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Virtuous   Listen
adjective
Virtuous  adj.  
1.
Possessing or exhibiting virtue. Specifically:
(a)
Exhibiting manly courage and strength; valorous; valiant; brave. (Obs.) "Old Priam's son, amongst them all, was chiefly virtuous."
(b)
Having power or efficacy; powerfully operative; efficacious; potent. (Obs.) "Lifting up his virtuous staff on high, He smote the sea, which calméd was with speed." "Every virtuous plant and healing herb."
(c)
Having moral excellence; characterized by morality; upright; righteous; pure; as, a virtuous action. "The virtuous mind that ever walks attended By a strong siding champion, conscience."
2.
Chaste; pure; applied especially to women. "Mistress Ford... the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Virtuous" Quotes from Famous Books



... social morsel she desired, like that of an eagle on the sheepfold, had made her, in Doris's sore consciousness, the representative of thousands more; all greedy, able, domineering, inevitably getting what they wanted, and more than they deserved; against whom the starved and virtuous intellectuals of the professional classes were bound to contend to the death. The story of that poor girl, that clergyman's daughter, for instance—could anything have been more insolent—more cruel? ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward

... not overcrowd the rooms." It all sounds delightful, except perhaps the mess of greens; but a good Italian cook can make vegetables tempting down to the present day. I think we should all have loved to be there, as at the neat repast of Attic taste with wine, which tempted virtuous Laurence to sup with Milton. So should we like to know what called forth this pretty piece of moralizing, addressed to the poet Tibullus (Ep. I, iv). He was handsome, prosperous, popular, yet melancholy. ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... boon on earth to be compared to it. I might exhaust comparisons in vain to furnish a fit simile; for, in it, is combined all that is lovely, virtuous and excellent. To descend, however, from parable, in order to enlighten you, allow me to say," and a slight flush mounted to the speaker's face, while his companion's cheek grew ashy pale, "that I have been so truly fortunate ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert

... of the indignant Jacker. Haddon gesticulated an angry protest, and McKnight's gestures and grimaces were intended to convey a wish that he might be visited with unspeakable pains and penalties if he were not an entirely virtuous ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... German ladies were most agreeable, cultivated persons, extremely domesticated, retiring; the encomiums of the Roman historian were as well deserved by them in the present day as they had been in the past; decidedly, on the whole, Peterborough would call them a virtuous race. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... however, the conservatory became a scene of a tragedy of the deepest dye. We were summoned below by shrieks and howls of horror. "Do pray come down and see what this vile, nasty, horrid old frog has been doing!" Down we came; and there sat our virtuous old philosopher, with his poor little brother's hind legs still sticking out of the corner of his mouth, as if he were smoking them for a cigar, all helplessly palpitating as they were. In fact, our ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... al cabo,' 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 bal, so I will not evade the door-keeper, as others do, by ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... to the ferry and crossed. Then he gained Broadway, and sauntered into one of the hells in Park Row. It was bright and full, and he saw many an old friend. They nodded to him, and said, "Ah! back again!" and he smiled, and said a man must not be too virtuous all ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis

... a theory," said the Pote, "that the regeneration of Dawson is at hand. You know Good is the daughter of Evil, Virtue the offspring of Vice. You know how virtuous a man feels after a jag. You've got to sin to feel really good. Consequently, Sin must be good to be the means of good, to be the raw material of good, to be virtue in the making, mustn't it? The dance-halls ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... to the perpetual dropping of a woman's tongue as an intolerable nuisance, and declares that it is better to live on the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house. A later writer, describing the virtuous woman, said that on her lips is the law of kindness, and after all this is the real feminine characteristic. As daughter, sister, wife, and mother—what does not the world owe to the gracious words, the loving counsel, the ready sympathy which ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... born in London, in the year 1573, of good and virtuous parents: and, though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly appear sufficient to dignify both himself and his posterity, yet the reader may be pleased to know that his father was masculinely ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... fashion reports, if one's taste lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. The time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, "Be virtuous and you will be happy," had been ironically paraphrased too often. "Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were virtuous," was a ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... out their years in agony, neglect, and tears. Some bold minions of selfishness, with seared consciences and nerves of iron, pluck the coveted fruits of pleasure, wear the diadems of society, and sweep through the world in pomp. The virtuous suffer undeservedly from the guilty. The idle thrive on the industrious. All these things sometimes happen. In spite of the compensating tendencies which ride on all spiritual laws, in spite of the mysterious Nemesis which is throned in every bosom and saturates the moral atmosphere with influence, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... the gay world of Paris. The "Vase Etrusque" is one of his sketches of modern French life, in the style of the "Double Meprise," but better. It is a most amusing and spirited tale, but unnecessarily immoral. Had the heroine been virtuous, the interest of the story would in no way have suffered, so far as we can see; and that which attaches to her, as a charming and unhappy woman, would have been augmented. This opinion, however, would be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various

... this is, that, despite all one may affirm to the contrary, the one grand essential, the peculiar and individualizing attribute of Christmas is—the dinner. The parson may think of his preaching (and if he ever does so, surely most of all on this day) and the virtuous may think of the poor; the old may remember the young, and the young be pardoned for only remembering each other, but the chief thought, the most blissful ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison

... The tears shed by virtuous bibliomaniacs at Harley's death were speedily wiped away, when the recollection of thine, and of thy contemporary's, FOLKES'S[382] fame, was excited in their bosoms. Illustrious Bibliomaniacs! your names and memories will always live in the hearts of noble-minded Literati: the treasures ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... think me, a disastrous war has rendered me so; and as for my child, Providence has placed her above dependence on an unfortunate father: the bequest of a worthy relation has made her, what the world calls, rich; but her mind—is far richer; the most amiable temper, improved by a virtuous and refined education (not to mention her beauty) deservedly makes her the object of general love and respect, and renders your present resolution a matter of perfect indifference ...
— The Politician Out-Witted • Samuel Low

... THE EDITOR, MY DISTINGUISHED FRIEND,—Never did I witness, nor had I ever expected to see in the provinces, a religious fiesta so solemn, so splendid, and so impressive as that now being celebrated in this town by the Most Reverend and virtuous ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... the humanity of the project, but its policy—its even necessity. He declares to the whites, "You want these people; without them you will sink lower and lower into that effete degeneracy into which years of licentiousness have sunk you. These gorillas—black men, I mean—are virtuous; they are abstemious; they have a little smell, but no sensuality; they will make admirable wives for your warriors; and who knows but one may be the mother of a President as strikingly handsome as Ape Lincoln ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever

... sworn to go,' he said. 'I am to have great farms and a great man shall watch over thee to keep thee virtuous. They have promised it ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford

... church with the clearest intelligence of the new thought, and setting forth in Utopia the ideal to be sought,—not mere individual salvation, not an ecclesiastical fold, but a human commonwealth of free, happy, and virtuous citizens. ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam

... virtuous things proceed, The place is dignified by the doer's deed: Where great additions swell's, and virtue none, It is a dropsied honour: good alone Is good without a name; vileness is so: The property by what it is should go, Not by the title; ... that is honour's scorn, Which challenges itself as honour's ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee

... [Footnote 10: "The most virtuous and pious enemy to their wicked principles [i.e., to those of the Calves-Head Club] is always cried down as a high-flyer, a Papist, and a traitor to his country" ("Secret History of the Calves-Head Club," 7th edit., ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... love of a young and beautiful actress. I could tell you of several notable instances; and it is thought to be rather to a man's credit than otherwise in fashionable circles. Isabelle is a very good pretext for you; she is young, beautiful, clever, modest, and virtuous. In fact many an actress who takes like her the role of the ingenuous young girl is in reality all that she personates, though a frivolous and frequently licentious public will not credit ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... result of such an act of imprudence in over-populated England. Up and be doing, while you still possess the means of transporting yourself to a land where the industrious can never lack bread, and where there is a chance that wealth and independence may reward virtuous toil." ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie

... whose future glorious career she measured by his abilities. Rumour blew out a candle and left the wick to smoke in relation to their former intercourse. The Philistines revenged themselves on an old aristocratic Radical and a Jew demagogue with the weapon that scandal hands to virtue. They are virtuous or nothing, and they must show that they are so when they can; and best do they show it by publicly dishonouring the friendship of a man and a woman; for to be in error in malice does not hurt them, but they profoundly feel that they are fools if ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... inexorable. Neither reason, entreaty, nor the tears of the unhappy maidens could move him. As he could not take them with him, Champlain administered to them such consolation as he could, counselling them to be brave and virtuous, and to continue to say the prayers that he had taught them. It was a relief to his anxiety at last to be able to obtain from Mr. Couillard, [103] one of the earliest settlers at Quebec, the promise that they should remain ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... and the 'prince of the devils,' frequently appear; and the demoniacs may represent the victims of witchcraft. The Talmud, if there is any truth in the assertions of the apologists of witchcraft, commemorates many of the most virtuous Jews accused of the crime and executed by the procurator of Judea.[12] Exorcism was a very popular and lucrative profession.[13] Simon Magus the magician (par excellence), the impious pretender to miraculous powers, ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... everything ignominious done to him that could be done, which ignominy had involved an expenditure of money that Lady Maulevrier bemoaned and lamented until this day. Because her brother had not been virtuous, Mary grudged virtuous young men their triumphs and their honours. Great, raw-boned fellows, who have taken their degrees at Scotch Universities, come to Oxford and Cambridge and sweep the board, Maulevrier had told her, when his own failures demanded explanation. Perhaps ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... 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

... and virtuous soul, Like seasoned timber never gives; But, though the whole world turn to coal, Then ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... command of the armies of Flanders, with Vendome for his second; it was hoped that the lieutenant's boldness, his geniality towards the troops, and his consummate knowledge of war, would counterbalance the excessive gravity, austerity, and inexperience of the young prince so virtuous and capable, but reserved, cold, and unaccustomed to command; discord arose amongst the courtiers; on the 5th of July Ghent was surprised; Vendome had intelligence inside the place, the Belgians were weary of their new masters. ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... if your taste were literary, mull over the novels in the Book Department; if you were stout, you might be reduced in the Hygiene Department, unknown to your husband and intimate friends. In short, if there were any virtuous human wish in the power of genius to gratify, Ferguson's was the place. They, even taught you how to cook. It was a modern Aladdin's palace: and, like everything else modern, much more wonderful than the original. And the soda might be likened to the waters ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... an irresponsible looking contrivance Never knew there was a hell! Nothing that glitters is gold Profound respect for chastity—in other people Scenery in California requires distance Slept, if one might call such a condition by so strong a name Useful information and entertaining nonsense Virtuous to the verge ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Mark Twain • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

