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More "Self-interest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... conceited man like Savage and his nurse, with no vouchers whatever, upon a point where they had the deepest interest at stake; whilst on the opposite side, supposing their story true, spoke for them the strongest of all natural instincts—the pleading of the maternal heart, combated by no self-interest whatever. Surely if Lady Macclesfield had not been supported by indignation against an imposture, merely for her own ease and comfort, she would have pensioned Savage, or have procured him some place under Government—not difficult in those days for a person with her connections (however ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... 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 ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... gone she sat there, wondering at the real conviction, the intensity of passion, of hate and of revenge that actuated this newest tool of Doyle's. Doyle and his associates might be actuated by self-interest, but the real danger in the movement lay not with the Doyles of the world, but with these fanatic liberators. They preached to the poor a new religion, not of creed or of Church, but of freedom. Freedom without laws of God or of man, freedom of love, of lust, of time, ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... impertinence, there was a reverence which governed Froude's whole nature. In the wild and rough heyday of reform, he was a Tory of the Tories. But when authority failed him, from cowardice or stupidity or self-interest, he could not easily pardon it; and he was ready to startle his friends by proclaiming himself a Radical, prepared for the sake of the highest and greatest interests to sacrifice ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... carries in itself the pledge of victory. The terrible magnitude and urgency of the evils with which we have to cope cannot be overstated. Those who set out to fight them will have to encounter great and manifold difficulties—ignorance, stupidity, prejudice, greed, cruelty, self-interest, instincts of class, cowardly distrust of popular movements, 'spiritual wickedness in high places.' And, in the face of these opposing forces, it is cheering to think that, after long years of single-handed striving, the good cause now has its workers everywhere. And to none does it make ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... 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, ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... infamous. The fact that he was a man of substantial means, and had sought no office or aggrandizement by the votes of colored men, made his offence the more heinous, because he could not even plead the poor excuse of self-interest. The fact that he had served the Confederacy well, and bore on his person the indubitable proof of gallant conduct on the field of battle, was a still further aggravation of his act, because it marked him as a renegade and a ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... realize the mysterious benefits about to be conferred upon 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
... to Jerusalem, the grand goal of all their wishes: but none of their leaders was anxious to move;—the more prudent among them, such as Godfrey and Tancred, for reasons of expediency; and the more ambitious, such as the Count of Toulouse and Bohemund, for reasons of self-interest. Violent dissensions sprang up again between all the chiefs. Raymond of Toulouse, who was left at Antioch to guard the town, had summoned the citadel to surrender, as soon as he saw that there was no fear of any attack upon the part of the Persians; and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... was in store for Louise, though she came from the ordeal with flying colours, and once more the grand self-sacrificing nature of the young woman shone out conspicuous amidst its surroundings of sordid self-interest. It was in this way. The nephew of Van Zwanenburg, with the approval of his uncle, wooed and eventually obtained ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... does not exist. No one cares how his suburb is misgoverned, so long as rates are not too exorbitant. A suburb will wake into momentary life to curb the liberal programmes of the school-board, or to vote against the establishment of a free library; a gross self-interest being thus the only variation of its apathy. It soon falls asleep again, dulled into torpor by the fumes of its own intolerant smugness. For much of this the element of family separation in suburban life is answerable. The men ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... gained, equality (as if for the punishment of its defenders and the exposure of its enemies to ridicule) manifested itself in a triumphal fashion—an equality of brute beasts, a dead level of sanguinary vileness; for the fanaticism of self-interest balanced the madness of want, aristocracy had the same fits of fury as low debauchery, and the cotton cap did not show itself less hideous than the red cap. The public mind was agitated just as it would be after great convulsions of nature. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... foresee that this project will have to combat much opposition from prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part company with property of so valuable ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... 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 ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... being well used, that you can appreciate those who put themselves to trouble that they may do you good; and beware lest, by want of sympathy, you drive the best of the employers out of the business, and retain those alone who are despotic and tyrannical. Cease to follow those who are actuated by self-interest, or by blind impulse; who do not care a bit if they get you into trouble, provided only they serve their own selfish ends. Such men are but blind leaders of the blind, and if you follow them you will eventually find yourselves deserted, and lying hopelessly ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... professional self-interest, unshaken by our genuine admiration for its predecessors, and despite our inherent inclination toward modest conservatism, we unhesitatingly record the conviction that "The Cruise of the Kawa" stands preeminent in the literature of modern exploration—a ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... I chose, both these motives upon you, of pride and self-interest, with more force, but these are not motives which ought to be urged upon you at all. The only motive that I ought to put before you is simply that it would be right to do this; that the holding of property abroad, and the personal efforts of Englishmen to redeem the condition of ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Monsieur Thuillier is absolutely without capacity; he knows nothing. Monsieur Horace Bianchon is an able man; he will obtain a thousand things for our arrondissement, and Thuillier will obtain none! Remember this, my son; to change a good determination for a bad one from motives of self-interest is one of those infamous actions which escape the control of men but are punished by God. I am, or I think I am, void of all blame before my conscience, and I owe it to you, my children, to leave my ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... not only of American politics but of Caucasian human nature as well—that human nature which seldom rises above self-interest in business or politics. If you have abundance of money, the merchant is all accommodation, the lawyer all smiles; if you have votes that count, politicians cannot be too obsequious, too affable, too anxious to serve you. But if you simply have common humanity, clothed in the awful majesty ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... Given a chance to expand, freed from the shackles of the Manchus, the Chinese, in my opinion, contain the elements which go to form a great race. But the Manchus held them in bondage, body and soul, and, so powerful is self-interest, there has never been an Emperor or statesman who strove to elevate the masses who was not mercilessly assassinated as soon as he allowed his intent to become known. The only path to freedom lay through revolution, and I had reason ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... themselves are powerful to assail. Of such a description, for instance, is Bohemond of Tarentum,—and such, a one is many a crusader less able and sagacious than he;—for I think I need not tell your Imperial Divinity, that he holds his own self-interest to be the devoted guide of his whole conduct through this extraordinary war; and that, therefore, you can justly calculate his course, when once you are aware from which point of the compass the wind of avarice and self-interest breathes with respect to him. But there ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... electioneerer, Burrowing for boroughs like a rat or rabbit. But county contests cost him rather dearer, Because the neighbouring Scotch Earl of Giftgabbit Had English influence, in the self-same sphere here; His son, the Honourable Dick Dicedrabbit, Was member for the "other interest" (meaning The same self-interest, with ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... give of their greatness and be themselves nameless; and against the less great, for whom self-effacement was impossible—men strong in gifts and eager for power—the jealous Republic had provided a system of efficient checks, based upon an astute understanding of the fears and claims of self-interest. Venice knew no hiatus in rule; all were leaders to point the way of that inviolable constitution when the supreme voice was temporarily silent, for it was the voice of an impersonal prince, and not of the man—who had absolutely put off individuality when he assumed ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... the North who hinted at resisting the return of a runaway slave was in danger of financial ruin, social ostracism, and open rebuke from the pulpit. The ears of Boston were so stuffed with South Carolina cotton that they could not hear the cry of the oppressed. Commerce was fettered by self-interest, and law ever finds precedents and sanctions for what commerce most desires. And as for the pulpit, it is like the law, in that Scriptural warrant is always forthcoming for what the pew wishes ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... The narrow self-interest of all classes is opposed to the sovereignty of woman. The rulers in the State are not willing to share their power with a class equal if not superior to themselves, over which they could never hope for absolute ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... two ladies talking. From time to time he followed the glances which both frequently directed to the stranger. Then, comparing the Countess with the new beauty, made so attractive by a touch of mystery, the Baron fell a prey to the detestable self-interest common to adventurous lady-killers; he hesitated between a fortune within his grasp and the indulgence of his caprice. The blaze of light gave such strong relief to his anxious and sullen face, against ...
— Domestic Peace • Honore de Balzac
... imitating Odry in "Les Funambules," "is high comedy, for we will make the first orator we meet pose for us, and you shall see that in those halls of legislation, as elsewhere, the Parisian language has but two tones,—Self-interest, Vanity." ...
