"Virtuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... efforts were unequal to the traitorous and hostile conspiracies which, both at home and abroad, were forming against his authority, and which were daily penetrating farther even into his own family. His brother, the earl of Kent, a virtuous but weak prince, who was then at Paris, was engaged by his sister-in-law, and by the king of France, who was also his cousin-german, to give countenance to the invasion, whose sole object, he believed, was the expulsion of the Spensers: ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... to be flippant, at any rate in thought—he would at heart have wished her to remain the same, indeed to wax ever tenderer, till the fatal time of parting arrived, and even to show appreciation of his virtuous conduct. ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... per cent risk, as she figured it out. She talked to Edward as if she had been a solicitor with an estate to sell—perfectly quietly and perfectly coldly without any inflections in her voice. She did not want to be unkind to him; but she could see no reason for being kind to him. She was a virtuous business woman with a mother and two sisters and her own old age to be provided comfortably for. She did not expect more than a five years' further run. She was twenty-four and, as she said: "We Spanish women are horrors at thirty." Edward swore ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... capable of saying the thing that is not, and of acting as they should not, to an extent which is hardly imaginable by persons who are not so easily affected by the contagion of blind faith. There is no falsity so gross that honest men and, still more, virtuous women, anxious to promote a good cause, will not lend themselves to it without any clear consciousness of the moral bearings of what they ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... father dies I shall have my choice of three things—starving, going to a common service, or marrying meanly as my sisters have done: none of which I like, nor do I think it possible for a woman to be happy with a man that is not a gentleman, for he whose mind is virtuous is alone of noble kind. Yet what can a woman expect but misery? My brother Ellison wants all but riches; my brother Lambert, I hope, has a little religion; poor brother Wright has abundance of good-nature, and, I hope, ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... is that a church needs poor men and wicked men as much as it does pure men and virtuous men and pious men. What man needs is familiarity with universal human nature. He needs never to separate himself from men in daily life. It is not necessary that in our houses we should bring pestilential diseases or pestilential examples, but somehow we must hold on ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... called L. Verus. Thus Rome for the first time had two emperors. Verus was an indolent man of pleasure, and unworthy of his station. Antoninus however bore with him, and it is said that Verus had sense enough to pay to his colleague the respect due to his character. A virtuous emperor and a loose partner lived together in peace, and their alliance was strengthened by Antoninus giving to Verus for ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... hence to lead them on, Until, with harden'd feet, their conquering troops Wade on the promised soil through woman's blood. And make my name be dreaded through the land, Yet ever-burning flame and ceaseless woe Shall be the doom of their eternal souls, With every soul on this ungrateful earth, Virtuous or vicious, weak or strong—even all Shall perish to fulfill the blind revenge (Which you to men call justice) ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... the only true morality known. A man is right and invincible, virtuous and on the road towards sure conquest, precisely while he joins himself to the great deep Law of the World, in spite of all superficial laws, temporary appearances, profit-and-loss calculations; he is victorious while he cooeperates with that great central Law, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... The virtuous Romans appear to have been greater book-burners than the Greeks, both under the Republic and under the Empire. It was the Senate's function to condemn books to the flames, and the praetor's to see that it was ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... be questioned, but the Queen and ministry might easily redress this abominable grievance, by enlarging the number of justices of the peace, by endeavouring to choose men of virtuous principles, by admitting none who have not considerable fortunes, perhaps, by receiving into the number some of the most eminent clergy. Then, by forcing all of them, upon severe penalties, to act when there is occasion, and not permitting any who are offered to refuse the commission, but in these ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... Persepolis, Ebactana, and Bactria, attaching more importance to chastity of the body than to chastity of mind, considered those liberties allowed to the pleasure of the eyes by Greek manner as impure and highly reprehensible, and held no woman virtuous who permitted men to obtain a glimpse of more than the tip of her foot in walking, as it slightly deranged the discreet folds ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... by one who had been himself a great offender. Nevertheless the fact remains. In Lord Morelove we have the first lover in English comedy, since licentiousness possessed it, who is at once a gentleman and an honest man. In Lady Easy we have what was hitherto unknown or laughed at—a virtuous married woman." To go further, it may be added that the story points an unexceptionable moral, proving that the best thing for a husband to do in this world is to be true to the legitimate companion of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... weak. Yet in this play every character is interesting, vital, and distinct. Oedipus himself is selected by Aristotle as the most effective kind of tragic hero, because, first, he has been great and glorious, and secondly he has not been "pre-eminently virtuous or just." This is true in its way. Oedipus is too passionate to be just; but he is at least noble in his impetuosity, his devotion, and his absolute truthfulness. It is important to realise that at the beginning of the play he is prepared for an oracle commanding him to die ...
