Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Unselfishly   Listen
Unselfishly

adverb
1.
In an unselfish manner.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Unselfishly" Quotes from Famous Books



... as I came, then and in later years, to know him and compare him with other Americans in public life. As a representative of our country abroad, no one, not even Lowell, has stood for it so nobly and unselfishly; Charles Francis Adams alone rivaling him in the seriousness with which he gave himself to the Republic. Lowell was not less patriotic, but he loved society and England; Marsh in those days of trial ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... themselves. On this occasion he had managed with great difficulty to restrain them from joining a company of Emperors. The dogs were frantic, the Emperors undisturbed. Unable to go himself, one dog called Little Ginger unselfishly bit through the harness which restrained two of his companions, and Debenham, helplessly holding the straining sledge, could only witness ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... prosperous future for this Germano-Turkish cotton combine. Hitherto Turkey has largely imported cotton from England; now Turkey—thanks to German capital on terms above stated—will, in the process of internal development so unselfishly devised for her by Germany, grow cotton for herself, and be kind enough to give a ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... desire to do all the good he could. If he was ambitious, his ambition was directed to the prosperity and glory of his country. If he levied taxes without the consent of the nation, he spent the money economically, wisely, and unselfishly. He sought no inglorious pomps; he built no expensive palaces; he gave no foolish fetes; nor did he seek to disguise his tyranny by amusing or demoralizing the people, like the old Roman Caesars. He would even have established a constitutional monarchy, had it been ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... D'Arcy and Lickford unselfishly gave up the poles to Cottle and Ashby; and they, after a reasonable season of struggle and peril, nobly ceded them to Ramshaw and Cash, Fisher minor waiving his claim, and electing to sit "odd man ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... irrepressible well-spring of hope that was in her healthy youth, could have sustained her in what, ten years after, would have appeared to her, as it certainty was, downright insanity. But Heaven takes care of the mad, the righteously and unselfishly mad, and Heaven took ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... Prince, "their state-pensions, or the wealth personally acquired on which their power and influence are based. Has the Order of the Thorn ever once in its history been given to a man because he was conspicuously good, or gentle, or forbearing, or unselfishly thoughtful for others? Has it ever once been given to a successful philanthropist who was not also of high lineage and title? I have looked through the lists; I can find none. Your Grace is the only ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman

... deal to be said about India, and I am trying to dispose of some of the dryest subjects first. Dr. Ferrolan has very unselfishly consented to make a martyr of himself in the treatment of one of these topics, though I hope another time to assign him something more ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... and exalted Steerforth to the skies: especially when he told us, as he condescended to do, that what he had done had been done expressly for us, and for our cause; and that he had conferred a great boon upon us by unselfishly doing it. But I must say that when I was going on with a story in the dark that night, Mr. Mell's old flute seemed more than once to sound mournfully in my ears; and that when at last Steerforth was tired, and I lay down in my bed, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens

... I don't think I really mistrusted you at all; and long ago I admitted to myself that you had acted unselfishly and honorably. But I was angry at the time; you know, sometimes a girl will be angry, even when there is no good reason for it. I have long wished for an opportunity to tell you this, for my own sake, you know, ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... they deserved. Verse about as well as it deserved, which, however, wasn't, as a rule, saying very much. Some kinds of book were unkindly used—anthologies of contemporary verse, for instance. Someone would unselfishly go to the trouble of collecting some of the recent poetical output which he or she personally preferred and binding it up in a pleasant portable volume, and you would think all that readers had to do was to read what they ...
— Potterism - A Tragi-Farcical Tract • Rose Macaulay

... good-will permeates the social life. No community of the kind could have a more delightful spirit of unity than that which pervades the Jaques-Dalcroze School. All students are keen and anxious to live as full a life as possible, every one will willingly and unselfishly take time and trouble to help others who know less than themselves. The College has a unity born of kindred interests, and every one glows with admiration and esteem for the genius at the head, and for his wonderful method, whilst he himself simply radiates ...
— The Eurhythmics of Jaques-Dalcroze • Emile Jaques-Dalcroze

... may have the Advertiser" he said, handing it over the table to her. "I was down first, and I got both the papers. I'm not really obliged to make any division, but I've seen the Advertiser, and I'm willing to behave unselfishly. If you're very impatient for the police report in the Sunrise I'll read it aloud for you. I think that will be a very good test of its quality, ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells

... still loved Alden, but unselfishly. This new Rosemary asked nothing for herself, she only longed to give, though freedom might be her best gift to him. Harm could come to her only through herself; the burning heart and the racked soul had been under ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... at the heart they are very much alike. I fear the plutocracy of wealth; I respect the aristocracy of learning; but I thank God for the democracy of the heart. You must love if you would be loved. "They loved him because he first loved them"—this is the verdict pronounced where men have unselfishly laboured for the welfare of the whole people. Link yourselves in sympathy with your fellowmen; mingle with them; know them and you will trust them and they will trust you. If you are stronger than others, bear heavier loads; if you are more capable ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan

... tender rush of passionate reminiscence that would not be denied, the knowledge came home to me that, whatever her faults might be, however foolish and maddening her actions, no one had ever loved me as she had done, as unselfishly, with the same ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... Macdonald, George Brown, Alexander Mackenzie, Egerton Ryerson, Sir Oliver Mowat, and Sir James Whitney; women such as Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Fry, Laura Secord and Sarah Maxwell. Besides these eminent examples, there are in every locality men and women who give unselfishly of their energy and time for the good ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education

... object of the quest of Diogenes | |because when a ball was fouled into the grand stand | |and he caught it, he threw it back into the field | |instead of hiding it in his pocket. | | | |Ray Fisher, who gave up his life unselfishly to | |teaching school up in Vermont until he found how | |much money there was in tossing a curved ball, did | |the twirling for the Yankees and on the few | |occasions when he was in trouble his teammates came | |to his support like a rich uncle. In the ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer

... should it be otherwise? It has been our fortune to meet under strange conditions, Captain Carlyle—conditions testing us, and revealing the very depths of our natures. Concealment and disguise is no longer necessary between us. You have served me unselfishly, plunging headlong into danger for my sake. I shudder at the thought of where I would be now, but for your effort to save me. No man could have done more, or proved himself more staunch and true. We are in ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... of which laudable determination he braved his eldest sister's frowns with heroic intrepidity, calling to see the young girl whenever all other sources of amusement failed him, and paying her the compliment—as is the habit of the natural man, when unselfishly desirous of giving pleasure to the women of his family—of talking continuously and exclusively about his own affairs, his gains at cards, his losses on horses, even recounting, in moments of more than ordinarily expansive affection, the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... proposed formally in writing for the hand of the lovely Honora, and Mr. Edgeworth was to take the packet and to bring back the answer; and being married himself, and out of the running, he appears to have been unselfishly anxious for his friend's success. In the packet Mr. Day had written down the conditions to which he should expect his wife to subscribe. She would have to begin at once by giving up all luxuries, amenities, and intercourse with the world, and promise to continue to seclude ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie)

... them!" I glared; and poor Phil, unselfishly anxious to show off my accomplishments to Lady MacNairne's nephew, was silent and abashed. I hoped that Mr. Starr ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... plans were being matured, General Lee suddenly changed his mind and announced that he would take command of the advance force; and he appealed to Lafayette's generosity to allow him to do so, even after having once given his refusal. Lafayette unselfishly resigned the command. It is the opinion of historians that the outcome of the battle of Monmouth would have been very different if the American side had been left in the capable hands of ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow

... tail; And some are sure she went out of the room Riding her stilts like a witch a broom, While a phosphorent odor followed her track: Be this as it may, she never came back. Since then, her friends of the gold-fish fry Are in a state of unpleasant suspense, Afraid, that unless they unselfishly try To make better use of their dollars and sense To chasten their pride, and their manners mend, They may meet a similar ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... man distrustful of my kind. The God of Israel help him who, at the end of life, is constrained to acknowledge so much! My loves are few, but they are. One of them is a soul which"—he carried the hand holding his to his lips, in manner unmistakable—"a soul which to this time has been unselfishly mine, and such sweet comfort that, were it taken from ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... deserve success than to merely have it; few deserve it who do not attain it. There is no failure in this country for those whose personal habits are good, and who follow some honest calling industriously, unselfishly, and purely. If one desires to succeed, he must pay ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

... how his friends were being cheated and he was being jockeyed out of his chances by one and the same unscrupulous bit of imposture. He had brought himself round to a more settled state of mind and had got his conscience into better order. If he were acting unselfishly, he deserved commendation. But even if self-interest guided him he was free of blame. No man is bound to let himself be swindled. He doubted seriously of nothing now except his power to upset Harry Tristram's plans. He was resolved to try; Mina must speak—and if money were ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope

... colonial militia in the Alleghany Mountains, the scout of a land company, has been entirely forgotten in Washington, the father of a nation; but Jumonville, the French ensign with no land-scrip, fighting certainly as unselfishly and with as high purpose, is not forgotten in any later achievement. That skirmish ended all for him. But let it be remembered even now that he was a representative of France standing almost alone, ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... afraid that we did not rejoice quite as unselfishly in Sara's good fortune as we should have done. WE had earned our contributions by the sweat of our brow, or by the scarcely less disagreeable method of "begging." And Sara's had as good as descended upon her out of the skies, as much like a miracle ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Ronald told him fairy-stories of great cities and universities, of miles of books and pictures, of wonderful machinery and steam engines, of delicious things to eat and drink. Peter felt as if he must start southward by the next mail packet, but in the morning he thought more unselfishly. ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... man that it is better on all accounts that he should keep his hands clean and he might answer, "Yes, I appreciate that; but I have never thought of my hands, and to keep them clean would make me conscious of them." Try to convince an unselfishly-selfish or selfishly-unselfish person that the right care for one's self means greater usefulness to others, and you will have a most difficult task. The man with dirty hands is quite right in his answer. To keep his hands clean would make ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call