— Unconscious Comedians • Honore de Balzac
... 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. ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... incognita, she went, under various disguises, to see him whom she had never ceased to love. These mysterious visits soon became no longer a secret to any one; and then Conde and his sister could convince themselves how different are the sentiments which love inspires and those which self-interest and vanity simulate. The great Conde, by his intelligence and bearing, had all the means of pleasing women; but obtained small success notwithstanding. Mademoiselle Vigean excepted, he appears to have been incapable of inspiring the ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Tom; for first, Tom couldn't murder anybody—he hadn't character enough; secondly, if he could murder a person he wouldn't select his doting benefactor and nearest relative; thirdly, self-interest was in the way; for while the uncle lived, Tom was sure of a free support and a chance to get the destroyed will revived again, but with the uncle gone, that chance was gone too. It was true the will had really been revived, as was now discovered, but Tom could not have been ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the last refuge of a scoundrel[1035].' 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. I maintain, that certainly all patriots were not scoundrels. Being urged, (not by Johnson) to name one exception, I mentioned an eminent person[1036], whom we all greatly admired. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not say that he is ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... death until the seventeenth century little but a tale of destruction is to be recorded; for this period witnessed the dissolution of the monasteries, the beginning of a wholesale system of spoliation urged by self-interest and hypocrisy, and the establishment of "Reformation" methods of procedure in Church and State. By each of these both the fabric and the diocese suffered, even though by some they gained. But especially did vandalism ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901) - A Short History & Description Of Its Fabric With An Account Of The - Diocese And See • Hubert C. Corlette
... kissed his client's hand with a gesture of gratitude; for the widow's tone of voice made Solonet fancy that this alliance, really made from self-interest only, might ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... and hence also, that, in a world where so little conformity takes place between the ideal speculations of men and the gross realities of life, where marriages are governed in so vast a proportion by convenience, prudence, self-interest,—any thing, in short, rather than deep sympathy between the parties,—and, consequently, where so many men must be crossed in their inclinations, we yet hear of so few tragic catastrophes on that account. The king, however, was certainly among ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... own kingdom of Navarre, he must be a Protestant. To be popular in France, to whose throne he was already casting a wistful eye, it was necessary for him to be a Catholic. He vacillated between these views of self-interest. His conscience and his heart were untouched. Both parties were aware of the magnitude of the weight he could place in either scale, while each deemed it quite uncertain which cause he would espouse. His father had died contending for the Catholic faith, ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... purpose, he supplied himself immediately with a number of Tracts on temperance; for Jamie knew that when self-interest or passion come in, second thoughts are not always best; and forthwith he commenced travelling around, reading them, at spare hours throughout the neighborhood, wherever he could find half-a-dozen people to listen to him. He was ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes; and if these friends are good and amiable, ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... rate 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 bring famine ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... Then Fanny flung all self-interest to the wind and was at her daughter's side like a whirlwind. The fact that the two were of one blood was never so strongly evident. Red spots glowed in the elder woman's cheeks ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... morality that was first destroyed in the mind. G.K. summarised Adam Smith's teachings as: "God so made the world that He could achieve the good if men were sufficiently greedy for the goods." Thus the man of today "whenever he is tempted to be selfish half remembers Smith and self-interest. Whenever he would harden his heart against a beggar, he half remembers Malthus and a book about population; whenever he has scruples about crushing a rival he half remembers Darwin and his scruples become unscientific." ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... item of professional character; seeing that any such document would be as much a certificate of the Normal School's own ability in rearing efficient teachers, as of the pedagogical skill of the teachers which it reared. The vitiating element of self-interest would scarce fail to induce, ultimately at least, a suspicious ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... not be considered as unbiased. No disinterested seeker after truth would accept the political conclusions of a newspaper owned by a politician or recognized as the organ of a certain party. In all such cases, self-interest may prompt the witness to make statements not in strict accordance with the truth. Perjury in the court room is not uncommon; falsehood elsewhere must be guarded against. The arguer should always carefully scrutinize the testimony of a witness ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... in appropriations. Hence when there are extravagant and wasteful appropriations there must be a corresponding increase of taxes, and the people, becoming awakened, will necessarily scrutinize the character of measures which thus increase their burdens. By the watchful eye of self-interest the agents of the people in the State governments are repressed and kept within the limits of a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... had no foundation in nature, it must still be allowed, that vice and virtue, either from self-interest or the prejudices of education, produce in us a real pain and pleasure; and this we may observe to be strenuously asserted by the defenders of that hypothesis. Every passion, habit, or turn of character (say they) which has a tendency to our advantage or prejudice, ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... manufactures had competed successfully with ancient agricultural interests, and altered the attitude of the landed gentry towards trade, and towards the townspeople, beguiling them to be less exclusive because there was money in the town, self-interest weighing with them all at once in regard to the neighbours whom Christian precept had vainly ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... The doubling rental? What an evil's peace! In vain the prize excites the ploughman's skill, In vain the Commons pass their patriot bill;[334] The Landed Interest—(you may understand The phrase much better leaving out the land)— The land self-interest groans from shore to shore, 600 For fear that plenty should attain the poor.[et] Up, up again, ye rents, exalt your notes, Or else the Ministry will lose their votes, And patriotism, so delicately nice, Her loaves ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... houses in county Cork sufficient to hold them," said Father Bernard. And so the debate went on, not altogether without some sparks of wisdom, with many sparks also of eager benevolence, and some few passing clouds of fuliginous self-interest. And then lists were produced, with the names on them of all who were supposed to be in want—which were about to become, before long, lists of the whole population of the country. And at last it was decided among them, that in their district nothing should be absolutely given away, except ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... a second 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
... convent became distorted in his mind. Brother Peter, to whom he still wrote in a cordial vein from Steyn, became a worthless fellow, even his evil spirit, a Judas. The schoolfellow whose advice had been decisive now appeared a traitor, prompted by self-interest, who himself had chosen convent-life merely out of laziness and the ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... forever impossible for me to do anything towards helping or delivering myself, that I had made all the pleas I ever could have made to all eternity; and that all my pleas were vain, for I saw that self-interest had led me to pray, and that I had never once prayed from any respect to the glory of God. I saw that there was no necessary connection between my prayers and the bestowment of divine mercy, that they laid not ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... 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 ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... times indicate that China and the United States are destined some day to come into closer relations with each other socially, intellectually and of course commercially, as self-interest is a great factor in the furtherance of any attitude. One of the means to this end is the Chinese student in American colleges and schools; the number is, however, very much smaller than in England, while five thousand ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... 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, than callous "cash payment." It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, 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 ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... 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 ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... nothing can be hid. This, I remember, your ladyship told me, was the best test of fidelity and duty, that any servants could shew; since it was impossible, without religion, but that worldly convenience, or self-interest, must be the main tie; and so the worst actions might succeed, if servants thought they should find their sordid advantage in ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... thou saidst, is short: and the sleep which is in the grave, is long! Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long. This pure creature—pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious—never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... awake, as we do in dreams—till we wake really; and find that it is daylight, and that all our best dreams were nothing but useless fancy? How many dream away their lives! Some upon gain, some upon pleasure, some upon petty self-interest, petty quarrels, petty ambitions, petty squabbles and jealousies about this person and that, which are no more worthy to take up a reasonable human being's time and thoughts than so many dreams would be. Some, too, dream away their ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... to your house. The wisest thing you have done was to surround yourself with this mercenary body, whom you call the royal cuirassiers, only, instead of three hundred, you should have two thousand. Self-interest will make them true to you. You might find some means to pay them, for they would be a good buffer between you and your enemies. The president of the Diet and the members are passing bills which will eventually undermine you. How long it will ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... smiling calmness, which had not yielded for an instant to the storm of Napoleon's reproaches, "Austria has no motives of self-interest. The sole advantage which the Emperor Francis wishes to derive from the present state of affairs is the influence which a spirit of moderation, and a respect for the rights of independent states, cannot fail to acquire from those who are animated with similar ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... him to death. Those who have paid attention to this disease of the mind, know well, that while nothing is more violent at one moment, nothing is more flexible at another. Against the assaults of reason it is rock,—it is adamant; but to self-interest, or a covert passion, it is often surprisingly ductile. The genuine fanatic is gifted with a power which will equally uphold him, whether he walks to the right or to the left, and lets him change his course as often as he will. He has a logic that is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... strange new light; depth of light. Had the veil lifted at last? The welter of sullen anger subsided within him. The wrapped mystery of the mountain twilight hushed speech. What folly it all was—that far off clamor of greed in the Outer World, that wolfish war of self-interest down in the Valley, that clack of the wordsters darkening wisdom without knowledge! As if one man, as if one generation of men, could stay the workings of the laws of eternal righteousness by refusing to heed, any more than one man's will could stop an avalanche ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... retainers separately, yet such an 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. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... protested Allardyce, head flung back, and palms in air, to keep the thought of self-interest away, "oh—oh, Mr. Gourlay! We're thinking of noathing but the common ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... tie to India and Indians is of no passing accidental character. Our life-histories are not merely running parallel; our destinies are linked together. Christian feeling, duty, self-interest, and the interest of a linked destiny all call upon us to know each other and cherish mutual sympathy. Not that the West has ever been without an interest in India, as far back as we have Indian history, in the Greek accounts of the invasion of ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... Dinah at this change in the programme, if possible, exceeded my own. She did not understand, as I did, that it was a measure prompted not only by humanity but self-interest, and that even the hard heart of Basil Bainrothe preferred a compromise to such violence and injustice as those he had otherwise meditated. Besides, what better or more sensible mode than this could there be, according to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... of her dream of victory. On the first day of the conflict she denied right, appealed to force, flouted history, and, in order to violate the neutrality of Belgium and to invade France, invoked the law of self-interest alone. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... classes, I mean those of a rental at from L50 to L150 per annum, that the evils of careless building and want of sanitary precautions become most apparent. Until recently sanitary science was but little studied, and many things were done a few years since which even the self-interest of a speculative builder would not do nowadays, nor would be permitted to do by the local sanitary authority. Yet houses built in those times are still inhabited, and in many cases sickness and even death are the result. But it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... not resent that. Making a desperate mental search for the best way to serve her hard self-interest, he thought, she was ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... them without grace to bear them; we see them indeed through a faithless spirit which banishes grace. So, everything in them is bitter and unendurable; all seems dark and helpless. Let us throw self aside; no more self-interest, and then God's will, unfolding every moment in everything, will console us also every moment for all that He shall do around us, or within us, for ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston
... opposition occurred. Paterson found it more difficult to procure consent than he anticipated, and all those who feared an invasion of their interests united to stop its progress. The goldsmith foresaw the destruction of his monopoly, and he opposed it from self-interest. The Tory foresaw an easier mode of gaining money for the government he abhorred, with a firmer hold on the people for the monarch he despised, and his antagonism bore all the energy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... is a branch of commerce profitable to theologians, it is evidently not only superfluous, but injurious to the rest of society. Self-interest will sooner or later open the eyes of men. Sovereigns and subjects will one day adopt the profound indifference and contempt, merited by a futile system, which serves only to make men miserable. All persons will be sensible of the inutility of the many ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... we must, so that he may enjoy a greater, sacrifice our future to him!... In fact, he goes farther and says that woman, when she indulges in those experiments, is following the dictates of a loathsome and mean self-interest. Self-interest, when this conduct entails endless dangers and bitterness! Self-interest, when it demands of us, before all, an absolute contempt of a world to which nearly all are slaves, when it exposes us to insults ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... 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 ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she always 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... Review' 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. He selects the suitable, the conforming articles, ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... "when, in consequence of new circumstances, a thing which has been pronounced just does not any longer appear to agree with utility, the thing which was just... ceases to be just the moment it ceases to be useful."[780] So that self-interest is still the basis of all virtue. And if, by the performance of duty, you are exposed to great suffering, and especially to death, you are perfectly justified in the violation of any and all contracts. Such is the social morality ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... of the crow were very much hurt at this speech, the more that he knew full well it was not exactly love for the mouse, which had led him to make his offer, but self-interest: for who could tell what difficulties he himself might some day be in, out of which the mouse might help him? Instead of obeying Hiranya, and going back to his nest, he hopped to the mouse's hole, and putting his ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... especial duty of these to be concerned about others, not about themselves; the latter care is forbidden rather than enjoined. Mt 6, 25. Diligence in the connection in which it is used in the text, is prompted by love and not by self-interest. It being the duty of a bishop to readily assume oversight, to minister and control, and all things being dependent upon him as the movements of team and wagon are dependent upon the driver, the bishop has no time for indolence, drowsiness and negligence. He must be ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... 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 of sufficient ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... his heart and his head. He must become interested in the fate of the unfortunate prisoner—he must become anxious for his release. When we have done this much, we can question his self-interest ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... questioning or reasoning. God is; this is sufficient. How immense is the freedom of the soul in him! O may you not doubt, that when all of self is taken away from the creature, there remains only God. O God, can I have any self-interest, or appropriate aught as mine? In what can I take it? How strange the thought! how far removed from the possession of God! I am lost. ...