... a quite English Provost-Marshal losing himself in chase of defaulters of the New Army who knew their Paris! Still, there is something to be said for the idea—to the extent of a virtuous brigade or so. At present, the English officer in Paris is a scarce bird, and he explains at once why he is and what he is doing there. He must have good reasons. I suggested teeth to an acquaintance. "No good," he grumbled. "They've ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling

... community compared with a fraudulent currency 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 on the virtuous and well disposed of a degraded paper currency authorized by law or in any ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson

... satisfaction be the most blessed state for a man (and this certainly is the practical notion of happiness) he is the happiest of men. Nor are those idle phrases any truer, that the good man's goodness is a never-ceasing sunshine; that virtue is its own reward. &c. &c. If men truly virtuous care to be rewarded for it, their virtue is but a poor investment of their moral capital. Was Job so happy then on that ash-heap of his, the mark of the world's scorn, and the butt for the spiritual archery of the theologian, alone in his forlorn nakedness, like some old dreary stump ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude

... baser phases of the noble and essential suspicions of the democratic soul and also on Kedzie's humble origin, her child-like prettiness proving absolutely a child-like innocence and trust, and the homely simplicity of her parents, who, being poor and ignorant, were therefore inevitably virtuous and sincere. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... those virtuous dames, who, sage And chaste, had so adorned antiquity, Whose fame, preserved by the historic page, Is never doomed its dying day to see; But those as well that will in future age Everywhere beautify fair Italy, Made fashion in their well-known form and mien; As eight that round this fount ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto

... public. Seduction thus failing of its ends, calumny, menaces, and the height of power were made use of against him. They lost the effect proposed, but had that, which the show of baseness and violence ever produce on a mind truly virtuous. They increased his honest firmness, because they manifested, that the times required more than ordinary exertions of manliness. In consequence of this conduct, Mr. Adams obtained the highest honours which a virtuous man ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams

... is well worth our observation, that the two principal qualifications required in this section for the constitution of the first high priest, [viz. that he should have an excellent character for virtuous and good actions; as also that he should have the approbation of the people,] are here noted by Josephus, even where the nomination belonged to God himself; which are the very same qualifications ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... on me. But he's a fool, Neal. Brave, but a fool. He sees nothing. Indeed, he's too dull. Ireton too—they are heavy stuff. Clods. Poor country. She needs us again truly. To check such mummers as these—all means are virtuous for that, Neal, eh? ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater

... said, laughing, "that you are in as much danger of one of these, as the other, but you should be a little more partial to these virtuous ladies than you are. I'll not speak any more of them, lest you ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very ground. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabrick, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broyled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit, put it out with a bottle ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 540, Saturday, March 31, 1832 • Various

... pretty Miss Ogle-me, for an amorous Glance, for a Smile, and (it may be, tho' but rarely) for the mighty Blessing of one single Kiss. But such were his Largesses, not to reckon his Treats, his Balls, and Serenades besides, tho' at the same time he had marry'd a virtuous Lady, and of good Quality: But her Relation to him (it may be fear'd) made her very disagreeable: For a Man of his Humour and Estate can no more be satisfy'd with one Woman, than with one Dish of Meat; and to say Truth, 'tis something unmodish. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... very dexterous arguments and thoughts, and sententious maxims, will show which of them shall appear superior in argument. For now the whole crisis of wisdom is here laid before them; about which my friends have a very great contest. But do you, who adorned our elders with many virtuous manners, utter the voice in which you rejoice, and ...
— The Clouds • Aristophanes

... and peace surround his ain fireside, A' day he gladly toils, and at night delighted smiles At their harmless pranks and wiles, about his ain fireside; And while they grow apace, about his ain fireside, In beauty, strength, and grace, about his ain fireside, Wi' virtuous precepts kind, by a sage example join'd, He informs ilk youthfu' mind, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... murderers (cries of 'no murderers,' and cheers). Those three men whose memories we are here to-day to honour—Allen, O'Brien, and Larkin—they were not murderers (great cheering). [A Voice—Lord have mercy on them.] Mr. Martin—These men were pious men, virtuous men—they were men who feared God and loved their country. They sorrowed for the sorrows of the dear old native land of their love (hear, hear). They wished, if possible, to save her, and for that love and for that wish they were ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan

... out of joint that there are a hundred thousand chances to one against it) a man does not early, or at all, find the person to whom he can be united in the marriage of souls, will you give him in the marriage de convenance? or, if not married, can you find no way for him to lead a virtuous and happy life? Think of it well, ye who think yourselves better than pagans, for many of them knew this sure way. [Footnote: The Persian sacred books, the Desatir, describe the great and holy prince Ky Khosrou, as being "an angel, and the son of an angel," one to whom the Supreme says, "Thou ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... For virtuous acts and harmless joys The minutes will not stay;— We have always time to welcome them To-day, my friend, to-day. But care, resentment, angry words, And unavailing sorrow, Come far too soon, if ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... of his duty, heedless of every serious obligation. When she tried to reason, her way seemed so clear, and yet, behind it all, there was that cold impulse of almost Victorian prudishness, the inheritance of a long line of virtuous women, a prudishness which she had once, when she had believed that it was part of her second nature, scoffed at as being the outcome of one of ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... considered the necessity of a man's being virtuous that he may have something to do; but if we consider further, that the exercise of virtue is not only an amusement for the time it lasts, but that its influence extends to those parts of our existence which ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... indeed could read those lines entitled "Infelissimus," commencing, "Why waves no cypress o'er this brow?" originally published in "The Avalanche," over the signature of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear of sensibility tremble on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of "The Dutch Flat Intelligencer," which the next week had suggested the exotic character of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown, as a reasonable answer ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... sympathy, and a powerful impulse toward imitation. The soul is awakened, the active powers are roused, the contemplation of high achievement kindles emulation; and well would it be were the character of those leading minds, which thus draw after them the mass of mankind, always virtuous and noble. But in the vast majority of instances, the leaders of mankind, are individuals whose principles and motives the Christian must condemn, as hostile to the spirit of the gospel. More precious therefore, is the example of that pious few who have devoted ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... whose incorrect life subjected them to receive petty mortifications at her hand. The White Lady is scarcely supposed, however, to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is also subjected by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution, and mental energy, could assert superiority over her. In these particulars she seems to constitute a being of a middle class, between the esprit follet who places its pleasure in misleading and tormenting ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... be born and live in a republic. He endeavored to show that the most celebrated men had been produced in republics, and not reared under princes; that the former cherish virtue, while the latter destroy it; the one deriving advantage from virtuous men, while the latter naturally fear them. The youths with whom he was most intimate were Giovanni Andrea Lampognano, Carlo Visconti, and Girolamo Ogliato. He frequently discussed with them the faults of their prince, and the wretched condition of those who were subject ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli

... novel, The Gay Life (JOHN LANE), with the express object—or so he says—of disillusioning them. He has no use for the cynic who declared that there are three sexes, men, women and actors. His Thespians are gay because they are happy, and happy because (though poor) they are virtuous. The crowning ambition of their lives of honest toil is not unlimited silk-stockings and champagne suppers, but the combined and unqualified approval of Mr. GRANVILLE BARKER and Miss HORNIMAN. I fear the Philistines will not be much impressed with Mr. KEBLE HOWARD'S championship. In ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various

... tribute, as I have said. But in the meantime, none of it shall be imposed or levied; and as soon as justice is established, efforts shall also be made, until religious ministers shall come, to employ a layman or laymen of virtuous life and example, in order to instruct the natives, to the best of their ability, in the things of our holy faith; and such persons shall receive some benefice, in accordance with ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... the habit of looking ahead, and seeing present conduct in its relation to future welfare.—Prudence is manly and virtuous because it controls present inclination, instead of being controlled by it. A burning appetite or passion springs up within us, and demands instant obedience to its demands. The weak man yields at once and lets the appetite or passion or inclination lead him whithersoever it listeth. Not so the ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... firm was doing an increasing share of its business, wanted to know more about Vivien Warren. "Was she or was she not the daughter of the 'notorious' Mrs. Warren; because if so..." He took of course a highly virtuous line. Like so many other people he compounded for the sins he was inclined to by being severe towards the misdoings of others. His case—he would say to Beryl when they were together at Chelsea—was sui generis, quite exceptional, they were really in a way perfectly good people—Tout ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston

... no—you don't understand. At the worst, this is some virtuous but silly school-girl, who, though she may be intending only an innocent flirtation with him, has made this man actually and deeply in love with her. Yes; it is a fact, Joan. I know Dick Demorest, and if ever there was a man honestly in love, ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte

... distinctions of right and wrong, are deeply laid in the very conditions of social existence; that there is in face of these conditions a positive and definite difference between the moral and the immoral, the virtuous and the vicious, the right and the wrong, in the actions of individuals partaking of that social existence.") Undoubtedly the great principle of acting for the good of all the members of the same community, and therefore the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... delicate position One night, and her character's gone One is a fish to her hook; another a moth to her light Orderliness, from which men are privately exempt Our love and labour are constantly on trial Passion added to a bowl of reason makes a sophist's mess People were virtuous in past days: they counted their sinners Perhaps inspire him, if he would let her breathe Person in another world beyond this world of blood Policy seems to petrify their minds Practical for having an addiction to the palpable Professional ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... brow, In common and in holy course, He fails, in spite of prayer and vow And agonies of faith and force; Or, if his suit with Heaven prevails To righteous life, his virtuous deeds Lack beauty, virtue's badge; she fails More graciously than he succeeds. Her spirit, compact of gentleness, If Heaven postpones or grants her pray'r, Conceives no pride in its success, And in its failure no despair; But his, enamour'd of its hurt, ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... pitied, greatly pitied; for we are strangers to the purest and sweetest joys that are known this side of Paradise. And, thank God! this happiness is not confined to the mansion of the rich and the great. Perhaps it is less felt there than in the cottage of the virtuous and intelligent poor. ...
— A Biographical Sketch of the Life and Character of Joseph Charless - In a Series of Letters to his Grandchildren • Charlotte Taylor Blow Charless

