were people in the crowd boasting they had been assigned to fight anti-social movements. I had to boast back that my husband ...
— The Junkmakers • Albert R. Teichner

... about him as he went to the Bon Ton. They remembered a whale of a melon they had seen there, and said they would bet he never had enough money to buy that one. Maybe he could buy a medium-sized one, but not that. All of them kept a repellent manner for any passing boy who might be selfishly moved to join them. The spendthrift let them babble, preserving a rather grim silence. The whale of a melon was indeed a noble growth, and its price was thirty-five cents. The announcement of this caused a solemn hush to fall upon the sycophants; ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... small salary, resist the seduction of the smell of flowers and of the flash of diamonds? And if one resisted it, it was love, some real, strong passion, that gave her the strength for this, generally, however, only to go after luxury all the more shamelessly and selfishly, when her ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... lessens my compunction without diminishing my gratitude. And now you must be wanting a brush up and breakfast, and here am I selfishly keeping you from both. And I say, Brand,"—Garth coloured hotly, boyishly, and hesitated,—"I am awfully sorry you will have no companion at your meals, Miss Gray being away. I do not like to think of ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay

... themselves, requiring more steady self-sacrifice than those which give the stimulus of something definite to do. These need not feel themselves cut off from what is highest in woman's education, if they realize that the mind has a life in itself and makes its own existence there, not selfishly, but indeed in a peculiarly selfless way, because it has nothing to show for itself but some small round of unimpressive occupations; some perpetual call upon its sympathies and devotion, not enough to fill a life, but just enough to prevent it from turning to anything ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... right. I am selfishly thinking only of myself at the present moment. But let us hope we may manage to do these poor Christians good before we ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... themselves up on the back fence. They sat quietly, at first waiting for some one to discover them. Both men had their backs to the fence now and Sammy, though perfectly aware of the new arrivals, was selfishly busy. ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds

... graze, setting about immediately to get his dinner. Mackenzie waited for a summons when the meal was ready, but received none. Presently he saw that Reid had no intention of calling him in, for he was sitting down selfishly alone. ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... purpose, you laid down one proposition in which I quite acquiesce; that the subject of the supremacy of Rome should be moved argumentatively, if at all. I felt I had gained something here, and rested upon it, and gave up answering you, as it turns out, selfishly.' At the end of the letter he says: 'As to myself, I don't like talking; when we meet we shall see how we feel about it.' His reserve may, I think, be safely accounted for by his great unwillingness that such a man as Mr. Hope should be swayed by him to ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... scenery as has been said of lover's tete-a-tete talks, that it resembles those delicate fruits which are exquisite where they are plucked, but incapable of transmission. As my father can never enjoy any thing selfishly, he was particularly pleased with the nice little foot-path won from the mountain-side, and the frequent foot-bridges that indicate the numbers that have taken this wild walk before us. My father fancies he enjoys our security ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... thing about America, gentlemen, is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself. We want no nation's property; we wish to question no nation's honor; we wish to stand selfishly in the way of the development of no nation; we want nothing that we cannot get by our own legitimate enterprise and by the inspiration of our own example, and, standing for these things, it is not pretention on our part to say that we are privileged to stand for what every nation would wish ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... I'm most eagerly and selfishly interested. I've taken a new lease of life since knowing you, Diantha Bell! You see my father was a business man, and his father before him—I like it. There I was, with lots of money, and not an interest in life! Now?—why, there's no end to this thing, Diantha! It's ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... now,' she continued, 'why we shouldn't talk about it—I mean, the things you discussed with Mamma. You imagine, I dare say, that I selfishly objected to what she was doing. Nothing of the kind. I didn't quite see why she had kept it from me, that was all. It was as if she felt afraid of my greediness. But I'm not greedy; I don't think I'm more ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... to leave behind them all they held dear. This, one felt, was a little hard of the captain; but those of us whose position was exactly the reverse, who had friends on the other side, all whose hopes indeed were invested there, were too selfishly expectant of port to be severe on the captain who ...
— Prose Fancies (Second Series) • Richard Le Gallienne