— Letters of Madam Guyon • P. L. Upham
... 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, and I doubt ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... which I have quoted form a pretty complete revelation. From first to last we see in him an ardent, uncompromising, incorruptible idealist. His ideals are narrow, and his devotion to them fanatical; but it is devoid, if not of egoism, at any rate of self-interest and self-seeking. As he shrank from applying the money entrusted him to ends of personal luxury, so also he shrank from making his ideas and convictions subserve ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... justly be thrown out of their ministry, who were either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church; and who have with all lowliness and innocency ministered to the flock of Church, in peace, and without self-interest, and were for a ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... sustain the credit of the Government by taxation, the process of supply is too facile. The funds so easily procured are in danger of being too profusely spent. Individual responsibility in money-matters, aided by direct self-interest, is usually more efficient in imposing limits to improvidence than a general sense of duty on the part of official personages. But if funds could be obtained ad libitum by the speculator, without the necessity of giving security for the payment of principal or interest, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... government officials where for three or four years prosperity has been counted on through some appointment, long expected and long sought. How many troubles are to be allayed! how many entreaties and pledges given to the ministerial divinities! how many visits of self-interest paid! At last, thanks to her boldness, Madame Rabourdin heard the hour strike when she was to have twenty thousand francs a year instead of ...
— Bureaucracy • Honore de Balzac
... grandfather loved him, but not as he loved Erle; and in his heart he was secretly jealous of Erle—if it had been possible he would have supplanted him. Only he himself knew how he had tempted him, and the subterfuges to which he had stooped. He had encouraged Erle's visits to Beulah Place from motives of self-interest, and had been foiled by ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... from the rest of the people by their superior luxuries; and ruled the commonwealth by the weight of an authority gained from riches and mercenary dependents. 19. The venal and the base were attached to them from motives of self-interest; and they who still ventured to be independent, were borne down, and entirely lost in an infamous majority. 20. In short, the empire at this period came under the government of a hateful aristocracy; the tribunes, who were formerly ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... Revolution and kept under its own waterlocks the new flood of trade, the conservatism of politics reinforced the conservatism of religion; and as if these two inquisitions were not enough to stifle the soul of man, the conservatism of business self-interest was superimposed. The history of the conflicts which followed has been written by the radicals, who negligently charge up to self-interest all the resistance which establishments offer to change. But it was not solely self-interest, it was conscience that backed the Missouri ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... two faces: tender devotion and bitter aversion Self-interest and egoism which drive him into the cave The man who avoids his kind and lives in solitude You have a ...
— Quotations From Georg Ebers • David Widger
... 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 her ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... 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 the public purse. His followers ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... thousand questions, of lovers, of the country and manners, and their security and civility to strangers; to all which Octavio answered as a man, who would recommend the place and persons purely to oblige their stay; for now self-interest makes him say all things in favour of it; and of his own friendship, offers them all the service of a man in power, and who could make an interest in those that had more than himself; much he protested, ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... and power, in a word, so much real happiness—which is the sum of all earthly gifts—as under this which they are so earnestly endeavoring to tear down and blot from the face of the earth. Men's minds do not eagerly grasp and sternly pursue an abstract idea divorced from every consideration of self-interest, such as this would be. Even the greatest of moral principles are indebted to self-interest for their success, and without it the sublimest of creeds, the loftiest of principles would soon wither and die for lack of support. With every blessing ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the United States was to bring the Treasury to the verge of bankruptcy. The interference of Parish, Girard, and Astor alone saved the credit of the government, and this interference was no doubt prompted by self-interest. That Mr. Astor was hostile to the bank is certain. Gallatin wrote to Madison in January, 1811, that Mr. Astor had sent him a verbal message, "that in case of non-renewal of the charter of the Bank of the United States, all his funds and those of his friends, to the amount of two millions of ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... principle—a great safeguard to its possessor. Men have committed murder for jealousy's sake, and anger's sake, and hatred's sake, and selfishness' sake, and spiritual pride's sake; but no man that ever I heard of, ever committed a diabolical murder for sweet charity's sake. Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should, especially with high-tempered men, prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy. At any rate, upon the occasion in question, I strove to drown ...
— Bartleby, The Scrivener - A Story of Wall-Street • Herman Melville
... 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
... church of 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
... influence and different chambers of commerce are earnestly in favor of the proposed change in their coinage. The change is so slight with them that an enlightened self-interest will soon induce them to make it, especially if we make the greater change in our coinage. We have some difficulty in adjusting existing contracts with the new dollar; but as contracts are now based upon the fluctuating value of paper money, even the reduced dollar in coin ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... derive advantage.—Hence the value we attach, in the exercise of all the affections, to what we call disinterested conduct,—to him who does good by stealth, or who performs acts of exalted justice, generosity, or forbearance, under circumstances which exclude every idea of a selfish motive,—or when self-interest and personal feeling are strongly and obviously opposed to them. Such conduct commands the cordial approbation of all classes of men; and it is striking to remark how, in the highest conception of such a character that fancy can delineate, we are met by the sublime morality ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... trade; imports from the United States to Canada had grown especially fast and Canada now ranked third in the list of the Republic's customers. Yet in many ways the tariff hindered free intercourse. Though every dictate of self-interest and good sense demanded a reduction of duties, Canada would not and did not take the initiative. Time and again she had sought reciprocity, only to have her proposals rejected, often with contemptuous indifference. When ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... speech. Certainly, during this visit, Morley's scruples relaxed; but when he returned home they came back with greater force than ever,—with greater force, because he felt that now not only a spiritual ambition, but a human love was a casuist in favour of self-interest. He had returned on a visit to Humberston Rectory about a week previous to the date of this chapter; the niece was not there. Sternly he had forced himself to examine a little more closely into the condition of the flock which (if he accepted the charge) he would ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by self-interest. He scorns to diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view—his pocket—and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks to Number One. You are Number Two, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the self-interest and happiness of its inmates, it was no small benefit to others that such a home was made in that rugged country. Such homes are the outposts of the army of pioneers: here they can pause and rest, gathering courage and confidence when they regard ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... Indeed, this word has a significance hardly expressed by any English one, and used to be very prevalent to indicate keen and forcible tenacity of possession; thus a character noted for avarice or sharp looking to self-interest was termed "grippy." In mechanical contrivances, anything taking a close adherence was called having a gude grip. I recollect in boyish days, when on Deeside taking wasp-nests, an old man looking on was sharply stung by one, and his ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... while they were still in a state of barbarism, there were nations in the East, including China, superior to them in manners, in education, and in government; possessed of a literature equal to any, and of arts and sciences totally unknown in the West. Self-preservation and self-interest make all men restless, and so Eastern peoples gradually moved to the West taking their knowledge with them; Western people who came into close contact with them learned their civilization. This fusion of East and West was the beginning of ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... imply no supernatural discernment; they have no special connexion with Revelation; they almost arise out of the nature of the case; they are dictated even by human prudence and wisdom, though a divine illumination be absent, and they are recognized by common sense, even where self-interest is not present to quicken it; and, therefore, though true, and just, and good in themselves, they imply nothing whatever as to the religious profession of those who maintain them. They may be held by Protestants as well as by Catholics; nay, there is reason to anticipate that ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... 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 accepted ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... Hardy must have been the victim in his career as a manufacturer, we shall wonder how this heart, so delicate and tender, had not been broken a thousand times, in its incessant struggle with merciless self-interest. M. Hardy had indeed suffered much. Forced to follow the career of productive industry, to honor the engagements of his father, a model of uprightness and probity, who had yet left his affairs somewhat embarrassed, in consequence of the events of 1815, he had succeeded, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... "practically none at all. Look at politics, the Church, art, the sciences—those who flourish are the imposters, while your honest men are foolish enough to starve in garrets. If a man will undertake nothing that is open to the suspicion of self-interest, he should abandon all his affairs at once and retire to a monastery, where possibly he will discover that the prior is cheating the abbot and the cellarer cheating them both. You have a great business opportunity, and if anybody suffers it is only the Government, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... ran high; life was held in little esteem; a lifeless body found on the highway startled no one; assassination was an occurrence of small moment; cattle-shooting was practised for amusement, and the five-and-a-half months' essay of christian Philippine autonomy was so signalized by jealous self-interest, bitter rivalry, rapacity, and bloodshed as to make one doubt whether the christian Zamboangueno is one whit superior to his Mahometan ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... nations. And if this should come to an end, it is well known also that this people, because of our recent knowledge of them, and because of their covetousness, would drop Christianity, return to their idolatries and old customs, and close the door which they are now opening for their gain and self-interest. That might be of greater importance than the annoyance of enduring and supporting them with some loss, especially as the trade and commerce that comes from those parts to this kingdom [of Mexico] usually amounts to one ship and sometimes two, aboard which arrive the returns ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... 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 her ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... seen from too near or too far. Factitious merit has a way of 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 ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... study. Political thought may be said to have originated with the Jewish prophets, who were the first to rebuke kings to their faces and to set forth the spiritual aims of politics—to preach Righteousness and Mercy as against Power and Ambition and Self-interest. Their soaring imagination, less systematic than the Greek intellect, was wider in its sweep and more farseeing in its predictions. 'As the earth bringeth forth her bud and as the garden causeth the things sown in it to spring forth', says Isaiah, in magnificent anticipation ...