... guests. Julia looked very beautiful and sweet, as she welcomed us in the quaint little parlor over the telegraph office. I had not been in the room ten minutes before I discovered that Herbert Lawrence loved Julia as unselfishly as I did. Herbert, who was a gentlemanly fellow, was, on account of his intensely nervous disposition, ill-adapted to the work of an operator. He was extremely sensitive, and had a painful habit of blushing that at times made him look almost ridiculous. ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith

... exacting business so much, especially when he had appeared so generous in the time he had given her, which must have involved to him serious loss and inconvenience. She said to herself, "I shall be better and happier, and so will Charles, when I cease secretly finding fault with him, and devote myself unselfishly to making a good wife and ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... the image of the pale student, so affectionate, so unselfishly considerate in all things, with the commanding figure and cold, guarded, non-committal face of Mr. Palma, she shivered and groaned: but the comparison only goaded her to find safety in the sheltering love, that must at ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... exist and you mustn't imagine it. You are as sincerely and unselfishly regarded in this house as you could be in your own home. I'm sure of that. I know Mrs. Bowen. She has her little worldlinesses and unrealities of manner, but she is truth and loyalty itself. She would rather die than be false, or even unfair. I ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... pipe contentedly, as he always is contented when he can make satisfactory arrangements to sacrifice himself unselfishly and pretend to himself he is a cynic. Whether because the armed guard of their own people put new courage in them, or because rifles at their rear made them more afraid, the stragglers gave less trouble for the next few hours. Perhaps ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... and devoted slave, Moussa Isa, went observant. And all that he learnt and knew, within and without the confines of Ind, by itself disturbed him, as an England-lover, not at all. Taken in conjunction with the probabilities of a great European War it disturbed him mightily. As mightily as unselfishly. To him the dripping weapon, the blazing roof, the shrieking woman, the mangled corpse were but incidents, the unavoidable, unobjectionable concomitants of the Great Game, the game he most loved (and ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... stories vary from this norm: (1) The hero does not buy the life of any animals, (2) he does not acquire the charm from a grateful serpent that he has unselfishly saved from death, (3) the dog does not appear at all, (4) castle and wife are not transported beyond the sea, (5) the cat does not serve the hero voluntarily out of gratitude, (6) the hero himself journeys to recover his stolen charm. And yet ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... that she will be too deeply steeped in the stupor of the Underworld to remember her husband, and unselfishly she urges him to continue to be happy after the manner of his nation. Then, in a passage which rings down the years in its terrible beauty, she tells of her utter despair, lying in the gloomy Underworld, suffocated with the mummy bandages, and craving for the light, the laughter, ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall

... to lose their estimate of the powers that are not ordained of God, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike Christ and the example he ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy

... great men, though of the greatest we nearly always know the least (and that necessarily; they being very silent, and not much given to setting themselves forth to questioners,—apt to be contemptuously reserved no less than unselfishly). But in such writings and sayings as we possess of theirs we may trace a quite curious gentleness and serene courtesy. Rubens's letters are almost ludicrous in their unhurried politeness. Reynolds, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... has a public-spirited citizen who unselfishly devotes himself or herself to the public good. That citizen of Peekskill in those early days was Doctor James Brewer. He had accumulated a modest competence sufficient for his simple needs as bachelor. He ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew

... my own, in my affections, stands this sunlit, flower-covered land which has given the world men and women unselfishly brave and noble. But there are a few deformities in the country's law system that need the knife of a skilled surgeon, amputating right up to the last joint; among these the divorce laws made in ancient times ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... desired to browbeat Bakahenzie, much as his confidence in the powers of the chief witch-doctor had waned in his estimation, yet there remained sufficient to overawe him when the matter was put to a crucial test. Bakahenzie would, so he stated, go himself to see the new white man, thus unselfishly taking upon his person the whole risk of the lasting magic of a stranger unpurified. But Marufa had no intention of allowing Bakahenzie to obtain a monopoly of this possible new ally. Unlike Zalu Zako he was not burdened with ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... a literary artist should always write for himself. Yet, of course, he should write unselfishly; we may say he would do well always to aim at the entertainment of the noblest minds, even when he does not exhort their loftiest moods. But he certainly achieves much besides if, while he does these things, ...
— The Building of a Book • Various

... these northern women worked on, year after year, unselfishly, with a heroism which amounted almost to martyrdom. Threading their way through dense forests, working in schoolhouse, in the cabin and in the church, thrown at all times and in all places among the unfortunate and lowly Negroes, whom they had come to find and to serve, these northern ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett

... gives them, and faces again the eternal suspense that she has lived through before. The younger women, who in times of peace would have looked forward to an advantageous and comfortable marriage, will now marry men whom they may never see again after the ten days' honeymoon is over, and will unselfishly face the very real possibility of widowhood and lonely motherhood. They have had to learn the old lesson that work for others is the only cure for sorrow, and they have learned too that it is the only ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh

... been Chief Conservative Whip in the 1868-1873 Parliament. He married in May 1870, in the middle of the session at a very critical political period. He most unselfishly consented to forego his honeymoon, or to postpone it, and there were rumours that on the very evening of his wedding-day, his sense of duty had been so strong that he had appeared in the House of Commons to "tell" in an important Division. When Disraeli was asked if ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... union with My Body broken: give your lives in sacrifice for others, as I have given Mine." The Eucharist, rightly regarded, is the mainspring and motive-power of service, the principle of a life that is crucified. And all those who in their day and generation have spent their lives unselfishly and used themselves up in promoting causes not their own are partakers in that ...
— Religious Reality • A.E.J. Rawlinson

... the book," and Judy stretched out her hand, and Anne gave her "Kidnapped" unselfishly, glad to see the softened look in Judy's eyes, and as the morning passed and the two girls read on and on, they did not notice that the rain had stopped and that the parted clouds showed ...
— Judy • Temple Bailey

... two brothers, one had passed away and had left his boy Carl, named after himself, as a solemn charge, to be brought up by Uncle Ludwig as his own son. The composer took up this task generously and unselfishly. He was happy to have the little lad near him, one of his own kin to love. But as Carl grew to young manhood he proved to be utterly unworthy of all this affection. He treated his good uncle shamefully, stole money from him, though he ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower

... better results accrue if the patient is taught to use auto or self-suggestion for himself. It is seen, then, that the use of the mind to influence others is distinctly harmful if it is used selfishly, and of no real use if used unselfishly. Hypnotism is harmful, no matter which way it is used, and is also detrimental to the patient. Because of this some of our more thoughtful neurologists have given ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin

... he choked. "My—God!" and a rending sob tore loose from his throat. For the first time in his life he had to weep; uncontrolled, unashamed, childlike, fatherly, brotherly. For he had experienced, unselfishly, on account of one of the humblest of God's creatures, one of the great divine emotions. And when that happens to a man it is as if his soul were winnowed by the wind ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... human; that the highest effort of the human was to lay hold of the divine. He learned that he could keep no simplest law in its loveliness until he was possessed of the same spirit whence that law sprung; that he could not love Helen aright, simply, perfectly, unselfishly, except through the presence of the originating Love; that the one thing wherein he might imitate the free creative will of God was to will the presence and power of that will which gave birth to his. It was the vital growth of this faith, even ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald

... this time Dr. Sharpe loved his wife as unselfishly as he knew how. Harrie often wrote me that he was "very good." She was sometimes a little troubled that he should "know so much more" than she, and had fits of reading the newspapers and reviewing her French, and studying cases of hydrophobia, or some other pleasant subject which had a professional ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... think so. You wanted love in the form of an unselfish intellectual friendship. Well, I have tried to love you unselfishly, God knows! It is an impossible basis for marriage. However, we are married. May we not at least be friends? (Comes and stands by her chair.) Do you think marriage exists for the sake of ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter

... LADY RUSSELL,—... I cannot tell you how highly I esteem your kind Christmas remembrances, or how earnestly I send all seasonable wishes to you and Lord Russell and all who are dearest to you. I am unselfishly glad that Lord Russell is out of the turmoil and worry of a new Administration, but I miss him from it sorely. I was saying only yesterday to Layard (who is staying here), that I could not get over the absence of that great Liberal ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell

... through the very hand that had first aided her to live! And so had she fulfilled the common lot of women, which is, taken in the aggregate, to be wronged and slain (morally, when not physically) by the very men they have most unselfishly sought to serve! ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... entertainment as elder and younger brother. Within its walls, which he will build strong as a mountain's base, with gates of brass invulnerable, and towers to descry the clouds below the horizon, he will collect unselfishly whatever is good and beautiful, remembering he serves Allah ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... judgment, consist with the national honor that they shall continue to subsist upon the local relief given indiscriminately to paupers instead of upon the special and generous provision of the nation they served so gallantly and unselfishly. Our people will, I am sure, very generally approve such legislation. And I am equally sure that the survivors of the Union Army and Navy will feel a grateful sense of relief when this worthy and suffering class of their comrades is fairly ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... you unselfishly to get into a better humor with the world in general, and Dr. Van Anden in particular, before you undertake to talk with a lady again?" Sadie answered in her usual tones of raillery; all her dignity had departed. "Meantime, if you ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)