... really breaks out, and the less recording and reporting the better for the peace of the subscribers. But the Empires and the Kings continue to divert themselves as selfishly as before, and the Foreman thinks that a daily paper really ought to come out once in twenty-four hours, and all the people at the Hill-stations in the middle of their amusements say:—"Good gracious! ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... none could ever speak them worthily, and therefore I must be silent, for their deeds are too mighty to be uttered in words. But the forefathers of the Thebans either joined the barbarian's army or did not oppose it; and therefore he knows that they will selfishly embrace their advantage, without considering the common interest of the Greeks. He thought then if he chose your friendship, it must be on just principles; if he attached himself to them, he should find auxiliaries of his ambition. This is the reason of his preferring them to you ...
— Standard Selections • Various

... slumberings on the sofa and proffer attentions that were received with the surliness of one too miserable to know what to do with himself. She yearned over him with a new awakening of tenderness, longing, yet unable, to console or soothe. The light surface-intercourse of the brother and sister, each selfishly refraining from stirring the depths of the other's mind, rendered them mere strangers in the time of trouble; and vainly did Lucy gaze wistfully at the swollen eyelids and flushed cheeks, watch every peevish gesture, and tend each sullen wish, with pitying sweetness; she could not reach ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... everything but the bare teaching and learning, to go on and finish what we've begun. He knows how important it is to me. He knows what this journey here has meant to us, to you and me, the difficulty of it, the sacrifice. I'm very unhappy tonight, darling mother, and selfishly crying out to you. I feel almost like leaving Bernd, and starting for Glion tomorrow. And then when I think of him without me—He's as spiritually alone in this welter as I am. I'm the only one he has, the only human being who understands. Today he ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley

... of eking out a paltry income by its sale, have already exterminated it within a wide radius of our Eastern cities. How curious that the majority of people show their appreciation of a flower's beauty only by selfishly, ignorantly picking every ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan

... too full of love for the race to have love to spare for self. To this ideal he was struggling, but he had not yet reached it, and the thought of his own reputation, his own feelings would creep in. He was not a selfishly ambitious man, but every one who is conscious of ability, every one who feels within him energies lying fallow for want of opportunity, must be ambitious for a larger sphere of work. Just as he was beginning to dare to allow himself the hope of some change in his work, some wider ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... a grateful face from her pillow that Jerry's heart was touched. Of course poor Isobel was lonely and she and Gyp had selfishly neglected her. Even though Isobel did not care very much for her, she would doubtless be better company than—no one. She slipped the bathing-cap in her pocket and slowly drew off her ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott

... in pursuit, and splash! went the beast into the surf. He was playing that he was a sea-horse, now, and enjoying it selfishly, without a thought of poor me in the horrid, tottery little box that would be knocked over by a big wave, maybe, in another instant, in a welter of sand and salt water, under ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... begin with," said his patroness, "that I am possessed of considerable wealth, as, indeed, you may have judged by way of living. I have no children, unfortunately, and being unwilling, selfishly, to devote my entire means to my own use exclusively, I try to help others in a way that I think most suitable. Mrs. Hill, who acts as my housekeeper, is a cousin, who made a poor marriage, and was left penniless. I have given a home ...
— The Store Boy • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... herself to task severely when her father said this. It was evident that Michael had spoilt her. She was determined not to monopolise him so selfishly; but, somehow, when it came to the point, she was ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... prayer of the liturgy singles out her sorrows from the multiplied trials of life, to plead for her in the hour of peril. God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly, or selfishly! ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... It was twenty years ago that Roger bumped into his fate in that eddy of Broadway and I was as powerless as you are now to disentangle him and keep him for myself, which, selfishly enough, of course, I wanted terribly to do. You see, he was all I had, Roger, and I was hoping we would play the game out together. But—not to have known Margarita? Never to have watched that bending droop ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... selfishly, counting the hours until his return, but here, it seemed, was work to be done, a task that he alone could accomplish, and his decision to remain had been made final when Allie Briskow told him with tremulous earnestness that he had saved her life—when she confessed that ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... You selfishly enjoy his visit, not suspecting that you, too, are ignorantly helpful. He has been in sadder homes to-day, has been sorely tried, has had to tell grim truths, is tired, mind and body. The visit he makes you is ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell

... questions as these—"When did you love me first?" "What did you feel when I said so-and-so?" "Have you dreamt of me often?" "Will you love me always, always, always?" and so on ad infinitum. "Ridiculous rubbish!" exclaims the would-be strong-minded, but secretly savage old maid,—and the selfishly matter-of-fact, but privately fidgety and lonely old bachelor. Ah! but there are those who could tell you that at one time or another of their lives this "ridiculous rubbish" seemed far more important ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli

... landscape; the other is full of the vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet haec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stand till my days ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... him from you,'" continued Richard, "I mean that, being lonely and friendless (as you see I am but for you three), the society of this bright boy was very dear to me, and I selfishly strove to secure it when he would fain have been elsewhere. I needed, as you may well imagine, authority to back me in such efforts, but, unhappily for him, I possessed its aid. He now resents, and very ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn

... and Lazaro was at work on the plantation across the lake. Jose thought bitterly that the time had been singularly well chosen for the coup. Don Mario's last words burned through his tired brain like live coals. In a sense the Alcalde was right. He had been selfishly absorbed in the girl. But he alone, excepting Rosendo, had any adequate appreciation of the girl's real nature. To the stagnant wits of Simiti she was one of them, but with singular characteristics which caused the more superstitious and less intelligent to look upon ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... it. And you know we have an invitation to visit the Maltbys in the spring: we shall be sure to get some words of valuable counsel there. I don't want to hinder you from doing good out of your own home; I don't want selfishly to claim all your energies for home work, and my own convenience and comfort: but I do feel strongly, and more and more strongly every day, that there is a tendency at the present day to make an idol of woman's work; to keep, too, the bow perpetually on the stretch; ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... at the window—smiling. There was wildness—triumph—in her look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless—youth, the supplanter and destroyer—stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed eyes, the hands ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... be forgotten; forgotten also the more recent lesson of the bloody and costly wars provoked by the ambition and exaggerated power of Louis XIV. Under the eyes of the statesmen of Europe there was steadily and visibly being built up a third overwhelming power, destined to be used as selfishly, as aggressively, though not as cruelly, and much more successfully than any that had preceded it. This was the power of the sea, whose workings, because more silent than the clash of arms, are less often noted, though lying clearly enough on the surface. It can scarcely be denied that England's ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan

... of the new passage to the East Indies, had reduced the importance of the mercantile navy of Germany and Italy in the Mediterranean. Where there was any national feeling left, it was a feeling of shame and despair, and the Emperor and the small princes of Germany might have governed even more selfishly than they did, without rousing opposition among ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... they saw that indulgent chair close by the edge of the World in which the Owner of the Box had lately sat reading selfishly and alone the most beautiful songs and verses that ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany

... felt, none would have selfishly held him back; on the contrary, they were all encouragement, and the last thing his father did was to put into the young man's hand a roll of fifty sovereigns—a splendid piece of generosity on the part of one whose ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon

... then that there is in Nature a perpetual warfare of plant, of bird, of beast, of fish, of reptile; that each is striving selfishly for its own advantage, and will get what it wants if ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... into the fold, who by natural insolence of heart, and stout eloquence of tongue, and fearlessly perseverant self-assertion, obtain hearing and authority with the common crowd. Lastly, those who "climb," who, by labour and learning, both stout and sound, but selfishly exerted in the cause of their own ambition, gain high dignities and authorities, and become "lords over the heritage," though ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin

... feet by two and a half, and fall sound asleep and dream of home. Oh! there is much that is really enjoyable in this kind of life; and if the cares of the vessel, management of men, &c., do harass me sometimes, it is very good for me; security from such troubles having been anxiously and selfishly pursued by me ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... who has implanted an unconscious mutual attraction between the sexes that constantly draws them towards each other. It is this mutual love, these invisible ties, that make the world brighter, cheerier, happier. It has been truly said that those who selfishly cut themselves away from these ties, those that lead narrow, lonely, morbid lives, lose most of life's joys. What should we say to the favourite of a King from whom he had received a beautiful house, and fine estates, and who chose to ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... not so selfishly proud as to allow this state of matters to go on for ever. Mina opened the door, and said: "Why are you crying, Lina?" and Lina immediately stretched out both hands to her sister, and said: "Oh, Mina, why ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various