— Progress and History • Various
... it must be allowed that ciphers are of use, it is not every cipher that is truly useful. There are Ciphers of indolence, to which some mistaken men give the title of men of fine parts—there are Ciphers of Self-interest, to which others more wrongfully give the name of Patriots—there are Bacchanalian Ciphers, who will not leave the bottle to save the nation, but will continue to guzzle till no one figure in Arithmetic is sufficient to support them—then there ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... decide it for you. At least, I will tell you what is my earnest conviction on the subject; I will show you candidly how the question strikes me. The right path is that which necessitates the greatest sacrifice of self-interest—which implies the greatest good to others; and this path, steadily followed, will lead, I believe, in time, to prosperity and to happiness, though it may seem, at the outset, to tend quite in a contrary direction. Your ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... 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
... sufficiently grateful for the oft-reiterated advice of my father to his children. "Never," he would say, "act a selfish part." In all your plans and purposes in life, do not have an exclusive regard to self-interest. If you do, you will find many competitors. But if you strive to render others happy, you will always find a large and open field of enterprise; and let me assure you that this is the best way to promote your own happiness for ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... as the various roads are, so are the ears and the understandings, the affections and the inclinations of those who walk and ride and drive upon them. Some of those men's ears are impassably stopped up by self-love, self-interest, party-spirit, anger, envy, and ill-will,—impenetrably stopped up against all the men and all the truths of earth and of heaven that would instruct, enlighten, convict or correct them. Some men's minds, ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... with others, brought on a distant acquaintance. They ventured to look at her. They felt an inclination to speak to her. One intimacy led to another, till the suspicion wore away, and a change of sentiment stole gradually upon the mind; and having no self-interest to serve, no passion of dishonour to gratify, they became enamoured of her innocence, and unaltered by misfortune or uninflamed by success, shared with fidelity in the varieties ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... it, lest it should hurt my father's health. He wrote me word, that it was quite innocent, and could not hurt him; and how could I think that he would send any thing to hurt a father of mine? and that self-interest would be reason enough lor him to take ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... truly said of Isaac Brock that he never allowed a thought of self-preservation or self-interest to affect for one instant his conception of duty. He was blind at this moment to all personal considerations. He made no effort to shelter himself behind any plausible excuse that would have been gratefully seized by the timid or calculating man, or to fence with his duty. His consistency was ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... 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 ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... indignation becomes terrible: a passion of vengeance, like that which overthrew Strafford. Wise tyrants, like Peter and Frederic the Great, will be endured, from their devotion to public interests; but unwise tyrants, ruling for self-interest or pleasure, will be hurled from power, or assassinated like Nero or Commodus, as the only way to get rid of the miseries ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... nothing—he was beginning to understand the meaning of rebellion to such people. He watched with curiosity and pity the struggle that went on; a struggle as old as the soul of man—between the voice of self-interest, of comfort and prudence, and the call of duty, of the ideal. No trumpet sounded for this conflict, only the still small ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... that his security for men's conduct must be found in their self-interest. He admits thus much practically, so for as his own business is concerned; the exceptions being so rare, as not to justify neglect of the general rule. Yet, neither business men nor politicians grasp the principle clearly, nor consequently ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... character in proportion as it is of advantage to the man; and the judgment of mankind allows a well-founded distinction between an alteration of policy compelled by events, and an abandonment of professed principles tainted with any suspicion of self-interest. We hold that a Representative is a trustee for those who elected him, —that his political apostasy only so far deserves the name of conversion as it is a conversion of what was not his to his own use and benefit; and we have a right to be impatient ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... blemishes, owing to his lofty spirit, were always accompanied with the necessary talent of knowledge to make amends for those imperfections. He had religion enough for this world. His own good sense, or else his inclination, always led him to the practice of virtue if his self-interest did not bias him to evil, which, whenever he committed it, he did so knowingly. He extended his concern for the State no further than his own life, though no minister ever did more than he to make the world believe he had the same regard for the future. In a word, ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... most importunate voters for their ruin. In this decision it is only the king who hazards his treasure, and his governor who risks a point of honor; for finally the very persons who, through either self-interest or greed, advised the assault [on the Sangleys] cast on the governor the blame of the insurrection, as happened to Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera. The very persons who, censuring him as a coward and representing to him instances of boldness forced [by desperation] on the part of the Sangleys ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... to truth, or the improvement of human life, are called flatteries. They are all alike dependent upon the opinion of mankind, from which they are derived. To Plato the whole world appears to be sunk in error, based on self-interest. To this is opposed the one wise man hardly professing to have found truth, yet strong in the conviction that a virtuous life is the only good, whether regarded with reference to this world or to another. Statesmen, Sophists, rhetoricians, ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... broken; for stray sweet-hearts were continually climbing down area railings, or over garden walls, or hiding themselves behind kitchen doors. Nay, to such an extent was the system carried out, each servant being, from self-interest, a safe co-conspirator, that very often when Mr. and Mrs. Ascott went out to dinner, and the old housekeeper retired to bed, there were regular symposia held below stairs—nice little supper-parties, where all the viands in the pantry and the wines in the cellar were freely ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... 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 ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... 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 ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the rights of himself and his brother. One of the most salient peculiarities of the corsairs at this time was the apparent recklessness with which they assailed others who were participants in their nefarious business. Self-interest and policy would seem, to the observer in the present day, to have dictated quite a different course of action; but we shall see, when we come to deal with the life-history of Kheyr-ed-Din, that this infinitely wiser and more intellectual man apparently allowed himself ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... 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
... state, and the interests of a rich and powerful clergy, were involved in the maintenance of the old, animistic, relatively non-moral system, as in Cuzco, Greece, and Rome. That popular and political regard for the luck of the state, that priestly self-interest (quite natural), could only be swept away by the moral monotheism of Christianity or of Islam. Nothing else could do it. In the case of Christianity, the central and most potent of many combined influences, apart from the Life and Death of Our Lord, was the moral Monotheism of the ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... The temperance cause in Worcester has made so much progress that at the three largest and best hotels, which make up nearly one hundred beds each, no intoxicating liquor of any kind is sold. A people thus willing to carry out their convictions, to the sacrifice of prejudice, appetite, and apparent self-interest, cannot long remain a nation of slave-holders. In common with the rest of New England, this town is remarkable for the number, size, and beauty of its places of worship. I calculated, with the aid of a well-informed inhabitant, that if the entire population were to go to a place of worship, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... of their ministry, who were either appointed by them, or afterwards chosen by other eminent men, with the consent of the whole church; and who have with all lowliness and innocency ministered to the flock of Church, in peace, and without self-interest, and were for a long ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... to dissipate it in the service of his humbler fellow worker. To give effect to that, he felt obliged to struggle against becoming entangled with undesirable allies in the semi-skilled and unskilled workers for whom the Order spoke. Needless to say, the individual self-interest of the craft leaders worked hand in hand with the self-interest of the craft as a whole, for had they been annexed by the Order they would have become subject to orders from the General Master Workman or the General Assembly of ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... might gain over another, whether by skill or accident, the constant habit of undervaluing and depreciating what one would buy, and overvaluing what one would sell; finally, such a lifelong study to regulate every thought and act with sole reference to the pole star of self-interest in its narrowest conception as must needs presently render the man incapable of every generous or self-forgetting impulse. That was the condition of mind and soul which the competitive pursuit of wealth ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... recent article, said, in relation to Mr. Gladstone's retirement from the Cabinet, that "It is ridiculous to pretend, with Mr. Gladstone's career before us, that his course has been swayed by calculating self-interest. He has been the very madman of politics from the point of view of Mr. Worldly Wiseman. 'No man,' said he, the other day, 'has ever committed suicide so often as I,' and that witness is true. The first and perhaps the most typical of ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... all the affections, to what we call disinterested conduct,—to him who does good by stealth, or who performs acts of exalted justice, generosity, or forbearance, under circumstances which exclude every idea of a selfish motive,—or when self-interest and personal feeling are strongly and obviously opposed to them. Such conduct commands the cordial approbation of all classes of men; and it is striking to remark how, in the highest conception of such a character that fancy ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... to the very large sums wasted every year on the Continent by our countrymen in pursuit of the "antique," though it might be difficult to determine to what extent pubic credulity is thus annually imposed upon; difficult, because self-love is here at variance with self-interest, (silencing many a victim, who fears, lest if his mistakes were blabbed abroad, the world might append some more unflattering name to his own than that of dupe;) and difficult again, because there are gulls ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... nature. All its disputes, all its ill-will and bad blood, rise 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 ...
— The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick - A Lecture • Frank Lockwood
... similar and more remarkable utterance had been made some years before (1749) by the remarkable thinker, David Hartley. The world, he said, was in the most critical state ever known. He attributes the evil to the growth of infidelity in the upper classes; their general immorality; their sordid self-interest, which was almost the sole motive of action of the ministers; the contempt for authority of all their superiors; the worldly-mindedness of the clergy and the general carelessness as to education. These sentiments ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... body. Starting from this point, he argues that all minds are originally equal, and owe their variation to circumstances;(554) that all their faculties and emotions are derivable from sensation; that pleasure is the only good, and self-interest the true ground of morals and the framework ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... me. For the moment I was carried out of myself. I crushed the letter up in my burning hand. I turned fiercely round upon that yellow, enigmatic, dying figure in the great chair. All the fury, locked within my heart for so long, rose to the surface, and drove self-interest away. I turned upon my grandmother with blazing eyes and trembling limbs. I opened my mouth to utter a torrent of reproachful words, when—what was it?—what slight change had stolen into the wrinkled, yellow face? I bent over her. The eyes gazed at me, but so horribly! ...
— The Return Of The Soul - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... for a 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 them to be worth. They did not disturb his equilibrium ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... permitted to 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 that world where ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... always 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 ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... 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
... valuable example any one can set is to do what he or she believes to be right. It may be wrong, but that is not the point. We must do what we conceive to be our duty. Only, we've got to be sure, Tay, in deciding upon duty, in deciding what is right,—we've got to be sure that self-interest is eliminated. I don't believe anybody can decide absolutely on what is right ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... damning, the people might well have been turned from the insignificant question "Who was to be King of Numidia?" to the supreme task of punishing the traitors whom he denounced. But we have no right to read Jugurtha's character by the light of the single motive of a self-interest which knew no scruples. He may have had his own ideas of honour and of the protection due to a benefactor or a trusty agent. Self-interest too might in this matter come to the aid of sentiment; for it was at least possible that the popular storm might spend its fury and leave the ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... 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 ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... her to help seeing, hearing, guessing this from a significant glance, a stray word, a slight hint here and there, and the quick instinct of a woman felt even before it understood the self-interest which chilled for her so many opening friendships. In her eyes love was a very sacred thing, hardly to be thought of till it came, reverently received and cherished faithfully to the end. Therefore, it ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... people of America, here is your real problem! Southern self-interest may be relied upon to keep the Negro here; being here, no human power can prevent him from contributing his quota to the atmosphere of the group in which all the sons of the South must find their environing inheritance. In the contact ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... now become one of us. He is, actually, now an English subject. He is tied to us by law and self-interest. Let us bind him to us by gratitude and affection. The happiness of our youthful Queen is now in his hands. He has the means of so directing and assisting her future footsteps, as to retrieve for Her Majesty (we speak with frankness, but ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... 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. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... lingered, the seals of professional reticence broken by this strange and awful accident. But there was no real emotion in his temper—only curiosity, self-interest, the impulse ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... overworked. His condition is incomparably better than that of the coolies which modern nations of high civilization have employed as a substitute for African slaves. Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result. But let this trade be reopened and what will be the effect? The same to a considerable extent as on a neighboring island, the only spot now on earth where the African slave ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... possible to name the men who a few years since created the 'Saturday Review' 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. He selects the suitable, the conforming articles, ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... 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, egotism disgusted him. ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... nobler impulse than that which actuated our hair-clothed antecedents, who found that their own lives were best conserved by respecting those nearest to them. But thus it is that Love has been implanted in human hearts through no higher or more altruistic method than that of self-interest; but the nature of love is to expand; to grow; to give of itself until unselfishness must come with the final aim of love, which is ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... the man who will not debase himself if he be in want? Does not Agamemnon say, in Homer, that in such a case man must necessarily be guilty of meanness? And Agamemnon and Homer lived long before our time! It evidently proves that men are at all times moved by the same motive-namely, self-interest. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... but he replied that he must wait for orders from the Governor in Quebec. One object of Washington's mission was to win over, if possible, the Indians, whose friendship for either the French or the English depended wholly on self-interest. He seems to have been most successful in securing the friendship of Thanacarishon, the great Seneca Chief, known as the Half-King. This native left ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer
... 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
... not right? Love might fail; passion might wane; conscience, aiding self-interest with its usual servility, might overcome the instincts of gratitude. But what power could overcome the loyalty resting upon money interest? No power but that of a longer purse than his. As she was not ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... 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
... stock-jobbing habit fostered 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. It is a result of previous, ...
— Fiat Money Inflation in France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended • Andrew Dickson White
... respect and affection, either to the Queen or to any private object of local interest, as I have seen in every one of these colonies, and, what is more important, there have been circumstances attending all these displays which have marked their sincerity and proved that neither curiosity nor self-interest were the only ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... glory of God, and the freedom and liberties of England, as their supreme ends, could not, by all the ambagitory expressions they made use of, prevent the shrewd eye of Markham Everard from seeing, that self-interest and views of ambition, were the principal moving springs at the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... homely a term may be pardoned, as a plain matter of business. There is nothing low or unworthy in this, as some lately have pretended, for all nature shows us that there is nothing more acceptable to God than an enlightened view of our own self-interest; never let anyone delude you here; it is a simple question of fact; did certain things happen or did they not? If they did happen, is it reasonable to suppose that you will make yourselves and others more happy by one course of ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... must and will prevail: its verdict may be some time in coming, but come it will, sooner or later, and will ultimately have things all its own way. For the aesthetic conscience is probably the most impartial and inexorable of the human powers; and this, because it acts most apart from any regards of self-interest or any apprehension of consequences. The elections of taste are in a special sort exempt both from hope of profit and from fear of punishment. And man's sense of the Beautiful is so much in the keeping of his moral reason,—secret keeping indeed, and all the surer for ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... peculiar feature of Dr. Jones' character—an utter disregard for his own aggrandizement and self-interest, and a sincere desire to make everybody about him happy and comfortable. And, underlying it all, was a sublime faith in Almighty God. These three essentials make the great man: modesty, unselfishness, and faith in God. Anyone is great who possesses them, and no one is great ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... Those ties of love, that bound us to our Creator and to one another, are sundered; as a race, severed from the governing Centre of all, each has chosen a centre for himself, and is moving on in darkness and ruin; selfishness the rule, self-interest ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... liberty, its whole tendency in England for the time being was in favour of absolute monarchy. Its first outcome here was to set up a secular monarchy, supreme in Church and State, founded on the theory of the divine right of kings, based on an aristocracy made loyal by the instinct of self-interest. ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... elected or appointed by the directors and are subject to them. Thus far the protection the Act provides is based upon what, so far as financial matters are concerned, is one of the great controlling influences of human nature, viz: self-interest. The stockholders, in order to protect themselves, are expected to elect Directors who will look out ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... clung more tenaciously to her idolatry from motives of self-interest and national aggrandizement. It was the test of loyalty for Israel. It was in perfect consistency with such a character to turn away from all evidence and to reject what she did not wish to believe. In the expressive ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... all self-interest to the wind and was at her daughter's side like a whirlwind. The fact that the two were of one blood was never so strongly evident. Red spots glowed in the elder woman's cheeks and her ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... commonly absence of poise, for it has to be amused. Napoleons and Andrew Jacksons amuse it, but it is not amused by perfect balance. Had Mr. Adams's nature been cold, he would have followed Mr. Webster, Mr. Everett, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Winthrop in the lines of party discipline and self-interest. Had it been less balanced than it was, he would have gone with Mr. Garrison, Mr. Wendell Phillips, Mr. Edmund Quincy, and Theodore Parker, into secession. Between the two paths he found an intermediate one, distinctive and characteristic ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... entangled in the mazes of this false literature, joined to the philosophy, equally false, of the times, had nothing wherewithal to defend themselves, but some small remains of common sense, which passed for profaneness and impiety, and the indelible regard to self-interest, which, as it was the sole motive in the priests for framing these impostures, served also, in some degree, to protect the laity against them. [FN [n] M. Paris, p. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... charming in the expression of his mouth and eyes, "that though I can give orders to very many people, and be obeyed as a general is obeyed by his soldiers in war times, I have no friend. Fear attracts this person to me, self-interest attracts that person, but there's no one that's held to ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... to 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
... and poor. She lived full a quarter of a mile away. So in deciding to make the visit that night, I hardly think a very strong element of self-interest was included in the motives that governed me. But that ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... 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 ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... was beginning to understand the meaning of rebellion to such people. He watched with curiosity and pity the struggle that went on; a struggle as old as the soul of man—between the voice of self-interest, of comfort and prudence, and the call of duty, of the ideal. No trumpet sounded for this conflict, only the still ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... of earth for teachers, and their 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
... 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 ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... one of self-interest. Mr. Leavenworth stood in the way of Eleanore's acknowledging him as a husband, and he must therefore be put out ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green