— Oedipus King of Thebes - Translated into English Rhyming Verse with Explanatory Notes • Sophocles
... trembling hand. Both strove to maintain their dignity, knowing well that at such a time each individual is always looked upon as more or less typical of his nation; and, also, resenting the complaisant attitude of their companions, Boule de Suif tried to wear a bolder front than her neighbors, the virtuous women, while he, feeling that it was incumbent on him to set a good example, kept up the attitude of resistance which he had first assumed when he undertook to mine the high roads ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... deem, Where Plato nursed his dream Of immortality; Seeing that clearly Thy system all is merely Peripatetic. Thou to thy pupils dost such lessons give Of how to live With temperance, sobriety, morality, (A new art,) That from thy school, by force of virtuous deeds, Each Tyro now proceeds A ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... Virtuous resolves commend themselves, and improve with being carried out. She put herself into her very best trim, as simple as a lily, and as perfect as a rose, though the flutter of a sigh or two enlarged her gentle breast. She donned a very graceful hat, adorned with sweet ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... I have taken my plus-cafe; and now that it is very early morning, I take the nearest way to my virtuous home. On my way thither, I pause before the saloons of the Philharmonic, where a grand bal masque of genuine, and doubtful, whites is being held. From my position on the pavement I can see perfectly well into the salon de ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... when one came and planted himself on a little jut thirty yards to my right, and mocked me with a look of patronage, seeming to regard me as the weaker party and to incline to my side, I broke the pact, and, masking my hurt conceit under some virtuous indignation against him as a deserter and traitor, turned and smote ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... particularly my friend and benefactor William Penington, at his house, and then went to wait upon my Master Milton, with whom yet I could not propose to enter upon my intermitted studies until I had been in Buckinghamshire, to visit my worthy friends Isaac Penington and his virtuous wife, with ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Spunge-bearer's immodest carriage and behaviour towards his brethren, is Detected; the Bitter Flames of his slanderous reports are, by the sharp Vinegar of Truth, Corrected and quite Extinguished, and lastly, the virtuous validity of his Spunge in wiping away the Weapon-Salve, is ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... for breath and eyed us. We were a sick-looking crowd. You could almost see the remarks sticking into us and quivering. We had come in feeling pretty virtuous, and what we were ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... Flat was "after somebody." It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... thought, "with man written all over him. Honest face, virtuous expression, daring too, loving-hearted, lovable, clever, I'm sure, and his life has been too easy to develop any marked character. Too young to have been in the war, but you may be sure he wanted to go, and his mother had to exercise her authority ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... famous Divines I might add the most eminent and renowned Philosophers of Antiquity, who, either out of a Contempt of Mankind, or to gratify their peculiar Tempers, or to correct the Vices and Follies of Men, and to instil virtuous Maxims in those who would only receive them in some pleasant way, set up for good Humour, Mirth, and Drollery, as their standing Method of Life, and of Conversation with the World; and have left behind them some of their occasional Sayings ...
— A Discourse Concerning Ridicule and Irony in Writing (1729) • Anthony Collins
... "Presentacion de Nuestra Senora" [i.e., "Presentation of our Lady"], and near it the seminary and house of Santa Isabel, in order that Spanish orphan girls might be reared there with a good education in doctrine and morals. They have a rectoress to govern them, a portress, and several virtuous women of mature years. Thence go forth the girls with sufficient dowries for the estate [of marriage] to which they naturally tend—for which this Santa Misericordia applies the sum of sixteen thousand ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... painfully intolerant. And we are quite at a loss even to guess what the French playwright-psychologist, who has left us the unforgetable figure of Celimene would have thought of Hedda Gabler, that strangest creation of the end of the century, anatomically virtuous, but empty of heart and ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... such a fact would indicate? Had she not some other purpose in view, some fish of her own to fry, some object of moment to obtain? Many thought so. They were not willing to credit the Russian bear with an act of pure international benevolence. Wars of pure charity are rarely among the virtuous acts of nations. As it had been suggested that Germany saw in the war a possible opportunity to gain a frontier on the Atlantic, so it was hinted that Russia had in mind a similar frontier on the Mediterranean. Time and again she ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... which she had chanced to read. She fancied that she resembled the courtesan in face and general appearance, and in a certain precocity of heart and brain of which she was conscious. When Castanier found that her life was as well regulated and virtuous as was possible for a social outlaw, he manifested a desire that they should live as husband and wife. So she took the name of Mme. de la Garde, in order to approach, as closely as Parisian usages permit, the conditions ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... not talking about the dandies who have a lot of money they never earned. I should think a woman with as much as one bone in her body would take a shotgun to that sort whenever they came around. I'm talking about the fellows that sweat for what they get. A lot of mollycoddles and virtuous damn fools have built up that Sunday-school junk about the woman giving everything, and the man giving nothing. But I want to tell you it's nip and tuck as to who gives the most. A woman takes a man's money as if it grew on bushes. Go and watch ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... manifested in consequence of a sudden change of environment. This explains how it was that among the most savage members of the French Convention were to be found inoffensive citizens who, under ordinary circumstances, would have been peaceable notaries or virtuous magistrates. The storm past, they resumed their normal character of quiet, law-abiding citizens. Napoleon found amongst them ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... read by the French censor, as had B.'s letter; and her arrest and transference from her home in Paris to La Ferte Mace promptly followed. She was as intelligent as she was virtuous and had nothing to do with her frailer sisters, so the Machine-Fixer informed us with a quickly passing flash of joy. Which sisters (his little forehead knotted itself and his big bushy eyebrows plunged together wrathfully) were wicked and indecent and utterly ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... worship. That this was the deadliest of sins, there was no doubt whatever in the minds of his revilers. When it was added that he was suspected of the Arminian leprosy, and that he could tolerate the thought that a virtuous man or woman, not predestined from all time for salvation, could possibly find the way to heaven, language becomes powerless to stigmatize his depravity. Whatever the punishment impending over his head in this world or the next, it is certain that the cause of human freedom ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... applause, he announced that he would recite some lines 'he 'ad wrote on the great storm which committed such 'avoc on hour pier.' There were local descriptions, and local names, which always touched the true chord. Notably an allusion to a virtuous magnate then, I believe, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... your virtuous intentions, dear Alizon," replied Dorothy; "but I must now mention a circumstance in connexion with your mother, of which you are perhaps in ignorance, but which it is right you should know, and therefore no false delicacy on my part shall restrain me from mentioning it. Your grandmother, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... every right-thinking woman feels it a Christian duty to give to her and her class, far from extenuating vice, is only a call upon the virtuous to be more virtuous, and to the pure to be more pure. No one would plunge into crime, merely for the sake of being redeemed therefrom; no one take the sin, who looked first at the shame, hideous and enduring as it must be—however overshadowed by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... the