... this stark simplicity, now befogged by a million issues. Refusing a monotheistic love to God, the nations disguise their infidelity by punctilious respect before the outward shrines of charity. These humanitarian gestures are virtuous, because for a moment they divert man's attention from himself, but they do not free him from his single responsibility in life, referred to by Jesus as the first commandment. The uplifting obligation to love God is assumed with man's first ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... buried himself alive. The occurrence was noised abroad and came to the ears of the guru, who was much distressed, and proceeded to offer his condolences to Singaji's family. But on the way he saw Singaji, who had been miraculously raised from the dead on account of his virtuous act of obedience, grazing his buffaloes as before. After asking for milk, which Singaji drew from a male buffalo calf, the guru was able to inform the bereaved parents of their son's joyful reappearance and his miraculous powers; of these Singaji gave further subsequent ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... party. She was accompanied by Lucy, who was also neat and fresh and trim. The two had stepped out of the house to gather a few flowers to put on the breakfast-table, and now they assumed all the virtuous airs of those good moral people who do not get up to catch ...
— The Children of Wilton Chase • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... holiness of its characters, without lying against our consciences and our more perfect revelation, by justifying the actions of those characters as right, essentially and abstractedly, although they were excusable, or in some cases actually virtuous, according to the standard of right and wrong which prevailed under ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... effort, though put within the reach of all who were willing to make such effort; and the granting of it should be a public testimony to the fact, that the youth or maid to whom it was given had lived, within their proper sphere, a modest and virtuous life, and had attained such skill in their proper handicraft, and in arts of household economy, as might give well-founded expectations of their being able honorably to maintain and teach ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin

... followed all the antique poets historical: first Homer, who in the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governor and a virtuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then Virgil, whose like intention was to do in the person of AEneas; after him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso dissevered them again, and formed both ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... into a hideous nightmare. To deny the freedom of the will is to make morality impossible: to tell men that they cannot help themselves, is to fling them into recklessness and despair. To what purpose the effort to be virtuous, when it is an effort which is foredoomed to fail; when those that are saved are saved by no effort of their own and confess themselves the worst of sinners, even when rescued from the penalties of sin; and those that are lost are lost by an everlasting sentence decreed ...
— The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election • Robert Wallace

... recognize you now, but under what change of look and place! Often have I forecast our meeting again, but it was in your pure, virtuous home of Tilly, not in this place. What do you here, ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... Now do you pair conjoined by the longed-for light of the torches, Earlier yield not selves unto unanimous wills 80 Nor wi' the dresses doft your bared nipples encounter, Ere shall yon onyx-vase pour me libations glad, Onyx yours, ye that seek only rights of virtuous bed-rite. But who yieldeth herself unto advowtry impure, Ah! may her loathed gifts in light dust uselessly soak, 85 For of unworthy sprite never a gift I desire. Rather, O new-mated brides, be concord aye your companion, Ever let constant love ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus

... then had occasion to make the remark, that, as a rule, drinking, swearing, profligate captains turn out officers of the same character. A brave, virtuous, and good commander cannot make all those under him like himself; but his example will induce imitation among some, and act as a curb to vice among others. Great, indeed, is the responsibility of a captain of a man-of-war; indeed, of any ship where there are officers and men looking up to ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston

... and then departs thirsting. At this very moment, while I am rejoicing in lily strength, some being is waiting to start into life at my dissolution. Show me one being who will endure, and I will become a virtuous man." ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... wait on and on for the wedding ... and Pete was sure as he could do summat wud a horse running in the Derby race, and at the Woolpack they told him it wur bound to win.... I've always kept straight up till this, Miss Joanna, and a virtuous virgin for all I do grin and laugh a lot ... and many's the temptation I've had, being a lone gal ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... often the 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 through life, some instances in their early childhood, in which they were ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... know the divisions of days and nights who understand that the day of Brahma, which endures to the end of a thousand such ages, [infinite ages, nevertheless, according to mortal reckoning,] gives rise to virtuous exertions; and that his night endures as long as his day." Indeed, the Mussulman and Tartar dynasties are beyond all dating. Methinks I have lived under them myself. In every man's brain is the Sanscrit. The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene contemplation. Why will ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... I a wife; a queen? Abandon it! my claim to royalty! Whose hand was on my head when I arose Queen of this land? whose benediction sealed My marriage vow? who broke it? was it I? And wouldst thou, virtuous Opas, wouldst thou dim The glorious light of thy declining days? Wouldst thou administer the sacred vows, And sanction them, and bless them, for another, And bid her live in peace while I am living? Go ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... indeed fall heavy. Not that his paroxysms of grief were more lasting, or his pangs more acute, than is usual in similar cases; but to his moral worth it was death. An infliction of this nature, falling on a comparatively virtuous man, is productive of few evil consequences. It may give a holier turn to his thoughts—wean him from sublunary vanities—and purify his nature. On an utterly depraved man, its effects may be fleeting also; ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... most beautiful Lady named Panthea, the Wife of Abradatas, committed her to the Custody of Araspas, a young Persian Nobleman, who had a little before maintain'd in Discourse, that a Mind truly virtuous was incapable of entertaining an unlawful Passion. The young Gentleman had not long been in Possession of his fair Captive, when a Complaint was made to Cyrus, that he not only sollicited the Lady Panthea to receive him in the Room of her ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... by the heiress to these arguments, and others of a still more seductive hue, the poet does not tell, but turns to the eager lover who asks, What should he do? He hints that a nunnery is no place for a virtuous maid, and that the nuns (unlike himself, I hope) are only thinking of her property. He complains that though the Court has authorised him to use either peace or force, the nuns still stand upon ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... this mysterious beauty of the regent's, of whom there has been so much talk, proved to be none other than a former mistress of this same Mr. Law, who is reputed to have been somewhat given to that sort of thing, though of late monstrous virtuous, for some cause or other. Mr. Law came suddenly upon her at the table of the regent, arrayed in some kind of savage finery—for 'twas in fashion a mask that evening, as you must know. And what doth my director-general do, so high and mighty? Why, in spite of the regent and in spite ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... Sir,—Touched by a virtuous sense that a noble writer has passed from the central and celestial sphere of his vocation, and discharging the offices of respect voluntarily admitted as a literary admirer, with sympathy in a bruised state of liquefaction, I maintain that the season for uttering a few words is clearly at ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... But, before I press them farther, I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. In all my past work, my endeavour has been to show that good architecture is essentially religious—the production of a faithful and virtuous, not of an infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I have had also to show that good architecture is not ecclesiastical. People are so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, not their own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on 'religion,' ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... is not to be denied, was a sinister sound in the ears of a virtuous woman. To the ultra-pious and the bigoted, it was a letter in the alphabet of hell. Yet, there was in this grim chain of evil repute one link which did not conform with the whole. The marquis never haggled with his tradesmen, never beat his servants or his animals, and opened his purse ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... language of virtue in many others. Confucius said, indeed, in his own enigmatical way, that the single sentence, 'Thought without depravity,' covered the whole 300 pieces[1]; and it may very well be allowed that they were collected and preserved for the promotion of good government and virtuous manners. The merit attaching to them is that they give us faithful pictures of what was good and what was bad in the political state of the country, and in the social, moral, and religious habits ...
— The Shih King • James Legge

... shield. He displayed eagerness in the work, and grew somewhat unpopular with the other boys and girls by reason of his many rebukes for their harsh treatment of animals. But one morning his mother, on looking out of the window, observed to her horror that the erstwhile virtuous Clarence had the family cat by the tail, and was swinging it to and fro with every evidence of glee. In fact, it had been the wailing of the outraged beast that had caused the mother ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... Henry Wimbush, looking up from the book and taking off the pince-nez which he had just fitted to his nose—"before their begin, I must say a few preliminary words about Sir Ferdinando, the last of the Lapiths. At the death of the virtuous and unfortunate Sir Hercules, Ferdinando found himself in possession of the family fortune, not a little increased by his father's temperance and thrift; he applied himself forthwith to the task of spending it, which he did in an ample and jovial fashion. ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley

... leading one, the 4th, formed and disappearing in the dust of the turnpike. "Air ye going now and have every damned officer swearing at you? What do they care if your foot's cut and your back aches? and you couldn't come no sooner. I ain't a-going." Steve's eyes filled with tears. He felt sublimely virtuous; a martyr from the first. "What does anybody there care for me! They wouldn't care if I dropped dead right in line. Well, I ain't a-going to gratify them! What's war, anyhow? It's a trap to catch decent folk ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... full of mercy and pity, and keeper of the people, and of the law, and right as chivalry passeth other in virtue, in dignity, in honor, and in reverence, right so ought he to surmount all other in virtue; for honor is nothing else but to do reverence to another person for the good and virtuous disposition that is in him. A noble knight ought to be wise and proved before he be made knight; it behoveth him that he had long time used the war and arms; that he may be expert and wise for to govern others. For since a knight is captain of a battle, the life of them that shall ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume III (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland I • Francis W. Halsey

... did not thunder out anything. Babe brought a lamp and set it inside the window, and Mr. Claiborne resumed his reading. Champe giggled and said that Alicia made her. Alcia drew her skirts about her, sniffed, and looked virtuous, and said she didn't see anything funny to laugh at. The supper-bell rang. The family, evidently taking it for granted that the boys would follow, ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various

