Literary notes about Approval (AI summary)
In literature, the term "approval" operates on multiple levels, signifying both inner self-validation and external endorsement. In some instances, it embodies a personal, almost existential, quest for self-worth, as when a character’s pursuit of self-approval reveals an inner hunger for recognition ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Conversely, approval also functions as a formal sanction that authorizes actions or decisions, whether it be the necessary concurrence of royal advisors in matters of state ([5]) or the explicit consent signified by nods and gestures in intimate social settings ([6], [7], [8]). Additionally, authors weave approval into broader societal narratives, where public affirmation marks consensus or tacit agreement—be it in discussions of philosophy and ethics ([9], [10]) or in the delicate interplay of personal ambitions and communal standards ([11], [12], [13]).
- It may be called the Master Passion—the hunger for Self-Approval.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - If you get that, you get your own approval, and that is the sole and only thing you are after.
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - But he has got what he was after— his own approval .
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self—Approval since we talked?
— from What Is Man? and Other Essays by Mark Twain - The kings can do nothing, nor can anything happen without her advice and approval.
— from The Oera Linda Book, from a Manuscript of the Thirteenth Century - " Dorothea appealed to her husband, and he made a silent sign of approval.
— from Middlemarch by George Eliot - "I know he is a good one," added Mrs. March, with decided approval, as she wound up the clock.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - At last even her veil is adjusted and all present gasp their approval: "How sweet!"
— from Etiquette by Emily Post - Rules current in the field of common experience, and which common sense stamps everywhere with its approval, are regarded by them as axiomatic.
— from The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant - Approval is not repugnant to reason, but can agree therewith and arise therefrom.
— from Ethics by Benedictus de Spinoza - I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval.
— from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle - He would draw out, with the easiest grace, her approval.
— from Sister Carrie: A Novel by Theodore Dreiser - Trenor, looking stouter than ever in his tight frock-coat, and unbecomingly flushed by the bridal libations, gazed at her with undisguised approval.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