apple-stall, not more than four or five years old, to the confirmed thief of nine or ten years—who had been in gaol three or four times, and was as proud of his dexterity in thieving, and hardihood under punishment, as he could have been of the most virtuous accomplishment, or the most becoming fortitude. The infant thief, conscious of shame, and trembling with fear, will tell you on detection, that "Tommy," or "Billy," some older associate, set him to do it; you let him go: he joins his companions, who ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... was the refusal of Pope Clement to grant him a divorce from his lawful wife, Catharine of Aragon, that he might be free to be joined in wedlock to Anne Boleyn. In order to legalize his divorce from his virtuous queen the licentious monarch divorced himself and his kingdom from the spiritual ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... reassured her. Yes, indeed, that was the case, she had been absent. All her past life spread out behind her, faultless, pure of any evil action. Never had she sinned, never until that day had any consciousness of guilt weighed upon her conscience. An honest and virtuous woman, she had remained upright amidst all the excesses of her husband. An impassioned mother, she had been ascending her calvary ever since her son's death. And this recollection of Maurice alone ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... West. There were certainly great numbers of married clergymen in northern Italy, Germany, and elsewhere, in the tenth and eleventh centuries. Of course the Church refused to sanction the marriage of its officials and called the wife of a clergyman, however virtuous and faithful she might be, by the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... I am sure, and if ever some righteous pedant gone astray in the groves of paradise undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have been better worth while to remain in your own country, and found a worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy that Miramolin, there become your best friend, will take ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... of earth, of sea and of all things that be contained in them, would all only be clept king of that land, when he said, REX SUM JUDEORUM, that is to say, 'I am King of Jews'; and that land he chose before all other lands, as the best and most worthy land, and the most virtuous land of all the world: for it is the heart and the midst of all the world, witnessing the philosopher, that saith thus, VIRTUS RERUM IN MEDIO CONSISTIT, that is to say, 'The virtue of things is ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... Auckland's object. But Dost Mahommed never had even the shadow of an attorney's fiction upon which he could stand as pretender to any throne but that of Cabool, where, by accident, he had just nine points of the law in his favour. How then could we have supported him? "Because thou art virtuous," we must have said, are we to support future usurpation? Because the Dost is just to pedlars, "shall there be no more ale and cakes" for other Affghan princes? All Asia could not have held him upright on any throne comprehensively Affghan. Whether that could have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... few words, her past condition and her present wants. Margaret was deeply affected by the recital; and, more anxious to excite confidence than esteem, she confessed, without disguise, the errors of which she had been guilty. 'As for me,' said she, 'I deserve my fate: but you, madam—you! at once virtuous and unhappy—' And, sobbing, she offered Madame de la Tour both her hut and her friendship. That lady, affected by this tender reception, pressed her in her arms, and exclaimed, 'Ah, surely Heaven will put an end to my misfortunes, since it inspires you, to whom I am a stranger, with more goodness ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... it out in any case," she assured him. "I know already that she dwells under the Vicar's virtuous roof, and that the worthy Dr. Tudor finds it necessary to drop in every day. I suppose she is the ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the old genlmn sunk down on the sofa, and puffed as much smoke out of his mouth as if he'd been the chimley of a steam-injian. I was pleased, I confess, with the sean, and liked to see this venrabble and virtuous old man a-nocking his son about the hed; just as Deuceace had done with Mr. Richard Blewitt, as I've before shown. Master's face was, fust, red-hot; next, chawk-white: and then sky-blew. He looked, for all the world, like Mr. Tippy Cooke in the tragady of Frankinstang. At last, ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for Freshwater, old or new; not for its church, which has some very fine bits, and an epitaph celebrating "the most virtuous Mrs. Anne Toppe, in her widowhood, by a memorable providence, preserved out of the flames of the Irish rebellion;" not for the really superb character of the coast-cliffs, just here mined into caverns only accessible from the sea, with huge detached masses of chalk, one hollowed into ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... having sufficiently mourned his mother, he pursued the course of his life, one day exactly like the other. He arrived thus at the age of twenty-six or twenty-seven, having passed the stormy part of existence in the eternal calm of his innocent and virtuous good nature. It was about this time that the good man found an opportunity of doing a sublime action, which he did instinctively and simply, as he did everything; but perhaps a man of mind might have passed it over without ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... on virtuous love, O, sweetly smile on Somebody! Frae ilka danger keep him free, And send me safe my Somebody! O-hon! for Somebody! O-hey! for Somebody! I wad do—what wad I not? For the sake ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... thoughts of many long-headed people, and investigations are being made on every hand, especially because some people are moved by fear that city life will corrupt morality. They take it for granted that country people are virtuous, and that vice finds its domicile only in the large centres of population, and having established these premises, they argue that the tendency of country people to move into cities shows a degeneracy on their part, or that the abnormal growth of cities is a ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... actions both declare, Nature designed him her philosopher; That all mankind, by his example taught, Might learn to live, and manage every thought. Oh! could my muse the wondrous subject grace, And, from his youth, his virtuous actions trace; Could I in just and equal numbers tell How well he lived, and how devoutly fell, I boldly might your strict attention claim, And bid you learn, and ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... cease to be pirates, who rob and harry the weak, and enslave wherever and whomsoever they can—selling their captives outside of their own island, and separating them from their wives and children; and that they must cease to commit other like cruelties and thefts, and must become good and virtuous men, who shall grow to merit the second and principal reason for going to their lands. You shall give them to understand that they are ignorant of God, our Lord, who created and redeemed them, so that when they know him they may serve him ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... interests herself in charities, that she associates with people who promote good works from religious principles, is most displeasing to him. At present he is ill; he becomes irritated, excited, protests against these virtuous bigots, does not wish his sister to visit the poor, to protect young girls, or to provide for abandoned children. He says all these things are clericalism, are utopianism, that the world wags in its own way, and that it must be allowed to wag ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... him!—so like him!" I do not know whether I ought to mention it, for it is a censorious world; but, as I cannot enter into, or be supposed to understand, the feelings of a fine woman of thirty-five caressing a lad of fifteen, I have a right to suppose all such demonstrations of fondness highly virtuous and purely maternal; though, perhaps, to the fair bestower a little pleasant! I found them exquisitely so. I bore all her little blandishments with a modest pleasure; for, observing the high respect in which she was generally held, I looked upon these testimonials of affection as a great honour, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... consent?' Away with such cant. The plain facts are: that a man nearly forty years old abuses his wonderful gifts of body and mind, to ruin a girl nearly twenty years younger than himself. What wonder if a virtuous woman—and Queen Elizabeth was virtuous—thought it a base deed, and punished it accordingly? There is no more to be discovered in the matter, save by the vulturine nose which smells carrion in every rose-bed. Raleigh ...