... to the wonderful idea of a railroad from East to West. Neale found himself confronted by a singularly disturbing fact. However grand this project, its political and mercenary features could not be beautiful to him. Why could not all men be right-minded about a noble cause and work unselfishly for the development of the West and the future generations? It was a melancholy thing to learn that men of sincere and generous purpose had spent their all trying to raise the money to build the Union Pacific; on the other hand, it was a satisfaction to hear that ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey

... Christian people who are unselfishly and lovingly toiling for the temporal and spiritual welfare of this Asiatic population in America. They rightly feel that the people of the United States have a special duty towards these Orientals, that the purifying power of Christianity can remove the dangers incident ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... bargain—an "inscription" of fifty thousand francs a year in Rentes—is offered on the very day when the family has come to its last sou; accepted, after short and sham refusal, by the duke; acquiesced in unselfishly by the mother, who despairs of saving her husband and daughter from starvation in any other way; and submitted to by the daughter herself in a spirit of martyrdom, strengthened by the certainty that it is but for a little while. How the situation works out to an end ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury

... eager for strife, Finds not his country in quarrels Only to find her in trade,— While still he accords her such honour As never to flinch for her sake Where men put service upon her, Found heavy to undertake And scarcely like to be paid: Believing a nation may act Unselfishly—shiver a lance (As the least of her sons may, in fact) And not for a cause ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... tell them the truth," she said, sternly. "That man," she cried, pointing her finger at the King, "that man whom they call a King—that man who would have sacrificed the only friend who serves him unselfishly—is the man who sold your secret to the enemy. It was he who made me do it. He sent me to Messina, and while the priest and the Prince Kalonay were working in the south, I sold them to the government at the capital. Barrat knew it, Erhaupt knew it, the King himself planned ...
— The King's Jackal • Richard Harding Davis

... is one branch of decorative art in which rich people may indulge themselves unselfishly; if they ask for good art in it, they may be sure in buying gold and silver plate that they are enforcing useful education on young artists. But there is another branch of decorative art in which I am sorry to say we cannot, at least under existing circumstances, indulge ourselves, with ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin

... smiling faces, and tea with thick cream and cake of the richest and freshest.... You know how some people beg you to visit them, and when you go they seem to wear a surprised look, and you feel unexpected and awkward? The Duncans make you feel so pleased with yourself. They are so unselfishly interested in other people's concerns; and they are grand laughers. Even the dullest warm to something approaching wit when surrounded by that appreciative audience of three. They don't talk much themselves, but they have made ...
— Penny Plain • Anna Buchan (writing as O. Douglas)

... than three years Professors David and Masson—the fathers of the Expedition—worked indefatigably and unselfishly in its interests. Unbeknown to them I have taken the liberty to reproduce the only photographs at hand of these gentlemen, which action I hope they will view favourably. That of Professor David needs some explanation: It is a snapshot taken at Relief Inlet, South Victoria ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... could not eat: and unprotected no woman is in England, if she is a third-class traveller. That is my experience of the class; and I shall return among my natural protectors—the most unselfishly chivalrous to women in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unwarranted abuse aroused the anger of Kingo and provoked him to answer in kind. The ensuing battle of vituperation and name-calling brought no honor to either side. Worm's conduct toward his superior, the man who was unselfishly caring for his minor sisters and brothers, deserves nothing but condemnation; but it is painful, nevertheless, to behold the great hymnwriter himself employing the abusive language of his worthless opponent. The times were violent, ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg

... highest plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort. I have set the factors down in the order which they ordinarily occupy in popular discussion and which ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... passed through Mrs. Mansfield's mind as she felt the humiliation of the yoke which the world fastens on the artist's neck. She had come to care for Heath almost a little jealously, but quite unselfishly. She was able to care unselfishly, because she had given all of herself that was passionate long ago to the man who was dead. Never again could she be in love. Never again could she desire the closest relation woman ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... this, as Mr. Walter Hines Page said: "Was there ever a greater need than there is now for first-class minds unselfishly working on world problems? The ablest ruling minds are engaged on domestic tasks. There is no world-girdling intelligence at work on government. The present order must change. It holds the Old World still. It keeps all {494} parts of the world apart, in spite of the friendly ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... our pearls, days unstained by selfishness." That was it. She could go on with her rosary then, and, instead of perfect lessons at school, she could fill the string in token of days spent unselfishly at home. Days not stained by regrets and tears and idle repining for what could not ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston

... was only a name, a memory, but he had loved her unselfishly and truly. Kate clasped her arms about the shaft and laid her cheek against it as if in some way she might draw consolation from it. But its coldness chilled her. Then, with her face upturned in ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... law concerning his estate, and himself regarded as an intruder among the living,—an unlucky guest, a revenant ... How hollow and selfish a world it seemed! And yet there was love in it; he had been loved in it, unselfishly, passionately, with the love of father and of mother, of wife and child ... All buried!—all lost forever! ... Oh! would to God the story of that stone were not a lie!—would to kind God he ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn

... formation of his moral character many forces entered; and, not least of these, the Military Chaplain. This man—and every sect and denomination generously gave him—was pre-eminently God-fearing, thoroughly patriotic, unselfishly charitable, untiringly zealous, and whole ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... an act of grave injustice if I failed to express my grateful acknowledgments for the aid so unselfishly rendered, in a score of ways, by my daughter, Mrs. Roswell Randall Hoes, without which these pages would not, and could ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur

... the pecuniary and social ruin of some of them. Even the negro stevedores and laborers bewailed our misfortunes, for they knew that the glory of Nassau had departed forever. My old friend Captain Dick Watkins probably more unselfishly regretted the disasters to our arms than the speculators or even the refugees in Nassau, who had succeeded in evading service in the army by skulking abroad. A recruiting officer might have "conscripted" nearly a brigade of the swaggering blusterers. Captain Dick and I parted ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson

... of deliberation his guardian angel, who was the only one having his interests really at heart, and who loved him unselfishly,—this angel advised him in the similitude of a dream to "luff a little and go round the obstacles." Jason luffed, and passed on with colors flying; which was doubtless much better than trying to squeeze through the floating islands in the midst ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... upstairs with the tea, tiptoed in and looked at her,—one round arm thrown over her head, and her smooth peachy cheek resting against it. Miranda, homely, and with no hope of ever attaining any of the beautiful things of life, loved unselfishly this girl who had what she had not, and longed with all her heart to comfort and protect the sweet young thing who seemed so ill-prepared to protect herself. She stooped over the sleeper for one yearning moment, and touched her hair lightly with her lips. She felt a great desire ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... the wide Pacific have the natives been more wisely or unselfishly ruled than in Fiji, yet even here native life seems to be growing less and less purposeful year by year. In time it is hoped a reaction may set in and that with the decline of communism new ambitions may replace the old, but then will come the problem ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... God, we thank Thee that we may Lift up our eyes to Thee to-day; We thank Thee we can face this test With honor and a spotless name, And that we serve a world distressed Unselfishly ...
— Over Here • Edgar A. Guest

... very conditions of life in such a country there was a standing force of pathos. The country itself shared the uncertainty of the individual human life; and there was pathos also in the constantly renewed, heavily-taxed labour, necessary to keep the native soil, fought for so unselfishly, there at all, with a warfare that must still be maintained when that other struggle with the Spaniard was over. But though Sebastian liked to breathe, so nearly, the sea and its influences, those were considerations he scarcely entertained. In his passion ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Horatio Pater

... Woodrow Wilson deeply regretted the whole matter, and, so far as he was concerned, there was no feeling on his part of unfriendliness or bitterness toward Colonel Harvey. Indeed, he felt that Colonel Harvey had unselfishly devoted himself to his cause in the early and trying days of his candidacy, and that Harvey's support of him was untouched by selfish interests of any kind. In every way he tried to soften the unfortunate impression that had been made on the country by what many thought ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty

... officials, and encouraging better things in all departments of city life. This means unselfishness in one's attitude toward the public welfare; it means willingness to sacrifice time and effort in the public service. The example set by many eminent persons who have devoted themselves unselfishly to the accomplishment of reforms in our great cities may well be imitated by every citizen in the smaller affairs of his city or his ward. And the younger generation of citizens, who are yet students in the public schools, may exert no little ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James

... made the attack with the characteristic suddenness and fierceness that had gained for him the endearing sobriquet of "Tiger." The defence of Mr. Conover was so prompt and admirable that the conflict was protracted until the onlookers unselfishly gave the warning cry of "Cheese it—the cop!" The principals escaped easily by running through the nearest open doors into the communicating backyards at the ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry

... much as Senator Foraker has given to a just cause, give as generously, as unselfishly, gloriously as he has given of his very self in this "Brownsville" case and lose that which is best striving for in life. He may lose place in the Government and power as a political leader. But what are these but the ephemera of man's fevered ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... went on, "was at first the dearest thing in life to me. It could have been the most wonderful thing in life. I am only an ordinary person with an ordinary character, but I have the capacity to love unselfishly, and I am at heart as faithful and as good as any other woman. But there is my birthright. I have had three years of sordid and utterly miserable life, teaching squalid, dirty, unlovable children things they had much better not know. I have lived here, here in Detton Magna, among the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... more happiness and contentment in living henceforth unselfishly, with more thought for others and less ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... dearly—and loved her unselfishly, too. Helen and Tom had been so kind to her in the past—all through those miserable first weeks of her life at the Red Mill—that Ruth felt she could never be really angry with Helen. It only made her sorrowful to think that perhaps Helen, in this new and wider school ...
— Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall - or Solving the Campus Mystery • Alice B. Emerson

