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More "Self-interest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grant a small portion of our land to found a church, which enables us to augment the remainder treble its value, by granting building leases? a man seldom makes a bargain for heaven, and forgets himself. Charity and self-interest, like the apple and the rind, are closely connected, and, like them, we cannot separate one without ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... to the ship, appeals to the baser instincts and more pressing appetites of the people; the Conservative only to their traditions and higher aspirations, in the same way that religion appeals to the spirit, and the worship of Mammon to the senses. The shibboleth of the one is 'self-interest;' of the other, 'national honour.' The first appeals to the many, the second to the finer few, and I must leave you to judge which ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... from it by selecting this and ignoring that. And it contrives so well that I suppose the average man is not consciously aware twice a year of that conglomerate of details which the critics call real life. He holds one stout thread, at any rate, to guide him through the maze—the thread of self-interest. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... as isolated from and antagonized with the world about him, but as cut off sharply and definitely from the past before he lived and the future after he is dead; it puts what is, in relation to the view we have taken, a disproportionate amount of stress upon his egotism, upon the pursuit of his self-interest and his personal virtue and his personal fancies, and it ignores the fact, the familiar rediscovery which the nineteenth century has achieved, that he is after all only the transitory custodian of an undying gift of life, an inheritor under conditions, the momentary ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... showing of motives. Better, perhaps, than usual, when a careful weighing of the relative proportions of self-esteem, self-interest ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... Carleton stood watching her, querying how long those clear eyes would have nothing to hide, how long that bright purity could resist the corrosion of the world's breath; and half thinking that it would be better for the spirit to pass away, with its lustre upon it, than stay till self-interest should sharpen the eye, and the lines of diplomacy write themselves on that fair brow. "Better ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... says Vapid, "but this will regulate itself."—Will it, indeed? Be good enough to tell me how! All the potent individual agencies now affecting it are attached by self-interest to the wrong side. The Capitalists, the Employers, the Exporters, engaged in the Silk trade, all own property in Lyons, and are naturally anxious that the manufacture shall be more and more concentrated there. The Shipper, the Importer, the Jobber of our own country, ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... sure of being popular with the men who have beaten him. They give him a testimonial instead of a cheque. It would be too curious a speculation to pursue to ask whether Justice, like the other virtues, is not a form of self-interest. To answer it in the affirmative would condemn equally the doctrines of the Sermon on the Mount and the advice to do unto others what they should do unto you. But this is certain. No man can be happy if he suffers from a perpetual doubt of his ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... would, tell some interesting details. I will give you all Pietrino's letters, but I should just like to run on with my own impressions from them first. It seems that, since Madame Danterre's death, there has been a good deal of wild talk against her in Florence, which was kept down by self-interest as long as she was living and an excellent paying-machine. You will see, when you read the gossip, that very little is to the point. But, on the other hand, Pietrino has valuable information from one of the nurses. She is a young woman who is disappointed, ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... these transactions: 'The conduct of the Company's servants upon this occasion furnishes one of the most remarkable instances upon record of the power of self-interest to extinguish all sense of justice and even of shame. They had hitherto insisted, contrary to all right and all precedent, that the government of the country should exempt all their goods from duty; they now insisted that it should impose duties upon all other traders, and accused it as ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... aims at securing a maximum of personal advantage with a minimum of cost or outlay.(105) And there are always two intellectual incentives at the foundation of this economy. There is, first, self-interest, the positive manifestation of which is the effort to acquire as much of the world's goods as possible, and the negative expression of which, the effort to lose as little of them as possible—acquisitiveness—saving. Self-interest, losing ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... purpose, as in military strategy; and, above all, he was incapable of deceiving himself. He possessed that rarest of all human faculties, the power of a perfectly accurate estimate of himself, uninfluenced by pride, ambition, flattery, or self-interest. Grant was very far from being a modest man, as the word modest is generally understood. His just self-esteem was as far above modesty as it was above flattery. The highest encomiums were accepted for what ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... because the Dutch feel that they have on the whole made a good bargain, having won absolute constitutional liberty and the fullest powers of self-government, plus the protection of the British fleet. There may be something in this view, but I am sure that the feeling goes a great deal deeper than self-interest. Mutual respect has arisen between those who ten years ago ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... approval. The primitive sex display is now a minor cause: women obviously dress for other women's eyes. Much the same is true of subservience to fashions in furniture, food, manners, morals, and religion. The institution of tipping, which began, perhaps, in kindliness and was fostered by economic self-interest, is now well-nigh impregnable because no man is brave enough to withstand the scorn of a line of lackeys whom he heartily despises, or of a few onlookers whom ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... influence is, in one respect, the same as that which enriches the plutocrat and prompts the politician to reach for power—self-interest. When all the members of any body of men find themselves in equal relation to a profitable end in which they solely are concerned, they will surely be inclined to assert their joint independence of other bodies in that respect, and, further, each member will claim his full share ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... all this regard for your accommodation, don't suppose I am devoid of a little self-interest when I press your speedy return to Auld Reekie, for I am really tiring excessively to see the said parlor again inhabited, Besides that, I want the assistance of your eloquence to convince my honored father that Nature did not mean me ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... unnatural situation social laws and the laws of nature are in conflict, but the young girl obediently abandons herself to it, and, from motives of self-interest, suffers in silence. Her obedience is a speculation; her complaisance is a hope; her devotion to you is a sort of vocation, of which you reap the advantage; and her silence is generosity. She will remain the victim of your caprices so long as she ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... her, with the earnestness of a repentant lover rather than the clemency of an indulgent sovereign; and when the stern minister so signally failed to convince her reason by his representations, the King endeavoured to arouse her vanity and self-interest by the flatteries and inferences of the more courtly Bassompierre, La Varenne,[279] Sigogne, and others in whom he placed confidence; but all this ill-disguised anxiety only served to convince the wily favourite that she should prove victorious in the struggle, for since ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... noble art of suppressing natural affection and sympathy, are not likely to have any large stock of these commodities left. But, without them, there is no conscience, nor any restraint on the conduct of men, except the calculation of self-interest, the balancing of certain present gratifications against doubtful future pains; and experience tells us how much that is worth. Every day, we see firm believers in the hell of the theologians commit acts by which, as they believe when cool, they risk eternal punishment; ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... self-interest: more sumptuous obsequies await the aged dead.—That, answers Death, were to make laws in favor of the rich.—Apollo condescends to ask mercy for his friend as a favor; but favors, Death sneers, are not in keeping ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... into Miss Anthony's hand canceled notes for five hundred dollars, bearing on the back the words, "In memory of my beloved wife." One other note was canceled in recognition of her perfect forgetfulness of self-interest and ready sacrifice to the needs of others. When laboring, in 1874, to fill every engagement, in order to meet her debts, her mother's sudden illness called her home. Without one selfish regret, the anxious daughter hastened to Rochester. ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... of self-interest, there were other and higher things to be thought of. If he failed now, an enterprise must be lost in which he had labored for a year to induce others to invest millions. If he failed, the diversion of this railroad from its original course must become an accomplished fact, ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... introduction in order that later he might ask a favor. Whether he was leading up to an immediate loan, or in New York would ask for a card to a club, or an introduction to a banker, I could not tell. But in forcing himself upon me, except in self-interest, I could think of no other motive. The next evening ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... story of an egotist so intensely egotistical as to be quite unconscious of his egotism; forever thinking of himself—forever oblivious of others except as they ministered to his self-interest; filled up to the lips with the feeling of his rights and privileges; but entirely empty of any notion of his duties and responsibilities. With him it was always "I," "mine," "me"; never ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... style, now imitated by another and a younger race. But when the style of a periodical is once formed, the continuance of it is preserved by a much more despotic impulse than the tendency to imitation,—by the self-interest of the editor, who acts as trustee, if I may say so, for the subscribers. The regular buyers of a periodical want to read what they have been used to read—the same sort of thought, the same sort of words. The editor sees that they get that sort. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... nature to think well of them. His lips were often heard to utter the grievous maxim—all the more grievous because he personally knew its truth—"There are two levers by which men are moved, fear and self-interest." ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... democratic country is a country where the government has confidence in the people and the people in the government and in itself, and where all are united in the faith that the cause of their country is not a mere matter of individual or national self-interest, but is in harmony with the great moral forces which rule the destinies of mankind. No form of government is so feeble as a democracy without faith. But a democracy armed with faith is not merely strong: it is invincible; for its cause will live ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... If any one could die of grief and shame, I should. This labor was imposed upon me; I did not seek it; and if I assumed it, 'T was not for love of fame or love of gain, But for the love of God. Perhaps old age Deceived me, or self-interest, or ambition; I may be doing harm instead of good. Therefore, I pray your Holiness, release me; Take off from me the burden of this work; Let me go ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... response to the law of God, which is Love! The child was healed of his infirmity by the power of unselfish prayer. Are we not told 'Ask and ye shall receive'? But the asking must be pure! The prayer must be untainted by self-interest! God does not answer prayer that is paid for in this world's coin! No miracle was ever wrought for a fee! Only when perfect love and perfect faith exist between the creature and the Creator, are ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Christianity; that is to say, it is Christianity in action," went on the preacher. "It is my purpose this morning to speak upon the dynamics of altruism. Now altruism is the theory that inculcates benevolence to others in subordination to self-interest; interested benevolence as opposed to disinterested; also, the practice ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... between two men happen to be in jeopardy, there is least danger of an ensuing quarrel if the friendly intercourse has been of artificial growth, on either side. In this case, the promptings of self-interest, and the laws of politeness, have been animating influences throughout; acting under conditions which assist the effort of self-control. And for this reason: the man who has never really taken a high place in our regard is unprovided ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite. If she had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to wonder that he, with self-interest to blind ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... life, that the peasants have no decency in their domestic habits and customs. They make no appeal to morality when their daughters are seduced, unless the seducer is rich and timid. Children, until the State takes possession of them, are used either as capital or as instruments of convenience. Self-interest has become, specially since 1789, the sole motive of the masses; they never ask if an action is legal or immoral, but only if it is profitable. Morality, which is not to be confounded with religion, begins only at a certain competence,—just as one sees, in a higher sphere, how delicacy blossoms ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... nefarious design of obtaining political mastery with the fewest concessions possible. He relied upon universal education to qualify the masses for the possession of an extensive franchise, and upon enlightened self-interest to guarantee their proper use of it. Macaulay rejoined, in