— Sir Walter Raleigh and his Time from - "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... cannot walk the streets and refuse to receive petitions from the meanest and vilest in the land. This is the law even of despotism; and what does your law say? Does it say, that, before presenting a petition, you shall look into it and see whether it comes from the virtuous, and the great, and the mighty? No, sir; it says no such thing. The right of petition belongs to all; and so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... there were inbred Lichfeldian traditions which prompted me to virtuous indignation over her defects in remorse and misery. There were my ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... subject could no longer presume to touch the revenues of the apostolical chamber; and the first idea of a tax was the signal of clamor and sedition. Even his justice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of selfish cruelty: the most virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in the execution of a public robber, from whose purse he had been assisted, the magistrate too much forgot, or too much remembered, the obligations of the debtor. [54] A civil war exhausted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... B. C.), was left fatherless at a very tender age and brought up by his mother, Changsi. The care of this prudent and attentive mother has been cited as a model for all virtuous parents. The house she occupied was near that of a butcher; she observed at the first cry of the animals that were being slaughtered, the little Mentius ran to be present at the sight, and that, on his ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... follow thee? Thy way is crooked—it is not my way. [OCTAVIO drops his hand and starts back. Oh, hadst thou been but simple and sincere, Ne'er had it come to this—all had stood otherwise. He had not done that foul and horrible deed, The virtuous had retained their influence over him He had not fallen into the snares of villains. Wherefore so like a thief, and thief's accomplice Didst creep behind him lurking for thy prey! Oh, unblest falsehood! Mother of all evil! Thou misery-making demon, it is thou That ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... this then. There were only two reasons why I should not immediately vaccinate myself—first, that I might enjoy in secret a virtuous sense of consistency, which, in the case of a person who had proved himself so remarkably inconsistent in this very matter, would be a mere indulgence of foolish pride; and secondly, because if I did I might be found ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... too great! He could not even complain, for what could he say? He had a pretty young wife attached to her duties, virtuous—nay, a model of all the virtues. She had a child every year, nursed them herself, and brought them up in the highest principles. Being charitable, Angelique was promoted to rank as an angel. The old women who constituted the circle in which she moved—for at that time it was not yet "the ...
— A Second Home • Honore de Balzac
... overtakes the community, we hear much and sharp censure of all speculation. Speculators, one and all, are forthwith consigned to an abyss of obloquy. The virtuous public outside of trade washes its hands of all participation in the iniquity. This same virtuous public knows very little of what it is talking about. What is speculation? Shall we say, in brief and in general, that it consists in running risks, in taking extra-hazardous risks, on the chance of ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... come to gloat over the spectacle of shame. To behold the agonizing sense of degradation declare itself under the finger-pointing scorn of those who, perhaps, were only innocent from necessity, and virtuous because of the lack of the necessary attractions in ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... found, for the primitive germ or protoplasm of man cannot be distinguished from that of a quadruped or bird. It is the invisible and incalculable life element that contains the potentiality or possibility of existence as a quadruped or a man, as a virtuous or vicious, and as a long lived or short lived, being. The life element of the germ limits the destiny of the being. That life element ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... and the robberies committed by depreciated paper. Our own history has recorded for our instruction enough, and more than enough, of the demoralizing tendency, the injustice, and the intolerable oppression of the virtuous and well-disposed, of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... ancient writers do report, doth defile: so doth the company thou keepest; for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also;—and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... better than we are. Wait till the Germanic race gets to work, the race whose disciplinary aptitudes we admire, the race whose armies have just shown us brutal appetites in all their barbarous simplicity, and you will see what will be its license! The people of Paris will seem sober and virtuous by comparison. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... Christ, and God, and immortality, can never do otherwise than strengthen a man's tendencies to vice, and weaken his inclinations towards virtue. When infidels say that their unbelief has made them more virtuous, they attach different ideas to the word virtuous from those which Christians attach to it. They call evil good, and good evil. The secularists call fornication and adultery virtue. But this is fraud. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... for the behoof and advantage of good men. He felt, as it were, personally referred to, in this prosperous ripening for the gibbet; and had never considered himself so much the pet and favourite child of Destiny, or loved that lady so well or with such a calm and virtuous reliance, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... then, do you propose to protect these ladies from the rain?" This with virtuous indignation flashing from his fierce eyes, and a gesture which defended three helpless feminine things from the unscrupulous machinations of a pair ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... think that either in these or in any other passage of the New Testament, the pursuit of fame is stated as a vice; it is only said that an action, to be virtuous, must be independent of it. I would also observe that it is not publicity, but ostentation, which is prohibited; not the mode, but the motive of the action, which is regulated. A good man will prefer that mode, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... retire, your highness," she said, and there was virtuous appeal in her eyes. "I pray forgiveness for this indiscretion and implore you to be lenient with two miserable creatures who love you so well that they forget ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... the world?" asked the king. "You are willing to remain Queen of Prussia, and nominally the wife of the king? You do not demand that my reign shall be inaugurated with the exposure of our domestic misfortunes, and that your chaste and virtuous name shall be branded about with mine ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... scornful. His words came hotly, like whip-lashes. He rose to force and power, though his voice was never loud, rather concentrated, resonant. It dropped suddenly to a tone of persuasiveness and conciliation, and declaring that the bill would be merely vicious where it meant to be virtuous, ended ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in the hand of each, and long shields guard their bodies. Here he had embossed the dancing Salii and the naked Luperci, the crests wreathed in wool, and the sacred shields that fell from heaven; in cushioned cars the virtuous matrons led on their rites through the city. Far hence he adds the habitations of hell also, the high gates of Dis and the dooms of guilt; and thee, O Catiline, clinging on the beetling rock, and shuddering at the faces of the Furies; and ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... occupation, which in his younger days he had called a "fiend," was in very truth an angel,—the angel of contentment and joy. Doctor Johnson stoutly maintained by both tongue and pen, that, in general, no one could be virtuous or happy who was not completely employed. Not only the bread we eat, but the true pleasures and real enjoyments of life, must be earned by the sweat of the brow. The poor old mill-horse, turned loose in the pasture on Sundays, seems sadly to miss his accustomed daily round of weary labor; the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... to meet with calmness the trying moment of her return to that home, where there was no longer a parent to welcome her. 