... then," he 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 ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... of him even before the drunken riot in which he got his wounds. This friendship had then become a proprietary emotion, a compound of affection, remorse, the fear of revenge, and even a sort of proselytizing zeal mixed up with self-interest. Muene-Motapa hoped that in time his prisoner would renounce all desire for the white world, embrace the beliefs and habits of the Mambava, become a subtle counselor in diplomacy as well as in wars of conquest. In short, those tales of the lands ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... putting into execution all his histrionic talents, he had the adroitness to address himself to those feelings of self-interest which he knew were perhaps more powerful than those of admiration and respect for his own saintly proceedings in his new diocese. Cretineau Joly, in his 'Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus', vol. iii., p. 333 (Paris, 1845), tells us that Cardenas 'parle ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... 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 land of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... dominating the whole thing," said Mangan, rather testily. "It's an awful price to pay for a few puffs. I wonder a woman like that can bear him to come near her, but she pets the baboon as if he were a King Charles spaniel. Linnie, my boy, you're no longer first favorite. I can see that; self-interest has proved too strong; the flattering little review, the complimentary little notice, has ousted you. It isn't you who are privileged to meet my Lady Morgan in ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... snatches of songs that he had caught up from the village 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 ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... off the top Branches of a Tree, and will not suffer it to grow any higher, it will not therefore cease to grow, but will quickly shoot out at the Bottom. The Man indeed who goes into the World only with the narrow Views of Self-interest, who catches at the Applause of an idle Multitude, as he can find no solid Contentment at the End of his Journey, so he deserves to meet with Disappointments in his Way; but he who is actuated by a noble Principle, whose Mind is so far enlarged as to take in the Prospect of his Country's ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... agents, who vote it away in appropriations. Hence when there are extravagant and wasteful appropriations there must be a corresponding increase of taxes, and the people, becoming awakened, will necessarily scrutinize the character of measures which thus increase their burdens. By the watchful eye of self-interest the agents of the people in the State governments are repressed and kept within the limits of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... crowning joy of his contemplative mind. He had reserved them for his final discharge. Dear demonstrative creatures! Dyspepsia would not weaken their poignant outcries, or self-interest check their fainting fits. On the generic woman one could calculate. Well might The Pilgrim's Scrip say of her that, "She is always at Nature's breast"; not intending it as a compliment. Each woman ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... long sought after? Why is it that the uneducated masses do not come to you and accept your simple doctrines which they can so easily understand? I know that you are ready with a charge of ignorance, prejudice, self-interest, etc., but I claim that as a rule your charges do not charge. You, believing in an all-wise, all-good and all-powerful God, who is Truth itself, must believe in the triumph of truth; and here I agree with you. I believe that just as soon as truth is brought in contact with error the latter will ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... thought otherwise. In a couple of answers he exposed the fallacy of enlightened self-interest. They seem obvious enough to-day, but in 1816 they were the voice of one crying in the wilderness. He was asked whether he believed that 'there is that want of affection and feeling on the part of parents, that would induce them ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... man who killed De Brissac. Come, come, Monsieur le Comte," in a kindly tone; "do not be a fool, do not throw away a brilliant career for the sake of a friendship. I who know tell you that it is not worth while. Friendship, I have learned, is but a guise for self-interest." ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... to recall old buried feuds, or to insinuate any personal blame whatsoever (my business being not with this or that man, but with a system and its principles); this man, by a step well-meant but injudicious, and liable to a very obvious misinterpretation, as though taken in a view of self-interest, had entangled himself in a quarrel. That quarrel would have been settled amicably, or, if not amicably, at least without bloodshed, had it not been for an unlucky accident combined with a very unwise advice. One morning, after the main ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... punished. The secret messages will be carried by reliable and well- tried messengers from court-house to court-house and village to village. To this the third point adds the following: The oldest men in the villages will establish secret tribunals to try and punish those whom fear, self-interest, or bribes may induce to turn traitors. The families of suspicious persons, and those who betray our secrets from weakness or in a state of intoxication, must be closely watched, and they themselves will be sent to distant Alpine huts and into the mountain fastnesses, where they will ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... introspection, it is safe to say that in the vast majority of people there is a definite and unassailable interest in both of these directions. Interest in others is not altruism and interest in the self is not self-interest or egoism. But, on the whole, they who are not interested in others never become philanthropists; they who are not interested in things never become savants; and they who do not dig deep into themselves are not philosophers. There are, therefore, certain practical ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... difficulty as to sending a sufficient power to overcome all possibility of resistance. You ought likewise to reflect that matters will necessarily take a quite different turn than they have hitherto done. Hitherto your followers have been influenced by their own self-interest, not only considering the late viceroy as your enemy and your cause as good, but all of them looked upon him as their personal enemy, who wished to deprive them of their properties, and to put to death every one who opposed his designs. Under these circumstances ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... 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
... implacable self-interest with which I have just come in contact, which is the law of the world, the watchword of society! So, in refusing to share the common folly, I risk remaining in isolation, and I must be strong to make others stand in awe of me. Very well, then, I shall henceforth ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... while, until patience is exhausted and indignation becomes terrible: a passion of vengeance, like that which overthrew Strafford. Wise tyrants, like Peter and Frederic the Great, will be endured, from their devotion to public interests; but unwise tyrants, ruling for self-interest or pleasure, will be hurled from power, or assassinated like Nero or Commodus, as the only way to get rid of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... and riches rubbing shoulders—noisy self-interest side by side with introspective revery, where stray priests nodded in among the traders,—many-peopled India surged in miniature between the four hot walls and through the passage to the overflowing street; changeable and unexplainable, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... sentiments—self-destroying; but I always maintain that sentiment is stronger than fact, and even than self-interest. I see clearly how foolish these feelings are, and how they operate to the disadvantage of those whom they influence. Yet I confess that were I in the same position I should be just as foolish. If I lived in a cottage of three rooms, and earned my bread by dint of arm and hand under ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... in some measure make the King of Sweden master of his country; besides that, by such a step, he must at once break with the Emperor, and expose his States to his future vengeance. The Elector's struggle with himself was long and violent, but pusillanimity and self-interest for awhile prevailed. Unmoved by the fate of Magdeburg, cold in the cause of religion and the liberties of Germany, he saw nothing but his own danger; and this anxiety was greatly stimulated by his minister Von Schwartzenburgh, who was secretly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... 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 ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... Company was dissolved by royal decree, and the commerce of Virginia made free, the planters were the only factor. Virginia, it was true, was made a royal province and put under deputy rule, but the big planters contrived to get the laws and customs their self-interest called for. There were only two classes—the rich planters, with their gifts of land, their bond-servants and slaves and, on the other hand, the poor whites. A ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... work, and persuading himself now, that he actually was a gentleman. In my third year, my foster-sister, little robust, ruddy Mary, died, and the weakly, stunted, and drooping sapling lived on. This death endeared me more and more to my nurse, and Joe himself was, by self-interest, taught an affection for me. He knew that if I went to the grave, he must go to work; and he now used himself to perform the office of dry-nurse to me, taking me to the spring, and allowing no one to dip me but himself. When I grew older, he had many stories to tell me ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... in a speech in Springfield, Lincoln said:[6] "The enterprise is a difficult one, but where there is a will there is a way, and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and at the same time favorable to, or at least not against our interests to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be."[7] It is apparent, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... wont occasionally to court the heretics on account of their power, and whose loyalty to the papal church could scarcely be supposed, even by the most charitable, to rest on any firmer foundation than self-interest. Nor was the lesson thrown away. Catharine and Michel de l'Hospital, and many another, read its import at a glance. But, instead of breaking down their opposition, the papal bull only forearmed them. They saw that Queen ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... activities will still be confined to the more ignorant, or if they also make use of contraceptive knowledge, the group will simply die out from the effects of its own democratic enlightenment. Thus it becomes apparent that we must find some more potent force than this narrow form of self-interest to accomplish the social purposes of reproduction. When reproduction is generally understood to be as thoroughly a matter of group survival as for example the defensive side in a war of extermination, ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... despotism began its reign. War had added empire, but undermined prosperity; it had created a great military monarchy, but destroyed liberty; it had brought wealth, but introduced inequalities; it had filled the city with spoils, but sown the vices of self-interest. The machinery remained perfect, but life had fled. It henceforth became the labor of Emperors to keep together their vast possessions with this machinery, which at last wore out, since there was neither genius to repair it nor ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... 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 bring ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... match-making involves a false principle. This we see more fully among the higher classes of society. It is the work of designing and interested persons, who, for self-interest, intrude their unwelcome interposition. Its whole procedure implies that marriage is simply a legal matter, a piece of business policy, a domestic speculation. It strikes out the great law of mutual, moral love, and personal adaptation. ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... with this doubt. The sentiment was at the same time one which I could not cherish for the work of an old contributor; such a one stood more upon his own feet; and the young contributor may be sure that the editor's pride, self-interest, and sense of editorial infallibility will all prompt him to stand by the author whom he has introduced to the public, and whom he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... venture to claim that 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