... is? And you and I, if we have said the Litany in spirit and in truth, have been praying for them. The Litany bids us speak as members of a Church, as citizens of a nation, bound together by the ties of blood and of laws, as well as self-interest. The Litany bids us say, not selfishly and apart, Graciously look on my afflictions, but on our afflictions—the afflictions of every English man, and woman, and child, who is in trouble, or ever will be in trouble hereafter. Oh, ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... couple being reprieved somehow in the final chapters just before the kindly author put his puppets away, after preaching a last gentle sermon on the vanity of life. The background would be the British society of the middle of the nineteenth century; and some Lady Kew, delightfully clever and selfishly arrogant, might be the chief of one clan, and some Lord Steyne, bitter and masterful, might head the rival house. And not improbably the narrator would be ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews

... of the real Mirza-Schaffy in 1852, which was duly announced by the press, sundry efforts were made by Eastern travelers to visit his grave in Tiflis and gain those particulars concerning him and his writings which Bodenstedt was supposed to have selfishly withheld from the public. Of these, one of the most prominent was Professor H. Brugsch, secretary of the Prussian embassy to Persia in 1860, who in his book of travels thus descants on his futile efforts: "No one could inform us where the last earthly remains of a certain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various

... up for that oppressed child an avenger, or a supporter, or vindicator, if you prefer it. It happened that the reigning king, the usurper—you are quite of my opinion, I believe, that it is an act of usurpation quietly to enjoy, and selfishly to assume the right over, an inheritance to which a man has only half ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... going to leave me in anger. Oh, no! Do not! Kiss me, dear husband, and forgive me. If I have vexed you, it was only because I was so selfishly anxious to keep you more with me—to be more certain that ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... own sweet flower, my exquisite bird, for whom no cage can be half too fine! I want you to be mine; my own darling——. I would give Heaven and earth for that; I have already risked all that makes life worth living. Men love selfishly; but you shall be loved as no other woman was ever loved. You shall be my queen, my angel, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... intelligent and wealthy class have it in their power so to mould this change as to render it peaceful, gradual and universally beneficent; or they can turn a deaf ear to the calls of humanity, and let the demagogue, the envious, the selfishly discontented, pervert it into an engine of convulsion, destruction and desolation. As in the days of King John, the barons laid the foundations of English political liberty, so in our day the intellectual and philanthropic may guide the ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... concerning rebellion and high treason, which must needs have been framed for some purpose or other, the authorities of England may be excused for fancying that they bore some reference to such acts as that which the noble and unfortunate earl had just committed, as wantonly, selfishly, and needlessly, it seems to me, as ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley

... the man seemed to take this quite for granted, and not to mind in the least. "Would one of you care to sit beside me?" he asked with so wooden an expression that it was impossible to guess whether he would prefer Mrs. James or me to say yes. Selfishly, I wanted him to prefer me, and because he didn't seem to mind, I pretended not to hear, but went on talking to Mr. Douglas as if he were the most important person in the world. Suddenly I felt a kind of power over him, as if I were a grown-up woman in a book, and ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... from the life on which I had set my heart, back into this mistaken vocation, but you are determined to make my lot miserable and unhappy. And not mine only, but that of that simple-hearted and unsuspecting girl. I do not see how you can be so selfishly cruel. You are resolved to break her heart, and to do it in the most torturing way. But you shall work her no more harm. I do not now appeal to your honor, to your sense of justice; I simply say ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton

... trust hastily; and yet he did place implicit confidence in Mr. Hunting, regarding him as a better man than himself. Hunting was an active member of a church, and his name figured on several charities, while Gregory had almost ceased to attend any place of worship, and spent his money selfishly upon himself, or foolishly upon others, giving only as prompted by impulse. Indeed, his friend had occasionally ventured to remonstrate with him against his tendencies to dissipation, saying that ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... the way of hearty amusement is over-seriousness. There should be two words for "serious," as there are literally two meanings. There is a certain intense form of taking the care and responsibility of one's own individual interests, or the interests of others which are selfishly made one's own, which leads to a surface-seriousness that is not only a chronic irritation of the nervous system, but a constant distress to those who come under this serious care. This is taking life au grand serieux. The superficiality of this attitude is striking, and would ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... and George had many times thought and talked about the cave. They debated whether or not to advise the boys of its existence, but could not satisfy themselves of the proper course to pursue. They were not selfishly considering the entire possession of the treasure. In fact they were too generous for that, but the boys would know sooner or later, and it was a question whether to disclose it now or later on. In this dilemma they called ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay

... conversations, which somehow were always interrupted at the instant the interesting point was reached. The men bestirred themselves with more or less alacrity, making their way about the room with a conscientious determination to speak to everybody whom duty called upon them to address, or more selfishly devoting themselves to finding out and chatting with the pretty girls. Fenton found time for the latter method while being far too politic to neglect the former. He was chatting in a corner with Ethel Mott, when Fred Rangely, whose successful novel had made him ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates

... Frenchman, bowing gallantly, "that this most happy reunion might not be allowed to pass uncelebrated. Tell me if I intrude upon other plans, because I am speaking selfishly; but I was on my way to a lonely supper, and apart from the great pleasure which your company would afford me, you would be such very good Samaritans ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer

... hold upon a man, the time which he should spend with his family is spent in defiling his body in this place; the money which should be spent, in clothing and feeding his wife and children, is squandered here; until the home loses its hold upon him and he selfishly indulges his appetite, no matter who suffers. We are faced with actual conditions and no substitutes of better kept saloons or purer beverages can help very much. It is a travesty of the truth to call a saloon a working men's club; it is his destruction. What is ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell

... contribution was at all events creditable to the generosity and zeal of the Irish people, and no discredit to O'Connell himself. Nor can it be alleged with truth that he accepted it from mercenary motives, or used it selfishly. His fortune was small; his position required large expenditure; and it is notorious that the money he received was not hoarded, nor used to enrich his family, but employed for political and often charitable ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned. The door was ajar. Joyous sounds drifted in—chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of dishes.... Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the rocking-chair, and by low singing.... By and by, voices, speaking gravely—in ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan

... involved. If to make his girl rich and a lady, and to lift her out of the life of the Exchange, was a sin the sin was his own and he was willing to "stand for it." And, like McTurk, he would see that the sin of the father was not visited upon the child. Ranson was rich, foolishly, selfishly rich; his father was a United States Senator with influence enough, and money enough, to fight the law—to buy his son out of jail. Sooner than his daughter should know that her father was one of those who ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... than his face, and he took no heed of me as I ran after him, thinking selfishly of the sweetmeats he had promised to bring me—but I thought no more of them when I got to the ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... am selfishly trying to secure myself a most welcome companion, by asking you to undertake a very modest cure of souls and to catalogue my books, when you might be filling some important post and ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... changed to a bird, though you live As selfishly as you can; But you will be changed to a smaller thing— A mean and ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets

... Cosimo, however, entered into treaty with Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, guaranteed him against Florentine interference, and saw with satisfaction how he reduced the duchy to his military tyranny. The Medici were conscious that they, selfishly, had most to gain by supporting despots who in time of need might help them to confirm their own authority. With the same end in view, when the legitimate line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, Cosimo hunted out a bastard pretender of that family, presented ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... men, it demanded that they should curb their inclinations and desires. It demanded of them their first duty as men and Christians, the duty of being fruitful and multiplying, in order that they might till this fruitful earth, not selfishly, not for themselves alone. It demanded of them the duty of multiplying in order that they and their children might be equipped to smite the enemies of their Queen and country, and uphold the name of England in ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... not of God or duty, but only of her thwarted, unhappy life, from which she shrank weakly and selfishly, assuring herself that she could not and would not endure it. In her father she saw only increasing humiliation; in her mother, one for whom she had but little affection and less respect, and who would of necessity ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... himself: "I want to marry Bella." He never dared meet the thought. He intended honestly to marry Emma Byers. But this thing was too strong for him. As for Bella, she laughed at him, but she was scared, too. They both fought the thing, she selfishly, he unselfishly, for the Byers girl, with her clear, calm eyes and her dependable ways, was heavy on his heart. Ben's appeal for Bella was merely that of the magnetic male. She never once thought of his finer qualities. Her appeal ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... others will undermine these by obsequiousness. Flattery, —fawning,—that worst bane of virtuous inclinations,—will assail you:—everybody seeks his own advancement. To-day you and I converse together quite disinterestedly; others all selfishly pay their court to our fortunes in preference to ourselves. Now to counsel an Emperor what he ought to do is a task of much difficulty: humouring the whims of this or that Emperor does not cost the slightest trouble." "Ea aetas tua, quae cupiditates adolescentiae jam effugerit: ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... passions so far from being diseases, conditioned the very life and survival of the race? Perhaps the evils of excess, called sin, were after all due to defects in social and political institutions that had applied incorrect regulative principles, or to the selfishly imposed religious fears which had driven the healthy instincts into tantrums. Rid man of these erroneous fears and of a political system begot for purposes of exploitation and see whether by returning to an age of primitive innocence ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank

... to find out its powers and method of management.. There were some prepared objects sent with the instrument, which gave him enough to work with; and over them he was in an absorbed state for hours; not selfishly, however, for he allowed Eleanor to take her full share of the pleasure of looking, when once he had brought objects into view. At last he broke off and ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... education in public matters than he had realized. As for ideals, he had followed the masterful men who preached a gospel that appealed to him, living the life of the open, battling for the weak against the selfishly strong—so it seemed to the one who studied their achievements on the printed page. With his own opportunity now thrust upon him, Harlan Thornton determined to make candor his code, honesty his system. He entertained no false ideas of his personal importance. But his lack of experience did ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... B. may be able to learn their parts in a day, and to act fairly under the inspiration of the moment, but if they neglect rehearsals on this account, they deal very selfishly by C. and D., who have not the same facility, and who rehearse at great disadvantage if the other parts ...
— The Peace Egg and Other tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... I have been asking myself what I can do for her as a slight acknowledgment of her heroism. Surely we ought to let her have Dorothy to bring up, since she still desires to do it? It would be so much to Dorothy's advantage. We ought to look at it in that light, and not selfishly.' ...
— A Group of Noble Dames • Thomas Hardy

... that the organized farmers will receive that strength, not selfishly but unselfishly in the defence of the rights of all and for the spoliation of none. The highest ambition I have for our organization is that it may develop along the lines of safety and sanity, that we may hold to a steady determination to ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... Booth; "let's get out of here!" He was as badly frightened as Hallowell, but had no bride at Riley, and, as he tells it, "was selfishly thinking of himself only, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman

... Another notable wreck was that of the emigrant ship John, in 1855. This time the disaster may have been a result of carelessness, for the weather was fine; in any case, the vessel got on the Manacles. Some boats were launched and selfishly filled, but the captain apparently thought there was no cause for alarm. Those in the boats took the tidings to Coverack, but in the meantime a wind had sprung up; a message was sent across and Porthoustock men set out to the rescue. There were many children on board; ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon

... believe in going into mourning at all. There are some who believe, as do the races of the East, that great love should be expressed in rejoicing in the re-birth of a beloved spirit instead of selfishly mourning their own earthly loss. But many who object to manifestations of grief, find themselves impelled to wear mourning when their sorrow comes and the number of those who do not put on black is ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... room. She was lying on a couch, and was still hysterical. From her he heard the story; and though, as ever, she was selfishly alive to her own sufferings, she evinced an almost motherly tenderness ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas

... his cool impudence, his subtle wit charmed her more than she could express. Now she was beginning to study him from a standpoint peculiarly and selfishly her own. Where recently she had sung his praises to Yetive and others, she now was strangely reticent. She was to understand another day why this change had come over her. Stories of his cleverness came to her ears from Lorry and Anguish and even from Dangloss. She was ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... have happened? What terrible thing had he done? What sorrow had fallen upon his beloved while he selfishly slept? But all she would say was that she was weary, while she clung to him in a storm of passion, as if some one threatened to take her out of his arms. Then she left him abruptly and went ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn

... in a very real sense a parting of the ways for me. To refuse this call was to go selfishly and comfortably along the lines of literary activity I had chosen. To accept was to enter the arena where problems of economic justice were being sternly fought out. I understood already something of the disadvantage which attached to being called a reformer, but my sense of duty and the influence ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... and her name was Alice. She was tall, boyishly handsome, and characterless; her figure might be described as "fine" or "strapping", but her face was very cold—nearly colourless. She was one of those selfishly sensual women—thin lips, and hard, almost vacant grey eyes; no thought of anything but her own pleasures, none for the man's. Some shearers would roughly call her "a squatter's girl". But she "drew"; she was handsome ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson

... if we had done this thing deliberately and selfishly. We have renounced. We have struggled against it until we were beaten. And now we are driven together, not by our doing but Fate's. After this affair this morning there is nothing for you but to come to me. And as for me, despite my best, ...
— Theft - A Play In Four Acts • Jack London

... ever a more generous act recorded? Patrick Dolan had no relative in the Donner Party, and no friends, save those whose friendship had been formed upon the plains. With the cattle which belonged to him he could have selfishly subsisted until relief came, but, whole-souled Irishman that he was, he gave food to the mothers and the children and went out into the waste of snow to perish of starvation! How many who live to-day owe their existence to Patrick Dolan's self-sacrifice! ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan

... of always giving cheerfully to others that which the natural heart would selfishly appropriate as its own, can be learned only in the school of Christ. And blessed is that parent or teacher who rightly appreciates the privilege of becoming an assistant in that school. Blessed is that pupil who ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... have invoked abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than they probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, discarding all moral, social, and treaty obligations, would act solely and selfishly for the most speedy restoration of commerce, including especially the acquisition of cotton, those nations appear as yet not to have seen their way to their object more directly or clearly through the destruction than through the preservation of the Union. If ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... lift her to the very Paradise of falsehood: she knew not what she did, and possibly knowledge might have found in her some pity and abstinence. But when a woman, in her own nature cold, takes delight in rousing passion, she will, selfishly confident in her own safety, go to strange lengths in kindling and fanning the flame which is the death ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... encouraging so far, and it is to show them the cause of their failure as much as to warn others against rushing heedlessly upon a similar fate, that the writing of the present article has been ordered. The candidates in question, though plainly warned against it in advance, began wrong by selfishly looking to the future and losing sight of the past. They forgot that they had done nothing to deserve the rare honour of selection, nothing which warranted their expecting such a privilege; that they could boast of none of the above enumerated merits. As men of ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... convinced that the teachings of this stage have made a sufficient impression upon him; but then we bid him be a man, look to his companions, and guide himself with reference to them. Now he stands erect and bold, yet not selfishly isolated; only in a union with his equals does he present a front toward the world. We are unable ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... meditations suddenly halted before the Jigger Shop. They were all there; the fortunate possessors of dimes and nickels, gluttonously, selfishly gorging themselves with juicy creamy strawberry, coffee, and chocolate jiggers; clinking their glasses, licking their spoons—and he, John C. Bedelle, the future Bathtub King, without a cent in his pockets! The ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... And yet the great sea of it one can never touch! It is a nightmare—I am weak still, I suppose; I don't know myself; but I can see nothing but jarred, tortured creatures everywhere. All my own joys and comforts seem to lift me selfishly above ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... rash matrimonial engagements; no penniless lovers selfishly and indissolubly linked together to propagate large families Of starving children. Ail the arrangements of the insect tribe, though prompted by sheer instinct are conducted with a degree of rationality that in some cases raises the mere instinct of the creeping thing above the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... The gift selfishly given, where to receive Is hoped again, or when some end is sought, Or where the gift is proffered with a grudge, This is of Rajas, stained ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold

... them—they could be relieved in only one way: by Liberty. Not simply by his personal liberty, but by the liberation of every single fellow-captive as well. His extraordinarily personal anguish could not be selfishly appeased by a merely partial righting, in his own case, of the Wrong—the ineffable and terrific and to be perfectly avenged Wrong—done to those who ate and slept and wept and played cards within that abominable and unyielding Symbol which ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... She is, withal, selfishly occupied with her own perfection only—having no desire to teach—seeking and finding the beautiful in all conditions and in all times, as did her high priest Rembrandt, when he saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... and that his producing power is a thousand times greater than that of the cave-man, no other conclusion is possible than that the capitalist class has mismanaged, that you have mismanaged, my masters, that you have criminally and selfishly mismanaged. And on this count you cannot answer me here to-night, face to face, any more than can your whole class answer the million and a half of revolutionists in the United States. You cannot answer. I challenge you to answer. And furthermore, I dare ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... belongs. I may have no right to capture you in strange dominions; but an English ship is England—and if you set foot on the Springbok you are lost. Now, then, you are a man of honor; you love my child truly, and not selfishly—you have behaved nobly until to-day; go one step farther on the right road; call worldly honor and the God whose vows you have taken, sir, to your ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... man receive with his wife. He should do all he can to help make the ball successful, especially if his name appears on the invitation. He should assist in finding partners for the women, taking the chaperones into supper, preventing the men from selfishly remaining in the dressing-room, and at the end escorting unattended women ...
— The Book of Good Manners • W. C. Green

... self-consciousness, a great man—how great she could not exactly define. His eyes—two black diamonds full of golden reflections, the eyes of a conqueror, a seer—began to burn little bright spots into her consciousness, and, selfishly, she admitted, she wished the two women would go away and leave her to interrogate her idol in peace. There were so many things to ask him, so many difficult passages in The Golden Glaze and Hesitations, above all in that great dramatic poem, The Voices, which she ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... was reduced to this! I threw my pride to the winds," she whispered. "But I don't care. I was determined, selfishly, to take happiness." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... Dr. McGarry going to church proved an irresistible opportunity. Mrs. Sutherland was never done telling Mrs. Sinclair how the Doctor struggled to get to church on Sundays, and all in vain. It seemed as though the whole countryside selfishly arranged their maladies to prevent his ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... press Gwen about Rosalind's. Of course, if she volunteers information, I shall have to dismiss the commiseration theory—you understand me?—and suppose that she is healthily in love. By healthily I mean selfishly. If no information is forthcoming, all I can say is—the doubt remains; the doubt whether she is not making herself the family scapegoat, carrying away the sins of the congregation ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... had felt too sorry for her to refuse the first thing she asked of him. But from now on, he would be firm. He would win her back to life—reawaken her interest in what was going on around her. He would devote himself to serving her: not selfishly, as others had done, with their own ends in view; the gentle, steady aid should be hers, which he had always longed to give her. He felt strong enough to face any contingency: it seemed, indeed, as if his love for her had all along ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... already attained the summit were flinging away their outfits and turning back in panic, terrified by stories which they had heard of winter and starvation in the Klondike; those who still trudged doggedly forward were too selfishly preoccupied with visions of gold, and their own concerns, and fears lest the rivers and lakes should close up, to render him aid. Not so Spurling; in those days he was never too busy to lend an unfortunate a helping ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... she knew, had lived at a settlement for a couple of years. But there were no settlements in Torso, and the acutely poor were looked after by the various churches. Just what there was to be done for others was not clear. When she expressed her desire "not to live selfishly" to her husband, he ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... selfishly bent on pain and renunciation, he was selfishly bent on pleasure and indulgence. Isn't that the one ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... commonly the case, it was chiefly little things that pulled the wrong way of the stuff of life between us, but they pulled it very much askew. I was selfishly absorbed in my own dreams, and I think my dear father made a mistake which is a too common bit of tyranny between people who love each other and live together. He was not satisfied with my doing what he liked, he expected me to be what he liked, that ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... week. The subordinate police are all interested in keeping up the present system of extortion, and the inspectors and sub-inspectors, who wink at malpractices, come in for their share of the spoil. There is little combination among the peasantry. Each selfishly tries to save his own skin, and they know that if any one individual were to complain, or to dare to resist, he would have to bear the brunt of the battle alone. None of his neighbours would stir a finger to back him; he is too timid and too much in awe of the official ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis

... she acknowledged. "And I don't know why. At least, I do know. I'm going to use you selfishly, Durdles. I'm going to tell you all my troubles and ask your help in every possible way. I'm going to let you ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole



Words linked to "Selfishly" :   egotistically, unselfishly, selfish



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