... assiduous pains to tone down my expectations, and felt sure that I had moderated them liberally,—nay, had been philosophical enough to make disappointment impossible, and open the opposite possibility of a pleasant surprise. I conceived that in this respect I had done the discreet and virtuous thing, and silently moralized, not without self-complacency, upon the folly of carrying through the world expectations which the fact, when seen, could only put out of countenance. "Make your expectations zero," I said ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... of print I achieved not much later, contributing verses and virtuous essays to various juvenile organs. But it was not till I was eighteen that I achieved a printed first book. The story of this first book is peculiar; and, to tell it in approved story form, I must request the reader to come ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... to fall! How admirably have my artifices deceived him! And the other evening when in the heat of passion, he pressed me to grant him a certain favor in advance of our marriage, how well I affected indignation, and made him beg for forgiveness! Oh, he thinks me the most virtuous of my sex—but there is his carriage; now for the consummation ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... attachment to them in my religious sympathies. And I would not desire to eradicate this sympathy from my heart if I could. These considerations, in connection with my early knowledge of them in Pennsylvania as being an honest and virtuous people, have always kept me in friendly ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... that they hold in their ranks some of the most generous-hearted, unselfish, big-souled women to exist in England to-day; and that it is just because of that they are able to plod cheerfully on, and laugh that indulgent, pitying little laugh, when an outraged man swells with virtuous indignation, and waxes eloquent upon their want of ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page

... raids and food queues because they brought the war home to civilians, and he was never tired of asserting that he lived on half the voluntary rations scale, did harder work, felt ten years younger, and a hundred times more virtuous, in consequence. ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... of virtuous indignation in the voice, and for a few seconds' length I hesitated. Perhaps, after all, the fellow was telling the truth. I was very certain of his capacity for lying, but it might well be that Wildred and Karine had not really come ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson

... from virtue that she is virtuous, but because, she says, she has no time to be in love; for she must work from twelve to fifteen hours a-day to earn twenty-five sous, on ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... and, though his influence was declining, member of the first Committee of Defence, 1793; his attack on Robespierre proving unsuccessful he committed suicide; his body was afterwards found on the Landes of Bordeaux half devoured by wolves; was surnamed the "Virtuous," as Robespierre the "Incorruptible"; was of the Girondist party; had "unalterable beliefs, not hindmost of them," says Carlyle, "belief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... that mysteriousness or secrecy is the only point about the old fellow's character that I don't like," said Leather, with a frown of virtuous disapproval. "'All fair and above-board,' that's my motto. Speak out your mind ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... it out?" Sam asked, cutting short this virtuous oration. "It's swimmin' around down there," he continued, peering into the cistern, "and kind of roaring, and it must of dropped its fishbone, 'cause it's spittin' just awful. I guess maybe it's mad ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... daily resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practice economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel when they think of the puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe's, for forty-five; and how they go home descanting ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... was merely humorous. Especially when very young, his dislike of respectability and of the bourgeois (a literary tradition) led him to show a kind of contempt for virtues which, though certainly respectable, are no less certainly virtuous. He was then more or less seduced by the Bohemian legend, but he was intolerant of the fudge about the rights and privileges of genius. A man's first business, he thought, was 'keep his end up' by his work. If, what he reckoned his inspired ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp

... possible, it is only our self-sufficiency that makes us think otherwise; and I warrant the poor savages, before they had any knowledge of the white men, armed in all the terrors of glittering steel and tremendous gunpowder, were as perfectly convinced that they themselves were the wisest, the most virtuous, powerful, and perfect of created beings, as are at this present moment the lordly inhabitants of old England, the volatile populace of France, or even the self-satisfied citizens of this ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... and I hope to be useful to my country. Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of a virtuous fame.' In June he expected to be busier than ever, during the week when his father sat as Judge of the Outer House, 'for you must know that the absurdity of mankind makes nineteen out of twenty employ the son ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask

... glasses, with circumstantial criticisms on its excellence; so that the superior seemed delighted at my having rendered such ample justice to the water he so loudly praised, Entre nous,—the excellence of his wine, and the toasts that we had drunk to the health of innumerable loyal and virtuous individuals, rendered me a greater ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton

... no business of hers or anyone's," she said, pointedly, "whom Alwyn Gaythorne chose to marry, but in her opinion it was always a pity to couple names together beforehand," and with this virtuous snub she rose to take her leave, but Mrs. Broderick only indulged in ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... to make the utmost of his employee's lack of worldly wisdom, offering him the very lowest salary that ever an editor worked for. The consequence was that Michael O'Connor lived and died an impecunious man, whose only legacy to his children was the record of a virtuous life. ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin

... of their own it could never have been done by constitutional methods. With many a grumble the good British householder drew his purse from his fob, and paid for what he thought to be right. If any special grace attends the virtuous action which brings nothing but tribulation in this world, then we may hope for it over this emancipation. We spent our money, we ruined our West Indian colonies, and we started a disaffection in South Africa, the end of which we have ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle

... parish church on my way home. It is an interesting one, built about the end of the thirteenth century, with a magnificent tower that one can see for miles round. I found a great many monuments to the Lessings—a very virtuous lot, if their memorial tablets are to be trusted. The church has been carefully restored—quite recently, I fancy, by the look of it. Then I went into the churchyard, where a newly-filled-in grave showed me where my poor godfather had been laid. The sacristan, ...
— The Village by the River • H. Louisa Bedford

... 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 are doing. The cases of miraculously-effected cures of which Eginhard is ocular witness appear to belong to classes of disease in which malingering ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley

... 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

... was your beau-ideal of Womanhood {124a}—Query, of Lady-hood. For she had more than 500 pounds a year, which Becky Sharp thinks enough to be very virtuous on, and had not been tried. Would she have done Jeanie Deans' work? She might, I believe: ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... 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 ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson

... I replied mysteriously, though I hope patiently. "If you go home at once without any questions, you will be virtuous, and it is more than likely that you will also be happy; and if you are not, somebody else ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Bazaar. If George (that beastly prig) at the psychological moment of their first serious quarrel, instead of threatening and laughing like a drunken man and reeling back into the room, had reeled forward and gone into the matter quietly, the entirely virtuous, if idiotic, Rafella would not have flown into the practised arms of that unscrupulous barrister, Kennard, who, as everybody knew, had left a mournful trail of dishonoured wives all over India, his legal knowledge ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various

... and clumsily cut dresses, which left her without any figure. But she was free from all coquetry, and she assumed an air of scornful contempt when Louise, displaying her bows and ribbons, chaffed her about her clumsily knotted neckerchiefs. Moreover, she was virtuous; it was said that the son of a rich shopkeeper in the neighbourhood had gone abroad in despair at having failed to induce her to listen ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... when one thinks of his vast bulk and advancing years, terrible, by and by, as the hereditary passions of his fierce race could be, backed by the almost boundless power which a great Italian lord possessed in his surroundings. Vittoria, tired of her dull and virtuous husband and of the lectures and parsimony of his uncle, and not dreaming that the latter was soon to be Pope, saw herself in a dream of glory controlling every mood and action of the greatest noble in the land. And she met Giordano again ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... prosperous quality appeared in the inn making inquiries, the Luzon priest became helpful, people watched our window, and stared at me as I went to and fro; and then we had a raid from a little English clergyman and his amiable, capable wife in severely Anglican blacks, who swooped down upon us like virtuous but resolute vultures from the adjacent village of Saint ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells

... jot. And that he intended to make himself a shepherd for that year, and entertain himself in the solitude of the fields, where he might give play to his amorous thoughts with a loose rein, and employ himself in that pastoral and virtuous exercise; and he begged them, if they had not much to do, and if business of greater importance were not an obstruction, that they would please to be his companions; for he would provide sheep and cattle enough to ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan

... philanthropy has too often become an end in itself, and absorption in it a serious detriment to any worthy preparation for the work of edifying. In the absence of leisure pulpits will hardly furnish us with that "sincere erudition which can send us clear and pure away unto a virtuous and happy life."[M] Nor is such a loss compensated by an endless succession of services or even a whole street ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... apparent power, thought is in no case any more active than matter; and if this inactivity must make us have recourse to a deity, the supreme being is the real cause of all our actions, bad as well as good, vicious as well as virtuous. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... prospect, to unwearied attendance upon his dying friend.' Had I known these circumstances before the completion of my poem, I should have been tempted to add my full tribute of applause to the more solid recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recollection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from 'such stuff as dreams are made of.' His conduct is a noble augury of the success of his future career. May the unextinguished spirit of his illustrious friend ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various

... Scriptures, and is one of the Eastern books which can be read with delight to-day by those who are classed as general readers. It is divided into twenty-six chapters, and the keynote of it is struck by the sentence "The virtuous man is happy in this world, and he is happy in the next; he is happy in both. He is happy when he thinks of the good he has done; he is still more happy when going on the good path." The first step in the "good path" is earnestness, for as the writer says, "Earnestness is the path ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various

... possession and a bastard motive; and he who does his acts in order that the echo of them may come back as a soft music in his ears, plays false to his noble destiny as a Christian man, places himself in continual danger of dallying with wrong, and taints even his virtuous ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... French domination. The appeal was to Militarism, but what would you? The Hun was not only "at the gate," but was inside the walls; and if a man will not fight for his fireside, then he must remain a slave. It was a virtuous cause. ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel

... is produced by somebody's work, that just "Being a Good Woman" or "Being a Decent Fellow" is so far from being an adequate return for the toil of other people that it is just exactly no return at all. We are billions of miles from admitting that the virtuous parasite is just as much a parasite as the vicious parasite:—that the former differs from the latter in the use of the money but not at all in the matter of getting it ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... origin, with regard to the inherited plebeianism in body and soul. An educator who nowadays preached truthfulness above everything else, and called out constantly to his pupils: "Be true! Be natural! Show yourselves as you are!"—even such a virtuous and sincere ass would learn in a short time to have recourse to the FURCA of Horace, NATURAM EXPELLERE: with what results? "Plebeianism" USQUE RECURRET. [FOOTNOTE: ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... exceptions and has no complications or gray areas. "Organic" as a movement had come to be defined by Rodale publications as growing food by using an approved list of substances that were considered good and virtuous while shunning another list that seemed to be considered 'of the devil,' similar to kosher and non-kosher food in the orthodox Jewish religion. And like other puritans, the organic faithful could ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... wilful childhood he passed to a cruel, passionate, licentious manhood; finally, he took to opium smoking and ruin threatened the home. His mother reaped a bitter harvest of sorrow from the planting of those wasted years, and now her urgent plea was: "My son is good at heart, and a virtuous bride will soon work ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable

... had laboriously stepped off the long miles he had thought with virtuous complacence of the completeness ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx



Words linked to "Virtuous" :   moral, righteous, virtue, chaste, virtuousness, impeccable, wicked, virgin, pure, virginal, pious



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