'Yes,' said she, 'let me not forget the lessons he has taught me! How often he has pointed out the necessity of resisting even virtuous sorrow; how often we have admired together the greatness of a mind, that can at once suffer and reason! O my father! if you are permitted to look down upon your child, it will please you to see, that she remembers, and endeavours to practise, the precepts ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... (Palestine) in the later part of the 16th century. He was the author of many homiletical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. His works still justly enjoy much popularity, largely because of their powerful influence as practical exhortations to virtuous life. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... by words directly addressed to them. Sibyl intended to make it impossible for Bibbs not to overhear. She did not hesitate—her heart was hot with the old sore, and she believed wholly in the justice of her cause and in the truth of what she was going to say. Fate was virtuous at times; it had delivered into her hands the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... Capricious pardon and arbitrary punishment imbittered the irksomeness and discontent of a long reign: a conspiracy was formed in the palace; and, unless we are deceived by the names of Marcellus and Sergius, the most virtuous and the most profligate of the courtiers were associated in the same designs. They had fixed the time of the execution; their rank gave them access to the royal banquet; and their black slaves [65] were stationed in the vestibule and porticos, to announce ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... were no particular marks about the animal to distinguish him from others of his kind. But the Bushman, with his practised eye, saw something in the general physiognomy of the elephant—just as one may distinguish a fierce and dangerous bull from those of milder disposition, or a bad from a virtuous man, by some expression that ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... have aroused any one to a desire of learning, or by what intercourse of language (could such a thing have been effected)? Besides, how could a single man have safely passed through so many nations differing in language and customs? I presume, therefore, that his mind was naturally furnished with virtuous dispositions, and that he was not so much versed in foreign sciences as in the severe and rigid discipline of the ancient Sabines, than which class none was in former times more strict. The Roman fathers, ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... a night of it," said Sarelli; "wine, brandy, kummel? I am virtuous—kummel it must ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... probably the eldest son of the late monarch. This prince was scarcely settled upon the throne when the whole of Western Asia was violently disturbed by the commotions which shook the Roman Empire after the murder of Commodus. The virtuous Pertinax was allowed to reign but three months (A.D. 193, January—March). His successor was scarcely proclaimed when in three different quarters the legionaries rose in arms, and, saluting their commanders ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... a state of things wholly without parallel in our previous social history. On such wages women could not exist; they were the strongest and surest temptation to the abandonment of a virtuous course of life. Labor was here evidently cheated of its just reward. The Government gave out the work by contract at the prices indicated in the first two columns, and the contractors put it out among the sewing-women ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... commerce swept away, her agricultural and mechanical pursuits almost ruined, the South yielded. The North, victorious and strong, could not forget what she owed to liberty and human rights. We may well swear now that as long as liberty is virtuous we will ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... his way through the court, and presently joined them. He was presented by my lord to the Virginian cousin of the family, Mr. Warrington: the chaplain bowed very profoundly, and hoped Mr. Warrington would benefit by the virtuous example of his European kinsmen. Was he related to Sir Miles Warrington of Norfolk? Sir Miles was Mr. Warrington's father's elder brother. What a pity he had a son! 'Twas a pretty estate, and Mr. Warrington ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... de Gaul a garland and a rose bloom on the head of her who is faithful, and fade on the brow of the inconstant. In the story of the Boy and the Mantle even a mature reader may be surprised with a glow of virtuous pleasure at the triumph of the gentle Venelas; and indeed all the postulates of elfin annals,—that the fairies do not like to be named; that their gifts are capricious and not to be trusted; that who seeks a treasure must not speak; and the ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... slaves with humanity: but surely it was immediate and present, not future and distant interest, which was the great spring of action in the affairs of mankind. Why did we make laws to punish men? It was their interest to be upright and virtuous: but there was a present impulse continually breaking in upon their better judgment, and an impulse, which was known to be contrary to their permanent advantage. It was ridiculous to say that men would be bound by their interest, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... to women, on account of the qualities With which God has gifted the one above the other, And on account of the outlay they make, from their substance for them. Virtuous women are obedient.... But chide those for whose refractoriness Ye have cause to ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... ear, in your pleasant room, as you sat raging and writing; and if the words written were base beyond parallel, the rage, I am happy to repeat—it is the only compliment I shall pay you—the rage was almost virtuous. But, sir, when we have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... American society and civilization. Religious liberty and the separation of church and state are among the elementary ideas of free institutions. To reestablish the interests and principles which polygamy and Mormonism have imperiled, and to fully reopen to intelligent and virtuous immigrants of all creeds that part of our domain which has been in a great degree closed to general immigration by intolerant and immoral institutions, it is recommended that the government of the Territory of Utah ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices. The Christians of Rome, at the time of the accidental persecution of Nero, are represented by Tacitus as already amounting to a very great multitude, [167] and the language ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... than curious of her soul; and many good folk, also, who hated her living, and were glad to see sin corrected, yet pitied they more her penance than rejoiced therein, when they considered that the Protector procured it more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous intention. ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... to be immoral; now I mean to show things really as they are, Not as they ought to be: for I avow, That till we see what's what in fact, we're far From much improvement with that virtuous plough Which skims the surface, leaving scarce a scar Upon the black loam long manured by Vice, Only to keep its corn ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... our heroine, as lovely as the valley, her home, and as virtuous and good as her mother, who has devoted a lifetime to ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... already betrayed. He was manifestly incapable of a decent modest mediocre existence. Already he had ceased to be—if one may use so fine a word for genteel abstinence—virtuous. He didn't ride well, he hadn't good hands, and he hadn't good hands for life. He must go hard and harsh, high or low. He was a man who needed BITE in his life. He was exceptionally capable of boredom. He had been bored ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... forty-nine, would have dreamed that, a little over a half a century later, there would be such a magnificent gathering of intellect and beauty,—men and women with lofty aims and noted for their achievements in letters and art, and their prominence in Church and State, and excelling in virtuous deeds, on a hill which was then a barren waste ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... suffer yet for their crime. Remorse and fear are tormenting them, and THEY are the best instruments to rule a people with. My God, what should be done with a nation consisting of none but pure and virtuous men? It would be perfectly unassailable, while its vices and foibles are the very things by which we control it. Therefore, do not blame the people on account of its vices. I love it for the sake of them, for it is through ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... reconciled. An amnesty was proclaimed, and democracy in a moderate form was restored, with a revision of the laws, under the archonship of Euclides (403 B.C.). It was shortly after this change that the trial and death of Socrates occurred, the wisest and most virtuous man of ancient ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... not irreverent, but eminently fitting, to compare any singularly pure and virtuous life with that of the great exemplar in whose footsteps Christendom professes to follow. The time was when the divine authority of his gospel rested chiefly upon the miracles he is reported to have wrought. As the faith in these exceptions to the general laws of the universe diminished, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... shoulder is damaged. This church, which is scarce bigger than a large chapel, is very ruinous, though containing such treasures! Besides these, there are brasses on the pavement, with a succession of all the wonderful head-dresses which our plain virtuous grandmothers invented to tempt our rude and simple ancestors.- -I don't know what our nobles might be, but I am sure that Milliners three or four hundred years ago must have been more accomplished in the arts, as Prynne calls them, of crisping, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... after the opening of college, Hugh returned to Surrey Hall one night feeling unusually virtuous and happy. He had worked religiously at the library until it had closed at ten, and he had been in the mood to study. His lessons for the next day were all prepared, and prepared well. He had strolled across the moon-lit campus, buoyant and happy. Some one was playing the ...
— The Plastic Age • Percy Marks
... man value at a little price A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit Is feather'd oftentimes ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... aspect to the person, the property, or the life of every subject; they alarm every passion in the human breast; they disturb the supine; they deprive the venal of his hire; they declare war on the corrupt as well as the virtuous; they are tamely admitted only by the coward; but even to him must be supported by a force that can work on his fears. This force the conqueror brings from abroad; and the domestic usurper endeavours to find ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... ceremonies of sovereignty. He soon perceived the influence which pomp of ceremony, brilliancy of appearance, and richness of costume, exercise over the mass of mankind. "Men," he remarked to me a this period, "well deserve the contempt I feel for them. I have only to put some gold lace on the coats of my virtuous republicans and they immediately become ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... How virtuous actions blossom! Here was a young man to whose pleased ears I had rehearsed "Just before the Battle, Mother," at some weekly picnic; and now, in that tense moment of my life, he came (from the machine) to be ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand. There seemed to be almost as much of the dog as of the cat in her nature. We all know, however, that there are differences of character among animals as there are among men; and my favorite probably belonged to a virtuous and ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... pro-slavery ideas in the young men, and to exhort the young men of Virginia to the "redress of the enormity." Incidentally he speaks of Mr. Wythe as already doing great good in this direction among these same young men, and declares him "one of the most virtuous of characters, and whose sentiments on the subject of slavery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... contrary. Man is not free-born. The earlier period of his existence, whether as a puny child or the miserable denizen of an uninformed and barbarous state, is one of vassalage and subserviency. He is not born free, he is not born rational, he is not born virtuous; he is born to become all these. And woe to the sophist who, with arguments drawn from the unconfirmed constitution of his childhood, would strive to render his imperfect, because immature, state of pupilage a permanent one! ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... inhabitants of the land. Accordingly I came forth from the sea, and sat upon the shore of an island in the moonlight, and there passed by a man who took me and sold me to this man from whom thou tookest me, and he was an excellent, virtuous man, a person of religion and fidelity and kindness. But had not thy heart loved me, and hadst thou not preferred me above all thy wives, I had not remained with thee one hour; for I should have cast myself into the sea from this ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... liked him all the better, used occasionally to meet her at the house of Servilius and Andrea; and their affection for each other struck even my childish spirit as being more than fraternal; shall I also confess, that I indulged myself in the indistinct idea—the sweet dream—that this noble, virtuous, accomplished, and beautiful pair, (whose only object in visiting our humble residence seemed to be to behold me) were my real parents, and that of Servilius and Andrea, I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... given expression to this virtuous resolution as he was leaving the lawyer's door, he found himself standing face to face ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... she