self-defeating

Those who come to the Dinner Party are self-selecting; they do want to talk about it.

Let the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower.

Now this setting up of an orderly law-abiding self seems to me to imply that there are impulses which make for order.

At present, Louis was too self-absorbed by the struggles within him, to look deep into what was passing around him.

But to wave this discourse of Heathens, how many self-contradicting principles are there held among Christians?

Jean grinned and dribbled self-consciously, and showed his two little teeth to the proudest father in the world.