... neither good nor bad; he is born with instincts and capabilities; society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau asserts, improves him, makes him better; but self-interest also develops his evil tendencies. Christianity, above all, Catholicism, being—as I have pointed out in the Country Doctor (le Medecin de Campagne)—a complete system for the repression of the depraved tendencies of man, is the most powerful ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... prayed pardon if we asked him to believe in us. "Conduct," he said once, "is the outcome of selfishness limited by self-conceit." It was his way so to put things as to strip them of friendly, decent covering; had he said self-interest limited by self-respect, the axiom would have been more accepted and less quoted. A superficial person used to exclaim to me, "And yet he is so kind!" A man without ideals finds kindness the easiest thing in the world. In truth he was kind, and in a confidential sort of way that ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... no such belief may perhaps be convinced by the argument that, from a national point of view, a policy based on principles of sound morality is wiser, inasmuch as it is likely to be more successful, than one which excludes all considerations save those of cynical self-interest. There was truth in the commonplace remark made by a subject of ancient Rome, himself a slave and presumably of Oriental extraction, that bad government will bring the mightiest empire ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... good an opinion of him; that he would not deceive me, that he would do anything in his power to serve me, and expect no salary; but that he could not by any means accept of a trust, that it might bring him to be suspected of self-interest, and that if I should die he might have disputes with my executors, which he should be very loth to ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... divergence of opinions, is already, according to him, extremely dangerous, since it is only when there is a tolerable unanimity respecting the rule of life, that a real moral control can be established over the self-interest and passions of individuals. Besides which, when every man is encouraged to believe himself a competent judge of the most difficult social questions, he cannot be prevented from thinking himself competent also to the most important ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... his purse, and 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, ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... general were accustomed to see, or were therefore accustomed to praise, should be such as were, or at least might without contradicting obvious facts be supposed to be, the result of a prudential regard to self-interest; so that the words really connoted no more, in common acceptation, than was set down in ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... to-day's problems, clear-cut and courageous. Babson has little sympathy with the arguments of self-interest of business men or with the outworn methods of the church in industrial communities. His sole interest is in the physical, social, and spiritual salvation of the men, women, and children in ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... CAUSES may not be explained, Since these EFFECTS are duly ascertained, Let not self-interest, prejudice, or pride, Induce mankind to set the means aside; Means which, though simple, are by Heaven designed to alleviate the ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... his ambition to this Spartan virtue. He remained in most respects as selfish a man as ever lived, as selfish as a greedy schoolboy; nevertheless by the power of his single virtue, to which he was faithful up to his last moments on this earth, he was able to sacrifice his absorbing self-interest to the national welfare even in a political atmosphere which sickened him at ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... was found by experience that those in whom the Sangleys placed most confidence were the first and most importunate voters for their ruin. In this decision it is only the king who hazards his treasure, and his governor who risks a point of honor; for finally the very persons who, through either self-interest or greed, advised the assault [on the Sangleys] cast on the governor the blame of the insurrection, as happened to Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera. The very persons who, censuring him as a coward and representing to him instances of boldness forced ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... pleasure to the contemplation of that small but glorious band, whom we may truly distinguish by the name of thinking and disinterested patriots.[6] These are the men who have encouraged the sympathetic passions till they have become irresistible habits, and made their duty a necessary part of their self-interest, by the long-continued cultivation of that moral taste, which derives our most exquisite pleasures from the contemplation ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the one were thundered the 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 which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... race, and for the continuance of that mutual reaction and play of peculiar forces between races which promise the highest development for the whole. It is not for nothing, we may suppose, that differentiation has gone on in the world; and we doubt that either benevolence or self-interest requires this age to attempt to restore an assumed lost uniformity, and fuse the race ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... safety and reproduction; the law of the flesh in its simplest form, carried over from our pre-human ancestry and still capable of taking charge when we are off our guard. The more complex life of the human primitive; with its outlook of wonder, self-interest and fear, developed under conditions of ignorance, peril and perpetual struggle for life. The history of primitive man covers millions of years: the history of civilized man, a few thousand at the most. Therefore it is not surprising that the primitive ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... not in the habit of indulging herself in moods or reveries; 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 ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... the coast, to carry on a peddling traffic, are beneath a manly and comprehensive policy. We must penetrate the mountains, ascend the rivers, and reach the seats of sovereignty. We must, by a large and generous self-interest, combine the good, the knowledge, and the virtue of the population with our own; and we must lay the foundation of our permanent influence over this fourth of the globe, by showing that we are the fittest to communicate the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... man, if ever there was one. He was a man of big ideas, too big for prejudice or suspicion or self-interest. His mind was at once imaginative and matter-of-fact, making him that rare combination, a practical idealist. But the abiding memory which I shall retain of him as long as I live is not his wide knowledge, his singleness of purpose, his vital energy and driving ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... welfare of our respective nations for the behoof of the Serbian military party whose dreams of greatness border on mania? No, it behoves us both to do all that lies in us to calm Russia's passion and induce her to listen to the promptings of reason and self-interest. You, with the powerful influence which your friendship and alliance impart to your counsels, and we by dint of example, ought to succeed in averting this awful peril." In this tone, Herr von Schoen delivered his daily ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... far less anxiety about the rights of the Indians, than the injuries which, through their instrumentality, might be inflicted upon the rising republic. This feeling towards the whites, and especially to the people of the United States, had a deeper foundation than mere prejudice or self-interest. Tecumseh was a patriot, and his love of country made him a statesman and a warrior. He saw his race driven from their native land, and scattered like withered leaves in an autumnal blast; he beheld their morals debased, their independence destroyed, their means of subsistence ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... fruit can ever be gathered? of what possible importance are emotions and enthusiasm, which always end in calculations of interest, covering only with brilliant veil the covert struggles of egotism and venal self-interest? ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... the law of Nature working in 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
... well as from many whom he generously supported, filling every heart capable of appreciating goodness and greatness with the deepest sorrow, affected me also in the most profound and painful degree. The stern duty of self-interest compels me to lay before your Highness a humble petition, the reasonable purport of which may, I hope, plead my excuse for intruding on your Highness at a time when so many affairs of importance claim your attention. Permit me to state ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826, Volume 1 of 2 • Lady Wallace
... kept; but, after the petitioner had been obliged to buy or compound for the farms, that they were taken from him,—"that the said Richard Barwell, Esquire, about his departure from Dacca, in October, 1774, for self-interest wrested from the petitioner the aforesaid two mahls, (or districts,) and farmed them to another person, notwithstanding he had extorted from the petitioner a considerable sum of money on account ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... enjoyed the great advantage of an undisputed command, while Eumenes always had to contend with many competitors for the first place, which nevertheless he always obtained by his brilliant exploits. Sertorius was eagerly followed by men who were proud to obey him, but Eumenes was only obeyed out of self-interest, by men who were incompetent to lead. The Roman ruled the tribes of Lusitania and Iberia, who had been long before conquered by the Romans, while the Kardian led the Macedonians, when fresh from ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... 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
... be composed, but that resting on the instinct of self-preservation could know no end. Statesmen had to shape their policy—sometimes blindly enough—but always under the pressure of this vigorous instinct of self-interest prevalent amongst the trading ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... fluctuations of the market, were rebuked by parliament for "their greedy and covetous minds," "as more regarding their own singular lucre and profit than the commonweal of the Realm;"[8] and although in an altered world, neither industry nor enterprise will thrive except under the stimulus of self-interest, we may admire the confidence which in another age expected every man to prefer the advantage of the community to his own. All land was held upon a strictly military principle. It was the representative of authority, and the holder or the owner took rank in the ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... to pardon 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 Henry could ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... seek its reason-to-be in economic causes. Profits, market, financing, are placed in certain jeopardy by such a labor policy, and this risk is not continued, generation after generation, as a casual indulgence in temper. Deep below the strong charges against the unions of narrow self-interest and un-American limitation of output, dressed by the Citizens' Alliance in the language of the Declaration of Independence, lies a quiet economic reason for the hostility. Just as slavery was about to ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... the state of affairs appeared, in the eyes of those who were not blinded by self-interest, on both sides of the Atlantic, is shown by the following extracts ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... it in these very days? And Mammon is weak, too. This world is not a shop, men are not merely money-makers and wages-earners. There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in that sort of philosophy. Self-interest and covetousness cannot keep society orderly and peaceful, let sham philosophers say what they will. And then comes tyranny, lawlessness, rich and poor staining their hands in each other's blood, as we saw ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... another Fashionable Foreigner [shews the head], a very simple machine; for he goes upon one spring, self-interest. This head may be compared to a disoblezeance; for there is but one seat in it, and that is not the seat {41}of understanding: yet it is wonderful how much more rapidly this will move in the high road of preferment than one of your thinking, feeling, complex, English heads, ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... The consistency of his career was marvellous,—not that he did not change some of his opinions, for there is no intellectual progress to a man who does not. How can a young man, however gifted, be infallible? But whatever the changes through which his mind passed, they did not result from self-interest or ambition, but were the result of more enlightened views and enlarged experience. Political wisdom is not a natural instinct, but a progressive growth, like that of Burke,—the profoundest of all the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... me much more than the obsolete politics. I shall say nothing about what you call your old leaven. Every body must judge for himself in those matters: nor are you or I of an age to change long-formed opinions, as neither of us is governed by self-interest. Pray tell me how I may most safely return your volume. I value all your manuscripts so much, that I should never forgive myself, if a single one came to any accident by your so obligingly lending them to me. They are ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... 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 in cargo and getting the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... legislation. He will be a tyrant or slave, a glutton or miser, a fanatic or libertine, a sneak-thief or highway robber, as circumstances may influence him. Think you that the common "fall back" on principle of self-interest—well or ill understood—will ever restrain such a one from doing any act of impulse or indulgence, provided he thinks it can be safely done? He will look on life as a game of address or force, in which the best man is he who carries ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... grateful for the oft-reiterated advice of my father to his children. "Never," he would say, "act a selfish part." In all your plans and purposes in life, do not have an exclusive regard to self-interest. If you do, you will find many competitors. But if you strive to render others happy, you will always find a large and open field of enterprise; and let me assure you that this is the best way to promote your own happiness for time and ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various