the Edinburgh Review, that the masses might possibly conclude that they would get more pleasure than pain out of universal spoliation; and that ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... curses, from the other broke the benediction of the blessings; the one is barren, the other is verdant—'which thing is an allegory.' The Religion of Fear does nothing, the Religion of Love does all. The Religion of Self-interest is narrow, poor, mostly inoperative of any lofty enthusiasm or high nobleness of character. The Religion of Duty; 'I ought to worship, I am bidden to do this, that, or the other thing, which I do not a bit like to do. I am forbidden to do this, that, and the other thing ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... of the situation cleared the air tremendously. Where he had seen in confusion, with a sense of mingling and turning but a moment before, Mackenzie now beheld things with the sharpness of self-interest, calculating his situation with a comprehensive appraisement of every yard that lay between him and his enemies. He was steady as a tree, light with a feeling of relief, of justification for his acts. It was as if putting off the thought that he was going into this fight for Earl ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... mutual responsibility, remained joined in an insoluble union. That was the inevitable outcome, leadership doing its part. The minority had no basis for organic solidarity, as each of its number was motivated only by self-interest. Goodwill and weakness may be combined in one man; bad will and strength in another. High moral leading can lift the first man to excel himself; it will not reform the other. But there is no other sensible ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... signs of improvement, but gradually got weaker. When too late for any remedial measures to have effect, the physicians, in private conference, agreed that the cause of his seizure was poison, but—looking from the clenched hand of the dying prince to the open palm of his successor—they, in sordid self-interest, held their tongues. Who had administered the fatal drug, and when, and where, had better not be published! If by a fraternal hand, then it ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... still, within her grew a silent disapproval of Christa. She felt herself superior to her. After a while another thought came upon her with unexpected force. Christa's motive for taking to the religious life was only self-interest; her own motive was the same; and was not that the motive which she really supposed hitherto to actuate all religious people? Had she not, for instance, been fully convinced that self-interest was the sum and substance of Bart Toyner's religion? Now between Bart Toyner and Christa and herself ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... surely they came from some violent rival of his. In this opinion Rita concurred, formulating, in ill-composed words of her own, this thought: virtue is indolent and niggardly, wasting neither time nor paper; only self-interest is alert ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... choicest aspirations, hungering for the highest things, the youth enters triumphantly upon the pathway of life. But journeying forward he meets conflict and strife, envy and jealousy, disappointment and defeat. He finds it hard to live up to the level of his best moods. Self-interest biases his judgment. Greed bribes reason. Pride leads him astray. Selfishness tempts him to violate his finer self. The struggle to maintain his ideals is like a struggle for life itself. Many, alas! after a short, sharp conflict, give ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... would bribe me to betray a friend, be faithful in friendship? But that is not the weight with me. I was not brought up in those schools, my good baron, which teach that sound policy or true self-interest can be separated from virtue. When I was a boy, my father often repeated to me ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... their opinions to the brutum fulmen of the League. That body is by no means popular. The great bulk of the manufacturing artisans are totally indifferent to its proceedings; for they know well that self-interest, and not philanthropy, is the motive which has regulated that movement, and that the immediate effect of cheap bread would be a reduction of the workman's wages. We cannot, therefore, admit that any pressure ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... that they have not yet received any pay, and their remaining stock would be confiscated. They are not totally devoid of self-interest, and most of them have a respect for the fighting powers of the Sieur and his punishing ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... to private property is therefore the right to enjoy and dispose of his property, at his will and pleasure, without regard for others, and independently of society: the right of self-interest. Each particular individual freedom exercised in this way forms the basis of bourgeois society. It leaves every man to find in other men not the realization, but rather the limits of his freedom. But it proclaims above all the right of man to enjoy and dispose ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... own quaint logic—the logic of self-interest—and this is how it reasoned: "The election of Bryan would disturb our control of American institutions, therefore American institutions would be destroyed by Bryan's election. On us, the 'System,' devolves the sacred if expensive duty of saving the nation, and, however abhorrent to our fine moral ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... the British monarchy. The forms have changed, the living substance is the same. Americans know at least as well as Englishmen what the most intelligent of French Republicans apparently have still to learn, that liberty is impossible without loyalty to something higher than self-interest and self-will. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: 'But heaven help,' continued she, 'the girls that have none. What signifies beauty, Mr Thornhill? or what signifies all the virtue, and all the qualifications in the world, in this age of self-interest? It is not, what is she? but what has she? is all ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... matter of surprise. Since we gave up at the Reformation the superstitious practice of praying to the saints, saints' days have sunk—and indeed sunk too much—into neglect. For most men's religion has a touch of self-interest in it; and therefore when people discovered that they could get nothing out of St Peter or St John by praying to them, they began to forget the very memory, many of them, of St Peter, St John, and other saints and apostles. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... had found in his cab. Is it credible that if he had been paid only his legal fare he would have been at such virtuous pains? It may, indeed, be surmised that if the shawl was not worth more than an imaginable reward for its restoration he was actuated by self-interest, but this is a view of our common nature which ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... Bonaparte inaugurated a new era in the wars of the Republic. Previously the leading motives had been pure patriotism and love of liberty; Bonaparte for the first time, in his proclamation on taking command, invoked the spirit of self-interest and plunder, which was to dominate the whole policy of France for the next twenty years. Evil as were the passions which he aroused, Napoleon's great military genius flashed forth in its full brilliancy in this his first campaign. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various
... will be so adequate that they will be free to give themselves for the benefit of the race, without apprehension of a yawning almshouse. A liberal policy will be for our own good, just as a matter of cold expediency; it will be Enlightened Self-interest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... demanded that we should prosecute operations till we got them, no matter what the cost might be. The rifles were worth little. The men and officers we lost were worth a great deal. It was unsound economics, but Imperialism and economics clash as often as honesty and self-interest. We were therefore committed to the policy of throwing good money after bad in order to keep up our credit; as a man who cannot pay his tradesmen, sends them fresh orders in lieu of settlement. Under these unsatisfactory conditions, the negotiations ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... deny charity; it is mysticism. In vain do you talk to me of fraternity and love: I remain convinced that you love me but little, and I feel very sure that I do not love you. Your friendship is but a feint, and, if you love me, it is from self-interest. I ask all that my products cost me, and only what they cost me: why do ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... attorney's weapons must necessarily be pointed almost invariably at our pockets! He is necessarily, also, called into action in cases when all the worst passions of our nature—our hatred and revenge, and our self-interest—are set in motion. Consider the mischief which might be constantly done on a grand scale in society, if the vast majority of attorneys and solicitors were not honorable, and able men! Conceive them, for a moment, disposed everywhere to stir up litigation, by availing themselves ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... is the king of kings. My friends and counsellors approaching me have said that I should perform that sacrifice. But, O Krishna, in respect of that matter, thy words shall be my guide. Of counsellers some from friendship do not notice the difficulties; others from motives of self-interest say only what is agreeable. Some again regard that which is beneficial to themselves as worthy of adoption. Men are seen to counsel thus on matters awaiting decision. But thou, O Krishna, art above such motives. Thou hast conquered both desire and anger. It behoveth thee to tell me ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... asking questions and saying little; and understands the art of putting others forward to save the necessity of posing before them; then, with a happy knack of its own, it draws and attaches others by the thread of the ruling passion of self-interest, keeping men of far greater abilities to play like puppets, and despising those whom it has brought down to its own level. The petty fixed idea naturally prevails; it has the advantage of persistence over the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... will therefore be acceptable! As to Egypt, I repeat once again, she was never more flourishing than now; a fact which none dream of disputing, except the priests, and those who retail their foolish words. And now give ear, if thou wouldst know the origin of Nitetis. Self-interest will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was less than a year old when this petition was presented. It was characteristic of Mormon duplicity to find their representatives in Great Britain appealing to Queen Victoria on the ground of self-interest, while their chiefs in the United States were pointing to the organization of the Battalion as a proof of their fidelity to the home government. Practically no notice was taken of this petition. Vancouver Island, was, however, held out to the converts in Great Britain as the one "gathering ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... that we could make to them; for we were aliens among them, while Pablo was of their own race and class. That we all were like to be done to death by this barbarous theocrat we did not for a moment doubt; but it was plain enough that every motive of self-interest must prompt him to put Pablo and the poor ass most summarily out of the way. And as the logic of these facts irresistibly presented itself in my mind a keen and heavy sorrow overcame me, for I could not shirk the conviction that, whoever might strike the blow ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... chraesimotatas], Rhetor. I. c. 9). This is why the ancients considered love for one's country the greatest virtue, although it is a very doubtful one, as it is made up of narrowness, prejudice, vanity, and an enlightened self-interest. Preceding the passage that has just been quoted, Aristotle enumerates all the virtues in order to explain them individually. They are Justice, Courage, Moderation, Magnificence ([Greek: megaloprepeia]), Magnanimity, Liberality, Gentleness, Reasonableness, ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... when I thought the whole thing out, that the man Black could be showing me this marked consideration only for some motive of self-interest. It was evident that he had been aware of my intention to follow him from the moment when Roderick purchased our new steam-yacht. He had put one of his own men craftily upon the ship to watch us, and ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... what I have said on this head in the fourth chapter. Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment—originating in the social instincts, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow-men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... agreement between the parties; for instance, if a negro man had married a woman belonging to another planter, a compromise was generally effected by the purchase of one of the parties, regardless of self-interest on the part of the owners. Thus families were kept together without regard to any pecuniary loss. Public sentiment was against the severing of ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... not much relish the people in Holland, because they seemed entirely devoted to self-interest, without any taste for pleasure or politeness; a species of disposition that could not be very agreeable to me, who always despised money, had an unbounded benevolence of heart, and loved pleasure beyond every other consideration. When I say ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... of peace which preaches it for the physical comfort and ease of mind attendant, and in its argument against war strives to smother righteous indignation or noble ideals by appealing to the fear of loss,—casting the pearls of peace before the swine of self-interest. But a popular outcry, whether well or ill founded, cannot be wholly disregarded by a representative Government; and, outside of the dangers to the coast,—which, in the case of the larger cities at least, were probably exaggerated,—there was certainly an opportunity for ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... tall-prowed ships sailing up the coast of the Tyrrhene sea, where he now had his headquarters. He did not reckon on the jealousy of his success which filled the breasts of the rulers of his country, a jealousy which even self-interest was unable to overcome. From the first he had borne their burden alone, and owing to the treachery and baseness of his own nation in the end it proved too ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... up before you. You know from your experience of juries (I mean no disparagement to you, or them) how much depends upon effect; and you are apt to attribute to others a desire to use, for purposes of deception and self-interest, the very instruments which you, in pure honesty and honour of purpose, and with a laudable desire to do your utmost for your client, know the temper and worth of so well, from constantly employing them yourselves. I really believe that to this circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... and the risk to herself was practically removed forever. Thus faded the old life out of Arthur's view, its sin-stained personages frightened off the scene by his well-used knowledge of their crimes. Whatever doubt they held about his real character, self-interest ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... regulating and limiting slavery. The shameful extermination of the native races of the West Indies is a long, sad history of kindly intentions and wise regulations on the part of the home government, made nugatory by the determined self-interest and heartless cruelty of the colonists. [Footnote: Lea, "The Indian Policy of Spain" (in Yale Review, August, 1899); Bourne, Spain in America, chap. xviii.] The fervor of Las Casas could readily obtain from the Spanish monarchs proclamations declaring the freedom of ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... the indifference with which he seemed to regard them, somewhat overawed his companion, and deterred him from making any attempts to enter upon conversation. His own reflections were moreover agitated by various surmises, and by plans of self-interest with which these were intimately connected. The travellers journeyed, therefore, in silence, until it was interrupted by the annunciation, on the part of the guide, that his 'naig had lost a fore-foot shoe, which, doubtless, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... by the superabundant currency. At the outset, in the discussions preliminary to the first issue of paper money, Mirabeau and others who had favored it had insisted that patriotism as well as an enlightened self-interest, would lead the people to keep up the value of paper money. The very opposite of this was now revealed, for there appeared, as another outgrowth of this disease, what has always been seen under similar circumstances. ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... field boded ill for their future relations. "Our next war will be with Bulgaria," said the man on the street in Athens, and this bellicose sentiment was reciprocated alike by the Bulgarian people and the Bulgarian army. The secular mutual enmities and animosities of the Greeks and Bulgarians, which self-interest had suppressed long enough to enable the Balkan Allies to make European Turkey their own, burst forth with redoubled violence under the stimulus of the imperious demand which the occasion now made upon them all for an equitable distribution of the conquered ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... elation and enthusiasm. After these, and guarded on either side by detached parties of troops, the captives, of barbaric and Grecian origin mostly, but here and there interspersed with men of other races—Jews, Syrians, and Huns—who, through contiguity of place or love of arms or self-interest, or a kindred hatred of the Roman rule, had been drawn into the battle—and who, having bravely stood their ground, striving for success, and with hearts well prepared for the consequences of failure, had been overtaken by the usual defeat, and dragged into utter and ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sagacious, should speak in praise of the king, both in his presence and absence. The courtier who attempts to obtain his end by employing force on the king, cannot keep his place long and incurs also the risk of death. None should, for the purpose of self-interest, open communications with the king's enemies.[8] Nor should one distinguish himself above the king in matters requiring ability and talents. He that is always cheerful and strong, brave and truthful, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... than of any other heroic personage; an affectionate awe has sometimes lifted him to heaven, a spiteful hate has often hurled him down to hell. Every nation, every party, faction, and cabal among his own and other peoples, has judged him from its own standpoint of self-interest and self-justification. Whatever chance there may be of reading the secrets of his life lies rather in a just consideration of the man in relation to his times, about which much is known, than in an attempt at the psychological dissection of an enigmatical nature, about which little ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... scarce be doubted, that vice and folly takes different turns, and some particular kinds of it are more open and avowed in some ages than in others; and, I suppose, it may be spoken of as very much the distinction of the present to profess a contracted spirit, and greater regards to self-interest, than appears to have been done formerly. Upon this account it seems worth while to inquire whether private interest is likely to be promoted in proportion to the degree in which self-love engrosses us, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... Dorothy," replied the queen. "God will not punish you for feeling the love which He Himself has put into your heart. I would willingly give my crown could I feel such love for a worthy man who would in return love me for myself. But I cannot feel, nor can I have faith. Self-interest, which is so dominant in all men, frightens me, ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... argues a case solely on rational grounds and supposably with fair consideration of both sides; he advocates one side for the purpose of carrying it, and under the influence of motives that may range all the way from cold self-interest to the highest and noblest impulses; he pleads a cause, or pleads for a person with still more intense feeling. Beseech, entreat, and implore imply impassioned earnestness, with direct and tender appeal to personal considerations. Press and urge imply more ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... them continually into contact with inferiors, are, of all people, the least addicted to insolence or defect of courtesy. Uniform suavity of manner is indeed rarely found, except in men of high rank. Doubtless this may arise upon a motive of self-interest, jealous of giving the least opening or invitation to the retorts of ill-temper or low breeding. But, whatever be its origin, such I believe to be the fact. In a very long conversation of a general nature upon the course of ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... many manly virtues, like courage, fortitude, heroism, and self-sacrifice. A hard and rocky soil necessitated industry, thrift, and severe punishment on those who stole the fruits of labor, even as miners in the Rocky Mountains sacredly abstain from appropriating the gold of their fellow-laborers. Self-interest and self-preservation dictated many laws which secured the welfare of society. The natural sacredness of home guarded the virtue of wives and children; the natural sense of justice raised indignation ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... the Duke of Sussex, they can serve with sincerity and attachment. This is of great importance to you, as it is by no means the same thing to have people who aid and assist you with feelings of real attachment, or merely from cold and calculating motives of political expediency and self-interest. This being done, no other step should be taken without consulting seriously. The very time which is necessary to attain this end is favourable to you, as it is your greatest interest for the present moment to act most cautiously and to gain as much time as possible. In high positions it is excessively ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... agree. Those of us who would assert our freedom should understand the right anti-militarist position, because in its exponents we shall find allies at many points. But with Mr. Angell's book it is otherwise. These points emerge: the basis of morality is self-interest; the Great Powers have nothing to gain by destroying one another, they should agree to police and exploit the territory of the "backward races"; if the statesmen take a different view from the financiers, the financiers can ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... such immediate and material benefits as we see in the recent British budgets, as if they were concessions, only hiding the fact that they would soon have conferred these benefits on the workers through their own self-interest, whether the workers had given them their political support ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... Conferences," where difficulties were discussed, debates held and counsels given. It was not easy to belong to the "Conferences." Members were pledged to offer their lives completely to God and to renounce all self-interest. Nevertheless, they increased rapidly in number, and the Conferences were attended by all the most ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... will be followed by schemes for diffusing it. Seeing how little was done by the wisdom of former times for education and public health, for insurance, association, and savings, for the protection of labour against the law of self-interest, and how much has been accomplished in this generation, there is reason in the fixed belief that a great change was needed, and that democracy has not striven in vain. Liberty, for the mass, is not happiness; and institutions are ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... are as rare as justice, of which they are but two special forms. Self-interest is an inexhaustible source of convenient illusions. The number of beings who wish to see truly is extraordinarily small. What governs men is the fear of truth, unless truth is useful to them, which is as much as to say that self-interest is the principle of the common philosophy or ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... just dying to change off her husband for the beau that was devoting all his energies to me. I felt that the crisis had come that self-interest and a high moral standard demanded that I should keep this man from the lure of a married woman. I owed it to myself, to Dempster, and, above all, to the cause of morality, to hold that man firmly ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... fourth share. Thus the worthy man, who was now nearly seventy years old, could spend his thirty thousand a year as he pleased, without feeling that he injured the prospects of his children, all finely provided for, whose attentions and proofs of affection were, moreover, not prompted by self-interest. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... experience teaches us that this is to be expected. Not only the opponents of emancipation in the south may be expected to throw impediments in our way, but the prejudice against the unfortunate and degraded Africans, and the self-interest of many others will also be arrayed against us. Yet we would calmly and dispassionately appeal to the good sense of the people of this nation—to those who exercise the sovereign authority in this great republic—this boasted land of freedom and equal rights—and recommend ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... to a certain point are virtues. Beyond that point they become vices. Certainly we should think well of ourselves, and then act so that this good opinion is merited. Self-interest and selfishness are the main-springs of progress. Most of us need some inducement to do good work. It is well that it is so. The ones who deserve the great rewards generally get them, whether ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... passions and no principles, whose chief delight is to get drunk—to kick up party feuds in fairs and markets, and who have, in fact, a natural love for strife. But all are not so. There are many respectable men here who, though a little touched, as is only natural after all, by a little cacoethes of self-interest, yet, never suffer it to interfere with the steadiness and propriety of their conduct, or the love of peace and good will. It is these men, who, in truth, sustain the character of the Orange-Institution. These are the men of independence and education who repress—as far as they ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... Several influences had been at work to make a new man of him. Hitherto his life had been unconsciously selfish. It had been all getting, and no giving. That had seemed inevitable in his college days; but when they were over, self-interest had still remained the strongest force. To attain, to gain what he desired most for himself, had brought him to this country practice, and for a while he was in danger of quenching finally the generous ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... ashamed. He makes no parade of logic; he is only a plain freeholder like the mass whom he addresses, though he knows twenty times as much as many writers of more pretension. He never appeals to passion or imagination; what he strives to enlist on his side is homely self-interest, and the ordinary sense of what is right and reasonable. There is little regularity of method in the development of his argument; that he leaves to more anxious and elaborate masters of style. For himself he is content to start from ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... saved, that would not preclude the possibility that in the universe the happy creatures infinitely outnumber those who are unhappy. Such examples as that of a prince who punishes only the leaders of rebels or of a general who has a regiment decimated, are of no importance here. Self-interest compels the prince and the general to pardon the guilty, even though they should remain wicked. God only pardons those who become better: he can distinguish them; and this severity is more consistent with perfect justice. ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... preventive or a cure for a malady which had resisted all known remedies. His rescued patient sounds his praises, and a wide circle of his patient's friends joins in a chorus of eulogies. Self-love applauds him for his sagacity. Self-interest congratulates him on his having found the road to fortune; the sense of having proved a benefactor of his race smooths the pillow on which he lays his head to dream of the brilliant future opening before him. If a single coincidence ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... those aspects of him which we have already discussed, and those to which we are coming. It has sometimes been disputed whether his Toryism was much more than mere sentiment; and of course there were not wanting in his own day fellows of the baser sort who endeavoured to represent it as mere self-interest. But no impartial person nowadays, I suppose, doubts, however meanly he may think of Scott's political creed, that that creed was part, not of his interests, not even of his mere crotchets and crazes, literary and other, but of his inmost heart and soul. That reverence for the past, ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... not fail of having devoted followers among the able, the ambitious, and the vain. It must also be confessed that Lord Vargrave neglected no baser and less justifiable means to cement his power by placing it on the sure rock of self-interest. No jobbing was too gross for him. He was shamefully corrupt in the disposition of his patronage; and no rebuffs, no taunts from his official brethren, could restrain him from urging the claims of any of his creatures upon ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Individuals all over the country—dentists and surgeons—were doing the same thing; and it was more difficult to prevent this than to execute the game-laws. For such an order of affairs the decision of the French Academy was largely responsible, for if men only find a shadow of right on the side of self-interest, they are likely enough to ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... them. In their present abject position they enjoy a certain kind of protection from their owners, who, if not always governed by motives of humanity, are at least generally susceptible of the influences of self-interest, and take care to feed and clothe them, and provide for them in cases of sickness; and although this is done at the expense of their labor, it relieves them from responsibilities which they are scarcely prepared to assume. To set them free against their own will, or even admitting that, in common ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... seat in his heart. The fact is, he had permitted his heart to be gratified by La Valliere's innocent confusion. He had dreamed of a pure affection—of an affection for Louis the man, and not the sovereign—of an affection free from all self-interest; and his heart, simpler and more youthful than he had imagined it to be, had to meet that other heart that had revealed itself to him by its aspirations. The commonest thing in the complicated history of love, is the double inoculation of love to which any two hearts are subjected; ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... when separated from its verb and from its antecedents, and emphasized by isolation: "There are many persons that, though unscrupulous, are commonly good-tempered, and that, if not strongly incited by self-interest, are ready for the most part to think of the interest of their neighbours." Shakespeare frequently uses who after that when the relative is repeated. See "Shakespearian ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... very inferiority interests her, and makes her want to remedy it and mother him. Egoism is in the impulse: it is pleasant to have a feeling of superiority, and to be assured that it can be maintained. If now, that feeling he mingled with sexual curiosity and economic self-interest, it obviously supplies sufficient motivation to account for so natural and banal a thing as a marriage. Perhaps the greatest of all these factors is the mere disparity, the naked strangeness. A woman could not ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... not so; it cannot be so; it shall not be so! In seeking the Marquess I was unquestionably impelled by a mere feeling of self-interest; but I have advised him to no course of action in which his welfare is not equally consulted with my own. Indeed, if not principle, interest would make me act faithfully towards him, for my fortunes are bound up in his. But am I entitled, I, who can lose nothing, am I entitled to play with ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... gathered in debate The statesmen and the legislators, who Are learned in the matters of the State. Alike to God and to their country true These men should be, and high above the rest Exalted, seeking not self-interest. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... ends, the crucial problem of why he thinks one course rather than another likely to produce pleasure, is untouched. Does the guidance of man's conscience explain? How then does he happen to have the particular conscience which he has? The theory of economic self-interest? But how do men come to conceive their interest in one way rather than another? The desire for security, or prestige, or domination, or what is vaguely called self-realization? How do men conceive their security, what do they consider ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... him no escape from the world. He was a man wholly governed by self-interest and the verdict of society, and his religion was simply the celestial version of these motives. He has conscience enough to restrain him from damaging excesses, and to keep him within the limits of the petty vices and paying virtues of a comfortable man—a conscience ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... and that if his son accompanied me, he must take leave of him for ever. This was too much for the father's heart; he embraced his son, and would no longer think of a separation. He was also overcome with sorrow at the idea of seeing me for the last time; and a little self-interest probably mingled in the melancholy look he cast upon a hatchet which I had given him, as he exclaimed—"I shall never get any ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... Gladstone tells his father (Jan. 17th, 1832) how the excitement has subsided, but still he sees at hand a great crisis in the history of mankind. New principles, he says, prevail in morals, politics, education. Enlightened self-interest is made the substitute for the old bonds of unreasoned attachment, and under the plausible maxim that knowledge is power, one kind of ignorance is made to take the place of another kind. Christianity teaches that the head is to be exalted through ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... are moved by regard for the best interests of the public. Isn't there a little touch of self-interest back of it all? It seems to me there is, and I don't claim to have all the virtues—only nine or ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this strange procedure had its inception in knowledge of his whereabouts, and in a suspicion that the Laniers and William Dodge knew incriminating facts which they theretofore suppressed through motives of discretion or self-interest? Probably the Laniers yielded to pressure, and falsely accused Oswald of murdering Alice Webster. Even now, fate's coils may be closing about ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... has often been asked, "Is it safe to buy land in Argentina?" But the drift of this query too often is merely self-interest; in other words, it really means "Can I successfully speculate in land?" Clearly the matter is solely a personal one, no other consideration is thought of, so one is tempted to give an evasive answer. Should the questioner, however, be a young fellow, with ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... society, humbling himself in all the hypocrisy of politeness; with ascetic good-breeding, preferring every creature's ease and convenience to his own, practising a continual system of self-denial, such as almost implied a total annihilation of self-interest and self-love. All this was strikingly contrasted with the selfishness which he had recently betrayed, when he was in personal danger. Yet the influence of polite manners prevailed so far as to make his former conduct be forgotten by most ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... touches his own life or the course of his own affairs: he is not pursuing a business, but satisfying as he can an insatiable mind. No doubt the highest form of this noble curiosity is that which leads us, without self-interest, to look abroad upon all the field of man's life at home and in society, seeking more excellent forms of government, more righteous ways of labor, more elevating forms of art, and which makes the greater among us statesmen, reformers, ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... Mr. Cowperwood very solemnly. There was a kind of mutual sympathy, understanding, and admiration between the two men, but it was still heavily veiled by self-interest. To Mr. McKenty Cowperwood was interesting because he was one of the few business men he had met who were not ponderous, pharasaical, even hypocritical when they were dealing ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... men renowned for eloquence, he went with the popular feeling of his times; he embodied its passions, its prejudices—but also that keen sense of self-interest, which is the invariable characteristic of a multitude. He was the sense of the commonalty carried to its highest degree. Whatever the faults, it may be the crimes, of a career singularly prosperous and splendid, amidst events the darkest ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dreaded than the widespread demoralization. Savings banks are a means of inoculating the people, the classes least restrained by education or by reason from schemes that are tacitly criminal, with the vices bred of self-interest. See what ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... smoke would poison the air and blast the fields and parks; that the coach lines would be ruined, horses would no longer be of value, and coach-makers, harness-makers, inn-keepers and others along the great roads would have nothing to do, etc., etc. In the face of ignorance, ridicule, contempt, and self-interest, Stephenson firmly maintained the safety of a good road, the stability of his engines and cars, the harmlessness of smoke and noise, and the facility with which animals became indifferent to trains. He said that at Killingworth cattle would not stop feeding as the trains went by. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... the other twenty-two years old. These successive losses crushed a man whom thirty years of happiness left without defence against misfortune. For a long time his reason was despaired of. Even the sight of a client, coming to trouble his grief, to recount stupid tales of self-interest, exasperated him. It was not surprising that he sold out his professional effects and good-will at half price. He wished to establish himself at his ease in his grief, with the certainty of not being ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... succeeded Mr. Grosvenor. He said he had been long aware how much self-interest could pervert the judgment; but he was not apprized of the full power of it, till the Slave Trade became a subject of discussion. He had always conceived that the custom of trafficing in human beings had been incautiously begun, and without any reflection upon it; for ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... narrowed, and the brig, picking her way daintily through the traffic, sought her old berth at Buller's Wharf. It was occupied by a deaf sailing-barge, which, moved at last by self-interest, not unconnected with its paint, took up a less desirable position and consoled itself ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... more impressive and dramatic chapter than that which records the development of the religion of the Jews. Passing over its obscure beginnings in the primitive Semitic cult, we find this religion first clearly defined as tribal self-interest sanctioned by Yahweh.[92:8] God's interest in his chosen people determines the prosperity of him who ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... triumphantly predict, men, under the ascendancy of science, will act for the common good, with the same mechanical certainty as bees; though the common good of the human hive would perhaps not be easy to define. But in the meantime mankind, or some portions of it, may be in danger of an anarchy of self-interest, compressed for the purpose of political order, by a despotism ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... loss of a great part of their authority and prestige, had become less formidable antagonists, their financial extortions had waxed so intolerable as to suggest the strongest arguments appealing to the self-interest of kings. Hence the frequency with which the demand for "a reformation in the head and the members" resounded from all parts of the Western Church. And hence, too, those memorable councils of Pisa, Constance, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... self-deceivers, believing to some extent the deceptions which they practised, and desiring more or less the welfare of their dupes; but others were thorough, as well as clever, rogues, whose sole object was self-interest. ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... know as soon as I receive the answers. I wish you would also send me your lectures, and likewise Sebastian Bach's five-part Mass, when I will at once remit you the money for both. Pray, do not imagine that I am at all guided by self-interest; I am free from all petty vanity; in godlike Art alone dwells the impulse which gives me strength to sacrifice the best part of my life to the celestial Muse. From childhood my greatest pleasure and felicity consisted in working for others; you ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace
... speak and seem as though he were all that the ideal leader ought to be, as though inspiration filled him; he would express what Dick could only feel and the Dean do no more than adumbrate; nay, in time, as he grew zealous in the cause, his self-interest and personal ambition would be conquered, or at least would be so blended and fused with the nobility of the cause as to lose any grossness or meanness which might be thought to characterise them in an uncompounded condition. All this ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... Weakness, piety, and self-interest combined to make Henry III. acquiesce in the legate's exactions. "I neither wish nor dare," said he, "to oppose the lord pope in anything." The union of king and legate was irresistible. The lay opposition was slow and feeble. Gilbert Marshal, ...
— The History of England - From the Accession of Henry III. to the Death of Edward III. (1216-1377) • T.F. Tout
... they bore so much for a stubborn and unwise king. Yet these grass-covered mounds are not simply memorials of suffering and privation; each could tell a story of fidelity to principle, of forgetfulness of self-interest, of devotion and self-sacrifice—the grandest story that human annals can tell—a story that should be ever held up to the admiration and emulation of the young men and women of the present times, who enjoy the fruits of the labours of those ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... several causes, foremost among them the elective system, have almost banished competition in scholarship from our colleges; while the inadequate character of our tests, and the corporate nature of self-interest in these latter times, raise serious difficulties in making ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... Thus urged, by self-interest, as well as sentiment, to mercy, the provision was got upon deck by daylight, and a division was made. The soldiers, with generosity born of remorse, were for giving half to the marooned men, but Barker exclaimed against this. "When the schooner ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... ye do works of devotion and love, let them be with full hearts, and see that the motives of your actions be not hopes of gain or self-interest; ...