... she said earnestly. "There it is again. You are unselfishly thinking of me, and that's so new. There's no use of disguising it. When you go there'll not be one left except Aun' Jinkey and Uncle Lusthah who will truly wish what's best for me without regard to themselves. Well, it can't be ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe

... interlaced with a strand of the other, so that they could not be separated. It might be said that the union of the two impulses was even more intimate, that it was like a mixture of two liquids. There was no conflict in her. She was not selfish at one moment, and unselfishly anxious for her child the next; but she was both together at the same instant, the particular course on which she might determine ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford

... fellow, Mark, though I must say you meddled, but I know you did not do it unselfishly. Yes, on the whole, I thank you and Helen, too, for saving me that mortification. I feel like a new man, knowing the old lady is safe at home, where I trust she will remain. And that Tom, who called here yesterday, asking to be our clerk, is the youth I saw at the opera. I thought ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... life is a quest for God, although it does not know itself to be such, for in seeking life saint and sinner alike are seeking God, the all-embracing life. And the sinner must learn that to seek life selfishly is to lose it; to seek it unselfishly is both to gain and to give it. The good man and the bad man are seeking the same ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... years now. They had had no children. He had wandered from south to west, from Mexico and California and Yucatan to Alaska, always going to strike it lucky and always missing it. To the day of her death Milly had stood by, loyally, lovingly, unselfishly, his one prop and solace, his perfect friend and comrade. There was never, he said, anybody like her. And Milly died. Died poor, in ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler

... be annihilated. A future life with perfect oblivion of the present is no life at all for us. Is not this style of thought the most provincial egotism, the utter absence of all generous thought and sympathy unselfishly grasping the absolute boons of being? It is a shallow error, too, even on the grounds of selfishness itself. In any point of view the difference is diametric and immense between a happy being in an eternal present, unconscious of the past, and no being at all. Suppose a man thirty years ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... had much to lose in arraigning me, and nothing to gain but your welfare. You must see that it was unselfishly done. If there is gratitude in your heart, give it here." He placed his hand on my shoulder and, after a long pause and an apparent effort, finished what he had to say: "Forget me. I am unworthy to speak your name or to have the great joy of hearing ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major

... Madison gravely, knotting his brows as he nodded his head. "There's no doubt it will be a big change for her, but I imagine she had some sort of an idea what to expect—it is certainly greatly to her credit that she would give up her own interests unselfishly and come here to devote her life to the care of a relative whom she had never seen before. I've an idea that the girl who would do that is the kind of a girl who's got grit enough to see ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard

... earlier worldly success, and earlier marriage, with all its beneficent moral results, would become possible to the young; while the older men of active intellect, whose sagacity is now lost or warped in the furtherance of their own meanest interests, would be induced unselfishly to occupy themselves in the superintendence of public institutions, or furtherance of public advantage. And out of this class it would be found natural and prudent always to choose the members of ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... was ready to love him. That did not frighten Shefford, and if she did love him he was not so sure it would not be an anchor for her. He saw her danger, and then he became what he had never really been in all the days of his ministry—the real helper. Unselfishly, for her sake, he found power to influence her; and selfishly, for the sake of Fay Larkin, he began slowly to win her to ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey

... instruction, inspiration and courage to one whose feet are on the threshold. They are bought with the money you unselfishly spent to give a boy ...
— Keineth • Jane D. Abbott

... was now black and the flames came nearer and nearer to the brave girl, who so unselfishly had given her place to her friend. She leaned out of the window. She watched the fireman ascending. Then she knew no more but fell ...
— Ethel Hollister's Second Summer as a Campfire Girl • Irene Elliott Benson

... fought, suffering through the bitter months of winter just below the Arctic Circle, where the winter day is in minutes and the night seems a week. And there is not one who is not proud that he was once a "side kicker" and a "buddy" to some of those fine fellows of the various units who unselfishly and gladly gave the last that a man has to give ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... we had to bid the good priest farewell—not without a reverent hush in our hearts as we pondered on the marvel of noble lives thus unselfishly devoted, and as we thought, too, of the loneliness that would once more close around him when we ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne

... Savonarola's "Triumph of the Cross" shows on the title page a woodcut of the frate writing in his cell. Bembo's "Asolini" a first edition, contains autograph corrections. In 1912, Wellesley had the unusual opportunity, which she unselfishly embraced, to return to the National Library at Florence, Italy, a very precious Florentine manuscript of the fourteenth century, containing the only known copy of the Sirventes and other important historical verses of ...
— The Story of Wellesley • Florence Converse

... have no family, I have no home. I have travelled over all the world looking for that country which was governed for the greater good of the greater number, and I have fought only for those men who promised to govern unselfishly and as the servants of the people. But when the fighting was over, and they were safe in power, they had no use for me nor my advice. They laughed, and called me a visionary and a dreamer. 'You ...
— Captain Macklin • Richard Harding Davis