... suspected the book's authorship. It was not over-favorably received. It was generally characterized as a clever, and even brilliant, expose of philosophies which were no longer startlingly new. The supremacy of self-interest and "man the irresponsible machine" are the main features of 'What Is Man' and both of these and all the rest are comprehended in his wider and more absolute doctrine of that inevitable life-sequence which ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... 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, ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... the rate 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
... transportation men. Of course we could quickly have had from most of these men very definite and practical advice as to where to go and how to get there; but the advice would most likely have been strongly tempered with self-interest. The rest of those we encountered were on their way back from the mines. And from them we got our first dash of cold ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... must in moral matters finally rely on the individual's judgment, this in no way implies the breakdown of universal principles. It is neither necessary nor natural that individual judgment should bespeak whim, hasty impulse, or narrow self-interest. The guardian in Plato's Republic was as much an individual as the merchant or the soldier.[5] In a sense he was more an individual than these, since he was not swayed by the crowd, but thought with freedom {38} and independence. Nevertheless his thought embraced the interests of the entire ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... facts are so obvious, there should be no delay in taking preventive measures. Yet we seem as a nation to be willing to proceed in this matter with happy-go-lucky indifference even to the immediate future. It is this attitude which permits the self-interest of a very few persons to weigh for more than the ultimate interest of all our people. There are persons who find it to their immense pecuniary benefit to destroy the forests by lumbering. They are to be blamed for thus sacrificing the future of the Nation as a whole ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that self-interest must have been the predominant reason in the mind of the Egyptian king for undertaking this stupendous work. It is true that his change of religion implies that some higher cause influenced him. But a ruler who ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... 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
... men are born self-analysts, and are able to dissect their feelings by some peculiar form of mental surgery which finally leads them to cut out tenderness as though it were a cancer, love as a disease, and romantic aspirations as mere uncomfortable growths injurious to self-interest, but Gervase was not one of these. Outwardly he assumed more or less the composed and careless demeanor of the modern French cynic, but inwardly the man was a raging fire of fierce passions which were sometimes too strong to be held in check. At the present moment he ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... have always to carry more than their share of the burden, they were very moderate in their calls for aid; and the demand for that they rested chiefly upon the same ground which naturally sustained part of their own calculations of reimbursement in some shape, direct or indirect—local self-interest. The dislike to the entire loss of a large outlay on an uncertain event is not peculiar to this commercial age. Appeals on the side of patriotism and of public enthusiasm over the jubilee of a century would be at least as effective with the American people as with any other in the world; but they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... another is to put chains upon himself, that to maim another is to strike himself, he will require neither the fear of an exterior hell nor the threat of legal penalties to induce him to follow a moral course. He would see that his own larger and true self-interest could be served only when his conduct was in harmony with the welfare of all. It is but a simple statement of the truth to say that the immanence of God furnishes a ...
— Elementary Theosophy • L. W. Rogers
... has gone on just as it was before. A Socialist State would not be able to make the sun rise in the west, or do away with death any more than we can. They would have ministers, custom-house officers, policemen, virtue, vice and ambition, self-interest, oppression and brotherly love just as we do, and if the Socialists come into power, they will soon pass special acts and prosecute the followers of other opinions just as they are being prosecuted to-day. That is all upon the surface, and does not touch the root of things. ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... appearance would be as terrible in its effect as the head of Medusa. But the presence of the widow restrained him. Why ruin his future and dry up the golden spring which had just begun to gush before his eyes, for the sake of taking part in a melodrama? Prudence and self-interest kept ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... who was two years her senior. Though she had seen Ralph but thrice, she already felt that she might have him on his knees before her, if she cared so to place him. But there was that suspicion of something which had gone before, and a feeling that honour and gratitude,—perhaps, also, self-interest,—called upon her to be cold in her manner to Ralph Newton. She had purposely avoided his companionship in their walk home from Mrs. Brownlow's house; and now, as they wandered about the lawn and shrubberies of Popham Villa, she took care not to be with him out of earshot ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... 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, but more often veiled ...
— The Story of Versailles • Francis Loring Payne
... pressed 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. When recovery ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... this word has a significance hardly expressed by any English one, and used to be very prevalent to indicate keen and forcible tenacity of possession; thus a character noted for avarice or sharp looking to self-interest was termed "grippy." In mechanical contrivances, anything taking a close adherence was called having a gude grip. I recollect in boyish days, when on Deeside taking wasp-nests, an old man looking on was sharply stung by ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... anything he felt to be real; but his was one of those natures that burst into what is generally called recklessness and impiety the moment they feel that anything is being poured upon them for their good which does not come home to their inborn sense of right, or which appeals to anything like self-interest in them. Daring and honest by nature, and outspoken to an extent which alarmed all respectabilities, with a constant fund of animal health and spirits which he did not feel bound to curb in any way, he had gained for himself with the steady part ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... which in 1818 he had protested against a league between England and autocracy were still ringing in the ears of his colleagues. Lord Liverpool's Government knew itself to be unpopular in the country; every consideration of policy as well as of self-interest bade it resist the beginnings of an intervention which, if confined to words, was certain to be useless, and, if supported by action, was likely to end in that alliance between France and Russia which had been the nightmare of English statesmen ever since 1814, and in a second occupation ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... sources you proved to be corrupt, its powers inadequate, and its decisions never accurate; therefore never just. This was your language. You reprobated those accommodating rules by which I endeavoured to obtain happiness; and urged arguments that made a deep impression upon me. Now that self-interest gives you an impulse, are your principles become as pliant as mine; which ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... say so?" repeated the unhappy Amy, laying aside every consideration of consistency and of self-interest. "Oh, if I did, I foully belied him. May God so judge me, as I believe he was never privy to a ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... 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. ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... passions, perfect prudence, which, as St. Thomas shows, is the fruit of the assemblage of all virtues, and a divine light which grace fails not to infuse. This simplicity, which is the mother of Christian discretion, is a stranger to all artifice, design, and dissimulation, to all views or desires of self-interest, and to all undue respect or consideration of creatures. All its desires and views are reduced to this alone, of attaining to the perfect union with God. Unfeignedly to desire this one thing, to belong to God alone, to arrive at ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... with the slum began the day civilization recognized in it her enemy. It was a losing fight until conscience joined forces with fear and self-interest against it. When common sense and the golden rule obtain among men as a rule of practice, it will be over. The two have not always been classed together, but here they are plainly seen to belong together. Justice to the individual is accepted ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... gratefully, devotedly; finally: fiercely, rabidly, uncompromisingly. After that, I was welded to my faith, I was theoretically ready to die for it, and I looked down with compassion not unmixed with scorn, upon everybody else's faith that didn't tally with mine. That faith, imposed upon me by self-interest in that ancient day, remains my faith to-day, and in it I find comfort, solace, peace, and never-failing joy. You see how curiously theological it is. The "rice Christian" of the Orient goes through the very same steps, when he is after rice and the missionary ...
— Is Shakespeare Dead? - from my Autobiography • Mark Twain
... admit of no subtleties. Mademoiselle Cormon trod the path of salvation, preferring the sorrows of her virginity so cruelly prolonged to the evils of trickery and the sin of a snare. In a woman armed with a scourge virtue could never compromise; consequently both love and self-interest were forced to seek her, and seek her resolutely. And here let us have the courage to make a cruel observation, in days when religion is nothing more than a useful means to some, and a poesy to others. Devotion causes ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... among nations is perfect, and an enlightened self-interest would lead every nation to carry into full effect the golden rule of Christianity; and yet even now, the most distinguished men in England regard smuggling almost as a virtuous act, and the smuggler as a great reformer, ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... me," he said. "I am humane as most others, but it is difficult to decide whether or not mere humanity, setting aside self-interest, would not rather condemn you to the speedy death of the wreck than drag you to the worse fate that awaits you here. And please remember that we did succor you, thus risking observation and a visit by the troops when the sea permits a landing. But that is not the true issue. An hour ago there ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... less dependent on America, than we now are, for the raw material. The shipping of America is not held by the cotton-growing states; and although the nationality of the southerns is no doubt great, yet their love of self-interest is much greater, and would always preponderate in their choice of vessels. It would be even better, if found necessary, to make some arrangement in the shape of draw-back, than that a nation which has imposed a duty on our manufactured goods, almost amounting to a prohibition, should reap so much ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... him; he never fails to swell out his chest when he hears that buncombe. In point of fact, of course, he is no more an altruist than any other healthy mammal. His ideals, one and all, are grounded upon self-interest, or upon the fear that is at the bottom of it; his benevolence always has a string tied to it; he could no more formulate a course of action to his certain disadvantage than an Englishman could, or a Frenchman, or an Italian, or a German. But to say that ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... governmental repression. At bottom there is a natural harmony of interests. Maintain external order, suppress violence, assure men in the possession of their property, and enforce the fulfilment of contracts, and the rest will go of itself. Each man will be guided by self-interest, but interest will lead him along the lines of greatest productivity. If all artificial barriers are removed, he will find the occupation which best suits his capacities, and this will be the occupation in which he will be most ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
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