— The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ - The Original Text of Nicolas Notovitch's 1887 Discovery • Nicolas Notovitch
... his master as to a superior being; but the shrewd old vidame added a good round sum yearly to the wages of his former provost of gallantry, which strengthened the ties of natural affection by the bonds of self-interest, and obtained for the old gentleman as much care as the most loving mistress could bestow on a sick friend. It was this pearl of the old-fashioned comedy-valets, relic of the last century, auxiliary incorruptible from lack of passions to satisfy, on whom the old vidame and ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... the sister of his wife, dead so many years ago, he had found a spirit stronger than his own. He valued her; he had said more than once, to those who he thought would never repeat it to her, that she was a "great woman"; but self-interest was the mainspring of his appreciation. Since she had come again to his house—she had lived with him once before for two years when his wife was slowly dying—it had been a different place. Housekeeping had cost less than before, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... improve from self-interest and not have our faults eliminated by suffering. We are given no conscious memory of our last life, so we go on fighting for whatever desire still holds us until its achievement brings such overwhelming pain that ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... heroism that led this brave soldier in gray so utterly to forget himself for the sake of doing a deed of mercy to his enemies. There is more grandeur in five minutes of such self-renunciation than in a whole lifetime of self-interest and self-seeking. There is something Christly in it. How poor, paltry, and mean, alongside the records of such deeds, appear men's selfish ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller
... Rome the industry and zeal of the inferior clergy are kept more alive by the powerful motive of self-interest, than perhaps in any established protestant church. The parochial clergy derive many of them, a very considerable part of their subsistence from the voluntary oblations of the people; a source of revenue, which confession gives them many opportunities of improving. ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... say, rather, in the universal self-interest. That's the trait of human nature which we have in mind when we speak of enlightenment. The aim of practical Radicalism is to instruct men's selfishness. Astonishing how capable it is of being instructed! The mistake of the Socialist lies in his crediting men with far too much ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... in arms, which had been almost quenched by that of self-interest, by the desire of acquiring feudal possessions, by the slavish subjection of the vassals under their lieges, and by the intrigues of the bishops, who intermeddled with all feudal matters, also reappeared. A great universal society of Christian knights, bound ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... ingredients which constituted the shepherd's grief. There was something corresponding—with such correspondence as may exist between the divine and the human—to the personal affection, and something to the loss of property. When we think of the Redeemer's plan and work as wholly apart from self-interest, and undertaken simply for the benefit of the fallen race, we form a conception of redemption true as far as it goes, but the conception is not complete. The object which we, from our view-point, strive to measure, has another and opposite side. For his own sake as well ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... favourable reception, by pointing out the almost necessarily direct pecuniary benefit ultimately derivable from his unpalatable tax; and the instant that he has disclosed his proposal, in the same breath carries our attention to a similar topic—an assurance calculated to arouse the self-interest and excite the approbation first of the commercial classes, and then of all classes, by the means this tax will give the Minister of proposing "great commercial reforms," and "reducing the cost of living." No power of description we possess can adequately set before the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... what they are worth to him," Mannering answered. "It is all a matter of self-interest. He has some idea of making me the stepping-stone to his advancement. I have a place just now in his scheme of life. But as for friendship! Borrowdean does not know the meaning ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... tenor was thus formulated: "In various degrees[123] and with different qualities of guilt all the Allied and Associated leaders have dallied with dishonesty. While professing to seek naught save the welfare of mankind, they have harbored thoughts of self-interest. The result has been a progressive loss of faith in them by their own peoples severally, and by the Allied, Associated, and neutral peoples jointly. The tide of public trust in them has reached its ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... subsist without any religion better than with one, and that they are able to supply the place of any good which may be in it by a project of their own,—namely, by a sort of education they have imagined, founded in a knowledge of the physical wants of men, progressively carried to an enlightened self-interest, which, when well understood, they tell us, will identify with an interest more enlarged and public. The scheme of this education has been long known. Of late they distinguish it (as they have got ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... elevate their people and to free millions of innocent, persecuted men from the bitterest misery, have the right smilingly to shrug their shoulders when irresponsible fanatics or pitiable paid scribes reproach them with self-interest ...
— Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Zionism by Nordau; and Anti-Semitism by Gottheil • Max Simon Nordau
... School, of course; it is convenient to have them out of the way while Sunday's dinner is being cooked and the afternoon snooze being taken. Besides, though the Sunday School teaching is a fearful hotch-potch of heaven, hell and self-interest, the tea-fights concerts and picnics connected with it are well worth going to. But the household religion remains a pure sparrowism, and an excellent creed it is for those ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... conscious falsehood. Now, there is falsehood, nay (which seems strange), even sycophancy, in the old undistinguishing homage to all that is called classical. Yet why should men be sycophants in cases where they must be disinterested? Sycophancy grows out of fear, or out of mercenary self-interest. But what can there exist of either pointing to an old Greek poet? Cannot a man give his free opinion upon Homer, without fearing to be waylaid by his ghost? But it is not that which startles him from publishing ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... dislikes. The great mass of men are governed by their preferences. What they like, they strive after; what they do not like, they neglect, or refuse, or resist. Many of these preferences, though not harmful in themselves, lead continually to that subjection of the will to self-interest, and help that self-satisfaction and self-love which are the deadly enemies of the soul. Now, true self-denial is the denial, for Christ's sake and the sake of souls, of these preferences. To say to God: "I sacrifice ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... law passed to make everybody else a teetotaler. Some people have resolved to eschew luxury, and they want taxes laid to make others eschew luxury. The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanisms; and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans from ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... power is a compound of time and patience. Powerful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the constant exercise of human power put to the service of self. It rests on two sentiments only,—self-love and self-interest; but self-interest being to a certain extent compact and intelligent self-love, the visible sign of real superiority, it follows that self-love and self-interest are two parts of the same whole,—egotism. From this arises, perhaps, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... of foreign affairs was based on the idea that diplomacy was {184} mainly a matter of bargain and sale, with national commerce as the deciding factor. He believed so firmly that national self-interest would lead all European powers to make suitable treaties with the United States that he considered the navy as wholly superfluous, and would have been glad to sell it. But when circumstances arose calling for a different sort of diplomacy, he was ready ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... enthusiasts—like those two I have just been drawing out—for their tools; we don't let them make tools of us. Osmond, you know, is jackal to an asylum in London; Dr. Wycherley, I have heard, keeps two or three such establishments by himself or his agents: blinded by self-interest and that of their clique—what an egotistical world it is, to be sure!—they would confine a melancholy youth in a gloomy house, among afflicted persons, and give him nothing to do but brood; and so turn the scale against his reason. But I have my children's interest at heart more ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... vanity, in spite of indolence and base desire, does also respond to Good Will and display Good Will. You may declare that all the good things in life are the result of causes over which man has no control, that in pursuit of an "enlightened self-interest" he makes things better inadvertently. But think of any good thing you know! Was it thus ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... prisoner's destiny should be placed, measurably, in his own hands; he must be put into circumstances where he will be able, through his own exertions, to continually better his own conditions. A regulated self-interest must be brought into ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... would say that his adulatory manner was originally adopted under strong promptings of self-interest, and that his absurdly over-acted deference to persons from whom he expects no patronage is the unreflecting persistence of habit—just as those who live with the deaf will shout to ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... opinion, there was one feature peculiar to this state and of great importance in retaining the affections of the citizens, and checking all thoughts of desertion, or abandonment of the country: namely, self-interest, the strength and life of all human action. (144) This was peculiarly engaged in the Hebrew state, for nowhere else did citizens possess their goods so securely, as did the subjects of this community, for the latter ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part IV] • Benedict de Spinoza
... Enford from their quotas rather than run such a desperate risk. Well! I had all the credit of the offer, without any of the trouble and expence of putting it into execution. I have detailed these facts as another proof of my enthusiasm. I never acted from any cold calculating notions of self-interest. If I thought it right to perform an act of public or private duty, having once made up my mind, I never suffered any selfish considerations to interpose to prevent my carrying ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... are gathered in debate The statesmen and the legislators, who Are learned in the matters of the State. Alike to God and to their country true These men should be, and high above the rest Exalted, seeking not self-interest. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... sway; whereas both Cambaceres and Lebrun, overawed by his presence, proved eminently serviceable in drawing over to the interests of the Chief Consul innumerable persons, of their own ways of thinking originally, but no longer such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of self-interest—those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of which Napoleon, while at the Tuileries, held the master-key. It was thus, also, that, in forming his ministry, he grouped together men, each of whom detested ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... as were the military successes of the British arms, the reign of George II was morally torpid. With the exception of a few public men like Pitt, the majority of the Whig party (S479) seemed animated by no higher motive than self-interest. It was an age whose want of faith, coarseness, and brutality were well protrayed by Hogarth's pencil ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... of hire to the labourer comes far short of his necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to threaten actual famine? Is the poor labourer to be abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest, supported by the sword of law, especially when there is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers themselves has concurred with the errors of government to ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... world, however, and of the facts, grim or seductive, of life, Doggie learned little. Whether by force of some streak of honesty, whether through sheer laziness, whether through canny self-interest, Phineas McPhail conspired with Mrs. Trevor to keep Doggie in darkest ignorance. His reading was selected like that of a young girl in a convent: he was taken only to the most innocent of plays: foreign theatres, casinos, and such-like wells ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his "natural superiors," and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstacies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless ...
— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx
... Innumerable pamphlets bear tribute to his devotion to the King and his policy,—pamphlets written in an easy, swinging, good-natured style, with little imagination and less passion; pamphlets whose principal arguments are based upon a reasonable self-interest, and for the comprehension of which no more intellectual power is called for than Providence has doled out to the average citizen. Had Defoe lived in the nineteenth century, instead of in the seventeenth, ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... but the forms of thought change with the times. The pursuit of self-interest is a form of thought ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... have said that I should perform that sacrifice. But, O Krishna, in respect of that matter, thy words shall be my guide. Of counsellers some from friendship do not notice the difficulties; others from motives of self-interest say only what is agreeable. Some again regard that which is beneficial to themselves as worthy of adoption. Men are seen to counsel thus on matters awaiting decision. But thou, O Krishna, art above such motives. Thou hast ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... almost understandable to Mrs. Travers in the perfection of their melancholy contempt, and gave Lingard a further insight into the character of the ally secured to him by the diplomacy of Belarab. He was only half reassured by this assumption of superior detachment. He trusted to the man's self-interest more; for Daman no doubt looked to the reconquered kingdom for the reward of dignity and ease. His father and grandfather (the men of whom Jorgenson had written as having been hanged for an example ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... two years of his official tenure, Malcourt already completely dominated him, often bullied him, criticised him to his face, betrayed no illusions concerning the absolute self-interest which dictated Portlaw's policy in all things, coolly fixed and regulated all salaries, including his own, and, in short, matched Portlaw's undisguised selfishness with a cynicism so sparkling and so frankly ruthless that Portlaw ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... mind our own experience during the year past. Why were so many among us surprised and disappointed at the course pursued by the English, generally, in reference to our domestic difficulties? Simply because they forgot, that, with the mass of mankind, self-interest is a far stronger motive than philanthropy. That England should sympathize, even in the slightest degree, with a rebellious conspiracy against a kindred and friendly nation,—a conspiracy based openly and confessedly on the extension and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the average man is not consciously aware twice a year of that conglomerate of details which the critics call real life. He holds one stout thread, at any rate, to guide him through the maze—the thread of self-interest. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... impossible ally; the French Count was a negligible quantity when compared with an English viscount whose ancestry threw back to the Conquest and whose estates covered half of a midland shire; but there remained, active as ever, the self-interest of a poor widow from whose despairing grasp ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... living substance is the same. Americans know at least as well as Englishmen what the most intelligent of French Republicans apparently have still to learn, that liberty is impossible without loyalty to something higher than self-interest and self-will. ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... be a dozen reasons. Purely as an hypothesis, Grell may have a hold on these people by threatening them with exposure for some crime they have committed. Self-interest is the finest incentive I know ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... golden prize, and adds another melancholy confirmation, to those already upon record, of the fallacy of all human anticipations. It matters little what may have been the motives of his conduct; whether duty, affection, or that more powerful incentive self-interest; how long or how devotedly he may have humoured the foibles or eccentricities of his relative; or what sacrifices he may have made to enable him to comply with his unreasonable caprices: the result is almost invariably the same. The last year of the Heir Presumptive's purgatory, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... them the unfailing success at sight of which his townsmen stood amazed. All human power is a compound of time and patience. Powerful beings will and wait. The life of a miser is the constant exercise of human power put to the service of self. It rests on two sentiments only,—self-love and self-interest; but self-interest being to a certain extent compact and intelligent self-love, the visible sign of real superiority, it follows that self-love and self-interest are two parts of the same whole,—egotism. From this ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... children. Mrs. Peter Melcombe formed for herself few theories; she was a woman dull of feeling and slow of thought; she knew as a fact that her aged relative could not bear music. So, as a matter of duty and self-interest, she stopped her child's little voice when she could, and if he asked, "Why does grandmother cry when I sing?" she would answer, "Nobody knows," for she had not reflected how those to whom music is always welcome must have neither an empty heart nor a remorseful ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... tearing my coat in half to share with my neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it, 'Catch several hares and you won't catch one.' Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organised in society—the more whole coats, so to say—the ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... conveniences of life, the world had nothing more that he chose to covet, nothing more that it could give him. He was not rich; but his habits were simple, and, except by reason of his sickness and its consequences, unexpensive. At all times he was far above the meanness of self-interest, particularly in its meanest shape, a love of money. Doering tells us, that a bookseller having travelled from a distance expressly to offer him a higher price for the copyright of Wallenstein, at that ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... appearance and manner that they had not thought it necessary to behave very rigidly. It later occurred to this gentleman that the promptness with which the pretty mendicants procured him an interview with the Superior had a flavor of self-interest in; and that he who came to the Conservatorio in the place of a father might have been for a moment ignorantly viewed as a yet dearer and tenderer possibility. From whatever danger there was in this ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells
... as to Wages in the Lord's Service.—The instructive and inspiring Parable of the Laborers was called forth by Peter's question of self-interest—"What shall we have therefore?" In tender mercy the Lord refrained from directly rebuking His impulsive servant for undue concern as to the wage to be expected; but He turned the incident to excellent purpose by making it the text of a valuable lesson. The following treatment by ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... esprit de corps was sure to animate the nobles generally, that they would make common cause in case one of their number were attacked, and would support him against the crown with the zeal inspired by self-interest. Thus the Parthian nobility were far more powerful and independent than any similar class under the Achaemenian, Sassanian, Modern Persian, or Turkish sovereigns. They exercised a real control over the monarch, and had a voice in the direction of the Empire. Like the great feudal ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... It will create in your soul an inexpressible aspiration to draw further away from this old world with its trifles and its follies and to draw nearer to Christ, to be more like him in your inner life, and to act more like him in your outward life. If you look only at self and self-interest, your spiritual aspirations will fade away; but as you look away from self and behold Him who is altogether lovely, the more you look upon him the greater will be your desire to be conformed to his likeness ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... given. I am told that he declares that he will take us back to the Loangwa; make war and involve us in it, deprive us of food, &c.: this succeeds in terrifying the boys. He thinks that we have some self-interest to secure in passing through the country, and therefore he has a right to a share in the gain. When told it was for a public benefit, he pulled down the underlid of the right eye.[49] He believes we shall profit by our journey, though he knows not ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... have any taint of the blood which you discover inclines you toward guile, insincerity, and untruthfulness fortify yourself by the reflection that insincerity is a losing game. Put it on the low ground of self-interest, and be ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... this deed of kindness, even though it was affected by self-interest, he had already drunk of the cup tempered with camphor? The desires of his frail human flesh, desires which had had their renaissance since Millicent's appearance, were they quite banished? Had the woman in her white tent meant nothing to him? As if in contradiction to his words, he ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... never been free from the exercise of the individual struggle for existence, no matter how highly society is developed nor to what extent group activity prevails. The same law continues in relation to the survival of the group along with other groups, and as individual self-interest, the normal function of the individual, may pass into selfishness, so group interest may pass into group selfishness, and the dominant idea of the group may be its own survival. This develops institutionalism, which has been evidenced in every ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... Earth? Pride and Envy likewise are killed thereby; for everyone shall look upon each other as equal in the Creation, every man, indeed, being a perfect Creation of himself. And so this second Adam, Christ the Restorer, stops or dams up the running of those stinking waters of self-interest, and causes the waters of life and liberty to run plentifully in and through the Creation, making the Earth one Store House, and every man and woman to live in the Law of Righteousness and Peace, members of ...
— The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth • Lewis H. Berens
... relations between two men happen to be in jeopardy, there is least danger of an ensuing quarrel if the friendly intercourse has been of artificial growth, on either side. In this case, the promptings of self-interest, and the laws of politeness, have been animating influences throughout; acting under conditions which assist the effort of self-control. And for this reason: the man who has never really taken a high place in our regard is unprovided with those ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... opposition, from the advocates of Slavery, we are well aware. All past experience teaches us that this is to be expected. Not only the opponents of emancipation in the south may be expected to throw impediments in our way, but the prejudice against the unfortunate and degraded Africans, and the self-interest of many others will also be arrayed against us. Yet we would calmly and dispassionately appeal to the good sense of the people of this nation—to those who exercise the sovereign authority in this great republic—this boasted ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Development. There is another international force which expresses itself in the same sense. The voice of abstract justice raised against war is fortified by the voice of concrete self-interest. The interests of the propertied classes, and therefore of the masses dependent upon them, are to-day so widely distributed throughout the world that whenever any country is plunged into a disastrous war there ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... "that is a strong motive for revenge with a naturally pitiless, vindictive woman. But is that all? Had your mistress any hold over her? Is there any self-interest mixed up along with this motive of vengeance? Think a little, William. Has anything ever happened in the house to compromise this woman, or to make ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest. ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... said with heat, "I imagine the mainspring of all our actions is, after all, self-interest. Now in the local institutions I, as a nobleman, see nothing that could conduce to my prosperity, and the roads are not better and could not be better; my horses carry me well enough over bad ones. Doctors and dispensaries are no use to me. An arbitrator of disputes ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... everywhere unchallenged. Conversely, the duties and the services of the state are implicitly recognized, and, as a rule, faithfully discharged. It is this happy blend of authority with free will, of sentiment with self-interest, of duties with rights, that distinguishes the Indian Empire under the British crown from any other dominion of which we read in history. The princes have gained prestige instead of losing it. Their rank is not diminished, and their privileges have become more secure. They ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... news of the day! No great part of what he learns immediately touches his own life or the course of his own affairs: he is not pursuing a business, but satisfying as he can an insatiable mind. No doubt the highest form of this noble curiosity is that which leads us, without self-interest, to look abroad upon all the field of man's life at home and in society, seeking more excellent forms of government, more righteous ways of labor, more elevating forms of art, and which makes the greater among us statesmen, reformers, philanthropists, ...
— On Being Human • Woodrow Wilson
... that the chroniclers of the time fed on eagerly, and that the world has devoured eagerly ever since. Rich were those years in intrigue and adventure, and many and rapid were the changing fortunes of favorites. No one could tell what a day might bring forth. The woman of one hour might go the next. Self-interest stimulated the ambitious seekers of favors to constant endeavor. Grim, determined strugglers for social preference frequented the salons with smiling faces that sometimes glowed with pride and satisfaction, ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... chuckle-headed, crafty-looking native of Sweden, who had been long a resident of the West Indies. I represented our case in the most forcible language I could command; and already aware that some men will be more likely to do a kind act from motives of self-interest than the promptings of a benevolent heart, I told him we were anxious to proceed to the United states, and if he would promise us the privilege of working our passage, we would go on board forthwith and assist in taking ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... Imperial prestige, demanded that we should prosecute operations till we got them, no matter what the cost might be. The rifles were worth little. The men and officers we lost were worth a great deal. It was unsound economics, but Imperialism and economics clash as often as honesty and self-interest. We were therefore committed to the policy of throwing good money after bad in order to keep up our credit; as a man who cannot pay his tradesmen, sends them fresh orders in lieu of settlement. Under these unsatisfactory conditions, the negotiations opened. They did not, however, ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... declaration of first principles, and none the less affecting, because it came from the lips of a faithful, ignorant old man. It was just such simple loyalty that natures like Leroux's never knew, frustrating the most cunning plans based on self-interest. ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... triumph of loyalty and self-interest, and such is its limit. "A regimental cloak," continues our author, "may sometimes be seen covering a fat body inclosed in all the robes of the Turkish costume; the whole bundle, including the fur-lined gown, being strapped together round the waist. Some of the figures are literally as ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... barking. Besides, Auld Jock had said, with his last breath, "Gang—awa'—hame—laddie!" It is not to be supposed Bobby had forgotten that, since he remembered and obeyed every other order of that beloved voice. But there, self-interest, love of liberty, and the instinct of obedience, even, sank into the abysses of the little creature's mind. Up to the top rose the overmastering necessity of guarding the bit of sacred earth that ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Such is often the work of the good foster mother. In all the successes of the irresponsible committee and of the responsible State Children's Council the greatest factor has been the character of the good women who have been mothers to the little ones. The fears that only self-interest could induce them to take on the neglected and uncontrollable children were not borne out by experience, and in the ease of these babies not really illegitimate—it is the parents who deserve that title, no infant can—the ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... to make me the head of the American Peace Commission at Paris. There was the danger that my motive in opposing the President's attending the Conference would be misconstrued and that I might be suspected of acting from self-interest rather than from a sense of loyalty to my chief. When, however, the armistice went into effect and the time arrived for completing the personnel of the American Commission, I determined that I ought ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... music fills the quiet hall, If on her back a feline rival fall! And oh, what noises shake the tranquil house If old Self-interest cheats her ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... very crude attempts at decoration we have attained to a point where the British Museum and the "Bibliotheke" at The Hague have deigned to order and pay good golden guineas for specimens of our handicraft. Very naturally we want to do the best work possible, and so self-interest prompts us to be on the lookout for budding genius. The Roycroft ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the religious might write well of their government, or so that they might not write ill of it. I am convinced that they will always write ill of me, because I am ever striving to regulate the service of God and that of your Majesty. As that is a labor in which both services may be free from self-interest and worldly ends, I shall not resent that they write to your Majesty whatever they like; for, since you are so just and so Catholic a sovereign, I cannot believe or expect that you will condemn me without a hearing. Therefore I petition ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Various
... economy(104) (husbandry) aims at securing a maximum of personal advantage with a minimum of cost or outlay.(105) And there are always two intellectual incentives at the foundation of this economy. There is, first, self-interest, the positive manifestation of which is the effort to acquire as much of the world's goods as possible, and the negative expression of which, the effort to lose as little of them as possible—acquisitiveness—saving. Self-interest, losing its moral, and assuming a guilty, character, degenerates into ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... the tragedy had not affected her as it would have affected some women—his mother and Ruth Hamlin, for example—though he veiled the reproof in his eyes with a smile. The vanity she exhibited, her self-interest, ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... receives from her more power. First from her body's shelter, the full, long upbuilding; safety while she is safe; the circling guard of wise, mature, strong life, of conscious care, besides the unconscious bulwark of self-interest. Contrast this with the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... scholars. The punishments are severe, no paternal remonstrance or guidance, the under-masters maltreated on applying the rules, despised by their superiors and without any influence on their pupils.—"Libertinage, idleness self-interest animated all breasts, there being no tie of friendship uniting either the masters to the scholars nor ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... read or submitted to me in manuscript, and she showed so little self-interest in them, and I so much, that they seemed a sort of common property. I think that I had quite as much pleasure in their success and far more pride, than herself. The Susy books I always considered quite as superior in their way as Stepping Heavenward. They are still peerless among books for little ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... of them, it mounts up to thousands, and a capital thing too for me!" Think of that, sir! And the way they treat one another too, sir! They injure each other's trade all they can, and that not so much from self-interest, as from envy. They are always at feud with one another. They entertain in their grand mansions drunken attorneys' clerks, wretched creatures, sir, that hardly look like human beings. And they, for a small tip, will cover sheets of stamped paper with malicious quibbling attacks on their ...