... To my thinking it is rather to the glory of the Latin temperament that it cannot be throttled and guided like the more docile Teuton nature, that when it feels vividly it will express itself, and that it can feel vividly, unselfishly in international concerns. The Latin cannot be made to march in blind obedience into the jaws of death. The piazza merely shouted what Italy had come to feel, that Teutonic domination would be intolerable, that at all cost the Austro-German ambitions must ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick

... these drawbacks, one cannot but feel that Italy is springing into a noble national life. I believe she has a great heart and a great future before her, which will prove worthy of her past nobility and glory, and of the generous sympathy felt for her—perhaps most unselfishly so by England. I think we are justified in feeling a greater sympathy for Italy than for France, for I believe she truly reciprocates it; while the French show towards us a dislike almost verging on jealous antipathy, while in themselves they are entirely given to frivolity and caprice—a ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... of the balm-cricket in the grass that hides her grave, I seem to hear sweet songs of welcome from the little ones. Among other thoughts of her come visions of a child and mother straying in fields of light. And so I cannot make her dead, who lived so earnestly, who wrought so unselfishly, and passed so trustfully into the ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... Bishop Cutler for years. I knew that he had labored with extraordinary zeal and intelligence to establish the sugar industry in Utah. I understood that he had risked his own property, unselfishly, to save the enterprise when it was in peril. And I had every reason to expect that he would be as indignant as I was, at the proposal to use the support of the beet sugar states in ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my intentions and unselfishness? Why, it is telegraphed all over the country and commented on as something wonderful if a congressman votes honestly and unselfishly and refuses to take advantage of his position to steal from ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 6. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... religion to the stage. Mr. Martyn had lived in London and his love of music had taken him to the Continent, but he had been something of a Nationalist, whereas Mr. Moore had lost few opportunities to scoff at the country his father had striven so unselfishly to aid. What of Mr. Moore that was not French in 1899 was ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... Near East are very cantankerous and very prone by nature to fly at one another's throats, still I maintain that if Western Europe ceased from interference there would be a better chance of peace in the Balkans, and if she interfered benevolently and unselfishly she could make the certainty ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox

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

... sown in his mind the belief that she was living for him unselfishly. He resolved to pay her with a sterling coin of unselfishness. Never mind the work! In this first year he must think always first of her, must dedicate himself to her. And in making her life to flower was he not reclaiming ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... shall find, I think, that it lies chiefly in two circumstances; namely, the character of Peter Cooper as a lover of his kind, and the opportunity afforded him by his long life, not only to prove that character, but to become personally known to many thousands of those whom he sought unselfishly to serve. Few persons except military commanders have such an opportunity. The philanthropists who labor in secret, no matter with what noble motive, and do not come face to face with their beneficiaries, may win the applause ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond

... and unselfishly to advance the interests of the colored people we need relate only the following fact: During Mr. Jones' term of office the colored people of Cook County drew $50,000 yearly salary. This was about seven times the amount paid into the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various

... mass was no longer said in the log chapels about the lakes and tributary streams, the influence of Christianity still abided. There came a new generation of soldiers of the cross who served the great valley in a later stage of development as unselfishly and as thoroughly as their predecessors had done in ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... authorized agents, and published as their apology for appearing. A man who has no other place in the world than that which he makes for himself on the platform is never a popular favorite, unless he uses the platform for the advocacy of some great philanthropic movement or reform, into which he throws unselfishly the leading efforts of his life. Referring to the history of the last twenty years, it will readily be seen that those who have undertaken to make lecturing a business, without side pursuit or superior ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... the character of Catullus is the warmth of his affection. If to love warmly, constantly, and unselfishly be the best title to the love of others, few poets in any age or country deserve a kindlier place in the hearts of men ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... have told you everything, dear aunt? She was in love with Viscount Langeac; I knew it, and respected her love; I was so young! The viscount came to me; being without hope of inheriting a fortune, and the last representative of his house, he unselfishly offered to give up Louise de Vaudrey. I trusted in their mutual generosity, and accepted her as a pure woman from his hands. Ah! I would have given my life for her, and I have proved it! The wretched man performed prodigies of valor on the Tenth of August, and called down upon himself the rage ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac

... that her mother was really gone; that this bit of embroidery with the needle sticking just where she had left it after the final stitch, was the last that the patient fingers would ever do. Dear tired fingers, that through so many years had wrought unselfishly for her children; so unfailing in their gentleness, in ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston

... sensitive woman, she had married a poor man for love, expecting to make him rich; and instead, she was now far poorer than he. He, on his part, never bestowed a thought on the matter. He was simple and unselfish and he loved her simply and unselfishly. She died of a fever at forty-two and her death killed him. Two years later, Margaret Donne ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford

... it a mercy to consult the immigrants' wishes. How could they be expected to view the matter unselfishly? ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable



Words linked to "Unselfishly" :   selfishly, unselfish



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com