may be possessed of, whether she may have the tinge of Hebe on her cheeks, vying in colour with the damask rose, and breath as fragrant—and the graceful and elegant gait of an Ariel—still, unless she is endowed with this characteristic of a virtuous and ingenuous mind, all her personal charms will fade away, through neglect, like decaying fruit in autumn. The whole list of female virtues are in their kind essential to the felicity of man; but there is such beauty and grandeur ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... race when they are engaged on killing or hurting some other living creature. The face, too, had a certain dignity about it, a little of the dignity of justice; it was the face of one who feels that if his action has been precipitate and severe, it has at any rate been virtuous. The full but clear-cut lips also had their own expression on them, half serious, half comical; humour, contempt, and even pity were blended in it. Altogether Philip Caresfoot's appearance in the moment of boyish vengeance was pleasing and ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... poor auxiliaries. If her power lasts it gives her joys and flatteries which make the trials of life endurable. But to be your wife and become a drag upon you,—rather than that, I prefer a passing love and a true one, though death and misery be its end. Yes, I could be a virtuous mother, a devoted wife; but to keep those instincts firmly in a woman's soul the man must not marry her in a rush of passion. Besides, how do I know that you will please me to-morrow? No, I will not bring evil upon you; I leave Brittany," she said, observing hesitation in his ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... "Virtuous man! No wonder that the legions love him who cannot withdraw one lot from a sale of thousands, even to please an only ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... home, and looked in at the Club on my way. There I found Deloraine devouring a hearty tea and looking the picture of virtuous happiness. ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Governor-General himself in February, and respectful in March. He usurped the first place in the church, before Don John had been acknowledged Governor, and was the first to go forth to welcome him after the matter had been arranged. He made a scene of virtuous indignation in the State Council, because he was accused of place-hunting, but was diligent to secure an office of the highest dignity which the Governor could bestow. Whatever may have been his merits, it is certain that he inspired ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... theory; and, I am acquainted with a violent radical demagogue "of the deepest dye," who, by means of a nice berth and a snug salary, has been turned into the most conservative of county magnates—looking upon all his former proceedings with horror, and a virtuous amazement that he could ever have ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... cause of great and lasting injury too. By destroying the character of a pupil, you make him feel that he has nothing more to lose or gain, and destroy that kind of interest in his own moral condition, which alone will allure him to virtuous conduct. To expose children to public ridicule or contempt, tends either to make them sullen and despondent, or else to arouse their resentment and to make them reckless and desperate. Most persons remember ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... in honor, from our death Shall bloom a myriad heroic lives, Brave through our bright example, virtuous Lest our ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. II. (of II.), Jewish Poems: Translations • Emma Lazarus
... obliquities of the Religio Medici; but she must apologise to me for certain disrespectful insinuations, which she has been pleased to throw out latterly, touching the intellectuals of a dear favourite of mine, of the last century but one—the thrice noble, chaste, and virtuous,—but again somewhat fantastical, and original-brain'd, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... We gather from Scott's article that he considered the following to be the chief "speculative errors" of Bage: he was an infidel; he misrepresented different classes of society, thinking the high tyrannical and the low virtuous and generous; his system of ethics was founded on philosophy instead of religion; he was inclined to minimize the importance of purity in women; he considered tax-gatherers extortioners, and soldiers, ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... it. At the same time, old friend, you will forgive me for remarking that a man's virtuous resolutions must be—ha, ha!—somewhat feeble, hey?—when he flinches at the mere admiration of beauty on the part of a pal, connoisseur ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... of the scribble wit, and judge wit or critic, but in general wits were regarded as rakes and not long afterwards we find it debated whether a woman can be witty and virtuous. ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... my grandeur and my decline, none exhibit in a clearer light our literary manners and customs than the history of my relations with Monsieur Louis Ulbach, the virtuous author, now, of "L'Homme aux Cinq Louis d'Or," "Suzanne Duchemin," "Monsieur et Madame Fernel," and other tales, which he hopes to see crowned by the French Academy. Monsieur Louis Ulbach at first belonged to a triumvirate which pretended to stand above the mob of democratic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... and the echo of its own nobler vices, and has no right to hang the rogue it rears. Before you lash the detected class, mulct the undetected. Crime without a culprit, the unavenged victim who perishes by no man's fault, law without responsibility, the virtuous agent of a vicious cause—all these are the signs and pennons of a philosophy not recent, but rather inarticulate still and inchoate, which awaits analysis ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... insinuating itself into our personal dispositions and insensibly communicating its spirit to our private transactions. The idea in his hands made for hope. Reform, or better still, abolish governments, and to what heights of virtue might not men aspire? We need not say with Rousseau that men are naturally virtuous. The child, as Helvetius delighted to point out, will do that for a coral or a doll which he will do at a mature age for a title or a sceptre. Men are rather the infinitely malleable, variable stuff on which education ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... soon to seek the city's busier scene, Pause thee awhile, thou chaste-eyed maid serene, Till Granta's sons, from all her sacred bow'rs, With grateful hand shall weave Pierian flow'rs, To twine a fragrant chaplet round thy brow, Enchanting ministress of virtuous wo! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius, and by some of the Greek philosophers, many years before, by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... deny that among the Florentines may be found men proud, ambitious, and greedy of gain; for vices will exist as long as human nature lasts: nay, rather, the ungrateful, the envious, the malicious, and the evil-minded among them are so in the highest degree, just as the virtuous are supremely virtuous. It is indeed a common proverb that Florentine brains have no mean either way; the fools are exceeding simple, and the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... may be fulfilled—and I receive a legal claim to be the partner of your sorrows, and tenderest comforter. Then on the bosom of your wedded Julia, you may lull your keen regret to slumbering; while virtuous love, with a cherub's hand, shall smooth the brow of upbraiding thought, and pluck the ...