— The Storm • Aleksandr Nicolaevich Ostrovsky
... turns round when the diligence passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. Self-interest—that's the object of men. Gold, that's ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... hobby of his. The experiment has been tried and, so far as concerns the re-animation of the Malay Government of Brunai, the verdict must be "a complete failure." The English are a practical race, and self-interest is the guide of nations in their intercourse with one another; it was not to be supposed that they would go out of their way to teach the degenerate Brunai aristocracy how to govern in accordance with modern ideas; indeed, the Treaty we made with them, by prohibiting, for instance, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... teacher can say, They know far more of Christian Science than he who deprecates their condition appears to, and my heart pleads for them to possess more and more of Truth and Love; but mixing all grades [15] of persons is not productive of the better sort, although he who has self-interest in this mixing is apt to pro- ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... our Adelle, by the time her visit had come to an end, her new education had got merely to the point where she had the self-interest and assurance of the ordinary American girl of twelve. That Church Street experience had chastened her. But if her education was to continue at the present rate, she was likely to become selfish, egotistical, and purse-proud in a few years. As yet it had not made her unpleasant, merely given ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Mallingers. Apropos; I am getting so important that I have rival invitations. Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his father's rectory in August and see the country round there. But I think self-interest well understood will take me to Topping Abbey, for Sir Hugo has invited me, and proposes—God bless him for his rashness! —that I should make a picture of his three daughters sitting on a bank—as ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... compensation will be so adequate that they will be free to give themselves for the benefit of the race, without apprehension of a yawning almshouse. A liberal policy will be for our own good, just as a matter of cold expediency; it will be Enlightened Self-interest. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... captain of the rabble, when he is not simply a weeper over irremediable wrongs, is a hypocrite so far gone that he is unconscious of his own hypocrisy—a slimy fellow, offensive to the nose. The plutocracy can recruit measurably more respectable janissaries, if only because it can make self-interest less obviously costly to amour propre. Its defect and its weakness lie in the fact that it is still too young to have acquired dignity. But lately sprung from the mob it now preys upon, it yet shows some of the habits of mind of that mob: it is blatant, ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... misunderstand me. Carefully weigh, probe, and examine, before God, your impressions and desires. Go into your closet, spread them there before the Lord. Lay them out, examine your own heart. Be sure there is no self-interest, no vain glory, no desire to be great, or to do some out-of-the-way thing. Be as clear as you like; be satisfied, in your own mind, that it is God's call, and then let fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... creature believe me lost? or was her astonishment only feigned? Was she really, despite her poverty, ready to share her last crust with a stranger? or was the benignant glance which gave me in my loneliness the sense of adoption merely an eye to self-interest? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... a purpose, I admit; and even you may know me better by and bye! Till then, no professions, no promises, no pledges. I use you for my own selfish purposes, that is all; and you can frankly study your own self-interest. We are two clay jars swept along down the Ganges of life. For a few threads of the dark river's current, we travel on, side by side! You have frankly taken me at my word! I have taken you at yours! ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... interpretation of Webster turns on two questions—was there a real danger of secession in 1850? Was Webster sincere in deriving his policy from a sense of national peril, not from self-interest? In the study which follows Professor Foster makes an adequate case for Webster, answering the latter question. The former he deals with in a general way establishing two things, the fact of Southern readiness to secede, the attendant fact that the South changed ...
— Webster's Seventh of March Speech, and the Secession Movement • Herbert Darling Foster
... obedience to an order than to obtain an increase of the slender salary with which they make shift. Personal interest is very rarely a powerful motive force with crowds, while it is almost the exclusive motive of the conduct of the isolated individual. It is assuredly not self-interest that has guided crowds in so many wars, incomprehensible as a rule to their intelligence—wars in which they have allowed themselves to be massacred as easily as the larks hypnotised by the mirror of ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... tell thee how I love thee. Dost thou not see the nature of my love, a love without self-interest; a sentiment full of thee, thee only; a love which follows thee into the future to light that future for thee—for it is the one True Light. Canst thou now conceive with what ardor I would have thee leave this life which weighs thee down, and behold thee nearer than thou art to ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... pumps the pearly tear, Melt every heart, and thro the nation gain Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain. But why to sympathy for guidance fly, (Her aids uncertain and of scant supply) When your own self-excited sense affords A guide more sure, and every sense accords? Where strong self-interest, join'd with duty, lies, Where doing right demands no sacrifice, Where profit, pleasure, life-expanding fame League their allurements to support the claim, Tis safest there the impleaded cause to trust; Men well instructed ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... have occurred to him, but her marvellous beauty presenting itself in the same scale with her necessity, blinded him to prudence and every other consideration but passion. It was a contest between the cunning of a luscious beauty striving for a secret end and the self-interest of a mercenary man. The victory was hers, though scarcely by the ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... legitimate purpose, as in military strategy; and, above all, he was incapable of deceiving himself. He possessed that rarest of all human faculties, the power of a perfectly accurate estimate of himself, uninfluenced by pride, ambition, flattery, or self-interest. Grant was very far from being a modest man, as the word modest is generally understood. His just self-esteem was as far above modesty as it was above flattery. The highest encomiums were accepted for what he believed ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... of the case, had to make such demands on the credulity of his followers that even those who were bound to him by the strongest ties of affection and self-interest were alienated, and those without such commanding motives to submit to his claim to exact from them absolute obedience, revolted, and demanded that he should be deposed. The first serious trouble with which Moses had to contend came to a head at Hazeroth, the second station after leaving ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... feelings of all the gentlemen toward our object. There was not a single dissenting voice to any of the statements made, or any of the sentiments expressed. This fact shows that the prevailing feeling is in favor of freedom, and that too on the score of policy and self-interest. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... out from its holes in the caverns of this island of Elephanta, and, with the miasma just as deadly that rises from the swamps, makes any residence upon its lovely-seeming hillsides a constant menace. But where will not people stay if prompted by self-interest? The dwellers on the sides of Vesuvius do not lie awake to wait for its eruption, and the dwellers on Elephanta do not step any more gingerly in their bare feet because at any moment a ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... the amiable sentiment of gratitude for the recommendation of that dignitary, by which Vermond himself first obtained his situation at Court; but there were others, who have been deemed deeper in the secret, who impute it to the less honourable source of self-interest, to the mere spirit of ostentation, to the hope of its enabling him to bring about the destruction of the De Polignacs. Be this as it may, the Abbe well knew that a Minister indebted for his elevation solely to the Queen would be supported by her to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... the greatest philosophers sometimes discourse, when their topic is Self-interest! It is likely enough that self-interest actuates them, and in a supreme degree. When folks are by nature wise and prudent—or if their tastes are studious, and their vices few—or when, above all, the brain is seasoned, and the blood ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... lives after setting themselves on Pagan ground, by opposing Christianity, I have yet to learn the fact. It is the morality of a wicked world that simply asks for the profitable, and not the right; which inquires not for duty, but for self-interest—for the opinions of men; it is a body without a spirit—a whitewashed sepulchre—splendid ...
— The Christian Foundation, March, 1880
... no previous form of society could have developed a body of electors so ideally adapted to their office, as regards absolute impartiality, knowledge of the special qualifications and record of candidates, solicitude for the best result, and complete absence of self-interest. ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... us not waste words: you know my ideas beforehand very well; you are a man of talent, and may have guessed it, but I think 'amour propre' should never overcome self-interest." ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... its Law, its Order, its Peace, we should at the earliest possible moment have every State restored to its normal relations with the Union. He did not believe that guarantee of any kind beyond an oath of renewed loyalty was needful. He was willing to place implicit faith in the coercive power of self-interest operating upon the men lately in rebellion. He agreed neither with the President's proclaimed policy of blood, nor with that held by the vast majority of his own political associates, which, avoiding the rigor of personal punishment, sought by exclusion from political ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... fail of having devoted followers among the able, the ambitious, and the vain. It must also be confessed that Lord Vargrave neglected no baser and less justifiable means to cement his power by placing it on the sure rock of self-interest. No jobbing was too gross for him. He was shamefully corrupt in the disposition of his patronage; and no rebuffs, no taunts from his official brethren, could restrain him from urging the claims of any of his creatures upon the public purse. His followers regarded this charitable ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... striking example of the impotence of philosophical and religious sentiments in a conflict with the energetic activity of self-interest. ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... feet of disdain; she would meet tenderness with secret contempt, indifference she would woo with ceaseless assiduities. Benevolence, devotedness, enthusiasm, were her antipathies; for dissimulation and self-interest she had a preference—they were real wisdom in her eyes; moral and physical degradation, mental and bodily inferiority, she regarded with indulgence; they were foils capable of being turned to good account as set-offs for her own endowments. To violence, injustice, tyranny, she ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... employment they are slothful. They live long, grow gray early, and are always active, on sea no less than on land. Hospitable and kind to guests, they are importunate and insistent in their demands when they become familiar. They are full of self-interest in their dealings, and make use of tricks, frauds, and lies. They are poor, and consequently proud; and, to name many vices in one, they are ungrateful. The Chinese occupied all these islands when they subjugated all that orient, then the Javanese and Malays, and lastly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... modest as an archbishop on salary day, and seldom openly embrace territory; we prefer the frank style in all our adoptions. Let us not quarrel over that—you love freedom, we love free government. Our political thoughts are moulded in one die, though self-interest may vary them. To be mutually just toward each other, to live on terms of friendship, and preserve that amity which is our bulwark, serves well that unity of great principles which conserves and preserves our happiness. ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... have already promised me to persevere to this end: I will not ask you to promise afresh. Do not be content to accept the world as women must. Great men do not accept the world; they reform it—and you are of their number. And when you are great, Geoffrey, you will use your power, not for self-interest, but to large and worthy ends; you will always strive to help the poor, to break down oppression from those who have to bar it, and to advance the honour of your country. You will do all this from your own heart and not because ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... successful in furnishing any firm and adequate reason why a man should pursue that course when individual interests and individual passion are opposed to it. It is the merit of the schools of Kant and of Butler, that they raise the idea of duty above all the calculations of self-interest, and make it the supreme and guiding ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... question, which we think has been unfolding itself silently before the minds of considerate men for the last few years, and which, whether they will or no, men of all opinions must weigh well, with the deliberation due to their own safety and self-interest, and with that freedom from personal pique or party spirit which the emergency demands. We are far from pinning our faith to individual characters, or thinking that the welfare of the state can be wrapped up in the fortunes or progress ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity, some by official duties, some by self-interest—house owners, clergy, officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants—streamed into Moscow as blood ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... Conscience regulated by expediency, is the basis; honour, binding men to each other in spite of temptation, is the corner-stone; and the superstructure is friendship, protecting kindness, gratitude, and all the moral sentiments by which self-interest is liberalized. Such is Party, looked at on the favourable side. Cogent moral inducements, therefore, exist for the prevalence of two powerful bodies in the practice of the State, spreading their influence and interests ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... powerfully to the Elizabethan mind. Taken together the essays which deal with public matters are in effect a kind of manual for statesmen and princes, instructing them how to acquire power and how to keep it, deliberating how far they may go safely in the direction of self-interest, and to what degree the principle of self-interest must be subordinated to the wider interests of the people who are ruled. Democracy, which in England was to make its splendid beginnings in the seventeenth century, finds little to foretell it ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... for God, your country, and truth. And where the heart is given, it should be unreservedly. Its allegiance is too often withheld where it is due, yet this is better than a half-way loyalty; there should be no if, followed by self-interest.... The seal of confederate nobles, opposed to some measures of Peter IV. of Aragon, 'represents the king sitting on his throne, with the confederates kneeling in a suppliant attitude, around, to denote their loyalty and unwillingness to offend. But in the back-ground, tents and lines of spears ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... in the hope that she could secure Graydon and wealth also? The persistence of a will that had always had its own way decided finally in favor of the last course of action. She would not give Graydon up unless she must, and not until she must. Accustomed to consult self-interest, she believed that her father was doing the same, that he was favoring Arnault because the latter would be more useful to him, and that for this reason he was exaggerating the Muirs' peril, if not inventing it. She dismissed ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... union by making it a conquest of one by the other. The opposite disaster appears when there is no fusion at all but merely an alliance of two independent, self-centered persons who come together in the spirit of temporary self-interest and refuse to develop a common life. Even when they maintain the letter of the monogamic code, ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... although a man of experience and resource, capable of forming a large design and sparing nothing to its success, suffered from two very common faults—vanity and avarice. He sometimes allowed the sense of his own merits to blind him to the merits of others, and considerations of self-interest to dim the brilliance of his achievements. Of Ducasse he was insanely jealous, and during the whole expedition he tried in every way to humiliate him. Unable to bring himself to conciliate the unruly spirit ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... skill, and spleen, through the want of some serious, useful occupation. And as this practice arises from such corrupt sources, so it has a tendency to increase them; and indeed may be considered as an express method of begetting and inculcating self-interest, ill will, envy, and the like. For by gaming a man learns to pursue his own interest solely and explicitly, and to rejoice at the loss of others, as his own gain, grieve at their gain, as his own loss, thus entirely reversing the order established ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume I (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... They loved each other dearly, yet here was one moment where self-interest must prevail. Charles fixed the doorkeeper with his hypnotic smile, and he was chosen. Almost without hearing the injunction to report at seven o'clock, Charles ran back to the store, well-nigh breathless with expectancy ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... youth, with sweet and courteous dignity, "with me the case was very different; because, with me, it was a matter of self-interest; for the service rendered to Miss Merlin was rendered ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... into strong language against the churls who have killed the most courteous knight that ever bore arms. Mingled with this sentiment is the thought of all the trouble to come from the revival of the feud, but his vexation does not spring from mere self-interest. Fromondin his son is also angry with Thibaut his cousin; Thibaut ought to be flayed alive for his foul stroke. But while Fromondin is thinking of the shame of the murder which will be laid to the account ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... the Opposition made the mistake of pulling the first trigger. Vinet, under the spur of self-interest, bethought himself of his wife's only friends, and looked up Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf and her mother. The two women were living in poverty at Troyes on two thousand francs a year. Mademoiselle Bathilde de Chargeboeuf was one of those fine creatures who believe in marriage ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... feelings. One argues a case solely on rational grounds and supposably with fair consideration of both sides; he advocates one side for the purpose of carrying it, and under the influence of motives that may range all the way from cold self-interest to the highest and noblest impulses; he pleads a cause, or pleads for a person with still more intense feeling. Beseech, entreat, and implore imply impassioned earnestness, with direct and tender appeal to personal considerations. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... experience once,"—he could not help alleging this case, in which he had long triumphed,— "and I have always felt that I did right in advising against a romantic notion of self-sacrifice in such matters. You may commit a greater wrong in that than in an act of apparent self-interest. You have not put the case fully before me, and it isn't necessary that you should, but if you contemplate any rash sacrifice, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... portion of our land to found a church, which enables us to augment the remainder treble its value, by granting building leases? a man seldom makes a bargain for heaven, and forgets himself. Charity and self-interest, like the apple and the rind, are closely connected, and, like them, we cannot separate one ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... and rapid hand of gain, of what Jouffroy calls self-interest well understood, is sometimes quicker than the brain and will of philanthropy to discern and inaugurate reform. An illustration of this statement, and a practical recognition of the physiological method ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... not difficult to see why this should be. The first principle, on which the theory of a science of history can be plausibly argued, is that all actions whatsoever arise from self-interest. It may be enlightened self-interest, it may be unenlightened; but it is assumed as an axiom that every man, in whatever he does, is aiming at something which he considers will promote his happiness. His conduct is not determined by his will; it is determined by the object ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... has come," he said to Harrison. "Think well," replied Harrison, "it is a dangerous work!" and Cromwell listened for another quarter of an hour. At the question "that this bill do pass," he at length rose, and his tone grew higher as he repeated his former charges of injustice, self-interest, and delay. "Your hour is come," he ended, "the Lord hath done with you!" A crowd of members started to their feet in angry protest. "Come, come," replied Cromwell, "we have had enough of this"; and striding into the midst of the chamber, he ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... sorely perplex any Northern man travelling in either of these States. One would say, that, if there had formerly been such pleasant relations between them, there ought now to be mutual sympathy and forbearance, instead of mutual distrust and antagonism. One would say, too, that self-interest, the common interest of capital and labor, ought to keep them in harmony; while the fact is, that this very interest appears to put them in an attitude of partial defiance toward each other. I believe the most charitable traveller must ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... to the emperor, and even to the empress, on every subject more or less connected with the public service, but dictated mostly by considerations of self-interest, coming, as they did, from the smallest and poorest and least important of his Majesty's possessions, must have been a source of great annoyance to the imperial ministers, consequently they resolved to remove the cause. The ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... The third end for which the canonical Hours are offered is for the benefit of the person who recites them. St. Alphonsus wrote, "If they said the Office as they ought, priests themselves should not be always the same, always imperfect, prone to anger, greedy, attached to self-interest and to vanities.... But if they recited the Office, not as they say it with distractions and irreverences, but with devotion and recollection, uniting the affections of the heart with so many petitions which they present to God, they should certainly not be so weak as they ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... and the unprofitable, the helpful and the injurious. He himself is the center of his whole scientific and religious system, and the categories into which he divides all things are determined by his own sense of self-interest.[428] ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... that we come down to the low level of self-interest, we insist then, that those who work from the motive of love, rather than the motive of gain, will not necessarily be sufferers in consequence, so far as this world goes. But it may be asked, 'Will not unprincipled masters or mistresses ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... has been described as the common metaphysical instinct, and according to his powers to become a metaphysician. There is no discipline which so well consists with solitude, none which so instantly enfranchises the mind from the tyranny of mean self-interest or vain and envious polemics. Men do not grow sour and quarrelsome about the Absolute: everything that is polemical is inspired, as Michelet once said, by some temporal and momentary interest. The man who has climbed to the Idalian spring ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... as to his subject when he wrote about political economy. He knew that he was dealing with questions of a selfish character, of an enlightened selfishness, no doubt, but none the less questions of self-interest. He never for a moment thought of putting his political economy on a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... again, she was never more flourishing than now; a fact which none dream of disputing, except the priests, and those who retail their foolish words. And now give ear, if thou wouldst know the origin of Nitetis. Self-interest will enjoin secrecy." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... very respectable people, whom I have spent the last six months in picking up, and they will be superintended by my old Philippe. Although confident of their loyalty and good faith, I have not neglected to cultivate self-interest; their wages are small, but will receive an annual addition in the shape of a New Year's Day present. They are all aware that the slightest fault, or a mere suspicion of gossiping, might lose them a capital place. Lovers are never troublesome to their servants; they are indulgent by disposition, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... with a lady," said Charles. "Nothing, in short, would be more repugnant to me; but I fear, as a magistrate, it would be my duty to—" And he shrugged his shoulders, wondering what on earth could be done for the moment if she persisted. "But," he continued, "motives of self-interest suggest the advisability of withdrawing, even if I were not here to enforce it. When I take into consideration the trouble and expense you have incurred in coming here, and the subsequent disappointment of the affections, a widow's affections, ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... had been invited to illuminate the fronts of their houses, and moved either by enthusiasm or self-interest, they had spent large sums for this purpose. Among the notable illuminations was that of the engineer Chevalier, on the Pont Neuf. There was a transparency in which, amid encircling laurels and myrtles, was to be seen an optician turning his glass up to the sky towards a bright star, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
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