— The Rivals - A Comedy • Richard Brinsley Sheridan
... a man I would never be very intimate with, however well I knew him. I'm not saying he was so bad, or that I was so virtuous myself, at all. It was simply, I suppose, a matter of temperament. To me it always seemed as though he had so many mysterious things in his mind that he was borne down by them; that the outward and visible world, in which I saw him and spoke to him, was only a thin mask ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... and conversations from this the mother kingdom; their strict regard to the distribution of justice, in supplying the civil administration through all their colonies with officers of the greatest abilities, utter strangers to corruption; and, to crown all, by sending the most vigilant and virtuous governors, who have no other views than the happiness of the people over whom they preside, and the honour of the ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... virtuous indignation,' continued she, 'did I never behold, on or off the stage. Forgive me for laughing, count; but, believe me, comedy goes through the world better than tragedy, and, take it all in all, does rather less mischief. As ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... perform an obligation, observe an obligation, fulfill an obligation, discharge an obligation, adhere to an obligation, acquit oneself of an obligation, satisfy an obligation; act one's part, redeem one's pledge, do justice to, be at one's post; do duty; do one's duty &c. (be virtuous) 944. be on one's good behavior, mind one's P's and Q's. Adj. obligatory, binding; imperative, peremptory; stringent &c. (severe) 739; behooving &c. v.; incumbent on, chargeable on; under obligation; obliged by, bound ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... boredom that men were tempted to take to drink, to look around for unattached women, to gamble at cards with any poor devil like themselves. Those were most bored who were most virtuous. For them, with an ideal in their souls, there was no possibility of relief (for virtue is not its own reward), unless they were mystics, as some became, who found God good company and needed no other help. They had rare luck, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... by the help of chemistry, he has to construct the form which is to be animated. The grave has to be ransacked in the attempt, and Frankenstein describes with loathing some of the details of his work, and shows the danger of overstraining the mind in any one direction—how the virtuous become vicious, and how virtue itself, carried ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... the impress of a very acute observer and thinker, but not that of one able to wield much influence over others.' Such is a reconstruction of him by one best able to make one. 'In his conversation,' says Varchi, 'Machiavelli was pleasant, serviceable to his friends, a friend of virtuous men, and, in a word, worthy to have received from Nature either less genius or a better mind.' If not much above the moral standard of the day he was certainly not below it. His habits were loose and his language lucid and licentious. But there is no bad or even unkind act charged ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... and set them thinking how they also might be participators in similar luxuries. The pills, although in this instance selected promiscuously from a varied stock, were the great objects of desire, and such was their confidence in the virtuous properties of the remedy, that the character of the particular bolus that fell to their share was to them a matter of no consequence whatever. So great a rage is there for medicine among people who have never known the luxury ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... enough, but they had, nevertheless, their importance. Among the Sisters, Sister K—— was the unpopular one. I myself must honestly confess that she was a woman ill-suited to company less worthy than herself. She had an upright virtuous character but she was narrow (a rare fault in a Russian), superstitious, dogmatically religious, and entirely without tact. She quite honestly thought us a poor lot and would say to me: "I hope, Mr. Durward, you don't judge Russia by the specimens you find here," and was, of ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... prolonged and impertinent stare, but an appreciating homage of the eyes, such as a stranger may inoffensively yield to a passing image. It is astonishing how morbidly sensitive some vulgar beauties are to the slightest demonstration of this kind. When a lady walks the streets, she leaves her virtuous-indignation countenance at home; she knows well enough that the street is a picture-gallery, where pretty faces framed in pretty bonnets are meant to be seen, and everybody has a right to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... of this most proper and virtuous espionage, Ray had returned to Mrs. Truscott. She looked at him with imploring eyes as they entered ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... we had certainly heard of him as one of the famous criminals of his day. We knew that he had been a partner in a great London banking-house; that he had not led a very virtuous life; that he had possessed himself, by forgery, of trust-moneys which he was doubly bound to respect; and that he had been hanged for his offense, in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-four, when the gallows was still set up for other crimes than murder, and ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... I not, good Master Lambert?" came in dulcet tones from the virtuous hostess, "that you would not really refuse a quiet game of cards with my friends, at my entreaty ... ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... prevalence of the evil itself. There can be no question, however, of the wide diffusion of concubinage in this period. Not morals nor repute nor public opinion, but the wealth and wishes of each man limited him in his amours of this sort. The essential of a virtuous woman was that she be faithful to her husband or lover; no such faithfulness was expected of him. And neither in the case of man nor woman did the conventions of the period depend at all on the nature of the relationship between the two. Wives ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... submission of passion, interests, and prejudices, to moral evidence and to probable truth; no habits of reflection; none of that previous desire to learn and to obey the will of God, which forms perhaps the test of the virtuous principle, and which induces men to attend, with care and reverence, to every credible intimation of that will, and to resign present advantages and present pleasures to every reasonable expectation of propitiating his favour. "Men's ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley |
